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Authors: Mark M. Lowenthal

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TENSIONS. The relationship between policy makers and the intelligence community should be symbiotic: Policy makers should rely on the intelligence community for advice, which is a major rationale for the existence of the intelligence community. For the community to produce good advice, policy makers should keep intelligence officers informed about the major directions of policy and their specific areas of interest and priority. That said, the relationship is not one of equals. Policy and policy makers can exist and function without the intelligence community, but the opposite is not true.
The line that divides policy and intelligence—and the fact that policy makers can cross it but intelligence officers cannot—also affects the relationship. Policy makers tend to be vigilant in seeing that intelligence does not come too close to the line. However, they may ask intelligence officers for advice in choosing among policy options—or for some action—that would take intelligence over the line. If intelligence officers decline, as they should to preserve their objectivity regardless of the outcome, policy makers may become resentful. The line also can blur at the highest levels of the intelligence community, and the DNI may be asked for advice that is, in reality, policy.
In the United States, partisan politics has also become a factor in the policy-intelligence relationship. Although differences in emphasis developed from one administration to another (such as the greater emphasis on political covert action in the Eisenhower and especially the Kennedy administrations), general continuity exists in intelligence policy. Moreover, until 1976, intelligence was not seen as part of the spoils of an election victory. DCIs were not automatically replaced with each new administration, as were the heads of virtually all other agencies and departments. President Nixon (1969-1974) tried to use the CIA for political ends in an attempt to curtail the Watergate investigations. But it was the Carter administration (1977-1981) that ended the political separateness of the intelligence community. Jimmy Carter, in his 1976 campaign, lumped together Vietnam, Watergate, and the recent investigations of U.S. intelligence. When Carter won the presidency, DCI George Bush (1976-1977) offered to stay on and eschew all partisan politics, saying that the CIA needed some continuity after the investigations and four DCIs in as many years. President-elect Carter said he wanted a DCI of his own choosing. This was the first time a serving DCI had been asked to step down by a new administration and a change of partisan control. Similarly. Ronald Reagan made “strengthening the CIA” part of his 1980 campaign and replaced DCI Stansfield Turner (1977-1981) with William J. Casey (1981-1987). In a presidential transition within the same party, President George Bush kept on DCI William H. Webster (1987-1991) for most of his term, but Bill Clinton replaced DCI Robert M. Gates (1991-1993) with James Woolsey. Thus, a partisan change in the White House came to mean a change in DCIs as well. However, in 2001, President George W. Bush retained DCI George Tenet, who had been appointed by Clinton, despite some advice from within Bush’s own party to remove him. Tenet thus became the first DCI since Helms to survive a party change in the presidency. Many observers have wondered if President George W. Bush’s decision to retain Tenet was influenced by what happened to his father under President Carter. The 2001 retention of Tenet notwithstanding, it is not clear that a new practice has been established.
The argument made in favor of changing DCIs (now DNIs) when a new administration takes office is that presidents must have an intelligence community leader with whom they are comfortable. But back in the days of a nonpartisan DCI, many people in Washington, D.C., emphasized the professional nature of the DCI (even DCIs who were not career intelligence officers) and had the sense that intelligence is in some way different from the rest of the structure that each president inherits and fills with political appointees. An objective intelligence community was not to be part of the partisan spoils of elections. The shift since 1977 has affected the policy-intelligence relationship by tagging DCIs—and now, presumably, DNIs—with a partisan coloration. The shift has also meant a movement away from professional intelligence officers serving as DCls. Although professionals were not the only people tapped in the past, their selection may be less likely in the future. The new intelligence legislation requires that the DNI “shall have extensive national security expertise.” No further definition is provided, and the wording is purposely vague enough to allow a range of possible nominees.
Finally, external intrusions, particularly that of the electronic news media, can have an effect on the relationship. Contrary to popular belief, television news does not foster major changes in policy. It does serve as a means of communication for states and their leaders, and it competes with the intelligence community as an alternative source of information. The media do occasionally scoop the intelligence community. This is not because they know things that the intelligence community does not. Instead, the electronic media—especially the twenty-four-hour news networks—put a premium on speed and have the capacity and willingness to provide updates and corrections as necessary. The intelligence community does not have the same luxury and tends to take more time in preparing its initial report. Being scooped by the media can lead policy makers to believe, mistakenly, that the media offer much the same coverage as the intelligence community—and at greater speed and less cost.
Although a number of issues are likely to create tension between policy makers and the intelligence community, conflict is not the mainstay of the policy-intelligence relationship. Close and trusting working relationships prevail between policy makers and intelligence officers at all levels. But a good working relationship is not a given, and it cannot be fully appreciated without understanding all of the potential sources of friction.
FURTHER READINGS
 
Despite its centrality to the intelligence process, the policy maker-intelligence relationship has not received as much attention as other parts of the process.
 
