Anbar Revisited
intelligence analysts, is there anything they don't know?
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Less than a year ago the Washington Post's star military reporter, Thomas Ricks, breathlessly wrote:
The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents.
I'm not going to recap what has happened in Anbar in the course of a year and with a very small infusion of American forces. Things have changed markedly. And these changes were underway when this particular report was authored. Bill Roggio reported on the Anbar tribes turning on al Qaeda as early as March 2006 by reading open sources yet they were discounted. By November the Times was reporting that Ramadi was turning around with Bill Roggio again providing analysis.
Again, all of these activities were underway even as the report saying all is lost in Anbar was being prepared and discussed.
This is not to toss brickbats at the author, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Peter Devlin, but to highlight the fallacy in believing you can predict the future when your eyes are firmly affixed on the rear view mirror. When we look back at how frighteningly often intelligence analysts have been wrong when predicting enemy actions one wonders why we even continue to employ them.
Okay, I will throw one brickbat. Intelligence analysts analyze. Analysis is not prediction. Describing enemy intentions and capabilities does not lead to describing an inevitable outcome. By getting out his lane in what can best be interpreted as an ill-conceived attempt to "speak truth to power" LTC Devlin did the nation a disservice. He fueled a partisan foodfight that has put the war effort in jeopardy. He provided ammunition to those who wish us to lose in Iraq. And he was stunningly wrong in the bargain.
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Anbar Revisited 9 Comments (0 topical, 9 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I bring my own baggage of dealing with intelligence analysts into this. If I had a dime for every meeting I went to during Operation DESERT SHIELD where analysts predicted there would be no war and that there would be an "Arab solution" I would be a rich man lolling about rather than working for the RedState sweatshop.
Laying it all out doesn't entail saying "we can't win." As long as you're in the game and there is time on the clock you can win.
Do you really think that this kind of sheer defeatism made its way into print because the author thought it would NOT be leaked? C'mon now. Neither of us believe in leprechauns and both of us have been around enough to know that something that incindiary is guaranteed to be leaked. That kind of a message is carried to your boss verbally and... then he fires you.
And, again, the point of all this was that the changes we see on the ground now were all underway before the "Surge" and still those changes were discounted in the report. So if you are right, and the President changed strategy based on reports like this he is very lucky that he didn't change a strategy that was working... not that I believe we've changed strategy as much as we've changed command climate and sense of urgency.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
I bring my own baggage of dealing with intelligence analysts into this. If I had a dime for every meeting I went to during Operation DESERT SHIELD where analysts predicted there would be no war and that there would be an "Arab solution" I would be a rich man lolling about rather than working for the RedState sweatshop.
I never said that intel analysts don't get things wrong. They do---often. Now, if the intel personnel in your DESERT STORM meetings professed to be virtually sure that their assessments were foolproof, then they had an excess of hubris and a lack of common sense.
Laying it all out doesn't entail saying "we can't win."
If you don't think it's possible to win, given the circumstances, it's your duty to say so. Part of an intel officer's job is to warn his commander if he thinks the situation is dire, or even hopeless. Now, if things continue to go well in Anbar, Diyala and elsewhere, then LTC Devlin might be proven wrong*. But, if that was indeed his assessment, then that's the call he had to make.
* From what I read in Ricks' article, the report itself was never made public. Ricks' report is filled with people who claimed to have read it. I.e, we have anonymous sources giving us second-hand accounts of what's in the report. Seems to me it's kind of hard to judge the accuracy of LTC Devlin's assessment based on that. Bottom line: we really don't know what LTC Devlin concluded, what assumptions he used as the basis for his assessments, or what qualifications he put on his conclusions. We just know what some anonymous sources chose to tell Ricks.
Do you really think that this kind of sheer defeatism made its way into print because the author thought it would NOT be leaked? C'mon now. Neither of us believe in leprechauns and both of us have been around enough to know that something that incindiary is guaranteed to be leaked.
Are you saying that you think LTC Devlin might have written this as part of a silent campaign to discredit any attempt to continue the fight in Iraq? Perhaps he did...I have no idea.
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
1. They do profess to be certain. They do it all the time.
2. The entire report was released after the story came out and is on the WaPo website. You don't have to take Ricks' word for it, I didn't. If you've read my opinions on Ricks you'd know that I rarely miss a chance to take a whack at him.
Maybe we just have different experiences but I can say that in my career I've never heard a staff officer or commander say a situation was hopeless and the mission couldn't be accomplished. If that was his considered judgment and belief then, given the current situation, I hope the Marines have taken that into consideration when assigning him to his next job.
3. I'm saying that this kind of a definitive statement was written with the full knowledge that it would inevitably be leaked. When I was on the the Army Staff the rule in reports, classified or unclassified, was, and this is a quote, if a sentence could be a headline in the Washington Post take it out. The USMC is at least as media savvy as the Army. Hard hitting stuff was delivered verbally. Now whether that motive was to increase the MARDIV's bargaining power for more troops and resources or whether it was written as an "I told you so" for historians, is anyone's guess.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
Another example of why military intelligence is an oxymoron. But someone has to do it, and none of us could do the job any better. Therein also lies the answer to the question why military intelligence officers don't become maneuver commanders or commanding generals.
