At DNI, a Mission Manager to Track North Korea
Today, the community's judgment remains that the test was probably a fizzle.
"Normally, with a first test, you don't want a subkiloton event," says a senior intelligence official. "You have to assume maybe this is not exactly what was expected." Officials are now watching closely for the possibility of a second nuclear test, as well as what effect Beijing's pressure on North Korea to refrain from further tests is having.
The lessons-learned inquiry on the role of the mission manager also raised some longer-term gaps in the intelligence community's coverage of North Korea. While officials declined to discuss most of the findings, one area that DNI officials want to improve is what they call "open source" reporting. In other words, they want to do a better job of collecting and analyzing information available in foreign newspapers and broadcasts, on websites, and from other public sources.
"The community doesn't do it enough, yet, by any means. Culturally, we have never valued open source," says Graham. "If we do it right, we will better know where to spend our clandestine resources."
Inside the intelligence community, there is still some confusion over the role of the mission manager. For one thing, the DNI's office also includes a set of national intelligence officers, who are charged with producing National Intelligence Estimates, formal documents that reflect the consensus view of the entire community on key strategic concerns.
"Even NIOs privately are not clear where the boundaries are between the responsibilities of the mission manager and the NIO," says a recently retired intelligence analyst. But DNI officials insist that NIOs tend to work on longer-term issues and that those kinds of boundaries are becoming clearer as the mission manager posts continue to evolve.
advertisement
