Just a quick heads up to those who might not be on my e-mail list, a pointer to a cover story in Friday's National Journal on China's cyber militia. U.S. intelligence officials and computer security experts believe that Chinese hackers may be responsible for two major blackouts, as well as the theft of information from Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. The Associated Press picked up on the Gutierrez incident today, as well.
Labels: CIA, Cyber Cold War, Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security, National Security Agency
I attended a dinner last night sponsored by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, and Don Kerr, the principal deputy director for national intelligence, was the guest speaker.
The ODNI has a transcript of Kerr's remarks. I was struck by a few remarks. First, Kerr talked about a recent two-week trip to Latin America. He wasn't clear about why he had gone, but he shared some observations. "Of course there you see the conjunction of narcotics trafficking and terrorism and there may be a nexus forming between them," Kerr said. He continued:
They share the need for money laundering. In fact in Latin America you have a real presence of Hezbollah. Hezbollah, after al-Qaida, is the terrorist organization that has the most American blood on its hands. So if you need to worry about something you might think about our hemisphere where a terrorist organization is involved in money laundering, narco-trafficking, and very close to other criminal enterprise. That to me is the kind of thing that we need to worry about looking forward, not just fixating on the East/West prospects we have for the conflicts we’re in today.To be fair, I think one should emphasize the word "may" in this connection between narco-traffickers and terrorists, particularly in the context of Hezbollah, because there is a fair amount of debate over this connection and its significance in the counterterrorism community. I'm not dismissing it. But that aside, Kerr really wanted to draw the attention of the audience--mostly intelligence professionals, past and present--to threats that exist "in our backyard."
So we need to be watchful, pay attention in fact our back yard and to just Iraq and the Afghan/Pak border. That was one reason I went to Latin America. [I think there's a transcription error here, and that Kerr said, or meant to say, "and not to just Iran and the Afghan/Pakistan border."]Kerr then turned to a discussion of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who's caught up in a potential regional conflagration after Colombian troops last weekend crossed into Ecuador to kill members of the revolutionary guerrilla group FARC. (The United States is not alone in labeling FARC a terrorist organization.)
"One of the things I’m proud to report to you is that even before last weekend I had the
opportunity to meet with President Uribe," Kerr said. "This is a leader of a country that’s actually succeeding in his endeavor. The number of FARC are now under 10,000. There was, of course, significant further loss last weekend [the Colombian troops killed FARC leader Raul Reyes and 23 of his cohorts] but I think the important thing for all of us to understand,
this is a leader of a democracy who has an 80 percent support rating from his citizens."
The rest of Kerr's remarks, while a bit lengthy, are worth reading. Remember, this is the second-highest-ranking intelligence official in the United States, and he's expressing a point of view that is not at all at odds with President Bush.
What are his [Uribe's] principles? They’re really simple. Democracy leads to security. He’s trying to provide a climate for investment. And he’s trying to build the institutions that provide social cohesion. That leads to confidence in the electorate and why he has, of course, the 80 percent rating.I can't speak to the 80 percent approval rating, but this is as strong of an endorsement of Uribe as I've seen from any senior intelligence policy official. The Colombia-Ecuador-Venezuela standoff is, of course, still developing, and as I noted the other day, speculation about documents on a FARC laptop are fueling the fire. (Greg Palast has a rebuke of the documents, based on his review of some of them, in Spanish. )
He does some other simple things that all of us know how to do but may fail to do. That is, he does town meetings throughout his country. He takes his National Security Council to meet in a different city each week. And so if you want to look for hands-on leadership that’s succeeding you need look no further than Colombia where they’re really taking on this question of narcotrafficking and terrorism and doing it in their own country. I think we need to support that and learn from it.
Now if you think about what I just said, I’ve just talked about something that’s not very different than what we’ve achieved with the surge in Iraq. We provided more troops, provided the security window, the ability to train up the Iraqis. We now have the CLCs, the concerned local citizens, taking back their own communities. What we hope is, of course, that investment and social cohesion will follow. So this is not a lesson that need be learned over and over again. It’s one we simply need to pay attention to and apply as we take responsibilities in different parts of the world.
Kerr also made a pitch to intelligence officials to open up more to the press and not be afraid to talk about what spies do for a living.
The last challenge I’d like to talk to you about tonight is the one I have no answer for, but it’s really this. How do we do these things in a way that helps people understand how we in the Intelligence Community operate? Not as political pawns, but as professionals and apolitical experts. How do we pull back the curtain just a little bit for a society that of course automatically distrusts and dislikes secrets without sacrificing our sources and methods?
In the U.S., for example, we talk a lot about trying to support moderate Muslim leaders and dispelling myths about U.S. intentions and goals, and quite frankly, Americans as people. We are not really that good at communicating here at home when it comes to perceptions about the Intelligence Community. No poll has been conducted in recent years asking people about their feelings on the Intelligence Community. We should probably be thankful for that, for the number might be depressingly low.
That’s not because people don’t appreciate what we do or the live we save or the tomorrows we make possible. It’s because they don’t understand what we do. That’s in effect entirely our fault. If you brought in the best PR firm in the nation to diagnose our problem, they would sum it up pretty simply. We’ve allowed our detractors to frame the national debate and cast us as the villains.
We in the Intelligence Community are not winning hearts and minds in the U.S.. We’re not even trying. That’s what bothers me most.
Labels: Chavez, Colombia, Director of National Intelligence, FARC, Terrorism
This week, I sat down with John Brennan, the current chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. Brennan, who was the first director of the National Counterterrorism Center, is now advising Sen. Barack Obama on intelligence and foreign policy. Brennan is also the president and chief executive officer of The Analysis Corporation, headquartered in McLean, Va., which does a great deal of work for the intelligence community.
