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Intelligence in the Twenty-FirstCentury: Change and Continuity orCrisis and Transformation?Len Scott & R. Gerald Hughes

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ARTICLES

Intelligence in the Twenty-FirstCentury: Change and Continuity or

Crisis and Transformation?

LEN SCOTT AND R. GERALD HUGHES

ABSTRACT This article outlines and explores some recent changes that have takenplace in the practice and organization of western intelligence. American concern withorganizational reform of its intelligence community is outlined and contrasted. Othertransatlantic comparisons are made, in particular concerning debates about intelligenceand human rights. The legacy of British experience in Northern Ireland for attitudes totorture and preservation of the rule of law is examined. The British experience of‘talking to terrorists’ is also explored. Prospects for, and expectations of, the future,including the likelihood of catastrophic terrorism are discussed. The argument is madethat the ‘War on Terror’ is a ‘battle of ideas’ and values.

New Challenges

Intelligence has never played so prominent a role in the public affairs ofwestern societies as it does today. The early years of the twenty-first centuryhave publicly demonstrated the centrality of intelligence to policy –intelligence is increasingly seen to be at the heart of national (andinternational) security. Indeed for some critics, the failures of intelligenceover 9/11 and in Iraq were responsible for some of the central politicalproblems now facing western states. For others, 9/11 was more symptom thancause of the malaise in American intelligence.1 How these developments areviewed depends upon the historical, normative and political frameworks inwhich they are analysed. Many would contend that, whatever mistakes weremade, primary responsibility for what went wrong over Iraqi weapons of massdestruction (WMD) lies with political leaders rather than intelligence

1For example, Amy B. Zegart, Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2007).

Intelligence and National SecurityVol. 24, No. 1, 6–25, February 2009

ISSN 0268-4527 Print/ISSN 1743-9019 Online/09/010006-20 ª 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/02684520902756796

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services.2 The view, for example, that war on Iraq reflected pre-existingpolitical agendas in Washington suggests that primary responsibility lay in thehands of policy-makers rather than the intelligence community.3 As SirRichard Dearlove, former Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS),has asserted: ‘The problem was the [Vice-President Dick] Cheney crowd wasin too much of a hurry, really. [And President] Bush never resisted them quitestrongly enough.’4 Given this it is small wonder that Cheney (and Bush)viewed those American intelligence agencies that offered up unpalatabletruths about Iraq as being at best uncooperative and at worst disloyal.5 Theseexecutive shortcomings were exacerbated in their negative effects by themanner in which the Bush presidency seemed to accrue a dangerous level ofpower for itself in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.6

With the powers of the executive raised to dangerous new heights by foreigncrises, echoing the situation that Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. memorably referred

2Stuart A. Cohen, acting Chairman of the National Intelligence Council when the 2002 NationalIntelligence Estimate on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction was published, later stated that:‘Intelligence judgments, including NIEs, are policy neutral. We do not propose policies and theEstimate in no way sought to sway policy-makers toward a particular course of action. Wedescribedwhatwe judgedwere Saddam’s WMD programs andcapabilities andhowandwhen hemight use them and left it to policy-makers, as we always do, to determine the appropriate courseof action.’ ‘A Message from Stuart A. Cohen: Iraq’s WMD Programs: Culling Hard Facts fromSoft Myths’, 28 November 2003, 5http://www.gwu.edu/*nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/NIC%20Speeches%20-20Iraq’s%20WMD%20Programs.htm4.3On this, see, for example: John Prados, ‘PR Push for Iraq War Preceded IntelligenceFindings: ‘‘White Paper’’ Drafted before NIE even Requested’, National Security ArchiveElectronic Briefing Book No. 254, 22 August 2008, 5http://www.gwu.edu/*nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB254/index.htm4. Prados explains that the July 2002 draft of the ‘WhitePaper’, 5http://www.gwu.edu/*nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB254/doc02.pdf4 – eventuallyproduced by the CIA three months later, 5http://www.gwu.edu/*nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB254/doc01.pdf4 – was, in fact, pre-dated by the NIE that the paper was meantto have summarized, but which the US Congress did not actually request until September ofthat year. For a systematic deconstruction of the US justifications for the 2003 war on Iraq,see Thomas Powers, ‘The Vanished Case for War’ in Intelligence Wars: American SecretIntelligence from Hitler to Al-Qaeda, rev. edn (New York: New York Review Books 2004)pp.441–58. This was first published as ‘The Vanishing Case for War’, New York Review ofBooks, 50/19, 4 December 2003.4Ron Suskind, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism(New York: Harper 2008) pp.191–4, at p.193. See also, ‘White House ‘‘buried Britishintelligence on Iraq WMDs’’’, The Times, 6 August 2008, 5http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4466512.ece4.5Sidney Blumenthal, ‘The Intelligence Wars’ in How Bush Rules: Chronicles of RadicalRegime (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2006) pp.27–30.6David Gray Adler, ‘George Bush, the Unitary Executive and the Constitution’ in Russell A.Miller (ed.) US National Security, Intelligence and Democracy: From the Church Committee tothe War on Terror (London: Routledge 2008) pp.99–119. Even John Dean, the White HouseCounsel to Richard Nixon who was jailed for his role in the Watergate scandal, has felt able todenounce the Bush administration in print. John W. Dean, Worse Than Watergate: The SecretPresidency of George W. Bush (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company 2004).