Betts, Richard K. “Policy Makers and Intelligence Analysts: Love, Hate. or Indifference?”
lnlelligence and National Security
3 (January 1988): 184-189.
Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence.
Intelligenre and Policy: The Evolving Relationship.
Washington, D.C.:CIA. June 2004.
David, Jack.
Analytic Professionalism and the Policymaking Process: Q&A on a (hallenging Relationship.
Vol. 2, no. 4. Washington, D.C.: CIA. Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis, October 2003.
Heymann, Hans. “Intelligence/Policy Relationships.” In
Intelligence: Policy and Process.
Ed. Alfred C. Maurer and others. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985.
Hughes, Thomas L.
The Fate of Facts
in
a Wnrld of Men: Foreign Policy
and
Intelligence Making.
New York: l’oreign Policy Association, 1976.
Hulnick, Arthur S. “The Intelligence Producer-Policy Consumer Linkage: A Theoretical Approach.”
Intelligence and National Security
1 (May 1986):212-233.
Kovacs, Amos. “Using Intelligence.”
Intelligence and National Security
12 (October 1997): 145-164. Lowenthal, Mark M. “Tribal Tongues: Intelligence Consumers and Intelligence Producers.”
Washington Quarterly
15 (winter 1992): 157-168.
Poteat, Eugene. “The Use and Abuse of Intelligence: An Intelligence Provider’s Perspective.”
Diplomacy and Statecraft
11 (2000): 1-16.
Steiner. James E.
Challenging the Red Line between Intelliienre and Policy.
Washington. D.C.: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, 2004.
Thomas, Stafford T. “Intelligence Production and Consumption: A Framework of Analysis.” In
Intelligence: Policy and Process.
Ed. Alfred C. Maurer and others. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985.
U.S. Department of Defense. Deputy Inspector General for Intelligence.
Review of the Pre- War Iraqi Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
Report No. 07-INTEL-04. Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, February 9, 2007.
CHAPTER 10
 
OVERSIGHT AND ACC0UNTABILITY
 
S
ED QUIS CUSTODIET IPSO CUSTODES?
CUSTOTED? (“But who will guard the guards?”), the Roman poet and satirist Juvenal asked. The oversight of intelligence has always been a problem. The ability to control information is an important power in any state, whether democratic or despotic. Information that is unavailable by any other means and whose dissemination is often restricted is the mainstay of intelligence. By controlling information; by having expertise in surveillance, eavesdropping, and other operations; and by operating behind a cloak of secrecy, an intelligence apparatus has the potential to threaten heads of government. Thus, government leaders’ ability to oversee intelligence effectively is vital.
In democracies, oversight tends to be a responsibility shared by the executive and legislative powers. The oversight issues are generic: budget, responsiveness to policy needs, the quality of analysis, control of operations, propriety of activities. The United States is unique in giving extensive oversight responsibilities and powers to the legislative branch. The parliaments of other nations have committees devoted to intelligence oversight, but none has the same broad oversight powers as Congress.
(See box, “A Linguistic Aside: The Two Meanings
of
Oversight. ”)
EXECUTIVE OVERSIGHT ISSUES
 
The core oversight issue is whether the intelligence community is properly carrying out its functions, that is, whether the community is asking the right questions, responding to policy makers’ needs, being rigorous in its analysis, and having on hand the right operational capabilities (collection and covert action). Policy makers cannot trust the intelligence community alone to answer for itself. At the same time, senior policy officials (the national security adviser, the secretaries of state and defense, the president) cannot maintain a constant vigil over the intelligence community. Outside of the intelligence community, the National Security Council (NSC) Office of Intelligence Programs is the highest level organization within the executive branch that provides day-to-day oversight and policy direction of intelligence. Of course, as was discussed in the previous chapter, policy makers may have strong views about the quality of intelligence based on their own policy preferences, so they may not always be objective, either.
Although the 2004 intelligence reform law created a Joint Intelligence Community Council (JICC) to improve oversight, DNI Mike McConnell evidently found that the JICC did not meet his needs. He created the Executive Committee (EXCOM). The EXCOM is, like the JICC, a mixed policy/intelligence body, comprising both the heads of intelligence components and senior policy officials, usually at the undersecretary level. This slightly lower representation by policy departments is probably an advantage, because undersecretaries have (slightly) more time to devote to these issues and will undoubtedly have greater working familiarity, in most cases, with intelligence. A major feature of the EXCOM is the fact that the undersecretary of defense for intelligence (USDI) sits on the EXCOM in that capacity and as director of Defense Intelligence, making clear his or her position over the heads of the defense intelligence agencies [Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), National Reconnaissance Program (NRO)] but acting as part of the office of the DNI. This is a significant step in allowing better coordination between the DNI and the Department of Defense (DOD), which is both the largest aggregation of intelligence agencies and the largest consumer of intelligence. But this relationship has not been institutionalized and may be based on the individuals who created it.
A LINGUISTIC ASIDE: THE TWO MEANINGS OF OVERSIGHT
 
Oversight has two definitions that are distinct, if not opposites.
• Supervision; watchful care (as in “We have oversight of that activity.”)
• Failure to notice or consider (as in “We missed that. It was an oversight. ”)
 
In overseeing intelligence, Congress and the executive try to carry out the first definition and to avoid the second.
 
Since the 1953-1961 administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower (with two brief lapses), presidents have relied on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) to carry out higher level and more objective oversight than the NSC Office of Intelligence Programs does. PFIAB members are appointed by the president and usually include former senior intelligence and policy officials and individuals with relevant commercial backgrounds. (In the 1990s some people were appointed to PFIAB largely as political favors.) PFIAB can respond to problems (such as the investigation of alleged Chinese spying at Los Alamos National Laboratory) or can initiate activities (such as the Team A-Team B competitive analysis on Soviet strategic capabilities and intentions).
The PFIAB’s relationship to policy makers can be subject to the same strains that are seen in the relationship between policy makers and intelligence agencies. From 2001 to 2005, PFIAB was chaired by Brent Scowcroft, who had served as national security adviser under Presidents Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977) and George H. W. Bush (1989-1993). Scowcroft spoke out against the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, which surprised some people given his previous close working relationship with George H. W. Bush. In 2005, President George W. Bush replaced Scowcroft, apparently displeased over his remarks. This was the first time that the chairman of PFIAB was replaced because of a policy disagreement with the White House.
BOOK: Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy
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