From the Washington Post:
Perhaps everyone is worrying about the wrong thing. How much does this opaque network of top secret agencies, departments, private companies cost the taxpayers How much duplication is there? ? How effective is it? Who is really in control? How do we evaluate it? Has terrorism become even more politicized?
I think I am growing concerned. It sounds like the Patriot Act is on steroids and we didn’t know it.
This story uncovers a tangled web of inner departments that exemplify that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Often there are multiple departments doing the same thing. Our own counter terrorism now becomes too big to fail. Where has the Congressonal oversight been the past 5-6 years? GAO cannot investigate intelligence.
The Washington Post uncovers 2 years of investigative reporting. A 4th branch of the government is not mandated by the Constitution. Perhaps the Tea Parties need to start demanding some answers. Perhaps they don’t know who to direct those questions toward. Is this the new Intel-gate?
Dana Priest and William Arkin, the inevestigative journalists just might be the next Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. This is the first of a three part series.
Man, if the Tea Partiers are concerned about Big Gummint, this is it, alright – on steroids!
The issue here is that the WashPost and the intel agencies have joined up once again to argue for and seek more federal employees. It is not about big government – I wish it was. Unfortunately, nether group or the Congress are really interested in scrubbing the services provided, or the coordination of mission and mission resources among agencies. Rather, it is about empires and the financial loyalty of the public employee unions to Democrats. It has very little to do with oversight, quality or technical competence. It is all about membership. It is all about centralization, it is all about the use of Federal employees verseus competitively awarded contract employees. In this area, it is insourcing at its least transparant level. Its another political payback at taxpayer expese..
@PWC Taxpayer
“Rather, it is about empires and the financial loyalty of the public employee unions to Democrats.”
How did you come up with this? Muchof the expansion of this “Spy vs Spy” stuff started on Bush’s watch.
You continue to sing a one note song.
It is kind of scarey isn’t it? Better keep your shades drawn.
I had a quick glance into this world … there’s money being burned at a fantastic rate. I’m quite sure no one’s minding the store.
Rick, there is a great deal of oversight and there is a great deal of duplication burn – by feds and by contractors, which we pay for on purpose to make sure senior decision makers have verification, independent analysis and a voicing of conflicting data/views. I understand that, and George this is, in no small way, an outcome of the 9/11 and Iraq Intel failures (if they were really failures). The real issue is communications across the stovepipes to make sure that nobody holds back. What bothers me in this article is the attack on contractors and the line that more feds are needed. That is a political issue not a performance issue.
What also stands out is the idea that no one’s really driving the train, that few people know what’s even being done, and that secrecy is used as a shield to defend useless efforts.
Rick, it almost sounds like the Xfiles.
TP, are you one of the Super Users? If not, I think I will stick to what is being said in by Dana Priest. She has been all over the TV this morning.
I haven’t read where more federal workers are needed at all. It appears that the report suggests that all of this be cleaned up, not increased.
And in a sort of related maner – knowing Moon’s affection for Jon Stewart; the efficiency of Government and this Administration was pointed out by Leno recently:
Jay Leno: “The White House announced this week that the stimulus package saved three million jobs. … The package was $862 billion, which means it cost us $287,000 per job. You know what we should have done? Write a check to those three million people for $187,000 each. T hey could have stayed home for the summer and we would have saved $300 million.”
@Moon-howler
Typical crap. My comments were based on the article and the release of Acting Director of National Intelligence, David C. Gompert’s reaction to the Washington Post series, in which he said
“This morning, the Washington Post began a series of articles on the growth of the Intelligence Community following the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The reporting does not reflect the Intelligence Community we know.
We accept that we operate in an environment that limits the amount of information we can share. However, the fact is, the men and women of the Intelligence Community have improved our operations, thwarted attacks, and are achieving untold successes every day.
In recent years, we have reformed the IC in ways that have improved the quality, quantity, regularity, and speed of our support to policymakers, warfighters, and homeland defenders, and we will continue our reform efforts. We provide oversight, while also encouraging initiative. We work constantly to reduce inefficiencies and redundancies, while preserving a degree of intentional overlap among agencies to strengthen analysis, challenge conventional thinking, and eliminate single points of failure. We are mindful of the size of our contractor ranks, but greatly value the critical flexibility and specialized skills they contribute to our mission.
The challenges that lie ahead are difficult and complex. We will continue to scrutinize our own operations, seek ways to improve and adapt, and work with Congress on its crucial oversight and reform efforts. We can always do better, and we will. And the importance of our mission and our commitment to keeping America safe will remain steadfast, whether they are reflected in the day’s news or not. ”
David C. Gompert
Sounds like another guy just protecting his job.
Actually the issue is that no one knows how far reaching the post 9-11 IC really is. Unless Gompert is one of the Super folks, he doesn’t know where all the bodies are buried either.
And the article does not say that more federal employees are needed to staff the IC.
And TP, as to what you think I like and don’t like…I do like Jon Stewart. I don’t think the govt. is particularly efficient or not efficient. As for this administration, perhaps you have left out a third factor, I like this administration far better than I like the alternative or the nay-sayers who do the political drama to bring it down. Everything is relative. I think perhaps a better way of looking at it would be who I intensely DISlike rather than what I like.
Yes, the DNI is doing such a good job that despite spending who knows how much to send all those folks to Yemen, they didn’t have a clue about that a##hole who tried to set his underwear on fire to blow up a plane. Had that guy been wearing his underwear that long?
I agree with MH–Gompert’s plug is not pushed in all the way.