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to as having created an ‘Imperial presidency’,7 American intelligence founditself propelled towards the centre of a number of important debates. Many ofthese debates have a universal relevance.

The argument that blame for the 2003 Iraq war and subsequent Americanfailure lies primarily at the policy level is also supported by the fact that thebelief that Iraq possessed WMD was shared by the intelligence services ofstates, notably France and Germany, which nevertheless opposed earlymilitary intervention.8 Moreover, the failure of the US-led coalition toprepare adequately for post-war reconstruction lay clearly with Americanpolitical leaders who disregarded warnings from the intelligence communityover post-war planning.9 Similarly, how we view (and seek to combat)terrorism reflects normative and historical perspectives. Indeed how wedefine terrorism reflects certain a priori judgements. Yet what is clear is thathowever terrorism is defined, it did not come into existence with 9/11.10

Furthermore, intelligence agencies were only too aware of the threat posedby those who masterminded 9/11. In December 1998, for example, Directorof Central Intelligence George Tenet urged that ‘no resources or people [be]spared’ to fight Osama bin Laden.11 Yet such advice was not followed.(Hence former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft’s remark of 9/11:‘I was not surprised. I was horrified.’)12 How far jihadist terrorismrepresents radically different or indeed existential threats to western societiesraises crucial questions.13 What is evident is that significant changes havetaken place in how intelligence is done and how it is seen to be done. Thischapter outlines some of these issues, and seeks to locate them within

7Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin 1973).8German belief in the existence of Iraqi WMD was strengthened by testimony from the Iraqidefector ‘Curveball’, see Bob Drogin, Curveball: Spies Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused aWar (New York: Random House 2007) and Erich Follath, John Goetz, Marcel Rosenbachand Holger Stark, ‘The Real Story of ‘‘Curveball’’: How German Intelligence Helped Justifythe US Invasion of Iraq’, Der Spiegel, 22 February 2008, 5http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,542840,00.html4.9See, for instance, L. Paul Bremer III with Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq: TheStruggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster 2006); Larry Diamond,Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracyto Iraq (New York: Times Books 2005); Noah Feldman, What We Owe Iraq: War and theEthics of Nation Building (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2004).10For an interesting perspective on this, see Martha Crenshaw, ‘The Logic of Terrorism:Terrorist Behaviour as a Product of Strategic Choice’ in Walter Reich (ed.) Origins ofTerrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (Washington DC: WoodrowWilson Center Press 1998) pp.7–24.11Zegart, Spying Blind, pp.3–4.12Ibid. p.1.13Marc Sageman, for example, contends that the real threat to the West comes not from arevitalized al-Qaeda based in Afghanistan and on the borderlands of Pakistan, but from moreinformal cells of western-based Muslims. Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks(Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 2004); idem, Leaderless Jihad: TerrorNetworks in the Twenty-first Century (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 2008).

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broader historical and comparative frameworks. In so doing, it is clear thatdifferent states have responded in different ways to similar challenges, inparticular to the ‘War on Terror’.

Intelligence Liaison

Some of the more discernible and significant changes of recent years havecome in the multilateral and bilateral relationships between intelligence andsecurity services. These have presented new opportunities for western states,but also raised new challenges not least with the ethical and politicalproblems of dealing with unsavoury regimes or unsavoury (indeed barbaric)practices. The role and nature of intelligence collaboration in the context ofglobalization (including the suggestion that intelligence itself has becomeglobalized) now form one of the legacies of 9/11.14 Traditional multilateralrelationships have been strengthened, particularly in the field of counter-terrorism.15 ‘Special relationships’ (e.g. UK–US, US–Israel) would appear tohave been strengthened even though American practices (e.g. extraordinaryrendition, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’) pose ethical, political andlegal challenges for some of America’s allies. Other relationships haveincreasingly taken on the form of such special relationships, such as thatbetween the US and Australia.16 Equally significant is that the pattern ofinstitutional relations and networks has changed. New forms of cooperationin intelligence-led policing have emerged, notably with the development ofEuropol. And law enforcement agencies, notably the FBI, have developednew international roles and responsibilities. In addition, in the United States,demarcation of intelligence gathering and para-military activity has becomeblurred as the CIA and the Pentagon have each sought to expand theirmissions and responsibilities.17

