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US Intelligence Community In Shocking State Of Decline
By Carol Devine-Molin
September 9, 2002

Sometimes truth hurts. And America's intelligence community is in irrevocable ruins, as aptly portrayed by author Bill Gertz in his new tome, ""Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to September 11th". Bill Gertz, investigative reporter extraordinaire, provides us with compelling facts and analysis that exposes the true nature of the beast under discussion, better known as the "Big Five" US intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). Did almost 3000 Americans have to die on that "Day of Infamy"? The astounding answer is that it was almost inevitable, given the bureaucratic bungling and counter-productive attitudes now entrenched among the leadership of these intelligence agencies.

And nobody sums up the overall tenor of the book better than ex-FBI man, G. Gordon Liddy in his cover-blurb: "If you're a fan of horror stories, read this. It will scare the hell out of you". This book is downright riveting, and chock-full with information on the inner-workings of the intelligence community.

Without exaggeration, the content of "Breakdown" is extremely disconcerting. This book is sure to elicit a range of emotions from the average American reader, most notably shock, fear and, ultimately, anger. Personally, I was deeply saddened by the profound truths being conveyed. My eyes welled-up numerous times as it was quite evident that those in the intelligence community, ostensibly tasked with ensuring America's safety and security, didn't know vital information, and frankly didn't care. How was the intelligence community permitted to deteriorate to this extent? And what can now be done to ameliorate this systemic corruption?

Simply put, our intelligence agencies have lost sight of their objectives and true goal, which is to aggressively participate in information gathering and analysis geared toward protecting America. Rather, these bureaucracies are primarily interested in protecting and maintaining themselves, to the detriment of this nation. They are the monsters that we have nurtured, providing them with beaucoup bucks and demanding little in the way of accountability. Over thirty billion is budgeted annually for the intelligence community, which essentially generates lousy results. Hubris reigns supreme, and the intelligence "elites" still exhibit excuses galore, and have steadfastly refused to accept responsibility for their failures that directly resulted in the al-Qaeda attacks upon American soil. More amazingly, the intelligence community has lost the ability, and the concomitant desire, to do good, old fashioned spying, utilizing human resources or "field agents" that are required to successfully infiltrate enemy groups. Congressional oversight has been abysmally negligent, as well. Throughout the years, our leaders failed to properly monitor the intelligence community, thereby permitted significant problems to proliferate.

Although the US intelligence community has been deteriorating over the past thirty years, this decline markedly accelerated during the Clinton administration since it actively co-opted these agencies, and clearly thwarted counter-terrorism efforts and covert activities. Both the CIA and FBI (domestic intelligence) were highly politicized by the Clinton administration that imposed its "liberal philosophy and anti-intelligence bias", including destructive "political correctness", without proper concern for national security interests. Consequently, the FBI was more focused upon investigating anti-abortion groups than Islamic Jihad cells that truly posed a "clear and present danger" to this nation.

Because of its ideological propensity, the Clinton administration was unable to "connect the dots" regarding the growing threat of terrorism, despite American assets being repeatedly targeted by Islamic militants throughout the world during the 1990's (US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, USS Cole, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, 1993 Twin Towers bombing, etc.). Unfortunately, a culture of arrogance and incompetence now pervades the intelligence community. According to Gertz, CIA Director George Tenet "denied that the September 11th terrorist attacks represented a failure of American intelligence. Indeed, he said, 'It's important we have a record. It is a record of discipline, strategy, focus, and action. We are proud of our record'". Who is Tenet kidding? These type of statements only reinforce the notion that the CIA and other intelligence agencies are out-of-touch, and in deep denial of their inadequacies.

The culture of the CIA is still problematic, as noted by author Gertz, for the following reasons :1) Case officers are deskbound, reluctant to engage in covert operations, and have become "risk adverse"; 2) The agency has been significantly hindered by lack of "human intelligence gathering", and lack of Arabic speakers and others adept at foreign languages of the Islamic world; 3) The agency is too dependent upon high-tech, "electronic intelligence gathering", which has its limitations; 4) A lack of accountability prevails, with Congressional oversight deemed terribly insufficient; 5) The CIA still is not adequately sharing information with other intelligence agencies, due to inter-agency rivalries; 6) The agency has been highly politicized by the Left, and now exhibits "political correctness", which taints all aspects of functioning, and ultimately produces faulty analysis. For example, the CIA continues to spin China in only a favorable light, even though many outside experts perceive a growing threat from that nation; 7) Moreover, the agency fails to integrate diversity of viewpoints and multiple sources of information when developing analysis, as noted by the 1999 Rumsfeld Commission; and, 8) Poor leadership and lack of vision continues, with a highly ineffectual George Tenet running the agency since 1996, upon John Deutch's departure. Quite frankly, the "Day of Infamy" occurred on Mr. Tenet's watch and he should be asked to resign forthwith.

Clinton appointee, John Deutch, was especially disastrous for the CIA during his short tenure as Director of the agency, as he breached high-level national security, downloaded highly sensitive materials to his laptop and home computers, and promulgated the deleterious "Deutch rules" which prohibited the recruitment of unsavory characters as field agents. Sorry, but boy scouts can't do that type of work. These awful Deutch proscriptions made it impossible to infiltrate enemy groups and organizations. (As he left office, President Clinton subsequently pardoned Deutch for any and all wrongdoing, thus depriving this nation of a full investigation).

There is an old truism that dysfunctional bureaucracies are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reform and re-invigorate. The irony is that it may be easier to develop new teams that are enthusiastic about getting the job done. Therefore, Bill Gertz recommends that America create new specialized organizations for covert operations, intelligence gathering/analysis, and counter-terrorism functions. The old intelligence agencies need to be restructured or phased out, as deemed appropriate. Mr.Gertz obviously has thought long and hard regarding this issue, as he provides a blueprint for a new clandestine service, and other new operations that will form an effective and innovative intelligence community. In order to win this "war on terrorism", the status quo of the intelligence community is unacceptable. Change is in the air.