Hokey Smoke!

Boris, Natasha and Fearless Leader,
--Rocky and Bullwinkle Show

The Roman promoters really did things right.
They needed a show that would clearly excite.
The attendance was sparse so they put on a fight
Threw the Christians to the lions, sold out every night
--Give the People What they Want, The Kinks

But here, cleverly disguised as a bomb, is a bomb
--The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1961)

This, too, shall pass
--Jewish folklore
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The WaPo's David Ignatius offered a "Fix-It List for The Spies" following a recent Washington conference on how to fix the intel community.

President Bush broke the Central Intelligence Agency's credibility with Rice, Cheney and Rumsfeld's policies, which allowed Defense Department (DoD) agencies and non-intelligence offices to co-opt the functions of the CIA. The agency was buried with Tenet's infamous "slam dunk," the famous end-run to war.

While the agency had failures in the lead-up to war, they occurred due to our leaders' insistence on designer intelligence favoring their predetermined plans. The President, Vice President, DoD, National Security Adviser and Department of State wanted a war, so they produced intel to justify and validate that decision, rubber-stamped by Congress.

Ignatius says the next president, "will see the power of intelligence reporting but should also understand how the CIA has declined as an effective (and secret) arm of the commander in chief." This is the crux of the intelligence problem.

Both Porter Goss and William Tenet felt that they worked solely for the President -- faulty logic. The CIA doesn't work solely for the President. The CIA works for the U.S. policy makers and taxpaying citizens. We taxpayers can't read their reports but our lawmakers should assuredly read CIA intelligence briefs before voting on issues of war and peace. Briefings to the intelligence oversight committees are not sufficient to fulfill the requirements of a democracy.

What is the value of a vote based upon emotion versus facts, or at least predictive estimates based upon intelligence indicators? The President is not the Decider when it come to declaring war. Congress must be in the intel loop or its powers will be usurped and will osmose into the actions of an imperial President.

Ignatius says the the impending reorganization "should be rationalized." However, before rationalization a realistic mission for the CIA should be defined. The CIA was the premier civilian intel agency of the U.S. government until it became a subsidiary of the DoD under Hayden's stewardship. But the CIA does not work for the Secretary of Defense.

There needs to be a clear demarcation between civilian and military intelligence functions, as the two are not necessarily the same. A reorganization should address the areas of intersection.

Notably absent from discussions on reorganization is discussion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-intelligence mission. The FBI used to be the tool that protected the homeland from the terror threat. Where does this function reside now, and what is the action agency?

The FBI was and is the best tool to address domestic threats. The Department of Homeland Security is a redundant make-work project addressing a function that was already adequately addressed. The only FBI deficiency was in the area of resource allocation and interface with state and local law enforcement.

Ignatius reports,

"Art Brown, a longtime CIA case officer in Asia, said that when he finally came in from the cold, he realized that '99 percent of what we were producing overseas, nobody was reading.' That's got to stop."

Intel estimates must be declassified and disseminated to members of Congress. Reports and estimates are useless unless they are read by the key players in our government. Keeping congressmen out of the loop is not democracy.

Washington should learn from what's working in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Out in the field, you can see one intelligence community. The kids operate together -- analysts and collectors, military and civilian," said one former top DNI official. David Kilcullen, an Australian who is a counterinsurgency adviser to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, explained how soldiers and spies who understand tribal cultures are putting al-Qaeda on the run.

But why should Washington learn from what is working in Afghanistan and Iraq? In the long-term, nothing is working. Despite operational successes, winning or losing is not determined by one good capture in a chess game.

What is happening to America while we guard street corners in Kabul and Baghdad?

Military intelligence as it applies to the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) should not determine the reorganization of intelligence assets in the U.S. Intel is either civilian or defense in orientation, predictive or useless. These are the yardsticks.

Iraq and Afghanistan will come and go. Meanwhile the long-term interests of America are a constant needing to be addressed by the intelligence community. The definition of these interests and the implementation of policy to address and safeguard those interests are the function of intelligence.

Operational in-theatre military actionable intelligence does not equate to predictive national level intelligence. Military nuts and bolts, on-the-ground intel is separate from that required by national command authority. Intel in theatre is tactical; CIA intelligence is strategic -- two different animals.

Our leadership must define the collection requirements and the government must act upon these estimates once the intelligence is interpreted.

We must also remember that intelligence agencies are not action agencies. Strip the paramilitary direct action function from the CIA and put it in DoD where it most appropriately belongs.