A Balanced Approach to Intelligence
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin on the theme of "Confronting Foreign Intelligence and Information Gaps." Feingold's speech -- sponsored by my home institution, the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation -- went beyond the admittedly important questions about who was responsible for the intelligence fiascos of the Bush years to the even more urgent issue of how to reform U.S. intelligence gathering going forward. Along the way, he also expressed his views on an increasingly controversial issue, the privatization of intelligence functions, which is dealt with at length in Tim Shorrock's new book, Spies for Hire.
Feingold's first major point -- the role of Iraq in diverting resources from "realign[ing] our military, intelligence, diplomatic and other resources to address threats to our nation's safety and security that are posed by Al Qaeda and its affiliates" -- was both on point and relatively non-controversial. His second -- which he described as a "deficit in strategic non-military resources" -- is beginning to get a wider hearing in policy circles. For example, Feingold referenced a speech by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at Kansas State University that noted that "we need a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security -- diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action and economic reconstruction and development."
But it was Feingold's third point, on "intelligence gaps," that I found the most interesting. He noted that we need a broader perspective on how to get the information we need to assess potential threats that goes beyond traditional conceptions of intelligence. As he posed the question, "Do we need more clandestine collectors . . . or do we need more political officers in far flung places to do robust diplomatic reporting?" In short, covert versus overt, "intelligence" versus broader flows of information and analysis . . Where should the balance lie?
A subset of these issues is the role of private companies, not only in gathering and analyzing intelligence, but in hiring interrogators, running agents, writing portions of the President's daily intelligence briefing, and more. As Tim Shorrock discovered in writing his book on this subject, up to 70 percent of U.S. intelligence personnel work for private companies, not the U.S. government. When I asked Feingold about this issue, his general take was that intelligence activities should be carried out by U.S. government personnel whenever possible. But as he himself noted earlier in his speech, the intelligence community is having difficulty recruiting qualified individuals, and it can take up to five years or more to get new recruits up to speed. This shortfall in trained government personnel leaves a gaping hole for private firms like Booz, Allen Hamilton and Lockheed Martin to capitalize on.
So, there is a huge question of balance to be answered going forward. It involves not just Feingold's point about the relative balance between covert and overt sources of information, but also the question of public versus private actors in the intelligence sphere itself. In the conclusion to his book, Tim Shorrock suggests that it could take a decade or more to reverse the trend that has allowed private companies to dominate the intelligence community, but that there are some key areas of public consensus that would serve as excellent starting points: getting contractors out of the business of interrogation, surveillance, and direct analysis/reporting.
More needs to be said about what our intelligence services are for, a point Feingold also touched upon in his speech. But that's a larger subject that I hope to address in a future post.
Why, if the qualified individuals are out there (and currently working for Booz Hamilton, et al.) can't the government find them?
June 25, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
When my Computer got CSC last week...(Sick Computer Syndrome) I read Shorrock's book straight through, and have put up some lengthy comments about it on EW's place at FDL and Open Left. If you can get away from the give and take of the campaign -- no book is probably as important in understanding what an Obama Presidency would need to be organizing, as "Spies for Hire"
First off -- Government essentially trains our spies and intelligence analyists for perhaps five to seven years, and then Booz Allen or CACI comes along and offers three times the salary to those who have their security clearances in order. The leadership of these firms are all former NSA, CIA or Military Intelligence, and they poach the talent, pay them three times the Civil Service rate, and quite specifically, send them back to the office and job they just left as a Civil Servant at three times plus profit and overhead costs to the agencies. What is key -- Security Clearances earned in the system are marketable.
Shorrock makes the point that no one in Government has ever drawn the bright line as to what functions are core, and must be done by those in the chain of command and responsibility within an agency, and what functions are essentially support, and can be outsourced. Fixing things really requires this be Step One. He points out that the DNI and the CIA director have been asked at confirmation hearings how they would draw the line -- none could. And while I doubt if Shorrock invented the term, remember this is the Intelligence/Industrial Complex, the step child of the Military/Industrial Complex -- and it works pretty much along the same lines.
Shorrock's strength as an investigative reporter comes from his business journalism background -- he is looking at what has emerged as a for-profit business proposition, largely dependent on Government. Thus the Intelligence Outsourcing pattern has to be looked at through the frame of an industry primarily concerned with bottom line profit, service to shareholders and all, but with a special twist -- most of the ownership of these firms is in the Private Equity World, which means of course we have no idea how profitable the business really is, nor do we know who really is involved in ownership. It is quite likely, for instance, that the 70% of CIA functions currently being outsourced, is for the profit of private investors such as China, the Saudi's, the Gulf States, and all -- and given the numerous mergers and acquisitions of recent years in the industry, some of the major players are not even American Companies.
One outcome of massive outsourcing is taking many of the intelligence functions out from under the oversight of Congress, as many of these firms have executed contracts that protect propriatry and exclusive rights. Shorrock illustrates with many examples -- one will suffice here, the contracts to develop language translation and high speed scanning and data mining of the kind of electronic traffic NSA provides. Turns out, the contractor owns the Software used in such operations, and in some cases owns the output. Congress through its oversight powers can't assess or evaluate it -- or even find out what it produces, even though the initial contract may have been an R&D program to develop the software in the first place. Shorrock argues that much of this was organized precisely to remove Congress's power of Oversight, and that one of the first things that needs doing is to reassert that power.
In what probably would be a controversial last chapter for many who read and post here, Shorrock claims that Nancy Pelosi knows full well the dimensions of this problem, and as someone vested with the long term interests of the House to maintain that power of oversight, she comprehends what she must do over several congresses to right the ship if you will. She and Chairman Reyes apparently have been now sparring with the agencies, the Senate, and the Bush Administration for a year and a half over language in various bills that move toward restoring House Perogatives, Shorrock claims she is very strategic in what she intends to accomplish, and is engaged in very tough battles.
It would be interesting if Tim Shorrock could be invited to discuss his book on this Blog, or any other that does book discussions...though it would also be useful if enough people could first read through his work before any discussion. Any real push-back against the pattern of privatizing Intelligence for the profit of the Private Equity Class, will require a knowledgable dialoge from outside the Security/Intelligence Industry, and the fairly serious policy blogs are a good place to start. The current Intelligence Budget is somewhere between 44 and 50 Billion Dollars, and as Shorrock points out, perhaps 70% of it outsourced to contractors. So it is a big time issue with much at stake.
Tim Shorrock writes for The Nation, Salon and Mother Jones, but also for Commercial and Business Journals. His research for this book -- which looks like it took about 5 years -- was in part supported by George Soros. He has been doing investigative work in the general area for 25 years.
June 26, 2008 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Intelligence, of course, is only part of the activity of the intelligence community, a part that they have performed poorly. A major activity is operations, taking actions to obtain outcomes, which they haven't been too good at either.
So now we will see the Blackwaters taking over this whole area while the CIA and the other 18 or so intelligence agencies shuffle papers and become overwhelmed with useless information sucked up under FISA. Perhaps these companies can be awarded performance contracts -- fail to overthrow the government of Slobovia and you don't get paid. On a smaller scale there will be a slide into universal assassinations, which are already the norm in the US-occupied countries and Palestine, again on a performance reimbursement basis.
June 26, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink