Memo to the Department of Homeland Security -- is anybody home?

By Aussiegirl

Herb Meyer, writing in today'sAmerican Thinker, makes some much needed suggestions to the Department of Homeland Security on how to best optimize and maximize intelligence gathering. As a former CIA man in the Reagan administration who worked side by side with the legendary Bill Casey and who was the only analyst to correctly predict the downfall of the Soviet Union, Herb is uniquely qualified to offer constructive suggestions. In this clear and fascinating account he lays out a stunningly simple, yet profound approach to ensure the success of intelligence gathering in the ongoing war on terror. What is shocking -- and disturbing -- is that the administration obviously has a closed-door policy regarding these intelligence experts who could offer such invaluable advice. It is unfathomable what motivations could be behind such a deliberate shutting out of valuable insight and advice. If the President is not aware of this, he needs to be. And if he is aware of this glaring and disturbing policy, then we are in more trouble than even I thought. Such a deliberate shutting out of information is an out and out dereliction of duty in wartime, and a betrayal of the American people in the service of what -- some insider vs. outsider jealousy? A hear-no-evil-see-no-evil mentality? Because true security is not what the administration is truly interested in? What exactly is going on? The American people deserve an answer from their president, the president they recently reelected. The one who supposedly answers to them, and not to special interests and secret agendas and keeping his administration closed to all opinions that do not comport with the inside view. This is a very dangerous way to win a war or lead a nation. If the president is aware of this policy then he is derelict in his duty as Commander in Chief charged with protecting the homeland in time of war.

An Open Memo to the Homeland Security Secretary
August 2nd, 2005


A few weeks ago, when you announced your long-awaited reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security – including creation of a new Intelligence Division – the general reaction was a great big yawn. But the deadly terrorist attack in London on July 7, followed by that second (and mercifully failed) attack on July 21, have jolted Americans awake to the very real possibility of similar or even more deadly bombings here in the US. Now they understand why a new Homeland Intelligence Division is precisely what we need.

This memo is designed to help get the intelligence division going by outlining how to develop and “turn on” a Homeland Threat Profile that you and your key officials can use, both to monitor threats and to decide how best to allocate the Department’s people and money.


Why Intelligence Fails

There are two parts to every intelligence service: collection and analysis. But when an intelligence service fails, it’s because one of three things went wrong. First, the collectors fail to collect what’s needed, in which case the analysts have nothing to work with. This, of course, is a collection failure. Second, the collectors do their jobs well, but the information they collect fails to reach the analysts. This would be a management failure. Third, the collectors do their jobs well and their information does indeed reach the analysts – who are unable to connect the dots and spot the pattern they form. This would be an analytic failure. Of course, there are variations of all this, and sometimes even combinations. But all intelligence failures fall into one of these three categories. (It’s unfortunate that the 9-11 Commission never got to the core of it, and was content to conclude that our intelligence service suffered a “systemic failure” without ever figuring out precisely which kind of failure took place.)

Most managers, when faced with the prospect of starting up an intelligence service, believe that the first step is to get the collectors collecting. In fact, this guarantees eventual failure because the collectors don’t know what to collect. Without specific guidance, they will guess at what’s wanted, or use their own judgment – sometimes very good, sometimes not – or just collect more of whatever it is they already are collecting and thus know how to collect.

In fact, it’s the analysts who must take the first step. More precisely, the analysts must answer the question: What do we want to know about? In other words, they must tell the collectors what to collect. The document through which this is done is called an Intelligence Profile. Every organization has its unique Intelligence Profile – its unique outline of what its leaders need to know to accomplish their objectives -- and the more specific is this Profile, the more likely are the collectors to understand precisely what’s wanted from them and thus to get it.