Memorial Day Isn't About Sales Or Cookouts... (CNN.com via FlowingData)

CNN has created an excellent infographic that brings home the human cost to the US of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Click on the picture below or the this link to see the interactive version.

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• Iraq and Afghanistan casualities, home and away (flowingdata.com)
• The Real "LOST": CNN's Iraq and Afghanistan War Casualties (kanarick.com)
• More US troops in Afghanistan than Iraq, a first (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Intel Project Earns Kudos From Iraqis (Mercyhurst.edu)

Dan Mulligan, who teaches competitive and business intelligence here at Mercyhurst, just got back from a year in Iraq. The army put Dan to good use while he was there and he worked with the Intelligence Transition Team supporting the Iraqi Minister of Defense's Directorate General for Intelligence and Security.

As a result of these connections, students in my fall Strategic Intelligence class had a tremendous opportunity: Do a strategic intelligence project and present it to Iraqi analysts for feedback. The projects (using only open sources, of course) examined Middle Eastern governments in the region and their reaction to events unfolding in Iraq. The students, via teleconference, presented thieir findings in late November to Dan and several of the analysts in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense.

It was an extraordinary opportunity and the students took full advantage of it. They worked hard and put together a visually and analytically compelling product. The Iraqis were very generous with their time and the feedback given to the students was professional and positive. Everyone got something out of the experience.

It was, however, an enormous surprise and honor when Dan came back from Baghdad last month carrying with him Certificates of Appreciation signed by Mr. Stephen Bond, the Director of the Intelligence Transition Team and Major General Bakhtyar Thahir Al-Brazanchi from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense for all of the students who participated in the project.

Congratulations to all of the students who earned these Certificates!

Evaluating Intelligence (Final Version With Abstract)

Abstract:

Evaluating intelligence is a difficult task. This paper examines why it is so difficult, suggests a new model for thinking about the process of evaluating intelligence and tests that model against several documents prepared by the US National Intelligence Council in the run-up to the Iraq War.

PDF Version (Pre-pub Complete, ISA 2009)

HTML Version:

Part 1 -- Introduction
Part 2 -- A Tale Of Two Weathermen
Part 3 -- A Model For Evaluating Intelligence
Part 4 -- The Problem With Evaluating Intelligence Products
Part 5 -- The Problem With Evaluating The Intelligence Process
Part 6 -- The Decisionmaker's Perspective
Part 7 -- The Iraq WMD Estimate And Other Iraq Pre-War Assessments
Part 8 -- Batting Averages
Part 9 -- Final Thoughts

Part 9 -- Final Thoughts (Evaluating Intelligence)

Part 1 -- Introduction
Part 2 -- A Tale Of Two Weathermen
Part 3 -- A Model For Evaluating Intelligence
Part 4 -- The Problem With Evaluating Intelligence Products
Part 5 -- The Problem With Evaluating The Intelligence Process
Part 6 -- The Decisionmaker's Perspective
Part 7 -- The Iraq WMD Estimate And Other Iraq Pre-War Assessments
Part 8 -- Batting Averages

The purpose of this series of posts was not to rationalize away, in a frenzy of legalese, the obvious failings of the Iraq WMD NIE. Under significant time pressure and operating with what the authors admitted was limited information on key questions, they failed to check their assumptions and saw all of the evidence as confirming an existing conceptual framework (While it should be noted that this conceptual framework was shared by virtually everyone else, the authors do not get a free pass on this either. Testing assumptions and understanding the dangers of overly rigid conceptual models is Intel Analysis 101).

On the other hand, if the focus of inquiry is just a bit broader, to include the two ICAs about Iraq completed by at least some of the same people, using many of the same processes, the picture becomes much brighter. When evaluators consider the three documents together, the analysts seem to track pretty well with historical norms and leadership expectations. Like the good weatherman in Part 2 of this series, it is difficult to see how they got it "wrong".

Moreover, the failure by evaluators to look at intelligence successes as well as intelligence failures and to examine them for where the analysts were actually good or bad (vs. where the analysts were merely lucky or unlucky), is a recipe for turmoil. Imagine a football coach who only watched game film when the team lost and ignored lessons from when the team won. This is clearly stupid but it is very close to what happens to the intelligence community. From the Hoover Commission to today, so-called intelligence failures get investigated while intelligence successes get, well, nothing.

The intelligence community, in the past, has done itself no favors for when the investigations do inevitably come, however. The lack of clarity and consistency in the estimative language used in these documents made coming to any sort of conclusion about the veracity of product or process far more difficult than it needed to be. While I do not expect that other investigators would come to startlingly different conclusions than mine, I would expect there to be areas where we would disagree -- perhaps strongly -- due to different interpretations of the same language. This is not in the intelligence community's interest as it creates the impression that the analysts are "just guessing".

Finally, there appears to be one more lesson to be learned from an examination of these three documents. Beyond the scope of evaluating intelligence, it goes to the heart of what intelligence is and what role it serves in a policy debate.