More intriguingly, intelligence has acted as a driver in changing politicalrelations, most dramatically in facilitating the conversion of Libya awayfrom its ‘rogue state’ mentality and its commitment to developing nuclear

14See Richard Aldrich, ‘Global Intelligence Co-operation Versus Accountability: New Facetsto an Old Problem’, this volume, pp.25–56. See also Paul Todd and Jonathan Bloch, GlobalIntelligence: The World’s Secret Services Today (London: Zed 2003).15Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Transatlantic Intelligence and Security Co-operation’, InternationalAffairs 80/4 (2004) pp.731–53.16Adam D. Svendsen, ‘The Globalization of Intelligence Since 9/11: The Optimization ofIntelligence Liaison Arrangements’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence 21/4 (2008–09) pp.663–7. See also Paul Dibb, ‘U.S.–Australia Alliance Relations:an Australian View’, Strategic Forum, 216 (2005) pp.1–6, 5http://www.ndu. edu/inss/strforum/SF216/SF_216_web.pdf4; and Christopher Michaelsen, ‘Law, Intelligence andPolitics in Australia’s ‘‘War on Terror’’’ in Jon Moran and Mark Phythian (eds.) Intelligence,Security and Policing Post-9/11: The UK’s response to the ‘War on Terror’ (Basingstoke:Palgrave Macmillan 2008) pp.159–82.17For a survey of attempts to coordinate US intelligence historically, see Major Daniel B.Jones, ‘Why Efforts to Centralize the US Intelligence Community Fail’, Masters Dissertation,Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama (2005).

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weapons.18 New dynamics have been generated in complex politicalrelationships, for example with Syria. Perhaps most significant andproblematic is the relationship between western states and Pakistan, whoserole in both counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation is crucial but whoseinternal political stability cannot be taken for granted and where elements ofthe Pakistani government have enjoyed clear or ambiguous relations with theTaliban and sponsors of al-Qaeda.19

Discussion of ‘western intelligence’ and the changes that have occurredsince 9/11 and the war on Iraq inevitably focuses on the United States. Yet aswith the more general study of intelligence it is important to recognizepotential problems in deriving concepts and understanding from a singularand exceptional polity. Differences in how ‘the War on Terror’ is waged, andindeed whether it is appropriate to speak of ‘a War on Terror’, are apparentamong western democracies.20 Sir Michael Howard has observed that:

The American government reacted to 9–11, understandably enough, asif the attack had come from an enemy state. It declared war, and fromthat day to this many, if not most, Americans still believe that they are‘at war’, although the precise definition of the adversary has varied overthe years. But many, if not most, of America’s friends and alliesbelieved this reaction to be mistaken.21

Of course, this has only heightened the interest of scholars and practitionersof intelligence into what has actually happened in the United States in recentyears (as Robert Jervis notes: ‘Failure may be an orphan, but often it is aclosely observed one’).22 Certainly ‘lessons learned’ in Washington aboutmajor structural reform have not been followed elsewhere. The sheer scaleand complexity of the American intelligence system make comparisons

18On this, see Jon B. Alterman, ‘Libya and the U.S.: The Unique Libyan Case’, Middle EastQuarterly XIII/1 (2006) pp.21–9.19This is especially the case with Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.In August 2008 NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, US General David McKiernan, said thathe was sure there existed ‘a level of ISI complicity’ with militants in Pakistan and withorganizations such as the Taliban. Ron Synovitz, ‘Who Controls Pakistan’s Powerful ISI?’,Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, 14 August 2008, 5http://www.rferl.org/content/Who_Controls_Pakistans_Powerful_ISI/1191046.html4.20The foreign policy agenda pursued by the American Neo-Cons within the Bushadministration attracted particular concerns amongst America’s European allies. For athoughtful piece on this, see John Gray, ‘The Foolish Hopes of Washington’s New Jacobins’,New Statesman, 31 March 2003, 5http://www.newstatesman.com/2003033100084.21Michael Howard, ‘Are We At War?’, Survival 50/4 (2008) pp.247–56, at p.248. Forscrutiny of the concept and the strategy, see Adam Roberts, ‘‘‘The War on Terror’’ inHistorical Perspective’, Survival 47/2 (2005) pp.101–30.22Robert Jervis, ‘Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq’, Journal ofStrategic Studies 29/1 (2006) p.4. On some of the problems facing contemporary intelligenceagencies, see Douglas Hart and Steven Simon, ‘Thinking Straight and Talking Straight:Problems of Intelligence Analysis’, Survival 48/1 (2006) pp.35–60.