In our interview,
Q: Are we hearing a sufficient level of debate and distinction among the candidates of their various national security and counterterrorism positions?
Brennan: I think we are hearing some of that debate. And that debate is going to intensify as we get closer to the election.
There has been a fair amount of discussion, particularly on the terrorism front, about the different types of approaches. But I think it's mainly at the strategic level.
The intelligence business is a very complicated one, and I think a lot of the nuances may be lost on people. It's difficult in a presidential debate to really get into those intricacies.
I think there's a real issue related to some of the approaches that the next administration will have toward some of those countries, in particular, that still pose national security challenges to us -- for example, Iran, and whether or not there needs to be some initiative on the part of the United States to see whether there's some way to bridge the gap, or whether we should maintain a confrontational posture toward Iran.
Senator Obama and Senator [Hillary Rodham] Clinton have expressed an interest in trying to reach out, even to our adversaries. There are differences between those two as to when the president should get engaged.
Q: As a counterterrorism professional, is there one path that you see as more productive?
Brennan: I think that what we need in our quiver are many different types of arrows. We certainly need to have a military arrow. We need to have an intelligence one. But we need to have a diplomatic one. We need to have foreign aid. There needs to be a comprehensive set of approaches. A lot of these issues, including counterterrorism, cannot be solved with kinetic force.
I am a strong proponent of trying to focus more of our efforts on the upstream phenomenon of terrorism. I make the analogy to pollution. We learned that pollutants kill us when they get into the water we drink or the fish we eat or the air we breathe. But I think we also learned that we have to go upstream to identify and eliminate those sources of pollution. Terrorism is a tactic, and we have to be more focused upstream. Since 9/11, understandably we've focused downstream, on those terrorists who might be in our midst or trying to kill us, the operators. I think there needs to be much more attention paid to those upstream factors and conditions that spawn terrorists.
We also have to have a full discussion about the appropriate techniques we're going to use when individuals are captured or detained. But we have to be looking at what are those foreign policies, aid programs, international efforts that we need to be engaged in, that are going to try and stem the flow of those terrorists further upstream. I think a lot of our resources have been dedicated to that downstream phenomenon; I think the
Q: What is the appropriate government agency to handle that?
Brennan: This is an issue the government is grappling with. A lot of the issues right now fall between the Department of State and the Department of Defense and Commerce and others. I think as we deal with these transnational issues, we need to bring to bear those capabilities that exist in different agencies. The
Q: People like you have talked about the need to do this for some time. Why haven't we seen this take hold as an ethos in government?
Brennan: There are a number of factors. One is, it's really, really hard. It addresses legacy institutions and architectures and ways of doing business. In
Q: Then what will it take to finally push this through and make agencies feel compelled to change?
Brennan: It certainly isn't something that should be done quickly or without appropriate thought. I'm an advocate of having a review of the
Q: Would it make sense then to make the Director of National Intelligence more like the FBI director, someone who's not necessarily going to leave when the administration changes?
Brennan: I'm an advocate of having term appointments for the Director of National Intelligence. I think it makes sense. But the intelligence community is a subset of the broader national security establishment, which is a subset of the broader
Q: In your estimation, where is the threat level of terrorism today versus where it was right after 9/11? How big is the threat domestically? How has it changed?
Brennan: There are two sides to that coin. Whenever you do a net assessment, you look at the threat and the vulnerability. Let me take the vulnerability side. A lot has happened in the past six years in terms of making the homeland a much less hospitable environment for terrorists to ply their trade. We should feel good that our borders are not as porous. There's a much more substantial watch-listing effort. And a much better capability to detect terrorists and terrorist activity within our borders.
That said, on the threat side, while Al Qaeda, the organization, has been badly bloodied since 9/11, they still retain a potentially lethal capability. There has been a metastasis. Al Qaeda has manifested itself in a lot of different countries and communities, and it's a movement that continues to be grown and fueled by a number of factors.
One, is, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we no longer have this bipolar world where you had the
Q: Compare our ability to counter ideologies versus our tactical capabilities to collect more intelligence, to share it, to do more sophisticated things with it.
Brennan: I think unfortunately we have been way behind the curve as far as the public relations campaign -- making sure the image of the
Q: In the 2004 campaign, it seemed you had on one hand President Bush talking about downstream efforts, and then John Kerry articulating something more like the public diplomacy approach. It became a partisan division: that if you were for public diplomacy, you were weaker and identified with Democrats, and if you were on the Republican side, then you were with the president and fighting the fight. It seems not that pronounced this time, and that the candidates are talking more about combating ideologies. Is there still a divide between hard war and soft war?
Brennan: I think there is a divide. Obama is a good example in terms of the different approaches between the parties. In the articulation of the public effort, there needs to be the companion discussion about the need to act forcefully to ensure that
Q: Assess the debate in Congress and with the administration over reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. [Democratic lawmakers allowed the temporary extension of that law, the Protect
Brennan: There is this great debate over whether or not the telecom companies should in fact be given immunity for their agreement to provide support and cooperate with the government after 9/11. I do believe strongly that they should be granted that immunity, because they were told to do so by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context, and so I think that's important. And I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that's the right thing to do. I do believe the Senate version of the FISA bill addresses the issues appropriately. [Director of National Intelligence] Mike McConnell, I think, did a very good job trying to articulate the distinctions between the old FISA law, the FISA understanding under the Protect America Act, and then the House and Senate versions.
