Reliable Sources: Raising the Stakes of the Interrogation Debate

The principal value of intelligence is to provide reliable information to policymakers on a rival's true plans and intentions. The CIA's ability to provide such a decision advantage to U.S. policymakers depends on its ability to acquire reliable information from clandestine sources, or spies.

While there's no doubt that good intelligence can help keep us safe, intelligence officers and policy makers must grapple with the reliability of information, and -- just as importantly -- with how it is obtained.

If only it were so easy. Espionage is an art form, not a science. One never masters the art of intelligence, but is ever humbled by its elusive and myriad forms of expression. This is true because espionage is rooted in the human factor, fueled by the limitless boundaries of human emotions, motivations, and vulnerabilities.

The maddening reality is therefore that intelligence work is conducted in a gray world of Heisenberg-like probabilities, not of certainties. Consumers of intelligence must become accustomed to this reality and remember that there is no easy formula for guaranteeing the reliability of sources, however rock solid they may seem.

Intelligence professionals learn this lesson in the school of hard knocks.

In the late 1980's, U.S. intelligence scored a coup when a senior officer inside KGB counterintelligence volunteered his services to the CIA in Moscow. This agent was in a position to provide information on CIA activity in the Soviet Union. In spite of his access, however, his information was of an uneven quality. Over the next two years, a debate raged within the agency. Was he a reliable source, or an agent provocateur who had been sent by the Russians to deceive the U.S? Opinions were strongly divided. The stakes were high: if this reporting was reliable, it meant the CIA had the upper hand over the KGB, but if this spy was double crossing the CIA, it implied there must be a Russian mole within the ranks of the agency. Only the passage of time revealed the truth of the matter. The CIA learned the agent had been a Russian double agent from the start.

Fifteen years later, the agency faced a similar quandary concerning the reliability of one of its high profile sources. A German agent code named "Curveball" provided detailed information confirming the existence of an Iraqi biological weapons program. Yet, within operational ranks in the agency, there were vague doubts over Curveball's bona fides. There were questions about his access and motivation for providing the information. Was he a reliable source? The CIA requested access to debrief and vet the source independently in an effort to resolve concerns. The Germans refused. Ultimately, Curveball was revealed to have fabricated the information he provided. CIA and German intelligence share responsibility for failing to establish Curveball's reliability, especially since independent sources were unable to corroborate his explosive reporting.

The capture of senior al Qaeda terrorists put the agency's ability to apply old lessons concerning the reliability of its sources to the ultimate test. It was understood that these "sources" were inherently unreliable. They had no motivation to cooperate with the CIA. They actively resisted providing useful information. With no illusions as to their proclivity to deceive and misinform, the CIA's ability to establish the reliability of information from detainees depended entirely on corroborating their reporting. All information was considered suspect until it could be verified, no matter how it was obtained.

Through such a continuous vetting process, there is no question that reporting obtained through interrogation proved to be valuable, including the use of enhanced measures. Taken together, detainee reporting represents a body of invaluable information on the al Qaeda organization, its connections, and activities. Certainly, detainees provided a mix of fact and fiction. However, effective action was taken on the basis of information obtained through interrogation. Much information was confirmed through meticulous cross checking of facts with other reporting. Indeed, the strongest correlation in establishing the reliability of information was not based on the methods used to acquire it, but on the quality of the debriefing and expertise of the interrogator.

This experience is consistent with broader practice. The CIA is the beneficiary of information from all kinds of sources with all sorts of motivations. Much flows in from other countries, especially liaison reporting related to terrorism and threats against American interests. Typically, methods of acquisition are not known, nor are details about sources. All information must thus be weighed against other relevant reporting and reviewed by substantive experts. In the end, the intelligence officer's professional intuition and instinct are often decisive in properly handling and disseminating information.

Taking the full body of intelligence into account, the record will reflect that enhanced means of interrogation can yield valuable information.

If this is true, it raises the stakes of the current debate over how far we are willing to go in order to obtain information through interrogation. Protecting our country from terrorist attacks by obtaining reliable intelligence is essential. But it is also essential to assure U.S. moral authority by acting in a manner that is consistent with our high ideals.

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is a former director of the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy and former head of the Central Intelligence Agency's WMD and terrorism efforts.

Comments

[DavidJames]

Rolf,

"Through such a continuous vetting process, there is no question that reporting obtained through interrogation proved to be valuable, including the use of enhanced measures."

However, this also means there is also no question that reporting obtained through interrogation, without torture, proved to be valuable.

So the question remains. Given that torture was not necessary, other effective methods existed, why did the Bush administration authorize it?

Regards,

[recessdawn]

If your bio is correct, your statements could be used against US interests.

