Intelligence and the Art of Preventing Terrorism Much ado about the recent reports of prior knowledge of the then pending terrorist action last September is making its way through the halls and malls of commentary lately. Much of it is overblown, grossly so. Intelligence work is hard, unremitting, detail oriented work. Lawyers on a tough case have it easy. Consider this -- you have limited knowledge of your enemy, limited knowledge of his knowledge, limited knowledge of his intentions -- and that's when you have a defined enemy such as a Nation-State. You have even less when you're dealing with a terrorist (dis)organization. Three factors affect your ability to understand this knowledge -- (Note: These are not standard terms, overall. I've been working on a theory if intelligence management for a while, and this is a distillation) 1. Dimension 2. Compartmentalization 3. Context 1. Dimension The dimension of a snippet of information is its size and accuracy. Information from know reliable sources, such as a trusted spy (read "Operation Solo", the story of Morris Childs, the epitome of a trusted spy) can be granted better status that that from possibly duplicitous electronic intelligence, or that from a spy of questionable reliability. Documents that have been spirited out of teh HQ of teh enemy would also be granted greater dimension, if they came from a more reliable source. The size of the information will also affect its diemnsion -- the entire plans for the invasion of Murkwater, Tennessee by the Hobbesian Army of the Potomac Valley would be of greater dimension than a snippet from a cell phone conversation reading "I have the plans. Proceed?" "Yes, proceed." The dimension of a piece of information also include corroboration, which increases the reliability of the data. For instance, take Chernobyl. Before the Soviets admitted the tragic accident had occurred, we knew a whole lot of what had happenned. Sattelites had pinned down the location, by virtue of the heat signature of the explosion. We had ELINT intercepts from various Soviet arms telling of the accident, panicking over the accident, trying to fix the problem, and trying to mask it from the free world. Soviets mouths were doing an Officer Bar Brady and telling us "Move along, nothing to see here" while our eyes and ears were telling us that something big had happened, and we had corroborating data to provide the dimension of the information. 2. Compartmentalization Compartmentalization is the seprartion of information gathering into separate cells for analysis. In a broader sense, intelligence information for the US is compartmentalized into foreign and domestic compartments through the CIA and the FBI, respectively. Inside each organization, the data is further compartmentalized into reagional, state, or individual country informationa s needed. Within a compartment, information is shared fairly freely. The MidEast section in teh CIA shares information about Isreal, Iran, Iraq, Syria, etc. etc., because these countries interrelate with greater hostility, and the organizations we need to track cross the borders of these countries with relative impunity. This makes sense, for the most part. The information for a region usually relates to actions within those regions, so restricting data to the folks dealing with those regions keeps the data safer, the sources more secure, and provides a more coherent picture of the region for the administration in power. Compartmentalization, however, presents some problems. The information the FBI gathers may not cross the barrier to the CIA, or may get misrouted to the wrong compartment. It may fall through the cracks, or its dimension may be misunderstood or misapplied because the knowledge to rate the source doesn't exist in the compartment it comes from, or the compartment it migrates to. Critical information gets lost this way. For example, take Aldrich Ames. Portions of the CIA knew that the Soviets had a spy in the organization. They knew that this spy had cost them sources. But they never got the information to Counter-Intelligence, because they valued the source of their information more than the information, and they didn't understand the breadth of the breach. CounterIntel knew they were losing spies they had turned, but didn't know how or why. The pieces of information didn't mate up, so the spy remained undiagnosed for a long, long time. Information about September 11 came from several sources, and while it was somewhat assimilated, it was not spread throughout the intel community. This makes it difficult to reliably asses the whole picture. Conceivably, the top dogs/Compartment heads are supposed to get together and solve this, but it doesn't always work -- especially consiodering that half the data was in the FBI, half in the CIA, and according to law, rarely the twain shall meet. Context Context is the final factor in intelligence. This is, simply put, what the information you have in hand means. Sometimes, you can dupe the enemy into providing you with context, such as the US did against Japan to set up the Battle of Midway surprise by tricking the Japanese into transmitting false information about Midway that the US had planted as a set up. Seeing teh false information echoed by teh Japanese provided context for other information referring to the same codename, illustrating that the Japanese were planning an attack against Midway Island. Absent that context, the major defeat that teh Japanese Navy suffered at Midway would not have happened. They might have been dinged, they might have been damaged, but since there were potentially multiple targets, defense of all of them would not have been possible. The precursors to 9-11 were of a similar vein. We knew that something was afoot. We knew that Al Quaeda was involved. We had suspicions about the Saudis taking flight school in the US. But we didn't have the links to tie them together into a particular plot. We don't have the resources to defend every single entity that could be attacked, so we try to focus out resources defending what is most likely to be attacked, unless we have information, in context, that tells us with reasonable accuracy, what will be attacked, and when that attack will take place. This is intelligence, and how it works. It is an art, not a science. It is hard, and while successes do occur, they never make the headlines. It's the failures that make the news.

Democracy on my mind... There is an old political axiom that Democracies don't start wars. There is a great degree of truth to this -- if you review wars of the last four or five thousand years, it is invariably a totalitarian state (King, Dictator, El Presidente, etc.) that starts the war, or that provides the tensions that start the war. Even if the Democracy involved is the first to march to war, the impetus comes from the actions of the totalitarian state, either through state sponsorship of warlike actions, or through indirect intrusion. Why is that? It comes around to what a Democracy provides -- a modicum of internal control. Since the citizens of a democracy have to focus on their own government, they tend to have governments that focus on them. A leader who is unelected can act with little regard for the citizens, since they have no power over him. An elected leader damn well better listen to the people, or next election cycle, he's gone. This makes the people of a democracy more inward-looking. They worry about their own welfare. They would never condone an unjust war, so the leaders don't make war until absolutely necessary.