There are many types of scenarios for signals [for example, telephone calls and e-mails] to be accessed. But whenever this happens, there needs to be some substantive predicate, a probable cause, that someone is being targeted appropriately. There is an important issue about timeliness. And even though you can go through the FISA process, particularly when you're dealing with terrorism issues, there needs to be an understanding that intelligence agencies can move quickly if certain predicates are met. We shouldn't be held hostage to a complicated, globalized [information technology] structure that puts up obstacles to that timely collection. I think there are some very, very sensible people on both sides of the partisan divide trying to make this happen. And it's unfortunate that it's become embroiled now in a partisan debate in some quarters. But I think that's expected in any election year, especially one like this.
Q: So how do we get to the point where the public has reasonable assurances that what an intelligence agency does to determine probable cause, or that predicate, is based on sound technique?
Brennan: Maybe there needs to be a system of executive, legislative and judicial representatives who are going to oversee and ensure that this moves along the right path. It really takes those three legs of government to make sure there aren't advertent or inadvertent abuses.
You can have FISA judges and representatives from Congress, not to routinely review those individual requests [for surveillance], but the process, the criteria, and to make sure it's being followed in a strict fashion.
Q: You know that one big debate about FISA is the question of balancing security and privacy and civil liberties. Speaking as someone who has spent your life in counterterrorism, what do the terms "privacy" and "civil liberties" mean to you, and what is that balance?
Brennan: First of all, privacy and civil liberties mean so many different things to different people. There are people on one end of the spectrum that don't want to have any government interference or insight into what you're doing.
To me, I think the government does have the right and the obligation to ensure the security and safety of its citizens. If there is probable cause, reasonable suspicion, about the involvement of a
It really gets back to that issue of what is the substantive predicate. ... If we know there's a terrorist overseas that has been involved in activities, but he's also an import-export dealer, and he reaches out to Shane Harris because you happen to be an importer of stuff -- you're a U.S. citizen -- and we can see there's contact going on there, well, is that sufficient to give us reasonable suspicion that Shane Harris is involved in something? And Shane Harris happens to be in touch with somebody in his neighborhood that has a past record in engagement in some type of things. So there is going to be a judgment call here.
And what I think is important is that there needs to be an airing of this issue, public hearings that Congress can hold. You can't explain the issue in such rich detail that you can say exactly where that line is going to be drawn. But there needs to be an articulation of those triggers that the American people overall feel, yes, that's the right thing for the government to do.
You don't want to just troll and with a large net just pull up everything. There are technologies available to pulse the data set and pull back only that which has some type of correlation to your predicate.
Q: Is this the difference between the government controlling information, locking it down, and having controlled access to certain data sets which do exist?
Brennan: Right. And I would argue for the latter. Private sector companies can do things the government is unable to do, for marketing to their clients. I would argue the government needs to have access to only those nuggets of information that have some kind of predicate. That way the government can touch it and pull back only that which is related. It's like a magnet, set to a certain calibration. That's what I think we need to go to.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the threshold, quite frankly, was low, because we didn't know the nature of the threat we faced here in the
These are things that need to be discussed openly -- not to the point of revealing sources and methods and giving the potential terrorists out there insight into our capability -- but to make sure there is a general understanding and consensus that these initiatives, collections, capabilities, and techniques comport with American values and are appropriately adjusted to deal with the threat we face.
Q: How does the next president go about doing that?
Brennan: It's going to be a real tough job. Even though people may criticize what has happened during the two Bush administrations, there has been a fair amount of continuity. A new administration, be it Republican or Democrat -- you're going to have a fairly significant change of people involved at the senior-most levels. And I would argue for continuity in those early stages.
You don't want to whipsaw the [intelligence] community. You don't want to presume knowledge about how things fit together and why things are being done the way they are being done. And you have to understand the implication, then, of making any major changes or redirecting things. I'm hoping there will be a number of professionals coming in who have an understanding of the evolution of the capabilities in the community over the past six years, because there is a method to how things have changed and adapted. My advice, to whoever is coming in, is they need to spend some time learning, understanding what's out there, inventorying those things, and identifying those key issues or priorities that they have -- FISA or something else. They need to make sure they do their homework, and it's not just going to be knee-jerk responses.
Q: In other words, don't come in and do a housecleaning?
Brennan: Right -- not just in terms of people, but also programs. You don't want to create upheaval, because it will create a disruption in the system. There are still a lot people who say we have to implement all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. I have problems with some of those, because they're not really anchored in reality. Sometimes a superficial understanding of a problem leads one to making superficial decisions.
Q: It seems unlikely that any of the leading candidates would come in and dismantle things. They're fairly savvy to the kinds of things you're talking about. Is that the case, or is there still a risk there will be a political calculation, in that the next president will need to make a demonstrable effort to wipe the slate?
Labels: CIA, Director of National Intelligence, FISA, Homeland Security, Interviews, Management, NSA surveillance, Politics, Terrorism, Transition of Power
I have a story in today's National Journal about the remarkable reaction to the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program. As I reported this story, I was struck by the degree of confusion around the NIE's key judgments, stemming largely from how they were written.
There are still many more questions to answer. But the fact that so many thoughtful people are expressing concern about what this NIE really means, and what has happened since it was released, gives this document a new level of significance. It has also fundamentally altered the United States' posture towards Iran, in ways that we're only beginning to understand.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Iran
Defying expectations, the House adjourned for recess Thursday and will let the Protect America Act expire tomorrow. Unwilling to try and iron out differences between their bill and a version passed this week by the Senate, lawmakers will take up the thorny issues of telecom liability and oversight of intelligence surveillance at a later date. I don't think anyone would have predicted that in a blinking contest with the White House, Nancy Pelosi would emerge the victor. But here we are.
Senior intelligence officials, including the director of national intelligence, have been making the media and talk show rounds. They're being challenged on the question of whether intelligence activities will cease when the PAA expires. Surveillance already in place will continue, but the intelligence community will have to go through the "old" process of obtaining warrants if they want to start new surveillance. Those rules will be dictated by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), barring any orders to the contrary by the president—and don’t count that out.
The big question, though, seems to be whether or not the telecom companies assisting in any new surveillance think they will have legal protections going forward. I have pinged some national security lawyers on this, and the consensus is that they would have immunity for whatever they're doing now under PAA, and that said immunity would continue until those activities stop, regardless of whether the law is in effect. (Surveillance authorized and conducted under PAA can continue uninterrupted for one year.) But presumably any new surveillance would not have immunity, since it would be taken up under FISA.
Think of it this way. It's like giving a high-school student a permanent hall pass during third period French, but not during fourth period chemistry. The companies will find themselves now in the position of operating different kinds of surveillance under different standards and with different protections. Democrats have a point that letting PAA expire will not bring the government’s intelligence efforts to a halt. But letting the law expire does nothing to clarify the rules of the road.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, FISA, Law, NSA surveillance, Politics
Comments by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer suggest that Democrats might be preparing to let the Protect America Act expire this week. They would then use the next few weeks to pass a longer-term law.
Voice of America has a roundup of member positions this morning, and quotes Hoyer.
Hoyer asserted to reporters that even if the foreign intelligence surveillance law [PAA] expires, Americans will not be in danger and the intelligence community will be able to continue intercepting communications of suspected terrorists.
Expressing disappointment with the vote [yesterday not to extend PAA for 21 days], Hoyer does not expect Democrats will attempt another short-term extension, although he wouldn't rule this out, saying Democrats will use coming weeks to work on a bipartisan bill acceptable to President Bush. "In the event that the Protect America Act is not extended, we nevertheless intend to use the next 21 days for the same purposes, that is to try to see if we can reach agreement between the House and the Senate, on a bill that would enjoy broad support in the House and the Senate,” he said.
Interesting. I had predicted that the Dems would vote for the Senate bill that passed earlier, but Hoyer is certainly putting another route out there. This move would, of course, inspire the wrath of Republicans and the White House, but that would presumably inspire Democrats to work quickly on a new law. I still think the Dems will vote to pass the bill this week, but we’ll see.
IN THE WEEDS CONTENT: To clear up some of this business about whether surveillance activities will be put at risk if the PAA is allowed to expire. Here's how this works. Under the law, surveillance activities are conducted per the authorization, or certification, of the attorney general and the director of national intelligence. Essentially, they identify targets, and the intelligence community starts monitoring them. That surveillance is allowed to continue uninterrupted for one year. It does not expire when the PAA expires.
So, for example, if the government begins a new surveillance today, that surveillance can continue until February 14, 2009. It would not have to be shut down at the end of this week, when the PAA expires. And it’s important to note, what’s included in said surveillance is classified. But based on the law, and a lot of reporting, we know that the intelligence community is looking at whole groups of communications; we’re not only talking about single wiretaps here.
Now, if the PAA expires, the government would have to begin any new foreign intelligence surveillance under FISA. In other words, they'd have to go to a judge before they begin surveillance, which would be limited to individual targets and would be subject to the same rules of the road that were guiding surveillance before PAA was enacted. When intelligence officials say that without PAA their efforts will be hindered, that’s because they would be slowed down, legally and bureaucratically. Remember that when the National Security Agency’s warantless surveillance program was revealed, senior officials said that they had to go around FISA because that law was unsuited to the technology landscape—full of cell phones, e-mails, instant messaging—and to their need to engage in “hot pursuit” of suspected terrorists. There are lots of other reasons officials don’t want to revert to FISA, but for immediate purposes, this is probably the most important.
It's not clear whether or not the secret orders the president issued in October 2001—the ones that kicked off the NSA’s warantless program—would come into play if PAA were no longer in existence. I have to presume that the president could issue new orders if he felt that was necessary, to continue surveillance activities in lieu of the PAA. Bottom line, our intelligence-gathering efforts are certainly tied up in this law, but they are not hanging on it.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, FISA, Law, National Security Agency, NSA surveillance, Politics
The House voted down a Democratic measure that would have extended the Protect America Act for another 21 days. Joining the unanimous Republican vote were 34 Democrats (list below). In breaking ranks, they have positioned the House to take up a Senate bill that makes major changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and which passed yesterday evening by an overwhelming majority. The President wants to sign that bill immediately.
It’s increasingly unlikely that the House won't pass the legislation, which includes immunity for telecom companies that helped the government conduct electronic surveillance inside the
Given House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes' rather tepid remarks on immunity yesterday, I doubt the House will put up much of a fight. The Democratic split today shows that the chamber doesn't have the votes to fend off the Senate bill. More importantly, it will be seen as a revolt and evidence that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid have failed to hold a coalition against the Bush administration on intelligence activities that the Democrats have protested for more than two years.
The Protect America Act expires on Saturday. The ACLU has just called upon House members to let it expire, a game of chicken that Democrats have shown zero willingness to play. I think we'll have a new law on the books before the week is through.
I note, however, that they were still breaking with their party, and, whether intentionally or otherwise, helping force the House to act on the Senate bill this week.
