Some thoughts about the Intelligence community
Watching President Bush's speech last week, I thought of the thread Kuro5hin had up the previous week: Why the UKUSA won't tell anybody where the nukes are. It was an op-ed category piece, but attracted a fair amount of comment. You can read the piece yourself so I won't go into a lengthy recap, just enough to characterize the discussion. The author doubts that the Americans or British will ever reveal or release smoking gun data concerning what - if anything they know about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Not, at least, data gained from intelligence channels. For why this will be he (or she) gives a standard and somewhat simplistic set of reasons mostly of the revealed intelligence is compromised intelligence variety. Added to this is a nod to the nuanced perfection of the bureaucratic no comment . The most curious element in the initial article is the conclusion the author draws from this: having mastered the art of demurring comment our intelligence gathers will no longer lie to us. The author does stop short of saying that our leaders having learned this trick will also stop lying to us. That was apparently a step to far for our otherwise credulous reporter. Every so often I will hear some say that we are too cynical, a people. cynicism is the strawman in this argument. Skepticism is the real fear. When I hear of premise like the one this author advances I cannot see the American people as ever becoming more skeptical than they need to be.
Even the major premise is a little off balance in its conception. This being that intelligence assets are innately more valuable as secrets than as proofs. Attempts were made in the main article and in the thread commentary to draw analogies to how the ultra and enigma secrets of the second world war were kept secret. That was a war situation - an active and declared war. What exists today is not that, even as it is being slowly posed as that. Our Government is asking to exercise war powers in the name of the American people -without congress declaring war, the formal constitutional mechanism, based on information it will not share with us - the people. They would have us believe that the right lies with the war they intend to fight, with the killing that will occur, the violation of national sovereignty which is their explicit stated purpose, these actions validated by information drawn from a secret domain they are the sole care-taking priests of.
This is not a satisfactory response in a democracy. They present an indeterminate assessment of material facts and a indistinct interpretation of their right to action given these facts. Released information, even information emanating from military intelligence channels does not necessarily compromise or even involve sensitive intelligence gathering operation. An intelligence program gathers an integrates information from a wide range of sources. If a primary source is advanced satellite imaging perhaps involving equipment that analyzes the nature and quality of reflected light from the ground across a wide and narrowly divided spectrum information on texture, temperature, and humidity. If you do not wish to reveal the exact capabilities of your imaging, you use what it lets you know and fall back on less advanced imaging to make your case and tell your story. If your assets is human intelligence (a spy), you look to confirm it by less sensitive means. Even releasing information does not necessarily mean throwing open the doors and allowing the world public to wander through the halls and offices of the intelligence agencies. In the realm of representational democracies, governments can talk to other governments, executives can talk to elected legislators at large, or on pertinent committees who will judge what they are shown. Subsets of classified information passing from highly sensitive to moderately sensitive could be created for these purposes.
A nations intelligence apparatus has to be able to preform these task. Gathering intelligence, is very much a game of investment, of money spent. You spend the money you must, to buy the product you need. The money being spent is on the order of billions and billions of dollars. Careless use of some information can negate the value of significant portions of this investment, but few facts insist on only one source and careful release can obscure even that. The investment ought to include the capacity to make a case for action, particularly when our government is insisting on proactive action. Otherwise it has no meaning and is a wasted investment.
It is sometimes said that the information cannot be shared even among the branches of government for fear it will be leaked for political purpose. Even a cursory glance at history or the daily news will show that release of intelligence or operational information is the special provence of those that control it, especially the political interests controlling the executive. They leak classified (or reclassified) information in a constant and daily stream to support
their purpose. consider these two articles carried by the BBC and the Guardian
One could imagine in some contexts these articles might be regarded by military commanders as being a massive and disastrous leak of operational information. Apparently not; however.
Secretary Powell's observation that the UNMOVIC team are inspectors not detectives is valid as far as it goes. The burden of proof regarding compliance with resolution 1441 is on Iraq. There also is a difference between this and the call of other top administration official that the Iraqi's prove that they do not possess they have any weapons of mass destruction, otherwise they deem it necessary to overthrow the Iraqi government and replace it with one of their own choosing by military force. I admit that what Popper I have read has left me indistinct on the exact nature of the scientific method, but I believe that it is still likely that being placed in a position of having to prove a negative unlikely to result is any advancement of knowledge. I do not think that it is intended to.
Killing ways today can take out human lives in very large chunks in a single sweep. This is what lies behind the phrase weapons of mass destruction. The moral force of the Bush administration's argument lies in showing that Saddam Hussian holds such weapons in a way differently than other nations hold similar weapons. Some regions of the world have more attention focused on them than others. Nations and rulers bear closer scrutiny. Overwound murderous meglomaniacs will no doubt find this unfair. I don't; Iraq is a vile perfect caricature of civil government. My concern lies with the difference between pinning such a regime down, acting against it, and removing it by force. Behind these words lies a reality of death and destruction.
The Washington Post ran an article in the editorial section Sunday on the difference between intelligence and evidence. The author's argument is that the two are not the same and were not previously regarded the same, but now have come to be by the intelligence communities role in monitoring cold war SALT treaties. A convolution of purpose has occurred which has lead the public and policy makers to look to intelligence to provide the tripwire to action. Intelligence work lives largely a head of the critical moment whereas evidence collection lives in the main behind it. The dilemma is that when the action you intend to take will likely entail taking human life, intelligence collection needs to take on the rigor of evidence and be laid out as justification. A police officer can lay out money on the street and find out who is dealing, who is stealing, and who is fencing, but this alone is not enough to move to arrest and would not gain a conviction. A tip of of a crime of sufficient weight might bring intervention - and may bring suit for libel. The grand jury of assembled nations watches and judges message and motivation. The accusation is made, the case laid out. Permission to act explicit or implicit is requested. Ignoring this can only bring on an additional cycles of this play in this or other institutional settings. The intelligence community may rail against the expectations placed on it and seek to define its own role, they may say that validating policy choices is not their role, the converse is also true they cannot let policy makers hide their choices behind non-disclosible intelligence.
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