In the days before the vote to go to war, the Iraq NIE clearly answered the question it had been asked, albeit in a predictable way (so predictable, in fact, that few in Washington bother to read it). The Iraq ICAs, on the other hand, come out in January, 2003, two months before the start of the war. They are generated in response to a request from the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and are intended, as are all ICAs, for lower level policymakers. These reports quite accurately -- as it turns out -- predict the tremendous difficulties should the eventual solution (of the several available to the policymakers at the time) to the problem of Saddam's Hussein's WMDs be war.

What if all three documents had come out at the same time and had all been NIEs? There does not appear to be, from the record, any reason why they could not have been issued simultaneously. The Senate Subcommittee states on page 2 of its report that there was no special collection involved in the ICAs, that it was "not an issue well-suited to intelligence collection." The report went on to state, "Analysts based their judgments primarily on regional and country expertise, historical evidence and," significantly, in light of this series of posts, "analytic tradecraft." In short, open sources and sound analytic processes. Time was of the essence, of course, but it is clear from the record that the information necessary to write the reports was already in the analyst's heads.

It is hard to imagine that such a trio of documents would not have significantly altered the debate in Washington. The outcome might still have been war, but the ability of policymakers to dodge their fair share of he blame would have been severely limited. In the end, it is perhaps the best practice for intelligence to answer not only those questions it is asked but also those questions it should have been asked.

Part 8 -- Batting Averages (Evaluating Intelligence)

Part 1 -- Introduction
Part 2 -- A Tale Of Two Weathermen
Part 3 -- A Model For Evaluating Intelligence
Part 4 -- The Problem With Evaluating Intelligence Products
Part 5 -- The Problem With Evaluating The Intelligence Process
Part 6 -- The Decisionmaker's Perspective
Part 7 -- The Iraq WMD Estimate And Other Iraq Pre-War Assessments

Despite good reasons to believe that the findings of the Iraq WMD National Intelligence Estimate NIE) and the two pre-war Intelligence Community Assessments (ICAs) regarding Iraq can be evaluated as a group for insights into the quality of the analytic processes used to produce these products, several problems remain before we can determine the "batting average".

• Assumptions vs. Descriptive Intelligence: The NIE drew its estimative conclusions from what the authors believed were the facts based on an analysis of the information collected about Saddam Hussein's WMD programs. Much of this descriptive intelligence (i.e. that information which was not proven but clearly taken as factual for purposes of the estimative parts of the NIE) turned out to be false. The ICAs, however, are largely based on a series of assumptions either explicitly or implicitly articulated in the scope notes to those two documents. This analysis, therefore, will only focus on the estimative conclusions of the three documents and not on the underlying facts.
  
• Descriptive Intelligence vs. Estimative Intelligence: Good analytic tradecraft has always required analysts to clearly distinguish estimative conclusions from the direct and indirect information that supports those estimative conclusions. The inconsistencies in the estimative language along with the grammatical structure of some of the findings makes this particularly difficult. For example, the Iraq NIE found: "An array of clandestine reporting reveals that Baghdad has procured covertly the types and quantities of chemicals and equipment sufficient to allow limited CW agent production hidden in Iraq's legitimate chemical industry." Clearly the information gathered suggested that the Iraqi's had gathered the chemicals. What is not as clear is if they were they likely using them for limited CW production or if they merely could use these chemicals for such purposes. A strict constructionist would argue for the latter interpretation whereas the overall context of the Key Judgments would suggest the former. I have elected to focus on the context to determine which statements are estimative in nature. This inserts an element of subjectivity into my analysis and may skew the results.
• Discriminative vs. Calibrative Estimates: The language of the documents uses both discriminative ("Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program") and calibrative language ("Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons ... of CW agents"). Given the seriousness of the situation in the US at at that time, the purposes for which these documents were to be used, and the discussion of the decisonmaker's perspective in part 6 of this series, I have elected to treat calibrative estimates as discriminative for purposes of evaluation.
  
• Overly Broad Estimative Conclusions: Overly broad estimates are easy to spot. Typically these statements use highly speculative verbs such as "might" or "could". A good example of such a statement is the claim: "Baghdad's UAVs could threaten Iraq's neighbors, US forces in the Persian Gulf, and if brought close to, or into, the United States, the US homeland." Such alarmism seems silly today but it should have been seen as silly at the time as well. From a theoretical perspective, these type of statements tell the decisionmaker nothing useful (anything "could" happen; everything is "possible"). One option, then, is to mark these statements as meaningless and eliminate them from consideration. This, in my mind, encourages this bad practice and I intend to count these kinds of statements as false if they turned out to have no basis in fact (I would under this same logic have to count them as true if they turned out to be true, of course).
• Weight of the Estimative Conclusion: Some estimates are clearly more fundamental to a report than others. Conclusions regarding direct threats to US soldiers, for example, should trump any minor and indirect consequences regarding regional instability identified in the reports. Engaging in such an exercise might be something appropriate for individuals directly involved in this process and in a better position to evaluate these weights. I, on the other hand, am looking for only the broadest possible patterns (if any) from the data. I have, therefore decided to weigh all estimative conclusions equally.
• Dealing with Dissent: There were several dissents in the Iraq NIE. While the majority opinion is, in some sense, the final word on the matter, an analytic process that tolerates formal dissent deserves some credit as well. Going simply with the majority opinion does not accomplish this. Likewise, eliminating the dissented opinion from consideration gives too much credit to the process. I have chosen to count those estimative conclusions with dissents as both true and false (for scoring purposes only).
  

