ARTICLE

October 2004

Pentagon Balking at Intel Reform Recommendations

by Joe Pappalardo

Pentagon officials are publicly questioning some of the recommendations made by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Among their concerns are the blurring lines between civilian and military intelligence, a shifting of responsibility for paramilitary operations from the Central Intelligence Agency to the Special Operations Command and the specter of slowing the flow of crucial data to front-line commanders.

Pentagon officials and many members of Congress support the commission’s proposals, including the creation of the National Intelligence Director (NID) position and a new counterterrorism center to replace the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, but other suggestions are being met with skepticism.

“If we allow a rush to judgment to be dictated by the need to simply get this done during an election cycle, then I think we’re going to make ourselves more vulnerable and cause the nation more harm,” said Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC).

Hunter and other critics are following the lead of senior Pentagon officials, who simultaneously say they welcome some reforms, such as joint intelligence sharing between agencies, but balk at much of the departmental restructuring.

Stephen A. Cambone, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for intelligence, suggested, “We need to back up a little bit and reconsider” the proposed changes because the intelligence demands of military and the civilian leadership are different.

The NID would oversee the entire U.S. intelligence community, including agencies currently under Pentagon control, such as the National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency.

Commission members are recommending the defense undersecretary for intelligence become a key deputy to the NID, charged with balancing the “the needs of the war fighter and the national policy-maker,” according to a joint statement given to the HASC by commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton.

The lines between intelligence and operations are being more than blurred, they are being consolidated, Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, former commander of the 4th Infantry Division which fought in Iraq, noted to lawmakers. “Today, strategic and tactical intelligence [are] interwoven. They are no longer separate like they used to be,” he said.

Some experts do not agree. “I see some pretty important differences, in terms of the nature and timeliness of the information,” said Michele Flournoy, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Tactical information has a much more refined and detailed level of specificity … At the strategic level, you have to show there’s a nuclear facility at Point X. On the tactical level, you’d want to know, how do I get into it?”

Anything that delays the relay of important information would be devastating to commanders. Commanders on the front lines need to know “what’s on the other side of the hill” very quickly, and preferably from analysts who are judging the importance of data from the perspective of the combat zone, not Washington, D.C., Odierno said.

“One thing we learned in Iraq was that we need information immediately … Targets are fleeting,” he said. “The value of [real-time intelligence] cannot be overestimated.”

However, Hamilton, speaking at a congressional hearing, noted “You cannot always assume that tactical intelligence takes priority.”

The commission wants to integrate joint intelligence and operations planning in a National Counterterrorism Center, an institution the Bush administration has signaled it will create.

CSIS’ Flournoy said that the commission’s proposal to merge both kinds of operations under one roof made sense, if the differences in intelligence needs are taken into account. “There is value in knowing what each other is doing and thinking … I think there’s some in the military who are worried this will tempt [civilians] into micromanaging. I think that can be handled, and depends on leadership.”

The key, Flournoy said, is keeping “two teams working on two sides of the same coin” in the same way J-2s and J-3s work independently, but share information and goals, on the staff of the Joint Chiefs.

Another major recommended change that is meeting resistance at the Pentagon is an elevated role for the Special Operations Command in paramilitary operations.

The commission concluded that SOCOM is better qualified than the CIA to direct these combat operations, given the tactics and heavy weaponry often employed. The report also described directors of the CIA as being overwhelmed by the myriad responsibilities of their position, and unable to fulfill all the necessary functions.

But Army Gen. Bryan D. Brown, head of SOCOM, signaled he was not so sure. He told HASC members that the high-level planning involvement of “other government agencies” in operations was vital to the war fighter. “I just think we need more study on it,” he said diplomatically, following the lead of other skeptical senior Pentagon officials.

The fear, Brown said, was that the restructuring might sever the ties and workarounds that operators have hashed out with their CIA counterparts during current overseas missions. Important information in the hands of the CIA might not make it to operators’ planning tables, and vital intelligence updates would have to go a longer way to reach the front lines.

“I would not want any impediments,” he said. “I want to make sure every piece of intelligence that’s available is instantly available to my guy on the ground wherever he is, or my guy in the air or out in a boat.”

SOCOM is undergoing a transformation already, a response to being put on the front lines of the war against global terrorism.

Thomas O’Connell, assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said in congressional testimony earlier this year that SOCOM will use the $2 billion increase of the $6.5 billion allocated to it in President Bush’s fiscal 2005 budget request to modernize its equipment and training.

Special operations forces originally were conceived for “supporting or leveraging” conventional forces, or for use in limited strategic missions, he said. Fighting scattered cells nested across the globe has given SOCOM a “prominent, front-line, essential role,” he added.

SOCOM has set several new priorities aimed at transforming its capabilities, including critical “low-density high-demand” aviation assets. Training operators in the culture, language and politics of a potential combat environment is essential, O’Connell said.

It’s not all foot-dragging within the Pentagon, however. A commission idea to bring the intelligence sources from disparate military and civilian intelligence organizations into one central collection point is being better received.

“Increased jointness in intelligence is very attractive for the Department of Defense,” Cambone said, adding that the structure should allow for surging and reprioritizing intelligence assets to meet changing situations.

An interactive and security-sensitive database maintained by the NID would inspire unfettered information exchanges, said Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. “Resistance to sharing would be swept away,” he said.

Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the ranking Democrat on the committee, noted that military commanders resisted the same jointness of military operations extolled by the Pentagon today when it was introduced by the Goldwater-Nichols legislation of 1986. “At the end of the day, the military saluted and made it happen,” Skelton said.

He also noted that the military was a major player in the intelligence game, and hinted that reforms that didn’t involve them would be lacking depth. “Remember that the Defense Department is the greatest consumer and producer of intelligence,” he said. “The time for change is now.”

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