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difficult, for example, with a Whitehall that self-consciously sees itself assomething akin to a village. An early American ‘lesson’ from 9/11 was theneed for a more centralized structure. The creation of the Director ofNational Intelligence (DNI) in 2004 may well mark the eventualconsummation of the goals of centralization sought by the architects ofthe post-war American intelligence system as they reflected on theorganizational failings of Pearl Harbor.23 Perhaps more significantly, thechanges within the contemporary intelligence community reflect anAmerican predisposition to respond to ‘intelligence failure’ with structuralreform. Underlying this is the predisposition of American reformers tobelieve in ‘fixing the machine’.24 Yet scepticism remains among seasonedobservers about the value of organizational reform.25 And the creation of anew Department of Homeland Security as well as the post of DNI surelyrisks adding new forms of bureaucratic complexity.26 Nevertheless, thesuggestion that organizational pathologies require urgent attention ispersuasively argued by analysts such as Amy Zegart.27 Changes have alsobeen implemented in Britain, notably with the establishment of the JointTerrorism Analysis Centre, housed in the Security Service (MI5), and thecreation of a new Professional Head of Intelligence Analysis.28 Yet suchchanges at the operational level have nevertheless taken place within existingstructures.

23For discussion see Arthur S. Hulnick, ‘Does the U.S. Intelligence Community need a DNI?’International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence 17/4 (2004–2005) pp.710–30;idem, Keeping Us Safe: Secret Intelligence and Homeland Security (Westport, CT: PraegerPublishers 2004).24Richard K. Betts, ‘Fixing Intelligence’, Foreign Affairs 81/1 (January/February 2002) pp.43–59.25See for example, Robert Jervis, ‘The Politics and Psychology of Intelligence and IntelligenceReform’, The Forum 4/1 (2006), 5http://www.columbia.edu/cu/siwps/publication_files/Intelligence%20reform_JERVIS.pdf4; Richard K. Betts, Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledgeand Power in American National Security (Irvington, NY: Colombia University Press 2007);Richard L. Russell, Sharpening Strategic Intelligence: Why the CIA Gets It Wrong and WhatNeeds to Be Done to Get It Right (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). For acollection of authoritative contributions to the case for reforming polices and practices ratherthan institutions and structures see Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber (eds.), TransformingU.S. Intelligence (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press 2005).26This is usually contrasted with the simplistic nature of the public rationale for change. Injustifying his proposal for the establishment the Department for Homeland Security, Bushstated that: ‘America needs a single, unified homeland security structure that will improveprotection against today’s threats and be flexible enough to help meet the unknown threats ofthe future.’ George W. Bush, The Department of Homeland Security, June 2002, 5http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/book.pdf4.27See Zegart, ‘An Organizational View of 9/11’, chapter one of her Spying Blind, pp.1–14;idem, ‘Our Clueless Intelligence System’, Washington Post, 8 July 2007, 5http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070602004_pf.html4.28See Peter Hennessy, ‘From Secret State to Protective State’, in idem (ed.) The NewProtective State: Government, Intelligence and Terrorism (London: Continuum Books 2007)pp.1–41.

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Seasons of Enquiry

One striking set of comparisons between America and its allies is in how theenquiries into the failure over Iraqi WMD went about their business, andhow very different conclusions were drawn about what went wrong andwhat to put right.29 It should of course be noted that failure to plan for thepost-war reconstruction of Iraq has yet to be subjected to independentscrutiny in America or elsewhere. The scope and focus of the US enquiriesalso attracted criticism that the investigations were inherently politicized,being conducted by political figures with political agendas.30

The relationship between policy-makers and the intelligence communityformed a key focus in American assessments of whether the Bushadministration sought to politicize the US intelligence community, and inparticular the CIA, to produce intelligence that would justify a war that thePresident sought. There is abundant evidence that Defense SecretaryRumsfeld and his colleagues sought to devise new arrangements forprocessing intelligence on Iraqi WMD with what critics derided as ‘cherry-picking’ and ‘stovepiping’.31 Nevertheless the key American enquiriesconcluded that the CIA was culpable for its own mistakes not because ofpressure from above. On both sides of the Atlantic accusations of the‘politicization’ of intelligence nevertheless helped frame the debate and, inBritain, the relationship between policy-makers and intelligence receivedunprecedented scrutiny.32