Clearly, given the caveats and conditions under which I am attempting this analysis, I am looking only for broad patterns of analytic activity. My intent is not to spend hours quibbling about all of the various ways a particular judgment could be interpreted as true or false after the fact. My intent is to merely make the case that evaluating intelligence is difficult but, even with those difficulties firmly in mind, it is possible to go back, after the fact, and, if we look at a broad enough swath of analysis, come to some interesting conclusions about the process.

Within these limits, then, by my count, the Iraq NIE contained 28 (85%) false estimative conclusions and 5 (15%) true ones. This conclusion tracks quite well with the WMD Commission's own evaluation that the NIE was incorrect in "almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." By my count, the Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq ICA fares much better with a count of 23 (96%) correct estimative conclusions and only one (4%) incorrect one. Finally, the report on the Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq nets 15 (74%) correct analytic estimates to 4 (26%) incorrect ones. My conclusions are certainly consistent with the tone of the Senate Subcommittee Report.

• It is noteworthy that the Senate Subcommittee did not go to the same pains to compliment analysts on their fairly accurate reporting in the ICAs as the WMD Commission did to pillory the NIE. Likewise, there was no call from Congress to ensure that the process involved in creating the NIE was reconciled with the process used to create the ICAs, no laws proposed to take advantage of this largely accurate work, no restructuring of the US national intelligence community to ensure that the good analytic processes demonstrated in these ICAs would dominate the future of intelligence analysis.

The most interesting number, however, is the combined score for the three documents. Out of the 76 estimative conclusions made in the three reports, 43 (57%) were correct and 33 (43%) incorrect. Is this a good score or a bad score? Such a result is likely much better than mere chance, for example. For each judgment made there were likely many reasonable hypotheses considered. If there were only three reasonable hypotheses to consider in each case, the base rate would be 33%. On average, the analysts involved were able to nearly double that "batting average".

Likewise it is consistent with both hard and anecdotal data of historical trends in analytic forecasting. Mike Lyden, in his thesis on Accelerated Analysis, calculated that, historically, US national security intelligence community estimates were correct approximately 2/3 of the time.

Former Director of the CIA, GEN Michael Hayden, made his own estimate of analytic accuracy in May of last year, ""Some months ago, I met with a small group of investment bankers and one of them asked me, 'On a scale of 1 to 10, how good is our intelligence today?' I said the first thing to understand is that anything above 7 isn't on our scale. If we're at 8, 9, or 10, we're not in the realm of intelligence—no one is asking us the questions that can yield such confidence. We only get the hard sliders on the corner of the plate."

Given these standards, 57%, while a bit low by historical measures, certainly seems to be within normal limits and, even more importantly, consistent with what the US has routinely expected from its intelligence community.

Tomorrow: Final Thoughts

Part 7 -- The Iraq WMD Estimate And Other Iraq Pre-War Assessments (Evaluating Intelligence)

Part 1 -- Introduction
Part 2 -- A Tale Of Two Weathermen
Part 3 -- A Model For Evaluating Intelligence
Part 4 -- The Problems With Evaluating Intelligence Products
Part 5 -- The Problems With Evaluating Intelligence Processes
Part 6 -- The Decisionmaker's Perspective

Perhaps the most famous document leading up to the war in Iraq is the much-maligned National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) titled Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons Of Mass Destruction completed in October, 2002 and made public (in part) in April, 2004. Subjected to extensive scrutiny by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, this NIE was judged "dead wrong" in almost all of its major estimates.

Far less well known are the two Intelligence Community Assessments (ICA) both completed in January, 2003. The first, Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq, was made public in April, 2007 as was the second ICA, Principal Changes in Post-Saddam Iraq. Both documents were part of the US Senate's Select Subcommittee on Intelligence report on Pre-War Intelligence Assessments About Post War Iraq and both (heavily redacted) documents are available as appendices to the subcommittee's final report.

The difference between an NIE and an ICA seems modest to an outsider. Both types of documents are produced by the National Intelligence Council and both are coordinated within the US national security intelligence community and, if appropriate, with cleared experts outside the community. The principal differences appear to be the degree of high level approval (NIEs are approved at a higher level than ICAs) and the intended audiences (NIEs are aimed at high level policy makers while ICAs are geared more to the desk-analyst policy level (Thanks, Elizabeth!).

In this case, there appears to be at least some overlap in the actual drafters of the three documents. Paul Pillar, National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for the Near East and South Asia at the time was primarily responsible for coordinating (and, presumably drafting) both of the ICAs. Pillar also assisted Robert D. Walpole, NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs in the preparation of the NIE (along with Lawrence K. Gershwin, NIO for Science and Technology and Major General John R. Landry, NIO for Conventional Military Issues).