Dan Boren (OK)
Leonard Boswell (IA)
Michael Capuano (MA)
Jerry Costello (IL)
Peter DeFazio (OR)
Lloyd Doggett (TX)
Bob Filner (CA)
John Hall (NY)
Maurice Hinchey (NY)
Rush Holt (NJ)
Dennis Kucinich (OH)
Barbara Lee (CA)
John Lewis (GA)
Tim Mahoney (FL)
Jim Moran (VA)
Christopher Murphy (CT)
Patrick Murphy (PA)
Frank Pallone (NJ)
Donald Payne (NJ)
Collin Peterson (MN)
Steven Rothman (NJ)
Loretta Sanchez (CA)
John Sarbanes (MD)
Jan Schakowsky (IL)
Jose Serrano (NY)
Tom Udall (NM)
Tim Walz (MN)
Maxine Waters (CA)
Mel Watt (NC)
Lynn Woolsey (CA)
David Wu (OR)
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, FISA, Law, National Security Agency, NSA surveillance, Politics
Saying he wanted "to be very clear in addressing the Iranian nuclear capability," Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told a Senate committee today that Iran continues down a path that could lead to construction of a nuclear weapon. Reiterating what appears to be a coordinated line of thinking, McConnell said that Iran is still enriching uranium and building missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. These are two of the three legs in the stool of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
While not refuting the judgment of his intelligence agencies that Iran halted the third leg, a set of covert, military-run nuclear weapons activities, McConnell clearly wanted to tamp down the dramatic headline of the recent National Intelligence Estimate, which gave the strong impression that Iran's nuclear program is, at least temporarily, on ice.
We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities, as well as its covert military uranium conversion and enrichment-related activities, for at least several years. Because of intelligence gaps, [the Department of Energy] and the [National Intelligence Council] assess with only moderate confidence that all such activities were halted. We assess with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted these activities as of mid-2007, but since they comprised an unannounced secret effort which Iran attempted to hide, we do not know if these activities have been restarted.For good measure, McConnell added, "I note again that two activities relevant to a nuclear weapons capability continue: uranium enrichment that will enable the production of fissile material and development of long-range ballistic missile systems."
This is now the official counterargument to the NIE. The fact that these statements come from the man who is ultimately responsible for that document is, as best I can tell, unprecedented.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Iran
The list is growing. Israel has now come out against the United States' National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, declaring that the country is three years away from obtaining offensive nuclear capabilities. Mossad chief Meir Dagan presented that assessment to a Knesset committee Monday, and added that the NIE "pulls the rug out from under" attempts to halt the Iranian program diplomatically, "leaving Israel to face the threat alone."
Who is out there actually defending the NIE? Israel now joins the French, the President of the United States, and the U.S. Director of National Intelligence in concluding that Iran is still on the path to a nuke, despite the NIE's judgment that Iran halted its nuclear weaponization program years ago. Like the other NIE skeptics, Israel homes in on two key pillars of a nuclear program, including uranium enrichment and ballistic missile construction, and concludes that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are alive and thriving. (President Bush made this case publicly, as well.)
Israel's departure with the NIE differed in that it rebuked the document itself as diplomatically counterproductive, something that, so far, only staunch critics of the intelligence community in the United States have done. Israel’s reaction is hardly surprising, of course, given its particularly precarious position in the region, and its long-standing insistence that Iran is either close or very close to developing a nuclear weapon.
But the fact that Israel is now on record against the U.S. conclusion is an important development, and could signal the start of a new international alliance, backed by President Bush himself, against the NIE’s conclusion, which will continue to be painted as rosy, overly optimistic, and fundamentally off-the-mark because it doesn’t rank the enrichment and missile programs highly enough in the final calculation. Will the authors of the NIE defend their work again, as they did so forcefully when their key judgments were declassified late last year? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, here’s something from the vault on Israel’s historic insistence that Iran was practically within reach of a nuke. In October 2006, I sat in on a meeting between then-Congressman Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Daniel Ayalon, then Israel’s ambassador to the United States. (I was writing a profile of Weldon, and the two men had previously scheduled this meeting in Weldon's office.) The conversation turned to Iran's nuclear ambitions, a topic that had possessed Weldon's interest. Like the Israelis, he insisted that Iran was closer to a weapon than most people thought, and that the United States perilously underestimated the regime.
Weldon told Ayalon that Iran would have a nuclear weapon in two years. A military attaché who had accompanied Ayalon to the meeting replied, with a smile, "We say less." It was a chilling moment, in and of itself. But it also stood out because, at the time, such a dire assessment was at odds with most experts' opinion, as well as the judgment of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. They estimated then that Iran's weapons program was at least five years from maturity and probably more, given Iran's difficulty producing the necessary materials for a bomb. It's worth noting that, around the time of this meeting, the intelligence community would have been in the early stages of its reassessment of the Iranian program, which resulted in last year's NIE and the about-face on the previous assessment.
Labels: CIA, Director of National Intelligence, Iran
So now, in addition to the Director of National Intelligence, and the President of the United States, add the French government to the dissent column on the explosive National Intelligence Estimate on
Herve Morin, the French defense minister, was in Washington yesterday, and he said that “coordinated information from a number of intelligence services leads us to believe that
The French dissent is significant on a number of levels. First,
Second, note that Morin said “a number of intelligence services” had provided information that led France not to concur with the United States’ key judgments—ones, it should be noted, that the president sought to distance himself from the very day they were declassified.
The Russian and Chinese governments—whose support for sanctions is key at the United Nations—haven’t come out in opposition to the NIE, but it doesn’t hurt President Bush’s case to keep up the pressure by having a key European ally come over to his side, especially one that feels threatened by Iran. The United Nations Security Council this week considered a new proposal from the
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Iran, Politics
President Bush offered fresh evidence in his State of the Union address last night that not all decision-makers share the intelligence community's view on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Although he was remarkably restrained in his rhetoric--particularly in comparison to years past--Bush homed in on Iran's uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs to remind us that the country still poses a mortal threat.
