Intelligence Reform Following the Terrorist

Intelligence Reform

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, calls arose for a dramatic reformation of the American intelligence superstructure, in response to the perceived failures of communication and investigation that contributed to the success of the attacks. These calls for reform ultimately found an outlet in the form of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), which sought to streamline and organize American's intelligence efforts in order to make up for perceived failures of the CIA and FBI to share information effectively in the years and months leading up to the September 11th attacks. In some cases, the changes instituted by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act were born out of recommendations suggested by the 9/11 Commission, the Congressionally-mandated group responsible for preparing a full account of the attacks and the events leading up to them. Other implemented reforms were the culmination of ideas which had been around for some time, but which had not previously been implemented due to various factors, such as resistance to change on the part of entrenched politicians and bureaucrats, or concerns regarding civil liberties and the legitimate extent of government power in intelligence gathering and analysis. Therefore, determining the success of these reform efforts in years following the September 11th attacks and the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act requires a consideration of the state of intelligence prior to the last decade as well as an in-depth analysis of the different structural and legal changes made to the American intelligence community as a result of these reforms.

Before discussing the scope of this project, the methodology necessary for executing it, and the prior research on the subject, it will be useful to provide a brief history of United States' intelligence agencies and practices, as a means of placing this larger discussion of intelligence reform in the proper historical context. Firstly, it is crucial to recognize that although "intelligence -- a government activity that provides information to help leaders make and implement national security decisions -- has always been a part of United States history […], U.S. leaders have tended to give intelligence focused attention […] mainly when threats to the country's security appeared particularly serious."

This phenomenon has two important consequences for the history of intelligence in America, one of which stems from the other. Firstly, it means that American intelligence policy has largely been developed and reformed during times of tension and in response to specific threats, such that the development of the American intelligence apparatus has been largely reactive, rather than proactive. Therefore, the American intelligence apparatus has almost never benefited from a coherent vision, but instead has been made up of policies and organizations cobbled together over time.

Subsequently, the "expansion of U.S. national security concerns during the 20th century -- combined with technological advances -- encouraged an increased scope and complexity of intelligence missions" even as these missions were increasingly carried out by "multiple, relatively independent intelligence organizations."

This has resulted in perennial calls for greater centralized control and organizational clarity, even as this control failed to develop over decades, and for the most part still eludes to country, in spite of the reforms put in place as a result of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. As mentioned above, intelligence has been an important part of United States national defense strategy throughout its history, going all the way back to the establishment of the Culper network during the Revolutionary War, but it has not been approached from a comprehensive, unifying perspective until very recently. Even when faced with the previously unprecedented range of threats seen during World War II, the American intelligence community remained fragmented and disorganized, such that "prewar clashes over 'turf' would persist during the war, especially with OSS [Office of Strategic Services] competing with Army and Navy intelligence, the FBI, State Department, and Army and Navy signals intelligence, and several smaller efforts by other departments."

Following the war, these disparate efforts were somewhat streamlined with the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, which, among other things, established the Central Intelligence Agency and the role of the Director of Central Intelligence, who "was to coordinate the activities of U.S. intelligence organizations, but without having direct authority over them."

This general structure would remained largely unchanged for decades, coming into its own during the height of the Cold War until, much like in the case of the September 11th attacks, a dramatic failure of intelligence and planning would force a reevaluation of the role, function, and organization of intelligence in the United States.

The 1979 Iranian revolution took the American intelligence community almost entirely by surprise, and the subsequent hostage crisis and disastrous rescue attempt served to dramatize the results of this failure. While "the failed CIA attempt in April 1961 to overthrow Fidel Castro by landing roughly 1,400 Cuban emigres at the Bay of Pigs came to symbolize the problems facing covert action management" during the Cold War, the disastrous planning and execution of Operation Eagle Claw, in which United States' Special Forces were prevented from successfully executing a daring rescue of 52 American hostages due to poor planning and inter-agency cooperation, represented the first and perhaps the most dramatic rebuke of the American intelligence community's disorganization in the modern era until the 9/11 Commission Report nearly twenty years later.

The result was the first major shakeup of intelligence and special forces organization since the end of World War II, and from the failure of Operation Eagle Claw emerged the Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, the organization responsible for overseeing the Special Operations of the various branches of the military.

Although the institution of SOCOM was more concerned with direct military actions and not more generalized intelligence gathering, in many ways the backlash which precipitated the creation of SOCOM mirrors the process by which post-9/11 intelligence reforms came about, and indeed, in the years since the passage of Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, the newly reorganized intelligence community has worked closer than ever with the Joint Special Operations Command, the group responsible for studying and planning special operations as well as commanding the Special Mission Units of SOCOM, such as the U.S. Army's Delta Force and the Navy's Special Warfare Development Group, commonly referred to as SEAL Team Six.