Despite the differences in the purposes of these documents, it is likely safe to say that the fundamental analytic processes -- the tradecraft and evaluative norms -- were largely the same. It is highly unlikely, for example, that standards such as "timeliness" and "objectivity" were maintained in NIEs but abandoned in ICAs.

Why is this important? As discussed in detail in Part 3 of this series, it is important, in evaluating intelligence, to cast as broad a net as possible, to not only look at examples where the intelligence product was false but also cases where the intelligence product was true and, in turn, examine the process in both cases to determine if the analysts were good or just lucky or bad or just unlucky. These three documents, prepared at roughly the same time, under roughly the same conditions, with roughly the same resources on roughly the same target allows the accuracy of the estimative conclusions in the documents to be compared with some assurance that doing so may help get at any underlying flaws or successes in the analytic process.

Monday: The Score

Mercyhurst Intel Prof Back From Iraq (Erie Times News)

Dan Mulligan, who teaches business and competitive intelligence here at Mercyhurst, was recently called to active duty and has been in Iraq for the last five months. He is home on leave and the Erie Times News did a story on him and what he has been up to since he left.

I don't want to speak for Dan, but the story in the paper seemed a bit more dramatic than the version we heard sitting around the table yesterday (The Press...what can you do?). Still, it was good to see him.

Mercyhurst alums and students might be wondering about the reference to "rubrics" in the story. Yes, Dan had them translate the same rubric we use here in the Intel Writing and Intel Communications classes and, yes, he is teaching the Iraqis how to write SFARs. Yoikes!

Excellent "Lesser Taught" Language Resource (DLI via DangerRoom)

Wired.com's DangerRoom featured an excellent language resource from the Defense Language Institute for some of the lesser known (only because they are lesser taught in the US) languages. Not everything on the site is accessible to non-military but the stuff that is available is very good. In addition to the fine language resources, I was particularly impressed with the "Countries In Perspective" section that provides short, descriptive country studies on about 20 countries.

Iraqi Reconstruction Five Years On (SIGIR)

The Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction has just published its most recent quarterly report on the status of Iraqi reconstruction. The graphic can be seen below and the full (10 MB) report can be downloaded here.

Read this doc on Scribd: Iraq Construction Five Years On -- SIGIR

Country Reports On Human Rights Practices (State Department)

The US State Department has just released its massive, 2 volume, 3000+ page report to Congress on human rights practices "of all nations that are members of the United Nations and a few that are not." You can get Volume 1 (covering Africa, East Asia, the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia) here and Volume 2 (which covers the rest of the world) here. Expect them to take some time to download...

The reports are exhaustive and based on 2006 data (apparently it took over a year to collate and confirm the reports based initially, at least, on US embassy reporting). The introduction to this comprehensive report is 11 pages long and pretty much defies summarization. That said, here are some of the highlights I have picked out (Boldface, italics and hyperlinks are mine):

• "These reports describe the performance of governments in putting into practice their international commitments on human rights. These fundamental rights, reflected in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, constitute what President Bush calls the 'non-negotiable demands of human dignity.'"
  

• "The United States takes its human rights commitments seriously. We recognize that we are writing this report at a time when our own record, and actions we have taken to respond to the terrorist attacks against us, have been questioned."
  

• "The reports review each country’s performance in 2006. Each report speaks for itself. Yet, broad patterns are discernible and are described below, supported by country-specific examples."
  

• "First, the advances made in human rights and democracy were hard won and challenging to sustain."
  

• "Despite President Musharraf’s stated commitment to democratic transition and ‘‘enlightened moderation,’’ Pakistan’s human rights record continued to be poor. Restrictions remained on freedom of movement, expression, association, and religion. Disappearances of provincial activists and political opponents continued, especially in provinces experiencing internal turmoil and insurgencies. The security forces continued to commit extrajudicial killings. Arbitrary arrest and torture remained common. Corruption was pervasive throughout the Government and police forces."
  

• "Though Egypt held a first-ever, multi-party presidential election in 2005, in 2006 public calls for greater democratization and accountability sometimes met with strong government reaction. The continued imprisonment of former presidential candidate Ayman Nour raised serious concerns about the path of political reform and democracy in the country. Continuing a trend begun in 2005, the Government arrested and detained hundreds of activists affiliated with the banned-but-tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, generally for periods lasting several weeks. Two senior judges were brought in for questioning in February for publicly calling for an independent judiciary. Egyptian police arrested and detained over 500 activists for participating in demonstrations in support of judicial independence. In addition, severe cases of torture by authorities were documented. The Government also arrested, detained, and abused several Internet bloggers."
  

• Note: Liberia, Indonesia, Morocco, the Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Venezuela, Fiji and Thailand are also highlighted in this section.

• "A second sobering reality is that insecurity due to internal and/or cross-border conflict can threaten or thwart advancements in human rights and democratic government."
  

