In Saddam's ominous shadow
The spies were fooled on Iraq. What about Iran and North Korea?
It's something of a Washington oddity--a high-level commission that has actually been able to keep its proceedings secret. In its one-year investigation, the commission that President Bush charged with evaluating U.S. intelligence capabilities has been practicing the kind of operational security that would make its subject proud.
Commissioners are putting the final touches on their classified report--due by March 31--and a shorter, unclassified version they hope to release at the same time. Intelligence officials are bracing for a report that they expect will be sharply critical of the quality of U.S. intelligence on Iranian and North Korean weapons programs. For the 15 agencies in the nation's $40 billion intelligence community, which have weathered unprecedented censures over failures leading up to the September 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq, this would be yet another challenge to their credibility.
The CIA is still reeling from its own inspector's conclusion that it was "all wrong" when it came to Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and the new report could intensify doubts about how much U.S. officials really know about Iranian and North Korean weapons development. The findings will come at a sensitive time for the Bush administration, which is engaged in prickly multilateral diplomacy aimed at preventing the two nations from becoming nuclear powers. In the wake of the Iraq debacle, the U.S. intelligence community's work has been viewed with deep skepticism overseas. The challenge "will be in the international court of public opinion when we try to take Iran to the U.N. Security Council," says Peter Brookes, a former Pentagon and CIA official now with the Heritage Foundation. The commission's conclusions will also affect debates in Washington. "Given where we are now, how are we going to get back to a position where we can make significant policy decisions based on intelligence?" asks a former top intelligence official. "We're in a world where we don't trust the politicians anymore, and then you add to that intelligence that doesn't work."
Compromise criticism. The bipartisan commission, chaired by former Sen. Charles Robb and retired federal Judge Laurence Silberman, is issuing its report several months after Congress enacted a sweeping law to reorganize the intelligence community. The law created the new post of director of national intelligence, for which Bush nominated veteran diplomat John Negroponte, who should appear for his confirmation hearing in the coming weeks. But sources tell U.S. News that many of the commissioners went into their jobs critical of the compromise bill, which a host of experts fear does not truly empower the new DNI or do much to fill the remaining gaps in intelligence collection or analysis. "Without saying that," says one intelligence source, "they will go back and see how they can improve on it."
Ironically, the commission's secretiveness has prevented it from building up any public constituency (unlike its predecessor, the 9/11 commission) and could end up hampering any efforts to promote the reforms it recommends. Many in Congress are reluctant to reopen the painful debate. "I would be stunned if the Congress would be interested in doing anything additional on intelligence reform in the next year or two," says one congressional source.
advertisement
