General Michael Hayden, the new CIA director, has the
responsibility for coordinating the nation’s HUMINT, human
intelligence gathering. It’s a daunting task, but not in the
recruiting of foreign agents. His big worry will be whether the
self-anointed intelligence authorities in Congress and the media
will allow the United States to have a truly covert
information-gathering and action-taking capability.
Every member of Congress, every ex-general, every journalist,
and academic “specialist” is an expert, so he or she believes.
Professional intelligence analysts who never left their comfortable
desks and are now happily retired fall over each other in their
efforts to get their books published. Of course not one of these
people has actually run any intelligence field operations.
Admittedly, there also are a few former case officers who break
the unwritten rules and — for reasons of vanity or venality —
have made themselves available to publishers and the press. In an
earlier time they would have been ostracized, at the very least.
Fortunately, their attractiveness swiftly disappears and their
usefulness to television dries up. These opportunists, however, are
never as exciting as the Congressional committee members with the
“inside” information on the latest expose of so-called American
intelligence failures.
It has been especially amazing to watch the 9/11 Commission, no
member of which has an operational intelligence background . The
Commission has become for them a second career based on an amateur
investigation of the events and circumstances leading to the
disasters of September 11, 2001. To his credit the former Navy SEAL
officer and senator, Bob Kerrey, has maintained a low profile.
Would that the chairmen, Hamilton and Kean, as well as
ex-congressman Roemer, had done the same.
Many of America’s politicians and journalists appear to believe
they have a right to make public any intelligence activity they
learn of no matter the security result — simply for their own
political or personal benefit.
The intelligence services are the nation’s first line of defense
and their operational sector is the one most vulnerable to the
enemy. Disclosures, purposeful or accidental, which endanger “ops”
officers’ and their agents’ careers (and sometimes lives), should
be punished no matter the source.
Related to this, the consumers of classified intelligence, from
the White House down, must be prevented from influencing the
assessment of the intelligence take so as to satisfy their own
interests and viewpoints.
Traditionally, a career in intelligence both during and after
employment required an acceptance of the suspension of certain
rights, not the least of which was the ability to discuss publicly
what one had done or learned. In recent years this essential part
of intelligence life has been challenged or simply disregarded.
Protecting a patient’s medical history is carefully adhered to.
Yet, protecting information that has an impact on the health of the
body of the nation seems to have come to have lesser
importance.
Intelligence employees cannot be allowed to go outside the
structure of their organization to redress a grievance of any kind.
It may run counter to the normal American ethos, but it is the only
way to run an effective intelligence service. Operational
disagreements and “whistle blowing” must remain an internal
affair.
To make this possible and effective the process must be simple,
fair and without retribution. The lack of such an easily accessible
instrument is partly to blame for today’s threadbare security and
consequent proliferation of leaks. A major step in this effort
would be to expand the authority of the inspector general’s office
while at the same time make available agency lawyers to represent
employee interests rather than forcing them to hire their own legal
counsel in order to pursue their claims. A JAG department for the
civilian intelligence services is needed.
It must be remembered that the innate riskiness of intelligence
operations requires an organizational and individual mentality that
is willing — and able — to accept that risk, be it personal or
political. Exposure of intelligence activities by whomever,
regardless of their intent, endangers the entire raison
d’etre of intelligence as an instrument of national
policy.
George H. Wittman, a member of the Committee on the
Present Danger, was founding chairman of the National Institute for
Public Policy.