Tehran is also developing ballistic missiles of increasing range and continues to develop its capability to enrich uranium, which could be used to create a nuclear weapon. [Note: The recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program doesn't contradict him on this point.] ... Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear: Verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment, so negotiations can begin. And to rejoin the community of nations, come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions, stop your oppression at home and cease your support for terror abroad. But above all, know this: America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.
The NIE concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but it narrowly defined said program as "Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work," as well as its covert work to convert and enrich uranium. In other words, this assessment does not cover Iran's civilian enrichment work, which holds so-called "breakout potential" for a weapons program, nor does it cover work on building a missile to deliver a bomb. Still, it seems the community's view is that a full weapons program cannot come to fruition without the key weaponization piece.
The president, though, clearly thinks otherwise, and he's not alone. No less than the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, said recently that he thinks--apparently despite the NIE's findings--that Iran is on the path to obtaining a nuclear weapon.
This all could be evidence of a high-level split between the intelligence community and its customers. But there's another possibility. Intelligence is a special policy input, but it is, in the end, just one input. It's usually a mistake to take any single NIE or intelligence stream as dispositive. The president learned that painful lesson in the run-up to war in Iraq. Some might find it refreshing that this administration, even if in its final days, is not once again hanging its policy towards a key Middle Eastern country on inherently murky intelligence. It just may be that this time the country in question actually does have nuclear weapons, despite what the intelligence community believes.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Iran, Politics
President Bush has signed a directive that formally kicks off what intelligence reporters have been chronicling for months: The National Security Agency, the nation's electronic eavesdropping agency, will take a new, presumably aggressive role in responding to Internet-based attacks against government agencies.
The Washington Post broke news of Bush's directive on Friday, and the Baltimore Sun had been following this in considerable detail for months. Of particular interest is the distinctly military character of this new plan, known simply as the "cyber initiative" inside government. According to the Post, once the NSA determines that a hostile nation or Internet threat is targeting a government system, the Pentagon can strike back.
The Pentagon can plan attacks on adversaries' networks if, for example, the NSA determines that a particular server in a foreign country needs to be taken down to disrupt an attack on an information system critical to the U.S. government. That could include responding to an attack against a private-sector network, such as the telecom industry's, sources said.
Don't miss the importance of that last sentence. Our government's critical and sensitive information systems run on or are dependent upon privately-owned networks. An attack on AT&T, under this new initiative, can constitute an attack on the nation. The military's cyber attack capabilities are something of an open secret. Commanders love not to talk about them in on-the-record interviews.
This new initiative is meant to send a signal to our chief Cyber Cold War adversary, China: "We are going on the offensive." This campaign will, in some ways, be more significant than the war on terrorism. It will cost billions of dollars, implicate just as many of our most important policies--from privacy to secrecy to the authorities of the intelligence agencies--and ultimately could be a prelude to more overt, off-line conflicts. Settle in. This will be a long ride.
Labels: Cyber Cold War, Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency, NSA surveillance
Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker has a new (very long) piece on DNI Mike McConnell, the culmination of an apparently extraordinary level of access and series of intimate interviews. (Wright and McConnell ate together and flew once on the DNI's private plane.)
While I hate to say the piece didn't do much to illuminate McConnell's character, it also may have buried the lead. In the third to last paragraph of the 18-page article, the DNI drops what I consider a mini-bombshell: He thinks that Iran "is on the path to get a nuclear weapon."
That assessment stands in contrast to the intelligence community's official, coordinated judgment that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. That was the remarkable turn-about contained in the unclassified key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which McConnell released--after publicly vowing not to--last month.
Now, the NIE was uncertain about whether Iran was restarting its nuclear weapons program, and it certainly left open the possibility, but it seems to me a dramatic public pronouncement for the DNI to say he personally believes there's no doubt about Iran's intentions.
Here's the passage in question from Wright's article.
When we last spoke, McConnell said, 'There’s no doubt in this observer’s mind that Iran is on the path to get a nuclear weapon. It will force an arms race in the region.'As Wright chronicles in his piece, McConnell has recently shown a tendency to say things off-the-cuff that turn out to be not quite accurate, but this statement is rather emphatic. Indeed, the term "no doubt" is a much bolder assertion than the intelligence community's mark of "high confidence," used in NIEs to indicate that the assessment is based on high-quality information. One has to presume that, as the nation's top intelligence official, McConnell has access to the very best information. So what does he know that we don't after reading the NIE?
For background on the build-up to the NIE's release, see my story from National Journal last month, "The Other About Face on Iran."
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Iran
My initial take on the Iran NIE.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Iran, Media Notes and Appearances
Just when you thought it was safe to go on vacation...
Congress and the administration have been busy bees the past week, haggling over modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The new law effectively legalizes much of what the National Security Agency has been doing since 9/11 under the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program. Intelligence agencies now can intercept communications from individuals outside the United States--including American citizens--without warrants. The significant element here is that now, the NSA and others don't have to stop surveillance and obtain a warrant when the target who is outisde the United States communicates with someone inside the United States. That's the big change. And while it's important to emphasize that the government cannot target someone inside the country without a warrant--the target has to be overseas--the new law significantly broadens intelligence-gathering powers in a number of important ways.
Perhaps the most significant, and so far least-reported aspect, is that the new law doesn't narrow these powers to collecting intelligence about terrorism. In fact, the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" never appear in the law at all. The operative term here is "foreign intelligence." This new law should be read not just in the context of counterterrorism, but as a broader modification of the government's eavesdropping and surveillance powers.
