Intelligence Community Reform: How Far, How Fast A Retirees Perspective By John Gannon Former Assist

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Intelligence Community Reform How Far, How
Fast?A Retirees PerspectiveBy John Gannon 
Former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence
for Analysis and ProductionChairman of the
National Intelligence CouncilDeputy Director for
Intelligence, CIA 

• Intelligence Lecture SeriesAdvanced Research and
  Development ActivityNortheast Regional Research
  CenterBedford, MassachusettsJuly 25, 2002

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Objectives To look at Intel reform in wake of 11
September

• What Happened on 11 September?
• What Has Congress Uncovered so far?
• What Should the IC learn from it?
• What really needs fixing?
• How do we do it?

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Wheres Congress?

• HPSCI subcommittee on Terrorism report (July
  2002) points to
• Poor information sharing
• HUMINT underachieved and was underresourced
  against terrorism.
• IC short on language capabilities.
• Weak processes for tactical warning on terrorism.
  Unattended watch lists.
• NSA has big management problems Passive
  gatherer must become proactive hunter.
• Criticisms mostly valid, but not revolutionary or
  even new
• IC has been working these problems for several
  years.
• Congress knows this has been fully informed.
• The dump on NSA, where a major technological and
  communications challenge has been recognized for
  a long time, seems excessive.
• Additional resources alone will not fix strategic
  problems Community needs collaborative framework
  to prioritize, plan, and implement.

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Anatomy of 11 September Attacks

• Low-tech op conversion of fuel-laden aircraft
  into missile
• High sophistication of ops planning
• Global cell structure across 60 countries
  exploited networked world.
• Moved information, people, and finance across
  network from Afghan caves to Europe and U.S.
• Terrorist profile older, better-educated,
  high-tech savvy, some married with kids
• Fanatically devoted to al Qaeda.
• Rabidly anti-U.S.
• Focus on Perpetrators, The People Problem
• Not global, but leadership from Middle East,
  Central Asia, and South Asia
• We need to probe causes of hatred of U.S.
• U.S. role in Middle East perceived as favoring
  Israel, supporting repressive Arab regimes
• Arab perception that U.S. is anti-Islam, is
  abetted by scapegoating Arab regimes
• Globalization gaps economic, digital,
  educational, health care.
• Human hatred fueled operation
• Human threats alarming, but more boundable than
  endless vulnerabilities of open, high-tech
  society.
• We need to attack human threats as well as reduce
  critical infrastructure vulnerabilities.

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Personal (Retirees) Perspective

• Al Qaeda exploited network world better than we
  thought it could.
• Through reverse engineering, we now see how Osama
  bin Ladin built international network in late
  80s from Afghanistan, in 90s from Sudan and
  from Afghanistan again in late 90s.
• Terrorists not ten feet tall. Never challenged
  U.S. technology, but exploited technology of
  developed societies, including U.S. internet
  cell phones, ATMS, etc.
• Al Qaeda knew our world better than we knew its
  world. Its flat network defeated our
  hierarchies, its agility bested our bureaucracy.
  This should happen again!
• For IC, 11 September not a workforce failure.
• IC personnel are serious professionals with
  exceptional capabilities skills mixed problems
  being addressed.
• Not a failure to recognize the threat.
• Strategic understanding of al Qaeda was
  excellent Congress and White House fully
  informed.
• Lack of tactical intelligence must be explained.
• Not a failure to appreciate technology.
• IC recognized challenged and opportunity of IT
  revolution.
• Individual agency programs were progressive.
• Partnerships growing with outside IT vendors.
• Interagency programs lagged.

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Personal (Retirees) Perspective (cont.)

• Not a failure to commit to transformation.
• Major agencies had strategic transformation goals
  from mid-90s
• New distributed threat environment, compounded by
  IT revolution, was recognized.
• Interagency strategies way behind.
• But it was a failure to transform fast enough.
• Neither IC, nor USG was networked.
• Connectivity and strategic collaboration slowed
  by tension between legitimate need to protect and
  growing requirement to share information.
• In IC, compartmentation is operating principle.
  Information protectors usually won the debate.

