It's Gonna Take More Than The Perfect DNI Appointment To Fix Our Broken Spy Culture

The incoming Obama administration has moved quickly to assemble a cabinet, but has stumbled in finalizing its national security team as inauguration approaches. In particular, the Obama transition team has had a hard time finding suitably qualified candidates for the top two intelligence positions, Director of National Intelligence and Director of CIA, who haven't been stained by the intelligence foul-ups of the past eight or so years.

Just before the Federal government's holiday break, retired admiral and old intelligence hand Dennis Blair emerged as Obama's expected pick for Director of National Intelligence. The New York Times pointed out the obvious -- that Blair faces a hornet's nest of problems in taking the helm of the intelligence community, with its 16 or so feuding, parochial component agencies.

Is Blair the right person to successfully carry out the reforms promised by the Obama administration? That depends on how prepared Blair is to directly confront several pathologies that have become entrenched features of the cubicle-scape that is the intelligence community culture.

What are these entrenched pathologies of intelligence culture?

Throwing Spies Under the Bus: One chronic problem is senior intelligence leaders who can't or won't stand behind their troops. For example, CIA has all but turned its back on Bob Lady, formerly their man in Milan, who is on trial Italy (in absentia) for kidnapping of an Islamic cleric that was almost certainly ordered by the White House and blessed by intelligence chiefs up and down the chain of command. Intelligence officers now routinely purchase special professional liability insurance to cover potential legal costs, because they cannot count on their uncourageous leaders to stand up and take responsibility when intelligence operations go wrong. Why can't Lady get his bosses to lend him a hand? Why do intelligence officers need to buy insurance to protect themselves from their own cowardly managers?

Refusal to fire spies who screw up and/or do bad things: Art Brown, a former CIA operations officer, said it better than I ever could in a New York Times opinion piece last month: no one in intelligence ever gets fired for not doing their job. It's true -- at the CIA I knew, the consequences for taking a questionable day of sick leave adjacent to a weekend or Federal holiday were far, far greater than the consequences of say, leaving classified documents in the back of a rental car, or failing to anticipate that a foreign government will collapse or test a nuclear weapon, or destroying evidence of Federal government law violations.

They keep letting rotten spies back in the building: It's not just that the intelligence community can't fire its own dud employees -- they won't keep out known troublemakers. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo was third in command at CIA when he was caught giving multi-million dollar sole-source contracts to his Republican political pals. When Foggo pled guilty to contract fraud charges in September, his plea deal explicitly allowed for him to work as an intel contractor. Intelligence contracting insiders familiar with Foggo's case say that "contractors are probably already lining up to add Foggo to their team." Even McDonald's and Wal-Mart are tougher on their thieving ex-employees than the intelligence community.

Contracting out the spies is neither managed nor measured: It's not that intelligence contracting is managed poorly or not accurately measured. It's not managed or measured -- at all. When senior intelligence officials make public comments about the scale of intelligence contracting, they often cannot provide an adequate characterization of the numbers and roles of contractor personnel. In some cases, contractors are actually assigned the task of making decisions about contracting on the government's behalf. Of course, many in the intelligence community don't really view contracting and outsourcing as a problem -- they view obtaining a sinecure with an intelligence contractor as a kind of retirement entitlement or right. With the promise of filthy contractor lucre waiting just beyond retirement or resignation, can we trust senior intelligence officers to make near-term and strategic decisions that are in the nation's interest -- or in the interest of their own post-career income opportunities?

As a former military leader who knows his way around the Intelligence Community, there is actually some hope that Blair could address the daunting cultural hurdles to lasting intelligence community reform. But I'm not holding my breath.

Comments

[Dukedraven]

That sounds more like CONTROL or CHAOS than the CIA. Did you ever call your supervisor Chief?

[fairandjust]

Thanks for these excellent and serious suggestions. I am hopeful that many now recognize the need to get rid of the Ideology - and use facts and logical thinking in the future of the CIA.

I have heard that like the Pentagon - it is very difficult to get rid of the many wingnuts who are employed - and that many have blackmailed their way to better and more dangerous positions.

So - I hope that many experienced Intelligence professionals are willing and able to advise the Obama administration - of those those who are very dangerous Neo-con Ideologues - and help find a way to get them away from US foreign policy.

[OkieIntellectual]

In regard to Mr. Lady, isn't getting caught doing nasty things part of the spy game? I mean I'm pretty sure that kidnapping is just as illegal in Italy as it is here in the states, regardless of one's status as an intelligence operative. Being a US spy is not a "get out of jail free" card.

Believe me, I can appreciate how difficult a job these guys have and that they sometimes have to do illegal things, but should that really absolve them from the consequences of those actions?

[DavidEBrown]

If I were to ask a subordinate to do something clearly illegal such as kidnapping, I would present him with the choice of risking at least a chance for advancement, if not his job itself vs committing the illegal act on my behalf. If I'm not prepared to take the consequences I shouldn't ask him to. I have little doubt that whoever asked him to do that would take credit for any success it generated, although, truth be told I doubt that there is enough value in such an operation to warrant the immediate risk to personnel, operation, and sponsor (in this case the CIA and its bosses).

In the long term, tolerating such behavior leads to the moral and operational decay of the whole organization, as Mr. Naif seems to be hinting. This kind of thing may sell James Bond books, but I, as a citizen of this country, do not want anyone to commit such acts thinking they're helping me. Alternative methodologies of acquiring intelligence may require more effort, but they're almost certainly going to yield better results, both in the short term, and in the long term.

[anachoret]

Not real encouraging.

Is opposing the contracting out of high level intelligence jobs to the private sector considered a risk to national security yet?

Thank you reporting on this, and your book looks like a very interesting read.

[thewho77]

Nobody in our 16 "Intelligence" agencies speak Arabic. Our enemies do. WTF? Get a clue and train our spies in Arabic languages!

[ebquillen]

Wow! An excellent piece. I too am a former CIA officer who has long been telling associates many of the things you have written about. Someone described the Agency as a combination of Monty Python and Big Brother while another critic said that it and Belarus are the only two places where one can still find Sovie