'A Failure To Connect The Dots': A Lesson In The Lack Of Bureaucratic Intelligence.
'A Failure to Connect the Dots'
A lesson in the lack of bureaucratic intelligence.
The antiterror education of President Obama continued yesterday, with his release of a White House report blaming the "counterterrorism community" as a whole for "a failure to connect the dots of intelligence" that would have prevented Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding a plane to Detroit on Christmas Day.
Mr. Obama blamed no one in particular for the failure, not even George W. Bush. In one sense this is refreshing. The President said the buck stops with him, not his underlings, and he ordered the usual agencies to review their usual procedures and institute changes to make sure information is shared more quickly and analyzed more comprehensively. This all seems worthwhile as far as it goes, and it may well do some good by shaking up settled behavior patterns, at least for a while.
On the other hand, it's impossible to read even the six-page unclassified summary of the White House review without a rising sense of frustration, even anger. This was above all a failure of bureaucracy. Consider (or rather, bear with) this mouthful of an explanation from the White House review:
"Notwithstanding [the National Counterterrorism Center's] central role in producing terrorism analysis, CIA maintains the responsibility and resource capability to 'correlate and evaluate intelligence related to national security and provide appropriate dissemination of such intelligence.' CIA's responsibility for conducting all-source analysis in the area of counterterrorism is focused on supporting its operations overseas, as well as informing its leadership of terrorist threats and terrorist targets overseas. Therefore, both agencies—NCTC and CIA—have a role to play in conducting (and a responsibility to carry out) all-source analysis to identify operatives and uncover specific plots like the attempted December 25 attack. . . .
"Though the consumer base and operational capabilities of CIA and NCTC are somewhat different, the intentional redundancy in the system should have added an additional layer of protection in uncovering a plot like the failed attack on December 25. [White House emphasis.] However, in both cases, the mission to 'connect the dots' did not produce the result that, in hindsight, it could have—connecting identifying information about Mr. Abdulmutallab with fragments of information about his association with [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] and the group's intention of attacking the U.S."
Translating from the Esperanto, the point is that a pair of agencies were supposed to figure this out, but neither one did, perhaps because each thought the other one was responsible, or perhaps because the "dots" didn't find their way into the right person's computer inbox. To put it another way, if everyone is responsible, then no one is. This is the tao of modern bureaucracies, and there is nothing larger, more complex or harder to attach responsibility to than America's intelligence labyrinth. Jack Bauer exists only on TV.
If Mr. Obama isn't angry, he should be, because Americans were told by our leaders that the "intelligence reform" of the last decade would fix this. A smaller Counterterrorism Center had existed for years inside the CIA, but the Bush Administration yanked it out to assert more control. This later became the NCTC when the 2004 intelligence reform created the Director of National Intelligence, which was supposed to prevent these kind of screw-ups by sharing information and "connecting the dots."
However, the DNI has since become its own vast bureaucracy with thousands of employees, whose main job seems to be micromanaging or duplicating the CIA. We—and many others—opposed the 2004 reform on grounds that it would create precisely this redundant layer of intelligence bureaucracy, and so it has. This is one mess that Mr. Obama really can blame on Mr. Bush and especially the 9/11 Commission that came up with the idea and lobbied furiously for it.
We'd feel better if an individual were to blame. At least a President could fire the hapless Bartleby and find someone better. The lesson of Abdulmuttalab is that rearranging the bureaucratic furniture is always the first resort of politicians who want to be seen "doing something" about a problem, but it almost never works. A President has to drive the bureaucracy by making the fight against terrorism a daily, personal priority.
Perhaps now Mr. Obama will, and yesterday he finally said after a year in office that "We are at war. We are at war against al Qaeda." But in fighting that war, he'd be better off shrinking the DNI to 20 or 30 people—and the CIA by half—and starting over.
A lesson in the lack of bureaucratic intelligence.
The antiterror education of President Obama continued yesterday, with his release of a White House report blaming the "counterterrorism community" as a whole for "a failure to connect the dots of intelligence" that would have prevented Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding a plane to Detroit on Christmas Day.
Mr. Obama blamed no one in particular for the failure, not even George W. Bush. In one sense this is refreshing. The President said the buck stops with him, not his underlings, and he ordered the usual agencies to review their usual procedures and institute changes to make sure information is shared more quickly and analyzed more comprehensively. This all seems worthwhile as far as it goes, and it may well do some good by shaking up settled behavior patterns, at least for a while.
On the other hand, it's impossible to read even the six-page unclassified summary of the White House review without a rising sense of frustration, even anger. This was above all a failure of bureaucracy. Consider (or rather, bear with) this mouthful of an explanation from the White House review:
"Notwithstanding [the National Counterterrorism Center's] central role in producing terrorism analysis, CIA maintains the responsibility and resource capability to 'correlate and evaluate intelligence related to national security and provide appropriate dissemination of such intelligence.' CIA's responsibility for conducting all-source analysis in the area of counterterrorism is focused on supporting its operations overseas, as well as informing its leadership of terrorist threats and terrorist targets overseas. Therefore, both agencies—NCTC and CIA—have a role to play in conducting (and a responsibility to carry out) all-source analysis to identify operatives and uncover specific plots like the attempted December 25 attack. . . .
"Though the consumer base and operational capabilities of CIA and NCTC are somewhat different, the intentional redundancy in the system should have added an additional layer of protection in uncovering a plot like the failed attack on December 25. [White House emphasis.] However, in both cases, the mission to 'connect the dots' did not produce the result that, in hindsight, it could have—connecting identifying information about Mr. Abdulmutallab with fragments of information about his association with [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] and the group's intention of attacking the U.S."
Translating from the Esperanto, the point is that a pair of agencies were supposed to figure this out, but neither one did, perhaps because each thought the other one was responsible, or perhaps because the "dots" didn't find their way into the right person's computer inbox. To put it another way, if everyone is responsible, then no one is. This is the tao of modern bureaucracies, and there is nothing larger, more complex or harder to attach responsibility to than America's intelligence labyrinth. Jack Bauer exists only on TV.
If Mr. Obama isn't angry, he should be, because Americans were told by our leaders that the "intelligence reform" of the last decade would fix this. A smaller Counterterrorism Center had existed for years inside the CIA, but the Bush Administration yanked it out to assert more control. This later became the NCTC when the 2004 intelligence reform created the Director of National Intelligence, which was supposed to prevent these kind of screw-ups by sharing information and "connecting the dots."
However, the DNI has since become its own vast bureaucracy with thousands of employees, whose main job seems to be micromanaging or duplicating the CIA. We—and many others—opposed the 2004 reform on grounds that it would create precisely this redundant layer of intelligence bureaucracy, and so it has. This is one mess that Mr. Obama really can blame on Mr. Bush and especially the 9/11 Commission that came up with the idea and lobbied furiously for it.
We'd feel better if an individual were to blame. At least a President could fire the hapless Bartleby and find someone better. The lesson of Abdulmuttalab is that rearranging the bureaucratic furniture is always the first resort of politicians who want to be seen "doing something" about a problem, but it almost never works. A President has to drive the bureaucracy by making the fight against terrorism a daily, personal priority.
Perhaps now Mr. Obama will, and yesterday he finally said after a year in office that "We are at war. We are at war against al Qaeda." But in fighting that war, he'd be better off shrinking the DNI to 20 or 30 people—and the CIA by half—and starting over.
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posted by KYJurisDoctor at 12:12 PM
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