Directorate of Intelligence (DI) facing crisis

John A. Kringen, the CIA’s director of intelligence, had an interesting piece Monday in the Washington Post on the steps being taken within the intelligence community to minimize “group think” and find new ways of monitoring and assessing long-term strategic threats.

"Nearly one year ago, President Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction released its report identifying shortcomings in the intelligence community. Many of the commission's judgments dealt with analysis, the discipline I lead at the CIA. The primary criticism was that our analysts were "too wedded to their assumptions" and that our tradecraft -- the way we analyze a subject and communicate our findings -- needed strengthening."

"When Porter Goss (CIA Director) selected me as director of intelligence, he expressed his concern that for too long we had concentrated on satisfying the daily demand for current intelligence assessments to the detriment of preparing for the strategic threats and opportunities of tomorrow. What are the implications of rapid advances in technology for U.S. national security? What are the challenges and opportunities posed by Islamic political activism in the Middle East and South Asia? Is there another A.Q. Khan proliferation network out there?"

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Douglas Farah, in his "What Is the Price of Current Intelligence Reform?" writes:

"The truth is the DI has lost decades, if not centuries, of experience as older analysts have fled through the door, many from senior positions. Not all change is bad, but what is left is essentially a group of young and undeniably intelligent people with little real-world experience and little historic knowlege of issues that they must now be analyzing and briefing on."

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