• "Despite the Iraqi Government’s continuing commitment to foster national reconciliation and reconstruction, keep to an electoral course, and establish the rule of law, both deepening sectarian violence and acts of terrorism seriously undercut human rights and democratic progress during 2006. Although the Iraqi constitution and law provide a strong framework for the protection of human rights, armed groups attacked human rights from two different directions: those proclaiming their hostility to the Government—Al- Qa’ida terrorists, irreconcilable remnants of the Ba’athist regime, and insurgents waging guerrilla warfare; and members of Shi’a militias and individual ministries’ security forces—nominally allied with the Government—who committed torture and other abuses."
  

• "Although Afghanistan made important human rights progress since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, its human rights record remained poor. This was mainly due to weak central institutions and a deadly insurgency: the Taliban, Al-Qa’ida, and other extremist groups stepped up attacks against government officials, security forces, NGOs and other aid personnel, and unarmed civilians; and the number of suicide bombings rose dramatically during the year, as did attacks on schools and teachers. There were continued reports of cases of arbitrary arrests and detention, extrajudicial killings, torture, and poor prison conditions. In December President Karzai launched a Transitional Justice Action Plan designed to address past violations of human rights and improve the institutional capacity of the justice system."
  

• Note: Lebanon and East Timor are also singled out in this section.

• "Third, despite gains for human rights and democratic principles in every region of the world, much of humanity still lives in fear yet dreams of freedom."
  

• "In 2006 North Korea remained one of the world’s most isolated and repressive regimes. The regime controls almost all aspects of citizens’ lives, denying freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association, and restricts freedom of movement and worker rights. The constitution provides for ‘‘freedom of religious belief,’’ but genuine religious freedom does not exist. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people, including political prisoners, were held in detention camps, and many prisoners died from torture, starvation, disease, and exposure."
  

• "The Iranian Government flagrantly violated freedom of speech and assembly, intensifying its crackdown against dissidents, journalists, and reformers—a crackdown characterized by arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, disappearances, the use of excessive force, and the widespread denial of fair public trials. The Government continued to detain and abuse Baha’is and other religious minorities and hosted a widely condemned conference denying the existence of the Holocaust. In the lead-up to the December 15 Assembly of Experts elections in Iran, more than two-thirds of those who had applied to run—including all female candidates—were disqualified, leaving many seats uncontested. Hundreds of candidates in nationwide municipal elections also were disqualified. The Government continued to flout domestic and international calls for responsible government in 2006 by supporting terrorist movements in Syria and Lebanon as well as calling for the destruction of a UN member state."
  

• Note: Burma, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China, Belarus and Eritrea are mentioned in this section as well.

• "The fourth sobering reality is that as the worldwide push for greater personal and political freedom grows stronger, it is being met with increasing resistance from those who feel threatened by political and societal change."
  

• "In Russia in 2006, a new NGO law entered into force in April imposing more stringent registration requirements for NGOs, strict monitoring of organizations, extensive and onerous reporting requirements on programming and activities, and empowering the Federal Registration Service to deny registration or to shut down an organization based on vague and subjective criteria. Freedom of expression and media independence declined due to government pressure and restrictions. In October unknown persons murdered human rights defender Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent journalist known for her critical writing on human rights abuses in Chechnya. The Government used its controlling ownership of all national television and radio stations, as well as of the majority of influential regional ones, to restrict access to information deemed sensitive."
  

• "The Syrian Government strictly controlled the dissemination of information and prohibited criticism of the Government and discussion of sectarian issues, including religious and minority rights. There were detentions and beatings for individual expressions of opinion that violated these restrictions, for example the February arrest of journalist Adel Mahfouz after he called for interfaith dialogue following the controversy surrounding the depiction of the Prophet Muhammed in cartoons. The Government relied on its press and publication laws, the penal code, and the Emergency Law to censor access to the Internet, and it restricted electronic media. Harassment of domestic human rights activists also occurred, including regular close surveillance and the imposition of travel bans when they sought to attend workshops and conferences outside the country."
  

• Note; Other countries mentioned in this section include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Burundi, Rwanda, Venezuela, China and Vietnam.

• "Genocide was the most sobering reality of all. "

• "Almost 60 years after the adoption of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights—an expression of the outraged conscience of mankind to the enormity of the Holocaust and the cataclysm of the Second World War—genocide continued to ravage the Darfur region of Sudan."
  

• "Secretary Rice also issued ten guiding NGO principles regarding the treatment by governments of nongovernmental organizations. These core principles will guide U.S. treatment of NGOs, and we also will use them to assess the actions of other governments."
  

• "When democracies support the work of human rights advocates and civil society organizations, we are helping men and women in countries across the globe shape their own destinies in freedom. And by so doing, we are helping to build a safer, better world for all."
  

• "We must defend the defenders, for they are the agents of peaceful, democratic change.'
  

