How to Get Good Intelligence
December 5th, 2007Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
In The Honest Broker I have a chapter that evaluates the role of intelligence in the decision to go to war in Iraq. I argue that intelligence was used by the Bush Administration as a tool of political advocacy rather than policy insight. With the release earlier this week of a new intelligence estimate on Iran, it may be that the intelligence community is regaining some of its credibility. The New York Times today explains some changes that have taken place:
Over the past year, officials have put into place rigorous new procedures for analyzing conclusions about difficult intelligence targets like Iran, North Korea, global terrorism and China.
Analysts from disparate spy agencies are no longer pushed to achieve unanimity in their conclusions, a process criticized in the past for leading to “groupthink.” Alternate judgments are now encouraged.
In the case of the 2007 Iran report, “red teams” were established to test and find weaknesses in the report’s conclusions. Counterintelligence officials at the C.I.A. also did an extensive analysis to determine whether the new information might have been planted by Tehran to throw the United States off the trail of Iran’s nuclear program.
One result was an intelligence report that some of the intelligence community’s consistent critics have embraced.
“Just possibly, the intelligence community may have taken a major step forward,” Senator Rockefeller said.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:32 am
“With the release earlier this week of a new intelligence estimate on Iran, it may be that the intelligence community is regaining some of its credibility.”
Maybe. Maybe not. One problem is that the process, by its very nature, does not have the transparency of “intelligence-synthesizing” processes such as the IPCC.
To me, the heart of the problem is the challenge of maintaining a distinction, and a distance, between intelligence provision and political advocacy. In democracies intel providers (climate scientists or CIA analysts) must subordinate advocacy of their own political agendas to the discipline of being “Honest Brokers.” This means recognizing that the intelligence they provide may be ignored, and/or that actions they disapprove of may be taken despite (or perhaps because of) the intel they have given.
So, for example, one could imagine a scenario in which the US decides to attack* Iran’s missile installations to make sure that even if Tehran were to develop a nuclear weapon it would have limited means of delivery.
*NOTE: I AM NOT ADVOCATING THIS AS A COURSE OF ACTION, SIMPLY NOTING IT IS A POLICY OPTION. OK?*
This type of action would be one which would not deny the veracity or validity of the NIE, but would be one outcome of a policy which might see Iran’s missile capabilities as intolerable with or without nuclear warheads.
Similarly, the policy response to the vast body of intelligence represented by the IPCC reports could be simply to do nothing to reduce GHG emissions. To adapt to and live with whatever climate impacts result from the GHG buildup. This would be a perfectly valid (though I personally believe misguided) political response.
I count as friends and close colleagues many of the scientists who signed the Bali Declaration. But with all due respect to them, I would not sign such a statement in my capacity as a climate scientist. Let me emphasize – *in my capacity as a climate scientist.*
As a citizen, I agree with the Bali Declaration that we need to reduce our GHG emissions. (The thresholds of 450 ppmV and 2°C strike me as rather arbitrary, but that’s a quibble).