DNI One Year Into The Boy King
Walter Pincus, an old school reporter of the best kind, sums up some perspectives on where intelligence reform went after the 9/11 Commission klieg lights shut down. Many of the anecdotes Pincus shares we’ve discussed here together long ago. In that sense, the piece brings one up to date rather than conveys fresh information.
What’s missing from Pincus’ reporting are the actual key issues — tasking and budget. Commuting aside (it’s not just a Starbucks double mocha latte kvetch, D.C. traffic is famously brutal, in no small part due to incompetent divers let alone inadequate infrastructure), who whom still rules, and budgetary control is the ultimate Peacemaker. Control over tasking also defines priorities and the the entire scope of the intelligence product cycle.
We predicted we’d end up in this miasma. First when Snarlin’ Arlen offered similar reform bills in 1987/88 after Iran Contra. And more recently when we were quoted in nationally syndicated columns blasting Cher Condi’s fatuous testimony on Community reform before the 9/11 Commission. (Well worth the subsequent and wholly coincidental tax audit). Pincus rightly recalls Duncan Hunter’s stand to expand intelligence oversight jurisdiction for HASC/SASC and DoD programmatically.
We have to admit Panetta’s flackery and full court leaking have been surprisingly effective. We didn’t think a year ago he’d have anything thing like his success creating notional constructs of a functioning and at least capable Agency [sic]. In the end, the Community will seek inertia and the status quo under the best of times. A change agent in the White House would make all the difference. Yet as we see with the Bush Lite Nuclear Posture Review, President Goldilocks is not going to go there.
Que sera, sera.
Chatting With One Of Leon’s – A Vignette
We’ve analyzed here together the Agency’s [sic] diminished ethos, culture and identity across a decades long, tortiously slow march to ever deeper mediocrity. We spoke today with one of the New Breed, very cutters upper, forward leaning. (Yes, the only Ivy he’s seen is in his back yard). Nice, a good barbecue guest, supremely confident of ‘victory’. Still very much un self aware – who says without irony ‘Where I go blood follows?’
The usual issues are glaring – no foreign language skills except fragments ala airport signs leading to the head. There’s a clear ‘I belong to a club’ vibe, but unfortunately it’s Sams Club. The mindset confirms same old, same old – ‘victory’ is *obvious* – have we not taken down Al Qaeda’s No.3 at least 35 times? And their top military so-and-so 67 times? As Tim the Sorcerer said to the Monty Python entourage staring at a rabbit ‘Looook at the boooooones!’
One has to concede one thing. Leon is much better at PR than Hayden, Goss, or Mr. Slam Dunk.
A General Tsao Chicken And Two Honey Traps, No MSG Please
It’s the next shoe to drop after the rush to declare imminent cyber war is upon us. According to MI-5, those notoriously sneaky Chicoms are using sex (gasp!) to steal our secrets. British journalist Philip Knightley offers a fairly rote recital of so-called ‘honey traps’ across history.
It’s true that different cultures pursue strategic intelligence collection methodologies according to their own internal characteristics but the actual tactical tools are relatively universal. We’ve always expressed support for and appreciation for the Bureau’s CI mission (still underfunded and understaffed in area studies expertise in our opinion) – Russian GRU and SVR efforts continue to escalate back to Cold War levels in some respects. The Chicom intelligence offensive against the West unfolds along different lines, approaches to gathering and ultimately targeting than say the Russian/Slavic tradition.
Knightley is a bit prolix. But it is a timely reminder.
Imagine A QDR From . . . GM, Wells Fargo, AIG, Pick Your Dot Bombs
It’s a truism that QDRs are exercises in aspirational futility. Vision and declarations divorced from actual linkage to budget and operational planning. But is the answer really quoting Michael Porter bromides (again, in a Davos-esque flashback)? Who remembers the world conquering X-Car? Can a sock puppet really tell us anything?
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