America’s Eroding Antiterror Intelligence: Henry Crumpton
http://www.wsj.com/articles/henry-a-crumpton-americas-eroding-antiterror-intelligence-1424391624
Thanks to Snowden and other self-imposed harm, we know less about the enemy than at any time since 9/11.
It is alarming enough to see the rapid advance, almost unhindered, of radical Islamist armed groups and terror across the globe, but the paralysis in Washington—exemplified by the Department of Homeland Security budget deadlock—compounds the crisis. Moreover, such political failure masks another unsettling problem. As al Qaeda and Islamic State gain strength, U.S. intelligence is relatively weaker and more challenged than at any time since the 9/11 attacks. Most of this weakness is of our own making.
The intelligence challenges couldn’t be clearer. Every day seems to bring news of more horror from the Middle East, Nigeria and the heart of Europe. Yet the terrorists appear to operate with near impunity, exploiting the world’s information connectivity for their social-media campaigns. Their sophisticated propaganda helps inspire and recruit. According to the National Counterterrorism Center, enemy combatants in Syria and Iraq include 20,000 foreigners from 90 countries. More than 3,400 of these recruits are Western passport holders who may return to the West, including the U.S., to continue their war.
The most troubling aspect of this threat is that U.S. intelligence probably knows less about the enemy’s plans and intentions than at any point since 9/11. The al Qaeda that launched 9/11 was centrally controlled—operating mostly from one major haven in Afghanistan—and communicated sporadically through a few channels.
Today there are more than 800,000 individuals on the U.S. terror watch list. The enemy has metastasized and decentralized, operating from havens much closer to Europe, and it uses thousands of communications channels for disguised and sometimes encrypted messages.
The leaders are more experienced, more strategic and more ruthless. For example, enemy commanders are moving to fill political vacuums in the weak nation-states of Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Mali, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Egypt’s Sinai. Witness how ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi usurped local power from the brutal and corrupt Syrian and Iraqi regimes.
Further inhibiting U.S. intelligence: The global network of allies so necessary for the U.S. to penetrate, analyze and destroy terrorist networks has eroded. In Libya and Yemen, both racked by civil war, the U.S. has abandoned its embassies. While some stalwart allies remain, many have lost faith in U.S. leadership. The perception of U.S. weakness and lack of strategic direction dissuades allies from policy and intelligence cooperation.
The traitor Edward Snowden and his accomplices exposed National Security Agency operations, providing the enemy with a huge advantage in deceiving and denying U.S. signals-intelligence collection. These publicized top-secret operations, some ill-considered, undercut the trust of both foreign allies and U.S. private-sector partners.
Telecommunications, software, hardware and social-media firms have reduced their cooperation with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement—while boosting encryption against the U.S. government. Last September, FBI Director James Comey publicly criticized Apple and Google for their lack of support, warning: “There will come a day when it will matter a great deal to the lives of people . . . that we will be able to gain access.” Even before 9/11, a large percentage of actionable counterterrorism leads came from signals intelligence. This collection is now more difficult than ever.
The ideological dissonance and partisan gridlock in Washington have also hindered U.S. intelligence, impeding strategies necessary to keep pace with the enemy. Achieving tactical-intelligence perfection is difficult, but it is nearly impossible in the context of strategic-policy failure that has allowed the enemy to pick the battles, set the tempo and garner more support. Yet when there is another terrorist attack, policy makers will howl “intelligence failure.”
A graver problem has been the unseemly abuse of the Central Intelligence Agency to score political points. The most glaring example of this is the report issued in December by Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her Democratic colleagues, the Senate Intelligence Committee Study on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program. This dishonest and cynical political gambit provided the enemy with a propaganda bonanza, further undermining U.S. foreign alliances and attempting to tarnish the CIA in the eyes of the American public. The report was an absurd rewriting of the history of an effective U.S. enemy interrogation program that produced reams of valuable raw intelligence. Nowadays, instead of capturing and questioning terrorists, we send a drone to kill them.
In this type of war, the value of intelligence will continue to grow, and not merely to find or kill targets. Intelligence provides a map of the human terrain, helps illuminate and develop alliances, and informs decisions about enduring political solutions.
We can correct the current trends that impair U.S. intelligence. For instance, instead of pitting intelligence professionals against the citizens they serve, leaders in the White House and Congress must become responsible intelligence customers. Defining the missions, setting policies and posing relevant questions are the way to start and direct any intelligence process.
Leaders in Washington must empower and support intelligence professionals, especially in the field, where battles are won and lost. The country needs dynamic and deep intelligence, focused on the enemy in his havens, and directed by field operatives who can trust their political masters. That means intelligence agencies that are less Washington-centric, and fewer Washington-directed operations.
America’s political leaders must educate themselves about the value and limits of intelligence, work with civic and business leaders to promote a greater understanding of intelligence, and build trusted networks at home and abroad to advance the nation’s mission and defeat its enemies. American citizens, and the intelligence professionals who defend them, deserve much better.
Mr. Crumpton, who led the CIA’s Afghanistan campaign from 2001-02, retired from government in 2007. He is the author of “The Art of Intelligence” (Penguin Books, 2013).
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