You would think that after 9/11 the media and the public would take intelligence assessments with 42 grains of salt. I sure do.
Consensus doesn't prove anything, in science or anywhere else, except in democracy, maybe. - Reid Bryson, speaking on Global Warming
But the CIA could use a man like that, there's never enough incompetence.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Function is to analyse and sometimes project enemy military capabilities and intentions. This is to be used to aid in forming friendly strategies and tactics. An MI report that says:
"...there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there..."
is inappropriate for an intel section. It was obviously written for the NYT. Even if they were unaware that the situation on the ground was changing (poor intel) they had no info on, or control of, what the US response could or would be. They have enough trouble projecting security, without making conclusions about political and social consequences.
De Opresso Liber
At one time in my short life I, too was an intelligence analyst. But, a different kind of analyst. I had lots of field operational time under my belt, unlike many modern analysts. From Special Forces operations, intelligence (collection and counterintelligence) operations on three continents. Also a bunch of staff time from Army Staff up to NATO and other multilateral organizatiions.
Why am I disclosing this to RS. Because a serious amount of my analytical career was as an honest-to-god 'Projections Analyst'. Projections skills and responsibilities are far different from 'intelligence analysts'
This Marine LTC was doubtless a staff intelligence officer responsible for some intelligence reporting and unit-level analytical products - more than likely more than one at his grade.
I would bet every one of Senator Biden's transplanted hair nodules that this LTC is unable to tell the difference between a rifle battalion SITREP and a National Intelligence Estimate.
Doomsayers will always get the attention - especially if their 'opinions' are acceptable to certain classes of people.
I once worked for LTG Bill Odom when he was the Army's intelligence chief, prior to his assignment as DIRNSA (Director of the National Security Agency. Odom was a singular personality.
Later (after both our retirements and during the build-up to Desert Storm) I was one of an unknown number of former intelligence officers interviewing for a position as a commentator on a national News Channel.
During my interview I was asked my opinion on the possible longevity of the forthcoming opoeration to eject Hussein from Kuwait, and my estimate of potential casualties. My answer was: Don't look for the the actual military assault phase to exceed two weeks - at most; and my casualty estimate was somewhere around 150 KIA.
My interviewing panel was shocked into silence. I was dismissed gracefully and with their heartfelt thanks.
I did not get the job.
Imagine my surprise during Desert Storm, to see on television, my old boss LTG Odom. I had no idea he was one of the interviewees. In fact, I had no idea of the identity of ANY of the other interviewees.
But there he was, my old boss and the former DIRNSA, predicting casualties of such magnitude that he suggested preparing all military hospitals as well as many civilian medical centers to accept and treat the deluge of forthcoming casualties.
Odom was no lightweight in the intelligence 'management' business. But, as an analyst he got that one wrong - embarrasingly wrong, althought I am certain he was convinced of the accuracy of his conclusions. That is not unusual.
One need only scan an interagency intelligence product resulting from study and analysis of pretty much the same intelligence information, and check-out the numerous footnotes inserted by collaborating agencies who are so admant in their divergent opinions of elements of the product that they are ready to strangle their fellow 'experts' with their own neckties.
The bottom line: NO decision-maker should ever rely on one analytical opinion to base his decisions upon - unless, of course, it is the 'correct' opinion supporting a pretermined conclusion. That is doubtless the case with this Marine 'expert.'
Streiff is on the money. Intelligence shennanigans such as this produce uncalculated damage to operations of any scope, especially when touted by those for whom truth and/or accuracy are of lesser value than utility.
Good job, Streiff!
Intelligence analysts analyze. Analysis is not prediction. Describing enemy intentions and capabilities does not lead to describing an inevitable outcome.
Operators and commanders always want to know the "bottom line." What does all your analysis mean, they ask. They usually don't want you to lay out all the evidence for THEM to analyze. That's why they have you on staff. "Sum it all up for me," is a phrase I heard often while wearing the sword and the rose on my collar.
Plus, commanders worth their salt know that intelligence officers' assessments are just that---assessments, based on incomplete evidence. (Unless LTC Devlin was able to attend Al Qaeda In Iraq staff call, that is). Not a guarantee of an inevitable outcome. If conditions change, the assessed outcome can easily change as well. Hasn't the surge changed the situation on the ground?
IIRC, LTC Devlin did not publish his report in the NY Times. Someone leaked it. How does one fuel a "partisan foodfight" by writing a classified report, not intended for public dissemination? What makes you think that LTC Devlin wrote this with the intent of the media publishing it?
And, if I may, perhaps it's bleak reports like this that motivated President Bush to change course, discard the light footprint strategy and surge in the first place? When presented with reports indicating that the current DOD path in Iraq led to likely failure, perhaps that was the kind of shock needed to convince Bush to do something different.
My 0.02
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)