The Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad
The Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad
Book Review by Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert J. Bebber
Download the full article: The Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad
How is it the United States failed to see a growing insurgency within Iraq after a lightning fast victory over Saddam Hussein’s military in 2003? In his book, Mr. Steven K. O’Hern does a valuable service by detailing America’s intelligence failure. Despite the massive undertakings of the 9/11 Commission and other “post 9/11” intelligence reviews, major flaws still plague our intelligence system. These flaws place our uniformed service members at risk and undermine our national security.
Mr. O’Hern served as the director of the Strategic Counterintelligence Directorate (SCID) of Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) for six months in 2005. The primary mission of the SCID was to identify and locate insurgents who were conducting attacks against Coalition Forces. It was mainly a human intelligence (HUMINT) operation, collecting information from Iraqis who were recruited and trained for the task.
O’Hern traces our intelligence failure in Iraq to three general areas: lack of emphasis and appreciation of HUMINT, the “stovepipe” structure of our intelligence community (i.e., agencies’ keeping intelligence to themselves and not sharing it with one another), and the inability/unwillingness to acknowledge threats until after they have manifested. Much was made of the pre-9/11 era’s “wall” between intelligence agencies in law enforcement and national security, who intentionally or by prohibition did not share intelligence. This failure led to the inability of analysts to “connect the dots,” which might have better warned us of an impending terrorist attack. Despite the restructuring of America’s intelligence community, O’Hern says we have failed to learn our lesson. “The single largest hindrance to effectively understanding and acting on intelligence is the intelligence community’s collective failure to share information,” (p. 208). Frequently, military intelligence units conducting operations do not share their information, creating overlap or even causing units to work at cross purposes.
Download the full article: The Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad
Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert Jake Bebber is an Information Warfare Officer stationed at Navy Information Operations Command, Maryland. He served as the Information Operations officer for a Joint Provincial Reconstruction Team in Khost Province, Afghanistan in 2008. He holds a doctorate in Public Policy from the University of Central Florida.