[Annoula]

mr. Larssen:
According to your post:
"Taking the full body of intelligence into account, the record will reflect that enhanced means of interrogation can yield valuable information. "

You obviously have not seen some of the newly released, slightly less unredacted briefs in which Khalid Sheik Mohammed admits " I MAKE UP STUFF" regarding his own confessions under torture.
Confessions that Cheney and Bush called "invaluable to prevent future attacks".
It is now clear from the UNREDACTED version of the briefs that this "invaluable information" was simply STUFF MADE UP by KSM to stop the torturers!

Reagarding your second paragraph:
"If this is true, it raises the stakes of the current debate over how far we are willing to go in order to obtain information through interrogation. Protecting our country from terrorist attacks by obtaining reliable intelligence is essential. But it is also essential to assure U.S. moral authority by acting in a manner that is consistent with our high ideals"

You seem to be unaware of the existence of the GENEVA CONVENTIONS, which make harsh treatment of war prisoners a CRIME! [It doesn't matter if you re-label them "enemy combatants", these were people picked up at the battelfield, which makes them POW]
And let us not forget, that many of the prisioners at Guantanamo were not even COMBATANTS, but civilains arrested in foreign countries through EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION which is also ILLEGAL.
FYI:The use of TORTURE is NOT an option. It is against INTERNATIONAL LAW.

[WorkingClass]

Torture is fun for sadists. Otherwise it has no value. Also, it is illegal and immoral. As to the moral authority of the U.S. government, it has none.

[dlinguist]

Part of the problem is..... well, it's not the gathering, filtering, corroborating and proper dissemination of intel as done in the field... it is the cherry-picking of information with the intent of validating a political or personal agenda. It's when you let the politicians and the laymen tell the intelligence community what it has to confirm, at any cost. This political agenda is what brings about acts like the outing of Valerie Plame, and being duped by "Curveball" while ignoring or suppressing information from Joseph Wilson and Mubarak al-Duri. Quite evidently these laymen got it wrong, and they're wrong about torture.

Any interrogator worth his/her salt will not stoop to it. It goes against our professional pride and integrity even when the moral indignation alone doesn't prevent it.

[TJCole]

No there is no mention I saw of the recruitment tool this torture by any definition represented and the fact that by reasonable definition we tortured and abused everybody even those who knew nothing of al-Qaeda tactical or organizational or other, as we shall learn everyone at Gitmo was tortured...

Nobody who knows anything of it would ever say torture doesn't work of course it works it would work on me I can tell you that...it works o everyone eventually...

We don't do it or didn't as regular accepted practice because it is immoral and we and the world made it criminal ...

Now if I go knock over and bank tonight and get away with it then it worked so does that make it right or legal ..or moral..?

What are teaching up there at Harvard is it getting as bad a Yale..?

Maybe that explains a lot of what we are seeing from POTUS lately..a quasi Constitution of convenience and the abeyance of the rule of law as well as discrimina­tion...sys­temic codified discrimination...

[ProgressiveVoice]

So, to summarize, no single piece of intel can be considered reliable, in and of itself. Reliable intel is the combination of many separate bits of info analyzed through experience and intuition. Some of the information obtained through "enhanced interrogation techniques" was validated by corroboration.

So much for the ticking nuclear bomb scenario, eh?

This article is a great argument against EIT, although perhaps not intentionally.

[mnich13]

If we're going to start accepting torture as a valid means of obtaining information, then let's stop pussyfooting around and just announce to the rest of the world that our high ideals are now simply a thing of the past, and that we are, in fact, becoming everything we once proclaimed we would never become.

[Annoula]

EXACTLY RIGHT, mnich13!
Let's cut the hypocrisy right now and stop the all BS about "AMERICA'S VALUES" and "AMERICA"S RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS", or Bush's old fantasy that "THE TERRORISTS HATE OUR FREEDOM".
Our values, our freedom and our respect for human rights have all been cancelled under the "National Security" blanket.
We are now no better than North Korea, Syria, Egypt and Saddam's Iraq.

[TRUE BLUE AMERICAN]

Not a bad piece Rolf. As to your question of how far we are willing to go to obtain information, I think the answer should be inhanced interrogation techniques. I also believe the IIT are consistant with our high ideals, especially in todays world. You want to know about other countries "torture" programs just do a google search and you will find out what torture really is.

[Annoula]

So...you are OK with TORTURE under another name and you call yourself a TRUE BLUE AMERICAN?????
[By the way...it's ENHANCED not INHANCED [that's why its abbreviated EIT and not IIT, as you write]

[DrDianabol]

Not one utterance of persuasive evidence or reasoning for the efficacy of torture. Merely summary of opinion. It will not do simply to say enhanced interrogation will have be found effective; this is not a matter for casual observation or expert opinion without rigorous controls.

this is really a matter for scientific inquiry.

No secret after-action memo summarizing a few uncontrolled events will tell us anything about whether torture is really effective. Yet, we have our former vice president staking his reputation on something he has only the flimsiest knowledge of.

Let this be a matter of scientific inquiry, not political. Otherwise, we will never know the answer.