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H. Thomas Hayden
recently concluded over 35 years of service,
which included the Agency for International
Development, the Marine Corps, defense industry
and the Pentagon. His specialties are Intelligence,
Counterinsurgency Operations, Counter-terrorism,
and Joint Concepts Development and Experimentation.
His Marine Corps assignments have included
command of two separate battalions; AC/S G-2,
4th MARDIV & AC/S G-2 FMFEurope; Branch Head,
HQMC, Special Operations and Low Intensity
Conflict (SO/LIC); Special Assistant to the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC;
and, Senior Program Analysts at HQMC with
the Joint Staff and DoD at the Pentagon. Overseas
assignments included Vietnam, Japan & Okinawa,
Europe, Central America, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait, Somalia, Singapore, Philippines, and
Colombia. He has an MBA (Pepperdine) and an
MA in International Relations (University
of Southern California). He has written two
books and is working on a third.
Thomas
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October 28, 2004
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There is much debate in all sectors of U.S. society about the recent failures of Intelligence. History has a number of Intelligence failures, both foreign and American, that clearly indicate the craft and practice of Intelligence collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination, can produce both the right and wrong results. Is Intelligence today overwhelmed with technology?
Pearl Harbor, the World Trade Center on 9/11, and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq, are clearly major failures of many of the U.S. Intelligence communities. However, of the three failures mentioned here, only one was a real surprise - the WTC. High-tech Intelligence systems were of no value in any of the above.
Pearl Harbor seems to have been a surprise to only the Navy and Army commanders at Pearl Harbor. Everyone from BrigGen Billy Mitchell to an obscure Marine, Lieutenant Colonel Pete Ellis, had predicted a Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
Everyone -- including the French, Germans, Russians, and the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats in U.S. Congress -- thought Saddam Hussein had WMD. Saddam said he did, and did everything he could to convince the world that he had WMD and was prepared to use them. No one can say today that he did not have something and moved it after the invasion. He certainly had a capability to start a WMD program at any time and was allegedly trying to wait out the UN inspectors to restart his WMD program.
No one that I have heard of ever conceived that a radical Islamic terrorist would take commercial airliners and turn them into guided missiles. It has even been reported by many that some of the 9/11 hijackers may not have known that the terrorists in the cockpits of the hijacked aircraft intended to commit suicide and take everyone on board with them. Fortunately for the West, the terrorists seriously miscalculated the American and allied response to the 9/11 attacks.
The Administration made a serious tactical error in trumpeting the WMD cards as the centerpiece of the pre-emptive invasion. Everyone knew that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed, except those who were profiting from the kickbacks from Saddam and his oil shipments and the "Food-for Peace" Program -- Russia, Germany, France and the UN leadership. Again, same old story -- too much reliance on technology that proved nothing.
Making the mistake of using WMDs as the main reason for the Iraqi pre-emptive war has clouded the current issues in Iraq. Congress, the news media, and political pundits are bombarding almost all Intelligence agencies to clean up their houses and fire a bunch of people. With Congressional investigations, the demands of the "9/11 Commission Report" and the families of the survivors of 9/11, demanding change, is it any wonder that the Intelligence communities are having difficulties just doing their current job?
Many seemed to have forgotten that there are three major reasons why the military Intelligence community was ill prepared to support the Iraqi War and the insurgency that is now continuing unabated. First and foremost, the U.S. Congress and previous Administrations had for a long time eviscerated the entire U.S. Intelligence community, by cutting field operations, imposing extensive collection restrictions and voting major budget cuts. Second, the Intelligence communities were organized, directed and funded to target the Soviet Union, China and North Korea. Third, there was too much reliance on high-tech space platforms and other high-speed Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance platforms to provide Intelligence.
It seems to me to be very clear that we had no real Human Intelligence (HUMINT) effort in Afghanistan and Iraq prior to 9/11/01. High altitude Electronic Intelligence (ELINT), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Imaging Intelligence (IMINT) collection systems were somewhat useful during the war, but following the war, when the focus was on instability and insurgencies, there was still little HUMINT.
The collection of information against unconventional forces requires penetration of the insurgent infrastructure and is a task best preformed by indigenous Intelligence and security services. It takes a very long time to gain the allegiance of some portion of the local population for Intelligence and Security Services, vet the potential recruits, and train them. This is tactical level Intelligence, maybe Operational but certainly not strategic.
Document exploitation and prisoner interrogation takes on increased importance in an insurgency. However, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses have made POW interrogation activities tenuous at best. Technical exploitation of weapons and explosives is a high priority for the scientific communities supporting Intelligence. The death and destruction caused by Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) -- we used to call them "booby traps" -- has focused attention on an old problem.
Indications and warnings are more likely to be gleaned from HUMINT than small UAVs, Global Hawk or space platforms. Part of the answer can be found in more linguists who are not grown overnight.
I recently watched on C-SPAN, the meeting of the Military Intelligence Association of the U.S. Army. Lots of money being invested in high-tech systems for the war we just fought, but not much on the current war or future unconventional wars to improve HUMINT. This is the same for all the Services.
It seems that everyone in Washington, D.C. has an opinion on what needs to be done to the Intelligence communities, particularly military Intelligence. Military Intelligence needs a break. It is easy to criticize but it is now more important than ever to stop the partisan bickering on Afghanistan and Iraq, and ask all the Intelligence communities what are they doing on HUMINT?
The Administration supports the Intelligence Reform bill proposed by the Senate but the latest news reports indicate that the House and the Senate cannot agree on a compromise bill. It is probably dead until the next Congress.
So much is riding on what we do in the next few months. If we fail, we will not have a second chance.
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© 2004 H. Thomas Hayden. All opinions
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