Smart Intel Pick
By RALPH PETERS
February 18, 2005 -- PRESIDENT Bush just made a very promising choice for our first national intelligence director: Ambassador John Negroponte. Thinking creatively, Bush picked someone who has had to rely upon intelligence, rather than an insider who can't see beyond the system's self-satisfied, mammoth bureaucracy.
Normally, a diplomat would be a terrible choice to drive intel reform. Too many diplos just don't have the punch to make things happen. Negroponte's different. He's a hitter. With experience in Honduras during Central America's years of crisis, as well as in Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations and now Iraq, this guy knows what it means to be blindsided by bad intel.
His Baghdad sojourn will have brought him up to date both on the intel system's improving capabilities and its remaining inadequacies. Based on his track record for getting things done ?- blood on the floor be damned ?- Negroponte may be just the right man to provide top cover for Porter Goss, the Director of Central Intelligence, who's been shaking up the CIA and forcing essential changes.
The new NID also has to be tough-minded enough to get a stranglehold on the technocrats and hucksters who've sold us hyper-expensive collection systems of marginal value when we need more flesh and blood.
Technology can be a marvelous aid in intel work, but data isn't the same thing as intelligence ?- no matter the volume delivered. One good analyst can be worth a sky full of satellites.
The president nominated a National Security Agency hand ?- a techie in uniform ?- as Negroponte's top deputy. That's meant to give the NID immediate entry to the system, to help him understand how the labyrinth is laid out.
Negroponte will oversee 15 different agencies and organizations, none of them user-friendly. His first challenge will be to figure out which outfits are earning their keep. Even for a man of his experience, it's going to be an eye-opener. The current system's No. 1 priority is self-perpetuation. That's also priorities No. 2 and 3.
Negroponte must be ruthlessly demanding. The huge, lumbering, inefficient intelligence bureaucracy will have to be scourged to the bone to get it to haul the required loads ?- bureaucracies only respond to severe and prolonged beatings.
Goss' purges at the CIA may have embittered careerists, but they were essential. Ambassador Negroponte will have to do the same for the entire system.
If heads don't roll, nothing changes. Let the axe fall. Then promote the rule-breakers.
This may sound cavalier. It's not. I was part of the intel system for over two decades. The lack of intellectual rigor, moral vigor, imagination and courage appalled me. Instead of the risk-takers critical to good field work and useful analysis, the realm "behind the green door" had become a refuge for mediocrities and cowards.
There are good and talented people in the intel field. Negroponte needs to create an atmosphere in which they can flourish. Sounds easy. It isn't. There's so much dead wood in the system ?- and so much sheer inertia ?- that the new NID's resolve is going to be challenged daily.
Recent changes at the CIA are a good start. Porter Goss announced that the agency will pursue a 50 percent increase in the number of agents and analysts. The intentions are good. But the hard work lies ahead.
Not everyone makes a good intel hand. You can't just recruit those with good paper credentials. We need to develop better means to identify those talented individuals who serve best in the shadows ?- whether in Washington, or far afield. Make no mistake: Getting the right people in the right places is the hardest part of all.
The president just made an inspiring start. He chose a tough guy for a tough job, a man of plentiful experience who's not afraid to make enemies. Let's hope Big, Bad John comes out of the corner swinging.
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