| FEATURED ARTICLES |
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| A Smarter
Approach to Intelligence |
| Story By Greg Fornia |
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You are a respected scholar and president
of the
Society for Historians of American Foreign
Relations. You are the Edward J. Buthusiem
Family Distinguished Faculty Fellow, director of the
Center for Humanities and the Marvin Wachman
Director of the Center for the Study of Force and
Diplomacy at Temple University. You are history
Professor Richard Immerman, and you have just been
asked to serve your country. When I put down the phone, I was flabbergasted,” remembers
Immerman. “My initial reaction was, simply, ‘wow.’”
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In the summer of 2007, officials at the Office
of
the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) asked
Immerman to take on the role of assistant deputy
director
for national intelligence for analytic integrity
and
standards. “I began to think that the idea was ridiculous,”
explains Immerman, who is currently on leave
from the university. “My wife helped me to realize
that
this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for someone
who has done the work I have done.”
Immerman has written extensively on American
foreign policy, focusing primarily on the years since
World War II. He’s penned a diplomatic biography
of John Foster Dulles, U.S. secretary of state under
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and a brief history
of
the Central Intelligence Agency. His scholarship
often
explores the decision-making process, a president’s
relations with his advisors and the role intelligence
plays in
the formation of foreign policy.
Immerman’s responsibilities — mandated by
the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of
2004, the same act that established the DNI — focus
on evaluating the quality of intelligence. “My job
is to
assure that intelligence assessments conform to criteria
and standards that are, to some extent, stipulated
in the
legislation itself,” says Immerman. “I’d
never had direct
experience in government, but I did have an understanding
of how to analyze information.”
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Setting new standards for national intelligence
Immerman also serves as the offi cial ombudsman
for the nation’s intelligence community
(IC), the 16
agencies that report to the DNI. IC staffers consult with Immerman if they feel
they have been pressured to alter an assessment. “It could be pressure |
from a front-line supervisor,
an issue manager or all the way up to the White House,” explains
Immerman, noting the hierarchical nature of government
agencies. “There have been only a few cases where
people have come to me with concerns. That has been very
gratifying.”
Working from the intelligence standards set forth
in the DNI charter, Immerman helped to fl esh out
additional areas of “analytic tradecraft,” the
equivalent
of academia’s scholarly methods. “We broke
down
tradecraft into eight specifi c areas, including quality
of sources, caveats and uncertainties, distinguishing
between underlying intelligence and assumptions and
incorporating alternative analysis where appropriate.”
Immerman and his staff reviewed nearly 1,500 IC products
last year — from one-page reports to national
intelligence estimates seen by the president — to
determine
if they comply with the analytic standards. Now
he is meeting with agencies to brief them on how well
they performed. “As we evaluated different agencies,
we
developed training programs to train analysts to do
a
better job — how to think and analyze better,” explains
Immerman. “We now bring these standards and training
methods to state and local law enforcement agencies.”
Immerman’s appointment has not been without controversy.
As a professor with no government experience
who was now in charge of ensuring the integrity
of American intelligence, some on the political right
likened Immerman to fi lmmaker Michael Moore with a
security clearance. Articles in The Weekly Standard,
The
Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal openly
questioned his objectivity.
“As far as my critics are concerned, I’m the
wolf
hired to guard the sheep,” says Immerman. “But
the
intelligence community has been quite supportive of
me and the work we are doing. This ‘controversy’ has
a
good side. It brings attention to the work we are doing
to improve national intelligence.”
Immerman’s critics latched onto an article in
Diplomatic History, written prior to his appointment
and published several months after he started at the
DNI. The paper, based on Immerman’s presidential
address to the Society of Historians for American
Foreign Relations, argued that “politicalization” of
national intelligence is a relatively new phenomenon,
arising during the Vietnam War. He went on to suggest
that, historically, intelligence did not have a
direct infl uence on national security policy and overall
strategy because, in part, presidents were often psychologically
unable to assess information that contradicted
their preconceptions.
“By the time someone has reached the pinnacle
of electoral success — the presidency — they
have
committed themselves to certain positions regardless
of how much they may have believed in the positions
initially,” explains Immerman. “They campaigned
on
them, and they have repeated them over and over
and over.”
Immerman continues the argument. “While it is
diffi cult for any of us to learn to change our views
on
something that we think is important, in the case of
presidents, this effect is exacerbated,” says Immerman.
“Their backgrounds and careers may make them less
likely to learn to change course.”
While Immerman states that the Diplomatic History
article was not intended to single out the current
administration, some saw it as a swipe at President
George W. Bush. “This is an historical trend, but
given
what happened with Iraq, the Bush administration did
illustrate this dynamic very well,” he says. “I
would
argue that intelligence has not been treated very seriously
by any administration, if the administration has
already decided to pursue a different course.”
The counterbalances to this effect, according to
Immerman, are strong national security advisors who
encourage the president — any president — to
rethink
these positions. Says Immerman, “Presidents have
to be
aware of this problem and make a conscious effort to
combat it.”
Closing the gap between intel and academia
Immerman says his article has sparked a very healthy
conversation on the role intelligence plays in policy.
“As an academic, that is my goal,” he says, “to
get
people talking and not worry about who is right and
who is wrong.”
He recalls the raised eyebrows when he told his colleagues
at Temple that he was going to work for the
DNI. “The intelligence community and academic world
never fi t very well together, although that is changing
as the IC is reaching out to academia for expertise,”
says Immerman. “In many ways, the intelligence
community can be less fractious than the academic
world. Those politics can be even more intense.”
Immerman is impressed with the staff at the DNI and
other government agencies, who, in some ways, remind
him of Temple’s faculty. “An array of extremely
smart
people who are committed to their jobs,” is how
he
describes his colleagues. “They are doing the best
they
can, and unfortunately, the public only hears about
their efforts when they get something wrong.”
He believes there is a limited opportunity to dramatically
improve how intelligence agencies collaborate
and integrate information. “After 9/11, and again
with
Iraq, there was a general recognition that the intelligence
community needed to improve operations,” says
Immerman. “Within the next couple of years, people
will settle back, so whatever change we make has to
happen right now. I’m right in the middle of that
analytic
transformation. That’s exciting.” |
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