Government Executive had planned to run this column in its December issue but scrubbed it due to space limitations. I still think it is relevant. The new intelligence czar will make little impact until it addresses the underlying isses of creating a corporate culture that can escape from frozen mindsets. Here is the piece.
David Kay, former top weapons inspector, attributes the failure to find Weapons of Mass Destruction stockpiles to several causes: Saddam Hussein deceived the world into believing that he still possessed WMD, even after he had destroyed them; ending United Nations inspections deprived U.S. intelligence of direct on-the-ground observation; and a mindset shaped by Iraq’s previous success in concealing its nuclear programs.
If such weapons stockpiles existed, or could be produced in short order, then the threat was immanent. The intelligence community – in the US and in Europe agreed that WMD programs existed. They incorrectly assumed that the programs had produced stockpiles. Had the programs’ status been assessed accurately, the administration would have been compelled to go to congress with a different justification for the war. From a tactical point of view, the war might have been fought in the same way – commanders would have assumed the existence of WMDs. From a strategic point of view, the war might have been fought with a much stronger assurance of public and diplomatic support.
During the cold war, the intelligence community learned many lessons in analyzing weapons programs. A military weapons program is complete only after it has accomplished six stages: research and development, prototype, testing, production, fielding and training. Based on documents published to justify the war, the intelligence community never asked if all six stages were completed. Consider the National Intelligence Estimate’s October 2002 report, “Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction; The United Kingdom Joint Intelligence Committee’s September 2002 report, “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government,” and Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Feb. 3, 2003, remarks to the United Nations Security Council.
These assessments lacked evidence that the Iraqis had competed the testing and training stages. Officials now know that the Iraqi military had conducted minimal live-fire training even with conventional weapons.
Given the administration’s mindset, it is unlikely that intelligence officers could have made the more modest and tentative case that programs existed but had not been completed. Even if they had been looking for evidence of program completion, they would have been required to prove that Iraqi forces were untrained and unready. In a post 9/11 world, this assumption would have been unacceptable as well as un-provable.
There was, however, a stronger case to be made: a possible connection between Iraqi WMD programs and terrorist organizations. The Aum Shinrikyo cult mounted WMD attacks in Tokyo in 1995. Their second assault, the release of a “home-brewed” nerve agent inside a Tokyo subway, killed 10 people and injured 50 others. A similar attack in the United States, which spread anthrax through the U.S. postal system, killed five people in October 2001. Terrorist groups do not require an elaborate, six stage program before they are ready to us WMD’s. Any number of terrorists groups (besides Al Qaeda) might have been supported by Saddam’s incomplete WMD program, making it a threat to vital national interests. Any prudent national security planner would have to assume a nerve gas or biological attack was a real possibility.
The strategic lessons of Vietnam, first enunciated by Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger on November 28, 1984, included this criteria: “U.S. troops should not be committed to battle without a "reasonable assurance" of the support of U.S. public opinion and Congress.” The Bush administration correctly applied this lesson by seeking public and international support as well as the support of Congress. The case was, however, based on an incorrect estimate one which President Bush challenged as being inadequate – only to be assured by DCI George Tenet that the case was a “slam dunk”.
There were many causes for the failure to find WMD stockpiles in Iraq. As the Administration and Congress address underlying structural issues in the intelligence community, it should remember that no structural reform can correct for a mindset precludes asking the right questions.
Herb Ely analyzed Soviet weapons research and development for the U.S. Army. A civilian graduate of the U.S. Army War College, he writes columns and a Weblog from Charlottesville, VA.
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