Intelligence at a crossroads

Signal, Oct 2001 by Ackerman, Robert K

The information age and the new global power structure mandate costly. massive changes.

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Editor's Note:

The interview on which this article is based took place three weeks before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The U.S. intelligence community must invest in new technologies, capabilities and personnel, or face the possibility of a catastrophic failure with national implications, according to its director.

This need for investment in new resources reflects changes in both the geopolitical landscape and emerging information technologies. Accordingly, the intelligence community's greatest needs are for people and technology. The failure to make necessary investments now in those two areas could have severe repercussions over the next two decades.

People are an essential part of the equation for generating valuable intelligence information, and the community needs to restock its personnel rolls with expertise ranging from traditional clandestine espionage to advanced data mining and analysis.

The technology solution lies to an ever-greater degree with the commercial sector. The intelligence community increasingly will be calling on industry to develop and speed vital new technologies to the community as fast as it brings a product to market.

George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence (DCI) and head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), describes what the consequences would be if an intelligence failure occurs in the future. "The country is surprised and disadvantaged, and the president has no options because he is responding and reacting rather than thinking about how to put us in a better position. Once it has happened, it is too late.

"Then the country will want to know why we didn't make those investments; why we didn't pay the price; why we didn't develop the capability. Then, there will be a `war crimes' trial like you've never seen in your life about all the investments that were never made-and then it is too late."

Speaking in a SIGNAL interview, Tenet emphasizes that the community needs to build an effective human intelligence (HUMINT) capability now to meet requirements emerging over the next two decades. "If you don't build a HUMINT capability now that you are going to need in 20 years, I guarantee that in 20 years you will not resurrect it overnight.

"The challenge to us is to determine what the world is going to look like in 20 years," Tenet offers. "The investments we make today will not benefit the current administration. They will benefit people-whom we don't even know yet-that will be occupying leadership positions in the future."

Tenet explains that the community's many funding priorities are headed by the recapitalization of signals intelligence, or SIGINT. Following this is ensuring that HUMINT is as fully funded and as vibrant as needed. Other funding priorities are imagery and reconnaissance and training and retaining personnel.

"We think we have a pretty good idea about what we're going to face," Tenet states. "We must make those capital investments today. The country needs to recognize that this is an important asset of national strategy and policy. People have to recognize that the buck you spend here is a buck you save a lot of other places. It's the best insurance policy you have, and if we're serious about this, we have to step up and fund it."

A presidentially directed study aims at determining the capabilities that the intelligence community will need over the next 20 to 30 years. The results of this study will form the basis for the community's structure.

"We have very specific guidance, and the new administration will tell us that there are things that we cannot fail to perform against," Tenet says. These would encompass activities that could truly hurt the United States or its forces, surprise the nation technologically, or "present the country with consequences that are absolutely unacceptable." This review also will address other issues that may be "interesting to know, but for which we don't have the time, money and people to think about as deeply as we might like to," he adds.

Among the list of intelligence priorities outlined in current presidential decision directives, about 15 to 20 items "matter most to the survival of this country," Tenet states. He cites the possible development of Iranian nuclear weapons, the evolution of China's military, and the development of Russia over the next few years as just a few concerns that are complemented by terrorism, narcotics trafficking, weapons proliferation and other transnational issues.

No single challenge faces the U.S. intelligence community, Tenet observes. However, the world is technologically empowered in a way that was unimaginable until recently. A prime concern facing intelligence planners is how technology will change the environment in which the community operates. This affects people, intelligence collection and analysis. Technology is an enormous challenge that the community must use to its benefit, Tenet emphasizes.