Before this cooperation emerged, however, the United States intelligence community would go through a period of expansion without an attendant increase in coordination, such that "by the late 1990s, the Intelligence Community would have 13 members," with "the largest -- especially CIA, NSA [National Security Administration], NRO [National Reconnaissance Office], and NIMA [National Imagery and Mapping Agency] -- […] often called 'stovepipes' because they were vertically structured organizations concentrating on specific functions such as signals or imagery intelligence."

With the Cold War over and no overarching threat to unify these disparate endeavors, American intelligence agencies became increasingly isolated from each other and "unwilling to coordinate their priorities and unable to examine trade-offs across programs -- increasingly necessary steps given tighter resources and more diverse intelligence targets."

Finally, however, the al Qaeda attacks of September 11th, 2001, coupled with "Community failure to estimate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," led to the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

The most substantial change made to the intelligence community by IRTPA was the establishment of the Office of Director of National Intelligence and its head, the Director of National Intelligence, who would replace the Director of Central Intelligence as the head of the now sixteen-agency strong Intelligence Community. IRTPA amended the National Security Act of 1947 by inserting language creating the position of Director of National Intelligence and outlining his or her duties, which includes serving "as the head of the intelligence community," and acting "as the principal adviser to the President, to the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to national security."

While the 9/11 Commission Report recommended a Director of National Intelligence "possessing strong central authority over Community resources and personnel, [….] ultimately, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of December 2004 gave the DNI powers somewhere in between" those suggested by the 9/11 Commission (and the Senate) and the more limited power envisioned by the House of Representatives.

Despite the somewhat limited powers granted to the DNI, President Bush, in his remarks given at the signing of the IRNTPA, noted that in addition to serving as chief adviser to the president on national intelligence matters, "the DNI will have the authority to order the collection of new intelligence to ensure the sharing of information among agencies and to establish common standards for the intelligence community's personnel," and furthermore, "it will be the DNI's responsibility to determine the annual budgets for all national intelligence agencies and offices and to direct how these funds are spent."

Though not nearly as dramatic or exciting as the institution of JSOC following Operation Eagle Claw or the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency following World War II, the transfer of budgetary control to the Director of National Intelligence represented a serious organizational shift within the Intelligence Community, because distinct agencies were no longer free to ignore their various counterparts throughout the government. Instead, by transferring budgetary control to the Director of National Intelligence, IRTPA forced the various intelligence agencies to unite under a single, coherent leadership, if only to ensure the continued flow of funds towards their respective projects. As with any government endeavor, the inertia of the Intelligence Community is maintained only so long as ample funds are continually available, so by tethering intelligence agencies' funding to inter-agency cooperation coordination, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act ensured that in the years following its passage, the Intelligence Community would be forced to work more closely, if only to ensure its own survival.

Project Parameters and Methodology

However, the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act does not represent the end of intelligence reform following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, but rather the beginning, and thus any consideration of the relative success or failure of intelligence reform must examine the years following IRTPA's passage, and the ways in which subsequent Director's of National Intelligence have interpreted their mandate. Subsequent interpretations of this mandate are especially important considering the fact that "the Act is almost 250 pages long -- a clue to how unlikely it is to have been a considered enactment, given the haste of its passage through Congress."

The boundaries of this investigation into the success or failure of intelligence reform, then, will encompass not only the structural and legal changes instituted through the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, but also the way in which the Intelligence Community and outside observers have responded to those changes.

For example, this means that things like the Director of National Intelligence's Intelligence Reform Progress Report will be extremely useful, because they allow one to understand how the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has interpreted its mandate and the metrics by which it is judging its own success or failure. Therefore, information like then-Director of the Central Intelligence Agency General Michael Hayden's testimony as part of the DNI's Intelligence Reform Progress Report in 2007 becomes especially important, because when he talked about "our blueprint for making our Agency more collaborative, both within the fence line at Langley and within the broader intelligence community," he was describing the individual way in which distinct agencies have sought to fulfill their newfound duties under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.

In addition, academic commentary on intelligence reform from figures such as General Hayden or Lieutenant General James Clapper, both of whom have served as Director of National Intelligence, is well within the scope of this project, because it provides a means of assessing how these leaders interpret the ideal goals and functions of the Intelligence Community independent of the brief remarks and press statements provided while commenting in an official capacity.

In addition, testimony from important members of Congress will be crucial in determining the success or failure of intelligence reform, because these members are able to provide heretofore unexpressed perspectives on the functioning of the Intelligence Community, especially in relation to the dissemination and coordination of information.