Al-Qaeda Media Nexus: The Virtual Network Behind The Global Message (RFE)

Daniel Kimmage, a senior regional analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has put together an excellent analytic paper (download full text here) designed to answer two questions (Note: taken directly from the Introduction): "What does the structure of jihadist media tell us about the relationship between Al-Qaeda central and the movements that affiliate themselves with it? And what can the priorities of jihadist media tell us about the operational priorities of Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements?" I found the large number of detailed charts and graphs (Click on the full text link above to get the report and the legend to the chart below) to be particularly useful as well.

Key Findings from the paper include (Boldface is mine):

• The ”original” Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden accounts for a mere fraction of jihadist media production.

• Virtual media production and distribution entities link varied groups under the general ideological rubric of the global jihadist movement. The same media entities that “brand” jihadist media also create virtual links between the various armed groups that fall into the general category of Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements.

• Three key entities connect Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements to the outside world through the internet. These three media entities — Fajr, the Global Islamic Media Front, and Sahab — receive materials from more than one armed group and post those materials to the internet.

• Information operations intended to disrupt or undermine the effectiveness of jihadist media can and should target the media entities that brand these media and act as the virtual connective tissue of the global movement.

• While video is an important component of jihadist media, text products comprise the bulk of the daily media flow. Within text products, periodicals focused on specific “fronts” of the jihad are an important genre that deserves more attention from researchers.

• The vast majority of jihadist media products focus on conflict zones: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

• The priorities of the global jihadist movement, as represented by its media arm, are operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Africa.

• Jihadist media are attempting to mimic a “traditional” structure in order to boost credibility and facilitate message control. While conventional wisdom holds that jihadist media have been quick to exploit technological innovations to advance their cause, they are moving toward a more structured approach based on consistent branding and quasi-official media entities. Their reasons for doing so appear to be a desire to boost the credibility of their products and ensure message control.

• In line with this strategy, the daily flow of jihadist media that appears on the internet is consistently and systematically branded.

Suicide Bombings In Iraq And The World View Of Iran's Most Powerful Leader (Fora.tv)

Here are a couple of recent videos that should be of interest to many:

Mohammed Hafez on Suicide Bombings in Iraq
Suicide Bombings in Iraq: Understanding the Strategy and Ideology with author Mohammed Hafez.
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=3715

The World View Of Iran's Most Powerful Leader
Category:
Reading Khamenei: The World View Of Iran's Most Powerful Leader with remarks by Karim Sadjadpour, Mohsen Milani, and Afshin Molavi. Dr. Haleh Esfandiari moderates the panel.
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=3749

Iraq NIE Released, Countdown Begins For Unclass Version (NYT)

The New York Times is reporting this morning that the latest National Intelligence Estimate on the situation in Iraq has been released. The report also quotes anonymous sources (of course) concerning the content: "The new intelligence estimate cites slow but steady progress by Iraqi politicians on forging alliances between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq" and "several factors that could reverse these trends: including a campaign of violence by Shiite splinter groups and the possibility that the government would not carry out a series of reconciliation laws Iraq’s Parliament passed recently."

The Times report goes on to state that Senators Carl Levin and Edward Kennedy have already asked for an unclassified version of the NIE, stating, “Without a current unclassified assessment of the situation in Iraq, Congress and the American people will not have the essential information needed for an informed public debate" (Note: Press release confirming letter is here). "Authorized leak" versus "unclassified version" is a distinction without a difference. I say there will be an unclass version on the streets before the Pennsylvania primary. Any takers?

The Revolution Begins On Page Five: The Changing Nature Of The NIE And Its Implications For Intelligence (Final Version With Abstract)

Abstract:

There has been a good bit of discussion in the press and elsewhere concerning the recently released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program. Virtually all of this commentary has focused on the facts, sources and logic – the content – of the estimate. It is my position that, while the content is fascinating, the most interesting story behind the NIE has to do with the changes in form that this latest NIE has adopted; that what the National Intelligence Council (NIC) has said is, in many ways, less interesting than the way it has decided to say it. This shift in form implies a new, emerging theory of intelligence – what intelligence is and how to do it – that is likely to influence intelligence communities worldwide. “Emerging”, however, is the key term here. As this article will highlight, the revolution may have begun but it is far from complete

PDF Version (Pre-pub/Complete)

HTML Version:
Part 1 -- Welcome To The Revolution
Part 2 -- Some History
Part 3 -- The Revolution Begins
Part 4 -- Page Five In Detail
Part 5 -- Enough Exposition, Let's Get Down To It...
Part 6 -- Digging Deeper
Part 7 -- Looking At The Fine Print
Part 8 -- Confidence Is Not the Only Issue
Part 9 -- Waffle Words And Intel-Speak
Part 10 -- The Problem With “If”
Part 11 -- One More Thing
Part 12 -- Final Thoughts
Epilogue

Creating A Stable And Secure "Iraqracy" (CSIS)

If you haven't seen Anthony Cordesman's latest (13 FEB) briefing from the battlefield on Iraq out of the Center For Strategic And International Studies you should take the time to download it (full text can be downloaded here. Caution: It is a large file -- 7.3 MB). Cordesman is both comprehensive and current in his generally positive assessment of the situation in Iraq. Of particular note are the wide variety of graphs and charts he uses (the map below is of ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iraq). These alone are worth the price of admission...

