Public intelligence: Leaks as policy instruments–the case of the Iraq war

The study of intelligence has focused almost exclusively on ‘secret’ intelligence in its analysis of intelligence failures and the relationship of policy and intelligence. This is not surprising since intelligence analysis takes place in secret. Yet sometimes intelligence becomes public. It does so in ways that hold implications for the quality of the overall intelligence product. In order to develop a complete understanding of the relationship between intelligence and policy we need to more systematically examine the nature of public intelligence. This article provides a framework for doing so, presents historical examples from the American experience and applies the framework to the intelligence used in justifying the Iraq War.     

New Sources for the Study of Iraqi Intelligence during the Saddam Era

The US Department of Defense (DOD) has made available to scholars a significant collection of documents captured from the files of the Saddam-era Iraqi intelligence services. DOD is also studying ways in which further such documents can be released. These documents paint a picture in many ways reminiscent of the intelligence services of the totalitarian Soviet Union. These and forthcoming documents may enable important research on Iraq and on the role of intelligence services in totalitarian states. One newly available document gives the Iraqi General Military Intelligence Directorate's assessment of Iran on the eve of the Iran–Iraq War.     

Britain Betwixt and Between: Uk SIGINT Alliance Strategy's Transatlantic and European Connections

Intelligence alliances are among the most intimate and enduring international security relationships. International partnerships have proven to be especially relevant to signals intelligence (SIGINT), where collaboration among allies has been crucial for extending the range and scope of geographic coverage. One of the earliest and most enduring SIGINT alliances dates back to the Second World War, when Great Britain and the United States collaborated in intercepting German and Japanese electronic communications and shared the intelligence product. This Anglo-American wartime partnership subsequently evolved and expanded during the post-war and Cold War eras, and continues up to the present as the core of a wider plurilateral SIGINT alliance involving Australia, Canada and New Zealand as well. Britain's accession to the European Communities, now the European Union (EU), did not, at first, detract from its transatlantic intelligence connection. By the late 1990s, however, European partners had begun to challenge Britain's alliance strategy for SIGINT, in particular, out of heightened concern for their own communications security and in response to the increasing salience of economic intelligence in contemporary international affairs. British statecraft now found itself confronted by mounting pressure from EU partners to reorient the UK intelligence away from its long-standing transatlantic SIGINT connection, so as to undermine American reach and also promote a potentially competing European capability to achieve global coverage in signals intelligence collection. While the 2003 war against Iraq certainly consolidated the trans-Atlantic alliance between the UK and USA, while alienating the Americans from the so-called 'Old Europe' led by France and Germany, the longer term spin-offs from that conflict seem likely to exacerbate those pressures on British intelligence strategy.     

Missing revolution: the American intelligence failure in Iraq, 1958

Why were American officials caught by surprise with the military coup and later revolution in Iraq on 14 July 1958? Drawing on American intelligence and diplomatic records as well as multilingual sources, this article argues that the US intelligence failure is the product of two factors: the collection of information from too few and too similar human sources of intelligence in Iraq’s ruling regime, and the unreceptivity of US officials to assessing new information and their unwillingness to update assessments of local Iraqi developments. It revisits America’s intelligence failure in Iraq and suggests important lessons for the study of intelligence.     

Something Old, Something New: A Historical Perspective on the Butler Review

Simon Case and Catherine Haddon demonstrate the value of contemporary history by looking at the recent Butler Report into intelligence on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in its historical context. Intelligence failures form the most visible activity of the intelligence services, yet from the policy-maker's perspective it is important that the intelligence process remains undisturbed so that the intelligence product remains useful. The intelligence effort on Iraqi WMD, as with previous changes in intelligence targets, shows the difficulties in establishing good intelligence on a new threat. Increases in demand and the centrality of intelligence put more pressure on the intelligence services. Butler has set a precedent for public awareness and therefore a desire for accountability that must be internalised by government and the intelligence services. The problems experienced over Iraq show the need for continual reappraisal by both producers and users of intelligence products, particularly in light of defence policy changes and the wider machinery of government.     

Informality and Circumscription: The Blair Style of Government in War and Peace

In the latest of his periodic 'overflights' of the Blair style of government since 1997, Peter Hennessy examines the significance of the 2004 Butler Report (on intelligence and weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq War) for Tony Blair both as war premier and also as an indicator of his governing practices in general. He concludes that the Cabinet's overall performance on the road to war was seriously inadequate, and is especially critical of its failure to test out fully the Attorney General's opinion in the legality of the war.     

Recognising Politicization: The CIA and the Path to the 2003 War in Iraq

The concept of ‘politicization’ of the US intelligence services, and in particular the CIA, has been debated by scholars for many years. However, it has also been easily dismissed by those investigating recent US foreign policy, as in the Robb-Silberman Commission's assurance over the 2003 Iraq War that ‘the Intelligence Community needs to be pushed’. This essay seeks an extension of the critique of politicization by considering the historical context since the formation of the CIA. It seeks an application of that critique by putting forth, when evaluating the policy and operations of the George W. Bush administration, the notion of an ‘alternative network’ within the government. The argument is that politicization must be linked to a conception of ‘Executive power’, both within the American bureaucracy and in the projection and rationalization of US aims overseas.     

Changing Horses in Wartime? The 2004 Presidential Election

The literature makes clear that foreign policy affects voting, but it does not lead to clear expectations as to how a war will affect voting. Will views about the advisability of the war predominate? Or will the indirect effect through the incumbent’s image be more important? Will a war crowd out other potential issues, particularly domestic ones? This paper addresses these questions through a series of focused analyses of NES survey data. We find that an increase in strong Republican partisans clinched the election for President Bush. The Iraq War was not a direct vote gainer for the President, but the larger War on Terrorism burnished his image as a leader, at least long enough to win the election. Likewise, the cultural war allowed President Bush to retain some of the votes that he might otherwise have lost due to the unpopularity of the Iraq War.     

Iraq: The Mother of all intelligence failures

The most important American intelligence failure in Iraq was the widespread belief among top administration officials that Saddam could be overthrown at little cost and successfully replaced by a pro-American regime. We trace the causes of these and related intelligence failures to the administration's hubris. It led the Secretary of Defense and Vice President – the men most responsible for the Iraq decisions – to formulate unrealistic expectations about America's ability to impose its will in the Middle East and to rig the feedback networks in the military and intelligence communities to provide them with confirming estimates while downplaying discrepant information.     

‘Every Hungarian of any value to intelligence’: Tibor Eckhardt,John Grombach,and the Pond

Abstract

Tibor Eckhardt, a Hungarian émigré, was a key player in American intelligence operations regarding Hungary during World War II and the early Cold War. He worked closely with a secretive American intelligence organization headed by John Grombach, an American intelligence officer who was a vehement opponent of the CIA. Though Eckhardt and Grombach shared concerns about the CIA, they were also forced to cooperate with it. Eckhardt’s endeavors and those of the many Hungarians whose intelligence work he coordinated were ultimately futile. Hence, they were representative of the efforts of freedom-loving Hungarians to liberate their country during the Cold War.     

The Future of Civil–Military Intelligence Cooperation Based on Lessons Learned in Iraq

As part of the infrastructure for monitoring the movements of Private Security Companies (PSCs) in Iraq, a unique intelligence interface has been constructed to enhance cooperation between the military and PSCs. Using a wide range of existing intelligence-sharing agreements and guidelines for handling classified information, PSC contractors working with the US military have been able to provide unclassified intelligence products to the wider PSC community. Using lessons learned in Iraq as a contractor building this interface, the author explains how institutional difficulties were overcome and argues that the US military should be better prepared to share intelligence with the wide range of organizations it can expect to work with in future unconventional warfare or nation-building operations. Some of the lessons learned in Iraq can also be applied to the US Department of Homeland Security's Regional Fusion Centers, where many of the same difficulties with intelligence-sharing and integration with commercial organizations are being encountered.     

Policy Lessons from Iraq on Managing Uncertainty in Intelligence Assessment: Why the Strategic/Tactical Distinction Matters

This paper focuses on how pre-existing policy priorities and goals among policy elites in the US, UK, and Australia encouraged the blurring of strategic and tactical intelligence assessment as a mechanism for legitimising the Iraq invasion. Through the selective use and interpretation of sometimes vague or unsubstantiated tactical and technical intelligence and the many uncertainties it contained, proponents of the war were able to undermine existing strategic assessments on Iraq by introducing a range of possible, but largely unsubstantiated, threat scenarios as justification for military action. The paper argues that in so far as intelligence reforms are needed, they should be focused primarily on the interface between analysis and policy making, and the issue of how policy makers interpret and understand the uncertainties that intelligence assessments necessarily contain.     

Scientific Advice at a Time of Emergency. SAGE and Covid-19

The challenge for experts in government is often described as one of speaking unwelcome truths to a resistant power. Yet, just as problematic can be instances where the advice is welcome and so left unchallenged. Two such cases in which the UK government followed flawed expert advice are considered: intelligence assessments and military advice leading up to the 2003 Iraq War and the role of SAGE (the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) during the first stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Governments need to interrogate advice and make sure that they understand its underlying assumptions and implications. It remains vital to protect the independence of the experts, but to get the best out of their advice early and active political engagement is required rather than an arms-length relationship.     

