Danger in 'Fixing' CIA

The failure of our intelligence agencies to detect the 9/11 terrorist plot and later to discover that Saddam Hussein no longer had weapons of mass destruction has incited a drumbeat of criticism, and has led to a reorganization of the intelligence system that may leave the CIA a shell of its former self and a graveyard of ruined careers. Before we go too far in our efforts to "reform" the system, we should remember that although constructive criticism has great value, obtuse criticism leading to imprudent change may make the nation less safe.

Two cliches about our intelligence system are fast becoming dogma. The first is that intelligence failed in the 9/11 and Iraqi WMD cases because the entire intelligence system is "broken." Usually when we think of something as being broken we assume it can be fixed or replaced and, either way, that the problem can be put behind us; our watch is broken so we fix or replace it and the problem is solved.

But the intelligence system cannot be fixed like a broken watch (although it can be improved) because the conditions that cause it to fail are inherent in the nature of intelligence. Those conditions are numerous: Intelligence seeks information about people -- usually foreigners having their own language and a mentality that may be so alien as to be unfathomable by us -- who are assiduously concealing it. Effective intelligence requires secrecy (particularly as to sources), which widespread sharing of intelligence data compromises -- yet without that sharing, it may be impossible to assemble the data into a meaningful mosaic. Intelligence is collected and analyzed in a political context that may warp intelligence analysis. Working conditions in intelligence are bad because of the unavoidable preoccupation with secrecy and security, the disdain of a democratic society for spies, and the asymmetry of failure and success in intelligence operations.

What's more, congressional oversight is erratic. Congress cut intelligence budgets in the 1990s just as intelligence challenges were mounting. One of the intelligence community's severest critics, James Bamford, acknowledges that "the real problem [with U.S. intelligence] is simply the nature of the post-Cold War world. During the half-century when Moscow sat fixed at the center of a giant bull's-eye of intelligence targets, prioritization was easy.... When the Soviet Union collapsed, the giant bull's-eye disappeared and was replaced by a shooting gallery with black silhouette targets popping up everywhere -- in back, in front, behind rocks, under bushes. The public, the press and the Congress were requiring the intelligence community to see everywhere at all times, which was not only impossible but also irrational."