Highlights from the synopsis on the website include:

• "No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. A combination of the surge, improved win and hold tactics, the tribal uprising in Anbar and other provinces, the Sadr ceasefire, and major advances in the use of IS&R have transformed the battle against Al Qaida in Iraq."

• "At the same time, this progress is dependent on major additional Iraqi government action well beyond the passing of the Iraqi FY2008 budget, the provincial powers act, and the laws easing de-Baathification."

• "...it is clear that Iraq can only succeed with years of additional US support in security, governance, and development."

• "It will take strong US involvement throughout the life of the next Administration to succeed, and it may well take US aid through 2016. There is a strong case for limiting troop reductions beyond a force of 15 brigade equivalents to patient conditions-based steps that ensure there will be no need to rush back US forces or see Iraqi forces become vulnerable. There is an even stronger case for sustained aid in governance and development until the Iraqi central government learns how to spend effectively and do so with limits to waste, corruption, and ethno-sectarian bias."

• "Serious threats can still bring defeat or paralysis over the coming years, although this seems significantly less likely than during the fall of 2007:"

• "A central government failure to move funds to key provinces, improve services, fund development, and employ young men."
  
  
• "A central government failure to reach out to the Sunni and Shi'ite Sons of Iraq and incorporate many into the Iraq security services."
  
  
• "Potential Arab-Kurdish-minority divisions over Kurdish autonomy in the north, and creating some form of Kurdish federal zone."
  
  
• "The risk of Shi'ite divisions and infighting in the south, particularly between the Hakim and Sadr factions, and Sunni-Shi'ite tensions over some form of Shi'ite federalism."
  
  
• "Continued Iranian support of militias and divisions and growing Iranian influence in Basra and the south."
  
  
• "The need for local legitimacy through provincial and local elections in 2008, and open lists and local representation in the COR election in 2009."
  
  
• "Moving towards full development and sustained employment, and for a fair sharing of petroleum wealth a resources."
  

HUMINT: Counting Cash As A "Tell" (Metacafe via Asterpix)

A very interesting video came out a couple of weeks ago that purports to show how different regions of the world count cash. I wasn't sure if the info in the video was correct or not so I went on a bit of a snipe hunt to see if I could find still images of people in various parts of the world counting cash so I could confirm the assertions made in the video. Generally, the assertions appear correct (although there were some exceptions). You can see the video below and my comments after it.

(Note: I have taken this opportunity to also highlight another new service I found, called Asterpix. Asterpix allows you to take virtually any video on the web and annotate it. As you watch this video you will notice rectangular shaped boxes flashing weakly on top of the video. If you mouse over the box, you will freeze the action and you can read my notes and even go to the sources I found that I think confirm or deny the accuracy of the video. I found Asterpix to be drop dead easy (though I wish they had some sort of a bookmarking feature so you could easily go back to a place in the video you wanted to mark). Like Comiqs.com, this is a production tool well worth knowing about).




It occurred to me while watching this video that the way a person counts cash could act as a "tell". In poker, a "tell" is a predictable but unconscious pattern of behavior that signals the strength of one's hand. For example, if you tapped your fingers every time you had a good hand without knowing that you did it, that would be a tell.

Perhaps counting cash is similar. While this video has been out there for some time, so I am sure the sophisticated operators are already planning on how to use this info to signal that are someone they aren't, there may be a number of places (on patrol in a marketplace, for example?) where it would be possible to use this kind of info to gain additional insight into the people around you or with which you are dealing. It is very interesting to me, for example, that the way Iranians and Iraqs count cash are, according to the video, very different. Perhaps this is something that the Army's Human Terrain Teams could confirm or deny...

Likewise, if anyone knows if any of the info in the video is true or false for a particular country, please leave a comment.

Must See TV On Recent NIEs, Intel Processes (Fora.tv)

DDNI for Analysis, Thomas Fingar, in a 14 February speech in front of the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, talks in detail about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq WMDs, the recent Iran Nuclear Capabilities and Intentions NIE and reform efforts in the intelligence community. While Dr. Fingar's pacing and rhetorical style takes a little bit of time to get used to, I consider it must see TV for any Intel Studies students.

A few of my favorite quotes and factoids:

Washington is a "political theme park surrounded by reality".

The current officials in the intel community have an opportunity to do what "42 studies and commissions failed to accomplish".

"The best way to get more money and more people is to screw up."

"We are dealing in a realm that can be likened to a thousand piece puzzle. You've got eight pieces and someone lost the box top with the picture."

"...the goal is not to make us smarter but to make policy better..."

"...roughly 55% of the community" has joined since 9/11.

The Iraq WMD estimate was like "having your yearbook photo taken on your worst bad hair day ever."

"We need to move beyond a federation of agencies coming together, to build a community of analysts. Analysts who don't pay any attention to the agency lanyard around their neck, that engage and mix it up."

"...I had learned long ago in Washington that there are only two possibilities. There are policy successes and intelligence failures."