29For discussion see Richard Aldrich, ‘Whitehall and the Iraq War: The UK’s FourIntelligence Enquiries’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 16 (2005) pp.73–88; AlexDanchev, ‘The Reckoning: Official Enquiries and the Iraq War’, Intelligence and NationalSecurity 19/3 (2004) pp.108–18; and Anthony Glees and Philip H.J. Davies, Spinning theSpies: Intelligence, Open Government and the Hutton Inquiry (London: The Social AffairsUnit 2004); idem, ‘Intelligence, Iraq and the Limits of Legislative Accountability duringPolitical Crisis’ in Len Scott and R. Gerald Hughes (eds.) Intelligence, Crises and Security:Prospects and Retrospects (London: Routledge 2008) pp.196–231 (and Special Issue ofIntelligence and National Security 21/5 (2006) pp.848–83); Eunan O’Halpin, ‘BritishIntelligence and the Case for Confronting Iraq: Evidence from the Butler and HuttonReports’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 16 (2005) pp.89–102. For discussion of theAustralian enquiries, see Peter Gill and Mark Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure World(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006) pp.141–6.30Paul R. Pillar, ‘Intelligent Design? The Unending Saga of Intelligence Reform’, ForeignAffairs (March/April 2008), 5http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/fa/v87i2/0000820.pdf4;Glees and Davies, ‘Intelligence, Iraq and the Limits’, pp.214–15.31See for example, Michael Fitzgerald and Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Iraq: The Mother of AllIntelligence Failures’, in Scott and Hughes, Intelligence, Crises and Security, pp.232–57 (andIntelligence and National Security 21/5 (2006) pp.884–909).32For a balanced survey of the issues that face both collectors and consumers of intelligence atthe outset of the twenty-first century, see Hans Born and Thorsten Wetzling, ‘Intelligenceaccountability: Challenges for parliaments and intelligence services’ in Loch K. Johnson (ed.)Handbook of Intelligence Studies (London: Routledge 2007) pp.315–28.

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Central to the self-image of most western intelligence professionals is thatthey are tasked with speaking ‘Truth unto Power’. One corollary of thisought to be the need to explain that the truth may be uncertain, incompleteand ambiguous. A common charge of politicization is that intelligenceofficials tell their political masters what they want to hear rather than whatthey need to know. Yet in the UK the concept of politicization remainsanathema in the British higher intelligence machinery where interdepart-mental perspectives are mediated by the mature consideration of the JointIntelligence Committee (JIC). The role of the JIC and its chair became aparticular focus in the UK enquiries, in particular that conducted by LordButler and his fellow Privy Counsellors. The Butler Report identifiedmistakes but did apportion individual responsibility and went out of its wayto endorse the appointment of the JIC chair at the time, John Scarlett, tobecome Chief of SIS.33

Various Directors of Central Intelligence (and would-be Directors ofCentral Intelligence) have stood accused of pulling their punches and sellingtheir integrity. DCI Tenet has defended his behaviour and that of the CIA,though his celebrated observation that Iraqi WMD was ‘a slam dunk’ havereinforced the view that he was more adept in reinforcing than challengingthe assumptions of the administration.34 In Britain the JIC was accused ofsuccumbing to the Blair government agenda for selling the war on Iraq byoverselling the intelligence. The role of the JIC in taking responsibility forpresenting the ‘case’ for WMD to the public was an unprecedented one,whose wisdom was seemingly doubted by Butler and his colleagues.Yet although Butler identified deficiencies in the presentation of the issuesto the public, a central problem was that the intelligence itself wasinadequate. What the Butler report did not investigate, any more than theother British enquiries, was the use of intelligence by ministers. Here indeedthe focus on the JIC may well obscure the potentially crucial role of thedirect relationship between Prime Minister Blair and senior officials.