Comparing US and UK Intelligence Assessment in the Early Cold War: NSC-68, April 1950

US and British intelligence assessments regarding the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War contained substantial differences despite the remarkable level of cooperation and information sharing that existed between the respective services in the period. Using NSC-68 as a "pivot", this article examines these discrepancies as well as those similarities that did exist, considering their significance and evolution in an effort to understand what factors drove and shaped intelligence analysis on both sides of the Atlantic.     

When the British ‘Tommy’ went to war,public opinion followed

• This article seeks to outline how public opinion changed over the course of the government's announcement of 2nd Gulf War in Iraq until the scandal over the alleged ‘sexed‐up’ Downing Street intelligence dossier. Using quantitative analysis of opinion poll data, together with in‐depth interviews with journalists to show how the media were complicit in providing a positive spin for the government's stance on war, the authors conclude that the positive change in public opinion once the British soldiers were deployed occurred through one of the following mechanisms: 1) a patriotic effect, 2) government communication expertise and the management of a complicit news media, 3) the public basked in the reflected glory of the initially successful military or 4) some combination of the above.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Terrorism,Intelligence and Law Enforcement: Learning the Right Lessons

More than a generation ago, in the wake of investigations by the US Congress into improprieties carried out by US intelligence agencies, the United States, in effect, raised the wall between intelligence and law enforcement in order to protect the liberties of Americans. For similar reasons, its Cold War institutions enshrined distinctions between foreign and domestic, and public and private. The CIA was and is, for instance, enjoined from law enforcement and domestic activity.

Those distinctions served the country tolerably well during the Cold War but set it up to fail on September 11. Now, a rethinking of them is underway, as the balance between security and liberty is re-struck. It is imperative, though, to learn the right lessons on September 11. That means thinking carefully and proceeding slowly as changes are made. It also means carefully evaluating the effects of proposed changes, especially to avoid ‘pain for no gain’ measures that do inconvenience people, or even affect their liberties, for little or no gain in the war on terrorism.     

British codebreaking and American diplomatic telegrams, 1914–1915

During the First World War, British intelligence solved the United States' diplomatic codes and were reading its diplomatic telegrams transmitted between Washington and US diplomatic outposts throughout Europe. Controversy has emerged over when the British succeeded in solving these codes, with two historians relatively recently having claimed that British intelligence succeeded in doing so from the beginning of the war or soon after. Through a thorough consideration of the available documentation, this piece aims to correct these mistaken claims and to date the completion of the British solving of American codebooks to the middle phase of the war, to between October 1915 and January 1916. It seeks to lay reliable foundations for further work by showing that research into the wartime impact of British signals’ intelligence on Anglo-American relations is necessarily limited to only the middle and later phases of the war.     

Intelligence,International Relations and 'Under-theorisation'

This article submits that the conceptual framework within which intelligence is studied must continue to evolve and adapt to the new conditions of the early twenty-first century. As more intelligence and intelligence related material than ever before enters the public domain, scholars of international relations must take greater account study of the role of intelligence. Despite its obvious importance to the course of the Cold War, for example, most accounts of the Cold War tend to ignore or downplay the importance of signals intelligence in particular. Intelligence, moreover, is all but absent in most contemporary international relations theory. The essay argues that intelligence should be placed closer to the centre of new interpretations of both the course of the Cold War and of the political dynamics of authoritarian states.     

When generals consume intelligence: the problems that arise and how they solve them

Strategic intelligence is a critical input to national security decision-making. Research indicates decision-making is negatively affected when strategic intelligence creates cognitive problems. In this qualitative study, the opposite was found to be true. Twenty-one very senior landpower generals with command experience in Iraq and Afghanistan were interviewed. Their problems with strategic intelligence – resulting from their perceptions of contradictions – had a positive affect on decision-making. The generals resolved problems using a three-prong, socially embedded, hierarchically diverse, problem solving strategy consisting of self-learning, learning from others, and mentoring others. Such a strategy could be incorporated into professional military education throughout an officer’s career.     

MI5 and the Cold War in South-East Asia: examining the performance of Security Intelligence Far East (SIFE), 1946–1963

From 1946–1963, MI5 operated a South-East Asian regional headquarters in Singapore: Security Intelligence Far East (SIFE). This article responds to growing interest in theatre-level intelligence organisation and the importance of intelligence to Britain’s Cold War and decolonisation by examining the performance of SIFE. On the organisational level, SIFE was strongest when it remained wedded to its charter functions and closely adhered to the priorities of its principal consumer: the Commissioner-General for South-East Asia. Its assessments were influential in shaping decision-makers’ understandings of key regional developments, although this did not always translate into public policy. Lastly, SIFE enjoyed success in developing lasting liaison relationships to cement British influence, but failed to utilise these to improve its intake of raw intelligence.