On the Iran NIE: "...there were in excess of 100 people who worked on it..."

On the Iran NIE: "No need to deal with the substance of the product if you can have an ad hominem attack that discredits the product."

Intelligence Priorities: Terrorism, counterproliferation, cyberthreat, Iran, instability, military modernization of Russia and China

"Reputations matter" and then later, "We want people to have the equivalent of an EBay reputation."

"We're right most of the time...and that bothers me. Not because I don't like being right but because I think we ask too many easy questions."

The first two clips are excerpts on the Iraq WMD Estimate and the Iran Estimate. The third link is to the full speech and Q and A.

Flaws In the Iraq WMD Estimate




Iran's Nuclear National Intelligence Estimate




Intelligence Reform and the Iran NIE

Madrasa Reform In Pakistan, Building Free Societies And Listening To Opposing Views (Fora.tv)

Madrasa Reform in Pakistan
Douglas Johnston, Founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, discusses his efforts to reform Madrasas in Pakistan.
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=2514
(Comment: Short 5 minute background on the Madrasa, its role in Pakistani society and successful efforts to reform it. Very encouraging, actually)

The Struggle to Build Free Societies
Democracy expert and former advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Larry Diamond, will speak on his new book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World - Truman National Security Project
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=2517

Listening to Opposing Views
Jacob Needleman, author and professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University, argues that the act of listening is a critical step in the development of a personal morality.
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=2504
(Comment: Comes across at first as a bit too touchy-feely for me but it is definitely worth the listen. The technique Needleman describes would be awesome for an in-class exercise).

Secret ROE Reportedly Leaked (WikiLeaks)

WikiLeaks (a source I discussed earlier here) is reporting that they have acquired a copy of a SECRET REL to USA, IRQ Annex to an OPORD containing Rules Of Engagement (ROE). The WikiLeaks page discussing the leak (and providing the Table Of Contents) is here and you can download what WikiLeaks alleges is a PDF of the full document here. WikiLeaks claims that they have verified the document. Of particular interest is the information in the page discussing the leak concerning the source, "Peryton", and this individual's history of leaks and motivation for leaking.

Part 3 -- The Revolution Begins (The Revolution Begins On Page Five: The Changing Nature Of The NIE And Its Implications For Intelligence)

Part 1 -- Welcome To The Revolution
Part 2 -- Some History
Part 3 -- The Revolution Begins

The three pages and a paragraph that constitute the sanitized key judgments of the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Trends in Global Terrorism was the first of the recent NIEs that the Director Of National Intelligence (DNI) released at about the same time it was produced. While the reasons for its release are tied to Congressional action, it also likely has to do with a desire to show greater transparency in the face of the withering criticism of the intelligence community over the previous several years and to show that the relatively new DNI position was not just conducting business as usual. That said, the document itself provides no context in which to place either the estimative judgments or the intelligence requirement the NIE addresses.

This was quickly rectified in the next NIE, released in January 2007 and dealing with the issue of prospects for Iraq's stability. Complete with a professionally produced cover sheet, the January 2007 NIE sought to not only explain the roles and functions of the DNI and the NIC but also provide background on the NIE process generally and on the process for preparing this NIE specifically.

The really interesting stuff begins on page five, though. Here is where the authors, and by extension, the intelligence community, explained the terms of art traditionally used in an estimate. In order to do this, the authors had to come to grips with these definitional and theoretical issues themselves. In other professions, such as law or accounting, any discussion of definitions or theory would inevitably tap into the experience of its professionals but also take advantage of a large body of work done by a variety of experts over the years that would have been well documented in judicial opinions, peer-reviewed research papers or approved by standards setting committees.

Such is not the case in intelligence. Most intelligence professionals are practitioners (of one kind or another) and are so busy doing that they have little time (and sometimes little interest) for reflection or codification or other theoretical work. The intelligence studies discipline is relatively new and has had little to work with (notwithstanding the best efforts of the Federation Of American Scientists and the National Security Archive at GW) until very recently. The intelligence community itself has done some work in this area but it has come in fits and starts and to this date there is not even a generally agreed upon definition of intelligence (certainly not one broad enough to cover business and law enforcement intelligence activities as well as national security interests).

Thus, while the explanation of estimative language that accompanies each of the last four publicly available NIEs could be seen as adminis-trivia or, even worse, a sort of CYA, the process of having to explain itself to others actually forced the intelligence community to come to grips with the nature of its profession more quickly than anything in the past 60 years. In a little over a year, likely driven by a genuine desire to do a better job coupled with an intense desire to avoid any more public thrashings at the hands of the legislative branch (or its executive branch masters, for that matter), the intelligence community, with its best analysts on its most important products, has dramatically changed the way it communicates its results to national security policymakers.

By publicly explaining itself, the intelligence community has set precedents – precedents it can repudiate only at the risk of its credibility. Whether the community intended it or not, whether it likes it or not, these public explanations of estimative language begin to define an emerging (and, as I will outline later on, still unfinished) theory of intelligence.

Monday: Part 4 -- Page Five In Detail