33Lord Butler et al., Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report of aCommittee of Privy Counsellors, HC 898 (London: The Stationary Office, July 2004). Fordiscussion, see the pieces by Peter Jackson, ‘The Butler Report as an Historical Document’,Robert Jervis, ‘The Butler Report’, and Loch Johnson, ‘The Butler Report: A US Perspective’in R. Gerald Hughes, Peter Jackson and Len Scott (eds.) Exploring Intelligence Archives:Enquiries into the Secret State (London: Routledge 2008) pp.277–91, 309–13, 313–17respectively.34Following Tenet’s resignation, one commentator noted that Tenet’s phrase had captured‘the ethos of not just one person but of an entire administration. In basketball, slam-dunksscore points, please the home crowd and taunt the opposition – in the same way thatsupporters of the administration appreciate Bush for his decisiveness while critics deride it asarrogance’. Mark Leibovic, ‘George Tenet’s ‘‘Slam-Dunk’’ Into the History Books’,Washington Post, 4 June 2004, 5http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14030-2004Jun3.html4. For opinion on the damage done by the ‘slam dunk’ remark,see Bob Graham (with Jeff Nussbaum), Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia,and the Failure of America’s War on Terror, 2nd edn (Lawrence, KS: University Press ofKansas 2008) pp.178–89.

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The terms of reference for the Butler team were, moreover, carefullycrafted to enable Iraq to be placed in a broader and more positive assessmentof the role of intelligence in counter-proliferation. Failure in Iraq was setbeside significant achievements in North Korea, Iran and Pakistan. Ofparticular note was the role of intelligence in the case of Libya, which takenin concert with the American government helped facilitate a transformationin Libya’s approach. While not surprisingly Iraq remained the focus ofpublic concern, success in using intelligence-led diplomacy proffers analternative to those whose instincts and preferences are for military actionand preventive attack in counter-proliferation.

War (sic?) on Terror

The perception that intelligence is at the heart of national and internationalsecurity reflects a set of assumptions about (and definitions of) security.The threat of global environmental degradation and the existential threatof global poverty far transcend in scale and human suffering any possiblethreat from jihadist terrorism, save for the very worst case scenarios ofnuclear terrorism. And there are those who have queried the efforts of the‘terrorism industry’ to inflate and distort the threat from jihadistterrorism.35 Such arguments are important, if for no other reason, becausethey place the debates in a more rounded perspective. Yet for westernsocieties, jihadist terrorism constitutes a threat that is unlikely to disappearquickly, and if poorly managed will do great damage to the values andstability of those societies as well as how they conduct their foreignrelations.36

While intelligence is frequently and understandably reduced to a concernwith tracking networks of would-be killers and preventing them fromcarrying out attacks and atrocities, the equally fundamental role ofintelligence is to foster understanding of the contexts – at home andabroad – in which those who are our enemies became our enemies, and howothers may well become so. There are also those who see intelligence asproffering some hope in how they might cease to be enemies. There remainsimilar conflicts and tensions between ‘demands of security’ and funda-mental principles of human rights, although European human rightslegislation, most importantly now incorporated into the domestic law ofEU states, provides a point of contrast with the United States. Here theEuropean counter-terrorism agenda takes a different form to that in America.

35See for example, John Mueller, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism IndustryInflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them (New York: Free Press 2006).For a measured analysis of the risk of nuclear terrorism, see Robin M. Frost, NuclearTerrorism after 9/11, Adelphi Paper 378 (Glasgow: Routledge for the International Instituteof Strategic Studies 2005).36For discussion of some of these issues see Peter Gill, ‘Security, Intelligence and HumanRights: Illuminating the Heart of Darkness’, this volume, pp.78–102.

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Differences remain between European states, though whether Britishattitudes remain wedded to more transatlantic perspectives, as in recentNATO debates over the expansion of NATO and the handling of theRussian–Georgian conflict, will emerge as Barack Obama’s security policytakes shape. Yet British experiences in counter-terrorism suggest points ofdeparture from American practices and debates. British governmentexperience of countering terrorism and political violence in NorthernIreland has left several legacies. An important lesson that senior Britishofficials learned was that letting ends justify means, including theintroduction of internment and ‘deep interrogation’ techniques, was ‘self-defeating’.37 Sir David Omand has noted that such practices provided ‘verylimited additional intelligence at the costs of a propaganda disaster thatturned many moderates in the community against the authorities’.38 Suchlessons can be derived from many other counter-terrorist and counter-insurgent campaigns in which the British sought to balance securitymeasures against winning ‘hearts and minds’.39 Yet, as the British (andlater the Americans) learned during the post-1945 era, balancing counter-insurgency with ‘hearts and minds’ measures was extremely difficult.40 Andit still is. It nevertheless remains an essential pre-condition if the insurgent/terrorist is to be separated from the population at large.41 Drawing parallelsbetween Vietnam and Iraq is an inevitable temptation. In this vein, a formerDefense Secretary in the Nixon administration recently concluded that:

37David Omand, ‘Using Secret Intelligence for Public Security’ in Peter Hennessy (ed.) TheNew Protective State: Government, Intelligence and Terrorism (London: Continuum Books2007) pp.149–50.38Ibid. p.149.39The British government made a sustained effort to do this during the ‘Malayan Emergency’between 1948 and 1960. On this, see Richard Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in GuerrillaWarfare: The Malayan Emergency 1948–1960 (Singapore: Eastern University Press, 2004).For a comparative study of British policy in Malaya, Palestine, Kenya and Cyprus, see SusanCarruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and ColonialCounter-Insurgency 1944–1960 (Leicester: Leicester University 1995). On this topic moregenerally, see the papers delivered at the one-day RUSI conference on 21 September 2007:‘Hearts and Minds: British Counter Insurgency from Malaya to Iraq’ 5http://www.rusi.org/events/ref.E466804A9E83DD/4. These included; General Sir Mike Jackson, ‘The Principlesof British Counterinsurgency’; Charles Townsend, ‘British Counterinsurgency from 1900 toMalaya’; Hew Strachan, ‘British Counter-Insurgency from Malaya to Iraq’; Dr Karl Hack,‘Lessons of Malaya’; Lieutenant Colonel Jim Storr, ‘The Lessons of Northern Ireland’;Colonel David Benest, ‘The British Army and Northern Ireland’; Brigadier Gavin Bulloch,‘Developments in British Counterinsurgency Doctrine’; Eric Herring, ‘British Counter-insurgency in Iraq’; Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, ‘The Media and Counterinsurgency’; DavidLoyn, ‘A Journalist’s Experience of Counterinsurgency’; Karin Christiansen, ‘DevelopmentIssues and Counterinsurgency’; and Brice Dickson, ‘Counterinsurgency and Human Rights’.40On this, see John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessonsfrom Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 2005).41Ian F.W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and theirOpponents since 1750 (London: Routledge 2001) p.107.

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As one who orchestrated the end of our military role in Vietnam andthen saw what had been a workable plan fall apart, I agree that wecannot allow ‘another Vietnam.’ For if we fail now, a new standard willhave been set. The lessons of Vietnam will be forgotten, and our nextglobal mission will be saddled with the fear of its becoming ‘anotherIraq.’42

In reality, while the memory of Vietnam is fading, influential voices arealready identifying the existence of an ‘Iraq syndrome’.43

American practices in Guantanamo Bay have called into question whetherthe United States is honouring its commitments to the UN Convention onTorture and other international agreements.44 Public debate about torture hasbeen kindled at least within the United States.45 And, in consequence, termssuch as ‘torture lite’ and practices such as ‘waterboarding’ have now enteredthe political and intelligence lexicons. The British experiences in NorthernIreland are of direct relevance for these debates.46 In 1971 the British armyemployed what were known as the ‘five techniques of interrogation’ involvingwall-standing, hooding, continuous white noise, food denial and sleepdeprivation.47 In judgments in 1976 and 1978 the European Court of HumanRights subsequently found the British government guilty of ‘inhuman anddegrading treatment’.48 By then the practices had been largely discontinued,

42Melvin Laird, Nixon’s Secretary of Defense between 1969 and 1973, was highlighting thepotential utility of the concept of ‘Vietnamization’ for American planners seeking to ease theUS burden in Iraq. Melvin R. Laird, ‘Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam’, Foreign Affairs,November/December 2005, 5http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101faessay84604/melvin-r-laird/iraq-learning-the-lessons-of-vietnam.html4.43Andrew Priest, ‘From Saigon to Baghdad: The Vietnam Syndrome, the Iraq War andAmerican Foreign Policy’, this volume, pp.139–71.44Philippe Sands, Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).45Darius M. Rejali, Torture and Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2007).46See Caroline Kennedy-Pipe and Andrew Mumford, ‘Torture, Rights, Rules and Wars:Ireland to Iraq’, International Relations 21 (2007) pp.119–26.47For details of comparative techniques employed by US authorities, see Alex Danchev,‘Human Rights and Human Intelligence’ in Steve Tsang (ed.) Intelligence and Human Rightsin the Era of Global Terrorism (London: Praeger Security International 2007) pp.93–108.48The government of the Republic of Ireland took a case to the European Commission onHuman Rights on behalf of the men who had been subjected to the interrogation practicesadopted by the Northern Ireland and British governments during Operation Demetrius in theearly 1970s (Ireland v. United Kingdom, 1976 Y.B. Eur. Conv. on Hum. Rts. 512, 748, 788–94 (Eur. Comm’n of Hum. Rts.)). The Commission stated that: ‘the systematic application ofthe techniques for the purpose of inducing a person to give information shows a clearresemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over theages . . . [T]he Commission sees in them a modern system of torture falling into the samecategory as those systems applied in previous times as a means of obtaining information andconfessions.’ Quote: Nigel S. Rodley, The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law,2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999) p.92. For the January 1978 ruling onBritain’s unsuccessful appeal (Case Number 5310/71), see 5http://teaching.law.cornell.edu/