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Structural Reform How far, How fast? Seven Point
Program (Guidelines)

• Executive Branch must drive any IC structural
  reform.
• Structural change is a multi-year goal no
  instant fixes.
• Congress can guide, but not manage.
• IC Agencies can reform within, but not across
  other agencies.
• Stovepipes are major bureaucracies with own
  unique missions, capabilities, budgets and
  clients.
• Structural change cannot be rushed without
  risking serious damage to current capabilities
  and missions
• Strategic programs can be managed
  collaboratively, but the stovepipes themselves
  must be relied upon for critical expertise to
  develop and implement reforms.
• In Intel, we cannot finance future capabilities
  by cutting current capabilities. Current threats
  never let up.
• The DCI, under Presidents direction, should
  manage the IC as a CEO chairing a corporate board
  made up of IC Program Managers.
• Senior leadership must provide forum for buck to
  stop on tough inter-agency decisions.
• New DCI authorities not necessary.
• Agenda should be strategic (not day-to-day
  resource issues)eg future collection systems or
  architectures IT networking database sharing
  rationalization of requirements processes
  evaluation analytic and collecting priorities
  open-source strategies training, etc.
• Consideration should be given to making outside
  technology expert a member of IC corporate
  board.
• All-Source Analysis needs greater investment,
  stronger IC structure.
• To deal effectively with complicated,
  intersecting issues in an integrated threat
  assessment.
• To support a more distributive model for
  intelligence production, especially on
  transnational issues. Military officers in the
  field, for example, need all-source analysis on
  terrorism.

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Seven Point Program (cont.)

• Technical collectors should closely collaborate.
• At operational level, in procurement, in
  development of IT enterprise models, and perhaps
  eventually in restructuring.
• HUMINT needs sharper focus, greater secrecy,
  managed expectations.
• New transnational threats require surgical,
  long-term HUMINT strategies, specialized training
  and skills, and tight collaboration with
  technical collectors.
• HUMINT will be a big contributor but not the
  answer to every problem.
• We should not oversell HUMINT capabilities or
  stretch HUMINT resources on second-order
  problems.
• The IC needs broader, deeper partnerships with
  outside sources of technical and substantive
  expertise.
• Best technology now in commercial sector, with
  which IC must partner.
• Valuable expertise on substantive national
  security issues increasingly is outside IC in
  academia, corporate worlds. We need strategies
  and partnerships to get it.

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Seven Point Program (cont.)

• The IC needs a radically new relationship with
  the scientific community.
• IC ST resources, already woefully short, will
  never keep up with the breadth and depth of
  scientific breakthroughs over the next twenty
  years.
• Scientific discoveries will have dual use
  implications.
• Simple partnering will not be enough for IC to
  deal with ST revolution. Developments will
  involve
• Further Diffusion of Information Technology
• Genomic Profiling
• Biomedical Engineering
• Therapy and Drug Development
• Genetic modification
• Materials Sciences Advances
• Nanotechnology Applications
• These disciplines will intersect to accelerate
  scientific breakthroughs, to stimulate investment
  in technology, to spark innovation, and to
  challenge the IC, as never before to keep up
  with, let alone get ahead of, the ST curve.
• Only a robust, sustained, and multi-faceted
  relationship with the scientific community,
  public and private, will keep the IC aware. The
  Scientific community, I know from personal
  experience, is disposed to work with you.

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Conclusion

• We should recognize the challenge ahead, and work
  hard to meet it, but we should not be
  discouraged. The IC will rise to the occasion.
• Americas investments in technology, in open
  markets, in the free flow of information, and
  most importantly in the education of its people
  (our first responders) are winning strategies.
  Our investment in intelligence follows naturally.
• America will never be defeated by Terrorism!