The intelligence problems exposed by the events of 9/11 and the “missing” weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have made one thing perfectly clear: change is needed in how the U.S. intelligence community operates. Our speakers – Dr. Jennifer Sims visiting professor and member of the core faculty of the Security Policy Studies Program at Georgetown University and former deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence coordination; Dr. Mark Lowenthal, President and CEO of the Intelligence and Security Academy; John MacGaffin, Senior Advisor on Transnational Threats at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), former associate deputy director for operations at the CIA, and former Senior Advisor to the Director, FBI; and Dr. Donald C.F. Daniel, professor in the Security Studies Program, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, and previously special advisor to the Chairman, National Intelligence Council, – discussed the themes and findings of their book Transforming U.S. Intelligence, edited by Dr. Sims and Burton Gerber and recently published by the Georgetown University Press. They argued that transforming intelligence requires as much a look to the future as to the past and a focus more on the art and practice that intelligence requires than on its bureaucratic arrangements. In fact, while the recent restructuring, including the creation of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, may solve some problems, it has also created new ones. The members of the panel agree that transforming policies and practices will have the greatest impact on meeting future challenges facing the nation's security.

In the book our speakers, who have served in intelligence agencies, the Departments of State or Defense, and the staffs of congressional oversight committees, brought their experience as insiders to bear in thoughtful and thought-provoking essays that address what such an overhaul of the system would require: twenty-first-century security challenges and how the intelligence community can successfully defend U.S. national interests; new technologies and modified policies that can increase the effectiveness of intelligence gathering and analysis; and management procedures to ensure the implementation of enhanced capabilities. Their presentations and the question and answer period that followed were no less informative, perceptive and provocative.

The book supports the mandate of the new director of national intelligence by offering both careful analysis of existing strengths and weaknesses in U.S. intelligence and specific recommendations on how to fix its problems without harming its strengths. These recommendations, based on intimate knowledge of the way U.S. intelligence actually works, include suggestions for the creative mixing of technologies with new missions to bring about the transformation of U.S. intelligence without incurring unnecessary harm or expense. The goal is the creation of an intelligence community that can rapidly respond to developments in international politics, such as the emergence of nimble terrorist networks, while reconciling national security requirements with the rights and liberties of American citizens.

Dr. Sims began the seminar by reviewing the broad conclusions in the book. Of the authors’ ideas that resonate most sharply, she said that five seemed particularly important:

• Fostering agility by clarifying and streamlining chains of command, permitting risk management at lower levels of command, and encouraging partnership among civilian agencies and between them and the private sector to speed up these agencies’ acquisition of collaborative intelligence technologies.
• Enhancing interagency teamwork overseas through increased chief of station and chief of mission authorities and using a similar approach for domestic operations at the state and local level.
• Using the strengthened national leadership in the office of the director of national intelligence (DNI) to coordinate budgets and programs, including open-source collection, with those agencies not formally part of the intelligence community but critically liked to it, such as the Department of Energy, the National Laboratories, and the Department of State.
• Placing non-law enforcement activities conducted domestically against terrorism and other foreign threat under the DNI, not under the Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
• Addressing counterintelligence challenges, by, among other things, developing great capacity to undertake offensive measures.

Sims considers the need for improved agility and teamwork to be the most pressing of all the reforms suggested in the book. Such mobility requires decentralized and empowered decision making accompanied by clarity and simplicity of command; disciplined risk taking, and a willingness to “think outside the box.” She asserts that none of these reforms will be truly transformative unless the mechanisms for congressional oversight are strengthened and improved to ensure consistent and informed programmatic reviews and fair, ethical, and supportive oversight of the U.S. intelligence process. With all the changes anticipated in the process of programming and budgeting of intelligence within the executive branch, Capitol Hill must streamline its committees to permit agile authorization and coordination of intelligence programs across intelligence and non-intelligence agency lines. This, she argues may be the most important and transformative idea offered in the book and achieving better programmatic decision-making the most difficult challenge.

In the book and in his remarks on transforming intelligence analysis, Dr. Mark Lowenthal characterized analysis as an intellectual process within a bureaucracy, for which, he said, there is no recipe or formula. He defined analysis transformation as improving the ability of intelligence to help policy makers reduce uncertainty and make decisions. He identified eight issues that he regards as central to transforming analysis: dealing with conflicting priorities; managing analytic resources; managing the analytic process; deriving useful lessons in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraqi WMD issues; reexamining the utility of National Intelligence Estimates (which he said were too long, and too detailed to be read by decision makers); adjusting the balance between current and long term intelligence; fostering more competitive analysis; and creating a reasonable standard for evaluating intelligence analysis.

Lowenthal said that all of the issues were important, but if pressed to rank them in order of importance, he would choose the first set of three over the last five, because the first three address the analytic process for the longer term. He closed by saying that if pressed to choose one over all the others, he would choose the last: a meaningful national discussion on a reasonable standard for evaluating analysis. If successful, such a discussion could defuse and transform the political atmosphere in which analysis takes place, and permit us to turn our full attention to the first three issues with a greater chance of success.

John MacGaffin highlighted the need for real transformation in clandestine human intelligence (HUMINT), which he said is at a “critical crossroads.” The systemic weaknesses and failures, represented in the twin disasters of the September 11 attack and the analytic conclusion (as a result of inadequate collection) that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, have roots of responsibility that go far beyond the traditional intelligence community and include policy makers, Congress, and many others. He asserted that these weaknesses, if not corrected, would lead to similar or even worse tragedies in the future, and also argued that the intelligence community has never before been able to put aside the parochial interest of its component parts

MacGaffin cited three steps to move the U.S. national clandestine human intelligence capacity from its present inadequate and unsatisfactory state to one that can meet today’s challenges and the unknown challenges of the future: (1) clearly and completely assign authority and responsibility for clandestine intelligence collection, counterintelligence, and convert action to the new Director of National Intelligence, or an enhanced and empowered head of the CIA; (2) Enforce “lanes” across the entire intelligence community in which the various agencies and activities would operate and have operational responsibility where they had maximum ability and did not duplicate the work of others; and (3) “stay the course” in tradecraft through improved training and operational consistency, which he characterized as the most difficult area for change.). Without consistency and the will to stay the course, MacGaffin said that the prospects for real progress are not very bright.

Dr. Don Daniel characterized strategic denial and strategic deception as distinct but complementary endeavors – “separate activities, but fraternal twins” – that governments use to protect their secrets. Of the two he says that strategic deception is the more complex and demanding, and that while the United States has used strategic denial as a matter of course, strategic deception seems to be a matter of exception. Daniel observes that although there is no inherent objection in American society to employing strategic denial and deception, there are restrictions when it comes to deception: do not jeopardize the nation’s moral integrity and democratic ideals; do not break the law; do not lie or otherwise violate the trust of the people and their representatives in Congress; keep the message out of the domestic press and stay out of domestic affairs generally; and do not tarnish America’s international image or unduly anger its friends.

Strategic deception remains highly attractive for use against state adversaries, but Daniel said that it was an open question whether engaging in strategic denial or deception against terrorist groups would be of sustained significant value. Timely and reliable intelligence are necessary and technical virtuosity and acumen important to the success of strategic denial and deception, and require knowledge of an adversary’s capabilities, intentions, predisposition, and possible actions. Daniel expressed the belief that the U.S. intelligence community already has considerable experience with denial and is well-positioned institutionally to undertake or assist in deception. He argues that the U.S. intelligence community would be better positioned operationally if a transformed intelligence community would recruit a cadre of “plotters” and provide them with an institutional home where they can sharpen their skills.