Well everything points to this exponential growth coming out of 9/11. Not only that, the DNI has to surrender his testicles to Leon Panetta when he takes office. The only “control” he has is over his bowels and bladder–most of the time. I can hardly wait to see what office will be established to oversee the ODNI. It is bound to happen. Anyone remember “Spy vs. Spy”?
LOL. All this griping from people who screamed for righteous vengeance when Valerie Plame Wilson’s intelligence cover was exposed.
Hey, folks, it is not called the “Clandestine Service” for nothing. You want more openness? You want to evaluate it up front and closer? You want to know who is in control? That’s why you pay those selected representatives and senators, Democrat and Republican, for keeping tabs on the intelligence services. They have been charged with doing that job honestly and intelligently, all the while maintaining their own oath not to reveal intelligence sources and methods. If you don’t like the job they are doing, then fire them and get some new overseers, realizing that they also will be unable to tell you precisely what is going on. Clandestinity. That is how this thing works and has always worked, anywhere and at any time in history. Without it you will have nothing.
If you think it is wise to open this up more to public knowledge, your knowledge will last only as long as it takes for your clandestine officers and their operational sources to be exposed either openly or through the clever deductions of some very accomplished counterintelligence and counterespionage forces and then, if not killed, at the least rendered totally ineffective. Morever, you will then see information received from friendly foreign intelligence services dry up faster than your lawn in a drought with public water restrictions.
The clandestine services do not always achieve what they want to achieve; but, if in this world of danger you want to handicap them, luck to you. You are going to need it.
Well this blows all the conspiracy theories out of water…lol 😉
I don’t think this has a thing to do with Valerie Plame. That is an individual who was outted over politics.
I think this article is really about big government and spending and not knowing what we are really spending on. Out of control government…I don’t think that anyone wants secrets spilled. I think there is a call for someone knowing what is going on and perhaps some fiscal responsibility thrown in with oversight. Did you look at the increases?
How much is spent on this? Does anyone know?
I think that is the point of the article. If it is all needed, fine. Somehow, there seems to be excess. On the other hand, no one believed Watergate either.
There is already someone who is supposed to know what is going on and to deal with the amount of money spent on intelligence. He is called the President of the United States, and he was elected to do that very job, among others. Surely no one would want him to publish a precise budget showing where all those dollars are going. It would be a roadmap for the enemy. In my day, the KGB and GRU would have thought they had died and gone to Heaven — well, probably a long vodka-filled and girlie-pleasured vacation on the Black Sea, since they claimed not to believe in Heaven.
Look, Moon, you have to tread with extreme caution here. Those assigned to counterespionage and counterintelligence are paid to think and think and think and look for even the smallest clues. Yes, the KGB and the East German Stasi, inter alia, are gone; but you can bet that al-Qaeda has the same sort of setup, less sophisticated perhaps but generally the same. Some of the groups I fought against were so hard to penetrate precisely because they gave the job of vetting and self-protection to the smartest among them. They are often people of intensity for whom the slightest miss could mean tilt and game over. Why help them in order to satisfy the curiosity of the Washington Post or even honest citizens? Sometimes you just have to trust for your own sake. And I can tell you that, for my entire career, I had to justify and account for every dollar to the green eyeshade guys. They always meant business.
@ Wolverine
Have you had time to read the entire article? It doesn’t sound like it is all traceable, which I find frightening. I think in an era where we want govt accountability and we want a leaner machine, we need to pay attention to what is being said. I am not buying the whole article hook, line and sinker but I am also not going to dismiss it either.
It sort of makes you wonder who told the president. Who was enough in the know to even brief him. It didn’t sound like Bush knew either, so we can rule him out.
I am not much on conspiracy theories. I didn’t even believe Watergate for a long time. But this is a 2 year study that bridges presidencies. We can’t let Al Qada win simply because they choked us out on our own network deficiencies and costs.
Moon, I did read the entire article. Please notice that it focuses heavily on the Dept . of Defense programs. That was never my direct bag — well sometimes on specific things but not in a general way. That is something for the military to figure out. But in general terms intelligence has gotten very complicated in a world which has made technological leaps and bounds over the past several decades. It is not only we who use that technology. The enemy can as well, especially in things like moving people and money. Their use of it demands an equal or better response from us, or we will get beaten time and time again.
The growth you see should not be surprising after the trauma of 9/11. It will take more time to sort out that growth definitively. And it is understandable that such growth can bewilder an outsider, including Post investigators. I did notice only a certain surface coverage in that article. If those people working in those various agencies were at all like me, they would go absolutely mum in the presence of a Post reporter or any other reporter for that matter. Career death sentence that can be.
If the ODNI never figured it out, that is their fault. I never thought much of the ODNI idea to begin with. In my opinion, just another layer in between the hands-on intelligence chiefs and the man in the Oval Office. But I do have to laugh when some people complain about having too many reports and too many opinions. First question from an intelligence analyst to an intelligence producer: “Do you have any other trustworthy sources to back up your report?” Actually, it is in the competition of sources where the analyst will begin to find the snags which need to be sorted out before intelligence is given to the user for action or policy purposes. One source only is taking a big risk. Rarely does a single source standing alone cut it with a good analyst in my experience unless that source is as high as you can go in the organization or group of principal interest. Most intelligence is gathered in bits and pieces and then put together by the analysts, the best of whom seldom let a producer get away with anything. Anyway, that has been my personal experience.
I think the article opens up a lot of questions. I never quite finished it.
Tuesday will deal with the contractors.
It certainly gives us something to talk about that doesn’t involve the usual things we all chew on. I am fairly opinionless but full of questions.