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Abstract
The study of intelligence has focused almost exclusively on ‘secret’ intelligence in its analysis of intelligence failures and the relationship of policy and intelligence. This is not surprising since intelligence analysis takes place in secret. Yet sometimes intelligence becomes public. It does so in ways that hold implications for the quality of the overall intelligence product. In order to develop a complete understanding of the relationship between intelligence and policy we need to more systematically examine the nature of public intelligence. This article provides a framework for doing so, presents historical examples from the American experience and applies the framework to the intelligence used in justifying the Iraq War.
Notes
1 ‘Kay: “we were almost all wrong”’, Washingtonpost.com, 28 January 2004, 12:50 pm.
2 See Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 2nd edn. (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2003), pp.108–10; Shlomo Gazit, ‘Intelligence Estimates and the Decision Maker’, Intelligence and National Security, 3 (1988), pp.261–7; and Alfred Maurer et al. (eds.), Intelligence: Policy and Process (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985).
3 Christopher Andrew, For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to [H.W.] Bush (New York: Harper Collins 1995), p.249.
4 Ibid., p.357.
5 Ibid., p.424.
6 Ibid., p.432.
7 Ibid., p.471.
8 Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Owl Books 2000), p.134.
9 Andrew, For the President's Eyes Only (Footnotenote 3), p.445.
10 John Prados, The Soviet Estimate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1986), p.59.
11 Andrew, For the President's Eyes Only (Footnotenote 3), pp.295–8.
12 Ibid., pp.357–8.
13 Prados, The Soviet Estimate (Footnotenote 10), p.193.
14 Ibid., p.195.
15 Sounding the Drums of War, The Washington Post, 10 August 2003, p.A9.
16 Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus, ‘Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence’, The Washington Post, 10 August 2003, p.A1.
17 Ibid.
18 Sounding the Drums of War, The Washington Post, 10 August 2003, p.A9.
19 Dana Priest and Walter Pincus, ‘Bush Certainty on Iraq Arms Went Beyond Analysts’ Views’, The Washington Post, 7 June 2003, p.A1.
20 Gellman and Pincus, ‘Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence’ (Footnotenote 16).
21 Joby Warrick, ‘Evidence on Iraq Challenged’, The Washington Post, 19 September 2003, p.A18.
22 Joby Warrick, ‘Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake’, The Washington Post, 3 March 2003, p.A1.
23 Glenn Frankel, ‘Blair: Iraq Can Deploy Quickly’, The Washington Post, 25 September 2002, p.A1.
24 Glenn Frankel, ‘Blair Aides Shaped Iraq Dossier’, The Washington Post, 23 August 2003, p.A14.
25 ‘British Court Hears Arms Expert on Tape’, The Washington Post, 14 August 2003, p.A12.
26 Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs, October 2002. www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq.
27 Dana Millbank, ‘For Bush, Facts Are Malleable’, The Washington Post, 22 October 2002.
28 Walter Pincus and Dana Priest, ‘U.S. Had Uranium Papers Earlier’, The Washington Post, 18 July 2003, p.A1.
29 Walter Pincus and Mike Allen, ‘CIA Got Uranium Mention Cut in Oct’, The Washington Post, 13 July 2003, p.A1; Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, ‘Bush Aides Disclose Warning From CIA’, The Washington Post, 23 July 2003, p.A1; and Walter Pincus, ‘Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation’, The Washington Post, 8 August 2003, p.A10.
30 Pincus and Priest, ‘U.S. Had Uranium Papers Earlier’ (Footnotenote 28).
31 Mike Allen, “Bush: ‘We Found Banned Weapons’, The Washington Post, 31 May 2003, p.A1.
32 Dana Milbank, ‘Bush Remarks Confirm Shift in Justification for War’, The Washington Post, 1 June 2003, p.A18.
33 Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, ‘U.S. Hedges on Finding Iraqi Weapons’, The Washington Post, 29 May 2003, p.A1.
34 Milbank, ‘Bush Remarks Confirm Shift in Justification for War’ (Footnotenote 32).
35 Gellman and Pincus, ‘Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence’ (Footnotenote 16).
36 ‘Transcript: CIA Director Defends Iraq Intelligence’, Washingtonpost.com, 5 February 2004.
37 DeYoung and Pincus, ‘U.S. Hedges on Finding Iraqi Weapons’ (Footnotenote 33).
38 Walter Pincus and Dana Priest, ‘Lawmakers Begin Iraq Intelligence Hearings’, The Washington Post, 19 June 2003, p.A16.
39 A transcript of his comments is available at Washingtonpost.com: ‘Tenet: Analysts Never Claimed Imminent Threat Before War’.
40 Glenn Kessler, ‘Powell Says New Data May Have Affected War Decision’, The Washington Post, 3 February 2004, p.A1.
41 Walter Pincus, ‘Bush Faced Dwindling Data on Iraq Nuclear Bid’, The Washington Post, 16 July 2003, p.A1.
42 Dana Priest, ‘House Probers Conclude Iraq War Data Was Weak’, The Washington Post, 28 September 2003, p.A1; and Walter Pincus, ‘Intelligence Weaknesses Are Cited’, The Washington Post, 29 November 3002, p.A18.
43 See, for example, Loch Johnson, ‘Preface to a Theory of Strategic Intelligence’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 16 (2003), pp.638–63; and David Kahn, ‘An Historical Theory of Intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security, 16 (2001), pp.79–92.