Finally, the Government Accountability Office, which is the division of the United States Congress responsible for auditing and evaluation, has an important role to play when considering the success of intelligence reform, and thus its perspective must be taken into account.

However, as evidenced by the isolation and competition which characterized the Intelligence Community during the 1990s, it is important to seek out independent voices when evaluating the success of intelligence reform, because one cannot assume that government agencies and their employees truly have the best perspective and metrics for determining their own success or failure, especially when those agencies or employees have a vested interest in appearing successful regardless of the reality on the ground. This is why independent analyses of intelligence reform will play a crucial part in this project, in addition to the primary source information provided by official testimony and government organizations. The importance of these outside voices becomes especially apparent when one considers that, at least from a preliminary examination, the general external consensus regarding intelligence reform following the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act is that reform efforts have largely failed to achieve the kind of oversight and cooperation necessary, despite claims from within the Intelligence Community that these reforms "have been a success -- a success for CIA, for our Community, and the American people."

These perceived failures of reform stem from a number of issues, including "a mismatch between power and duty" on the part of the Director of National Intelligence as well as the entrenched nature of the Intelligence Community itself, which ensures that many of the same actors remain in positions of power despite reforms, which many times tend to merely reshuffle the same deck.

Including both official and independent accounts of intelligence reform and its success or failure will serve to ensure that the project relies on as few assumptions as possible, and does not take anything for granted, whether it be the accuracy of the Intelligence communities self-reporting or the possible biases of outside observers. Furthermore, by attempting to include primary and secondary sources from across the entire discourse surrounding intelligence reform, this project will able to distinguish between genuine intelligence successes as a result of intelligence reform and those advances which occur as a result of other, unrelated factors (for example, differentiating between a lack of successful terrorist attacks as a result of cooperation within the Intelligence Community and a lack of successful terrorist attacks due to incompetence or insufficient support on the side of belligerents, as in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, whose efforts to detonate a bomb while on board a flight to Detroit went undetected by American intelligence agencies and were only stymied by his inability so successfully activate the device).

Annotated Bibliography

Barger, D.G. (2004). It is time to transform, not reform, U.S. Intelligence. SAIS Review,

24(1),

23-31.

Barger's essay is important because it provides an alternate approach to intelligence reform not seen in the majority of texts on the subject. Barger argues that intelligence reform efforts are inherently doomed to fail because they are focused on reformation rather than transformation. Barger argues that reform efforts have only succeeded in multiplying bureaucracy while hindering serious change, because any reform effort that does not seek to fundamentally re-imagine the structure of the Intelligence Community will ultimately become bogged down in the preexisting system, which has had decades to entrench itself both politically and legally. While Barger's criticism of intelligence reform is somewhat more extreme than many others included here, it is an important addition to this project because it helps to reiterate in explicit detail the structural, social, and political difficulties facing any reform attempt.

Blechman, B.M. (2005). Lessons in intelligence reform. Georgetown Journal of International

Affairs, 6(1), 139-145.

Blechman's essay traces the history of the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, which among other things established the Special Operations Command in the wake of the failed Operation Eagle Claw. Blechman examines the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in order to describe how intelligence reform comes about and the various competing interests which serve to shape the final outcome. Though not directly related to the intelligence reform of the last decade, Blechman's essay is helpful because it provides some important historical context for considering the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

Chambliss, S. (2005). We have not correctly framed the debate on intelligence reform.

Parameters, 35(1), 5-13.

In this essay, Senator Saxby Chambliss offers his critique of the intelligence failures which led up to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, as well as the faulty information which underlined the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Chambliss' input is especially relevant due to his time on the United States House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which provided the first major account of the intelligence failures that led to the September 11th attacks.

Fessenden, H. (2005). The limits of intelligence reform. Foreign Affairs, 84(6), 106-106.

Fessenden's essay is helpful for understanding the simultaneous speed and sloth with which intelligence reform efforts took place following September 11th. Fessenden highlights the fact that "within a year and a half [of 9/11], the United States fought one war and prepared for another, and Congress passed two sweeping bills, the U.S.A. Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act, to address the war on terrorism's domestic front," but it took nearly four years for any kind of substantial intelligence reform to come about in the form of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.

Hayden, M. (2010). The state of the craft: Is intelligence reform working?. World Affairs,

September/October, Retrieved from http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/state-craft-intelligence-reform-working

Hayden's account of intelligence reform is particularly useful due to the fact that he wrote it following the time he spent as Director of National Intelligence. His experience gives him unique insight into the successes and failures of intelligence reform, and comparing this account to the far rosier picture provided in his earlier testimony as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency allows one to appreciate how the well-intentioned reform efforts ultimately because bogged down due to inter-agency politics, a lack of centralized power coupled with highly centralized responsibilities, and unforeseen consequences of reform.