The story is still developing, and we'll likely have to wait a while to understand the new law's effects fully. But here are some quick pointers.
First, NPR's Talk of the Nation addressed the issue yesterday in a half-hour segment. I joined a panel of guests including Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.), who voted for the new surveillance law, and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who voted against it. Diane Rehm is also devoting her show this morning to the topic.
James Risen also had a piece in yesterday's New York Times that looks at how the law broadens the intelligence agencies' powers. This really got under the White House's skin--recall that Risen was one of two reporters who revealed the NSA's warrantless surveillance in December 2005--and yesterday the press office issued a rebuttal. Note that the White House doesn't say Risen's story is wrong, and that he does point out that the new law doesn't allow warrantless surveillance of a target inside the United States.
One larger story here is how and why the Democrats acceded to much of what the administration was asking for with regards to "updating" FISA. Part of the explanation is pure math--Nancy Pelosi knew that the Dems didn't have to votes to defeat the bill. But there is much to learn here about how the Democrats view themselves as a majority party on national security issues.
It's also important to note that many credible experts are arguing this new law does not significantly enhance the government's surveillance powers. We will hear a lot of debate on that point in the coming weeks, and it will frame the discussion when this new law comes up for reauthorization in six months.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Media Notes and Appearances, National Security Agency, NSA surveillance, Terrorism
No big surprise here, but an important admission from Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence. In a letter to Arlen Specter (Penn.), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, McConnell acknowledges that the president authorized the National Security Agency to undertake "various intelligence activities," after the 9/11, aimed at preventing another terrorist attack. I and others have reported on some of these activities over the past year-and-a-half, but McConnell's letter marks the first time any administration official has so publicly acknowledged that the NSA is doing more than just "wire tapping," or intercepting phone calls.
Presumably, McConnell's letter is meant to provide legal cover for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose testimony about his 2004 nighttime visit to John Ashcroft's hospital room left Specter and his colleagues wondering if Gonzales had told them the whole truth about internal disagreements over the NSA "program" at the Justice Department. Gonzales tried to tell Senators that there was no disagreement over the program that the president acknowledged back in December 2005, which McConnell now says was just the wiretapping component, or, in his words, "the targeting for interception without a court order of international communications of Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations coming into our going out of the United States."
McConnell is asking members of Congress to change the law that governs such interceptions--the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-- and apparently there's significant disagreement over whether it can be applied to totally "foreign" communications that still pass through cables in the United States.
McConnell's letter to Specter can be viewed in light of his very public lobbying efforts, and not solely as a blocking maneuver for Gonzales. Putting it out there that the NSA is, in fact, undertaking other intelligence activities under presidential order strengthens his argument that the intelligence laws need significant overhaul, not just minor tweaking. Remember, McConnell is a former NSA director, and has strong opinions on adapting intelligence laws to the hunt for terrorists. McConnell also led Booz Allen Hamilton's intelligence division--after leaving NSA--and was involved in the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program, another effort to track terrorist movements and anticipate their plots.
Bottom line: McConnell has been trying to "modernize," if you like, the intelligence community for the past several years. He has been more public about these efforts than many senior intelligence officials, and will continue to be so. He's not the spokesman for this effort just because he's the DNI--this is a personal mission for McConnell, as well.
UPDATE: According to the AP, Democratic leaders are signaling that a deal on FISA might be imminent.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Justice Department, Law, National Security Agency, NSA surveillance, Politics, Terrorism
With all the recent attention on the National Security Agency's surveillance program--particularly that it was the so-called "data mining" aspects that drew Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card to John Ashcroft's hospital room back in 2004--I thought it was a good time to recall a story I wrote last summer.
This story goes into considerable detail about the NSA program, as well as DARPA's Total Information Awareness. It gives a lot of the shared history of these two programs, and it offers the views of some key senior intelligence officials.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency, NSA surveillance, Total Information Awareness
There are no real surprises in the unclassified "key judgments" of a new National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism, out this morning. Most of the important assessments of the 16 intelligence agencies have already leaked out or were highlighted in other forums by senior officials in recent months.
We judge the US Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years. The main threat comes from Islamic terrorist groups and cells, especially al-Qa’ida, driven by their undiminished intent to attack the Homeland and a continued effort by these terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities.Again, no surprises. The estimate does point out, echoing testimony by the country's top intelligence analyst last week, that Al Qaeda has "protected or regenerated key elements of hits Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)..."
In all, the one-and-a-half pages of unclassified nuggets aren't any more specific than what intelligence officials have put out for public consumption in the past year.
But there was one tantalizing bit at the end. The estimate seemed to say that the intelligence agencies need to better position themselves to counter the Internet as a tool for terrorism. In a section devoted to "technological advances" (read: the Internet, communications technologies, etc.) that continue to let "even small numbers of alienated people find and connect with one another, the authors drop this paragraph:
The ability to detect broader and more diverse terrorist plotting in this environmentLet me read between the lines here a bit. "The ability to detect broader and more diverse terrorist plotting in this environment..." Here, they're talking about picking up on the signals of an attack--online chatter, rhetoric on jihadi Web sites, but also message traffic, probably money transfers. We've known for a long time that the intelligence agencies focus on the Web and online transactions to detect terrorist patterns.
will challenge current US defensive efforts and the tools we use to detect and disrupt
plots. It will also require greater understanding of how suspect activities at the local
level relate to strategic threat information and how best to identify indicators of
terrorist activity in the midst of legitimate interactions.
But to the second point, this "will challenge current US defensive efforts and the tools we use to detect and disrupt plots;" that strikes me as a pretty candid admission. It's not like the intelligence agencies are saying, "We can't detect plotting on the Internet," but they're clearly pointing out this is an area of concern, and one that's going to keep putting counterterrorism specialists through their paces.
In light of this challenge, the agencies will need "greater understanding of how suspect activities at the local level relate to strategic threat information." This strikes me as a clear reference to the use of fusion centers, which are supposed to marry local intelligence with the global threat picture. This could be seen as a shot at the Homeland Security Department. Theoretically, it's DHS' job to put those two pieces together--local and global--but it has never really worked out that way. Most of this integration goes on at the National Counterterrorism Center, and the intelligence agencies hold sway there. The fusion centers themselves, while nominally under DHS' purview, are, in my experience, FBI-led affairs, with strong ties to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It's not clear whether this part of the estimate could be read as a move to underscore that this intelligence fusion is really the intelligence community's job, or as a signal to DHS that they need to step into this role more forcefully. I have to conclude, though, based on my reporting, that it's the former. This is a clear signal that the intelligence community sees fusion centers, and in the integration of local, national, and global threat reporting, as a vital part of domestic security.
Finally, the estimate says the intelligence agencies must understand "how best to identify indicators of terrorist activity in the midst of legitimate interactions." That's the false-positive, false-negative challenge in a nut shell. How do you scan all this activity--whether online or in the physical world--and determine what is and isn't suspicious? This is an area of particular interest for me, and I've been writing about it for years. I think it's most interesting that, in an NIE devoted to terrorist threats to the Untied States, officials chose to point out this challenge. Clearly, it weighs heavily on their minds.
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Fusion Centers, Homeland Security, Pakistan, Terrorism
For one year and 51 days, the nation's top intelligence official has been without a second-in-command. When Gen. Michael Hayden stepped down as the principal deputy director of national intelligence, in May of last year, to become the CIA director, it effectively left the intelligence community without a chief operating officer.
But today, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell announced that the president has nominated Donald M. Kerr to be McConnell's new No. 2. Kerr is currently director of the National Reconnaissance Office, a position he has held since July 2005. Previously, he was the CIA's top science and technology official, and he has served in a number of other posts.
The full text of McConnell's message to intelligence community employees announcing Kerr's nomination follows:
Dear Colleagues:The search for a deputy DNI has been a long, sometimes tortured affair. Several officials were approached--they declined--and the White House shot down other selections. McConnell has been doing double-duty, acting as the president's chief intelligence adviser and trying to manage the community day-to-day.
I am pleased to announce that the President today nominated Dr. Donald M. Kerr to be the next Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. He brings a wealth of experience and a focus on mission, gained from previous positions in the Intelligence Community, U.S. Government, and private industry.
Dr. Kerr currently serves as the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office and the Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force (Intelligence Space Technology). He previously served as CIA Director of Science and Technology, Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Laboratory Division), several positions at the Department of Energy, and as the Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. I look forward to his strong support and insight as we move to complete my 500-Day Plan, and continue our vital work for the security of our nation.
In accordance with the Intelligence Reform & Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Dr. Kerr's nomination is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate. We look forward to their favorable consideration of his nomination.
Sincerely,
Mike McConnell
After Hayden left for the CIA, intelligence observers worried that former DNI John Negroponte--who for all his diplomatic skills was never highly-regarded as an intelligence community manager--would be left in the lurch. Negroponte stayed on as DNI for seven more months, then left to become deputy secretary of state. When the president chose McConnell to replace him, intelligence observers breathed a sigh of releif--McConnell is deeply respected within the community, and career officials see him as "one of us."
But unlike Negroponte, McConnell was a management nut. He has embarked on an ambitious set of reform plans, including speeding up the security clearance process, devoting new resources to science and technology, and implementing joint-duty requirements for promotion to senior ranks. In short, McConnell is a born manager, which left many wondering what kind of skills he'd want in a deputy.
Just doing a quick reading of the tea leavs on Kerr's nomination, McConnell had to find someone willing to take on the arguably thankless job, as NPR's Mary Louise Kelly pointed out in a recent piece on Kerr's potential nomination. The Bush administration is also in its twilight. It's likely that McConnell prevailed upon Kerr's allegiance to the intelligence community--in which he has served for so many years--to come aboard and help him implement his reform plan.
I'm not sure whether some will see the move from NRO to the DNI's office as a promotion--probably not--but it does give Kerr an ostensibly wider purview of the nation's spy agencies, and that may have been attractive to him. He must figure that he has something to contribute.
One other note: The DNI's office is launching a big push on the science and technology front. As part of the fiscal 2008 budget request, McConnell has asked Congress for money to set up the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, iARPA, modeled after the successful Pentagon R&D unit, DARPA. Kerr used to run the CIA's science and technology division, and so has some familiarity with that terrain. As a former senior CIA official reminded me this morning, a huge portion of the intelligence community is devoted to technical issues--everything from signals collection and processing to geospatial intelligence. Kerr is also double-hatted at NRO--he's assistant to the Secretary of the Airforce. He has defense credentials, and likely got the blessing of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Kerr might be able to provide some bureaucratic cover for McConnell, too. In a controversial move, iARPA would take away the money that the CIA and other agencies receive for community-wide intelligence projects. (The agencies get to keep science and technology funds slated for their own, individual purposes.) Kerr will likely understand the sensitivities involved in dipping into other agencies' rice bowls, and so he might be able to help shepherd that process as the deputy DNI.
(For the record, here's the White House's personnel announcement on Kerr.)
Labels: Director of National Intelligence, Management