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partly because of revulsion and embarrassment, but also through recognitionthat such measures and other actions – primarily deployed, as they were,against the Nationalist community – were largely counter-productive.49

In the United Kingdom there is political and intellectual consensus thattorture remains anathema.50 There is also political consensus that tortureremains torture. The principles and definitions of the UN Convention onTorture have not been challenged as they have in the United States by thosewho seek to redefine whether ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ representtorture or not. The idea that Britain is nevertheless indirectly or in somecases directly involved in supporting or benefiting from those who usetechniques of torture is a matter of controversy, and has even extended toprotests within government. The former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan,Craig Murray, protested within the Foreign Office at what he saw as UKcomplicity in particularly barbarous forms of interrogation in Uzbekistanand the exploitation of these practices to procure what he believed wasworthless intelligence.51 Having resigned from the Foreign Office he hasactively campaigned on these issues.

Disquiet about American practices at Guantanamo Bay and thoseinvolving extraordinary rendition and ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’permeate Westminster and Whitehall.52 The argument that torture is wrongbecause it is wrong commands strong support across all political parties inWestminster as well as within Whitehall. So does the argument that it iswrong because it is counter-productive. For politicians and senior officials,at least, it is unnecessary to disentangle the deontological from theconsequentialist.53 Yet problems persist where British relations with theUnited States are seen to involve complicity in unethical or illegal activity.

faculty/drwcasebook/docs/Rep%20Ireland%20v%20UK.pdf4. On British treatment ofterrorist suspects in Northern Ireland, see John McGuffin, The Guinea Pigs (London:Penguin 1974). On British army operations in this period, see Caroline Kennedy-Pipe andColin McInnes, ‘The British Army in Northern Ireland 1969–1972: From Policing toCounter-terror’, Journal of Strategic Studies 20/2 (1997) pp.1–24.49On this as generic feature, see John Conroy, Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: TheDynamics of Torture (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 2001); Darius M. Rejali,‘Torture Makes the Man’, South Central Review 24/1 (2007) pp.151–69.50On this, see Philip N.S. Rumney, ‘The Torture Debate: A Perspective from the UnitedKingdom’ in Moran and Phythian (eds.) Intelligence, Security and Policing Post-9/11,pp.135–56.51Craig Murray, Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance ofTyranny in the War on Terror (Edinburgh and London: Mainstream 2006).52See for example the report of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee,Rendition, Cm 7170 (The Stationary Office, July 2007) and the Government Response to theIntelligence and Security Committee’s Report on Rendition, Cm 7172 (The Stationary Office,July 2007). See also the work of the All Party Parliamentary Group on ExtraordinaryRendition (APPGER), established by the Conservative MP, Andrew Tyrie in December 2005,5http://www.extraordinaryrendition.org4.53For an outline of the application of these approaches to intelligence see Toni Erskine, ‘‘‘AsRays of Light to the Human Soul?’’ Moral Agents and Intelligence Gathering’ in L.V. Scott

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The most prominent debates on counter-terrorist policy in Britain haveconcerned how long suspects could be held without being charged. Thegovernments of Tony Blair and (and until recently) Gordon Brown insistedon 42 days. In October 2008 this demand was dropped in the face of heavydomestic opposition and the British Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, declaredthat ‘I deeply regret that some have been prepared to ignore the terroristthreat, for fear of taking a tough but necessary decision’.54 Undeterred bysuch language (and logic), opponents of 42-day detention, including theOfficial Opposition Conservative Party, denounced the insistence of the Blairand Brown governments in similar terms to Sir David Omand’s character-ization of British action in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. One intriguingaspect of the debates has been the contributions of recently retired officials.The former Director-General of the Security Service, Eliza Manningham-Buller, has stated that she does not ‘see on a practical basis, or on aprincipled one, that these [42-day detention] proposals are in any wayworkable’.55 Such statements reinforce the impression that senior officialswithin the Security Service may have reservations about the policy beingpushed by the government. One specific feature of the American debatesabout torture (and its ethical justification) concerns ‘the ticking bomb’scenario in which a terrorist is known to have prepared an explosive devicethat will cause catastrophic damage (especially in scenarios involving aradiological bomb or even a nuclear weapon) and interrogators have littletime to extract information about where the bomb is planted.56 Suchscenarios are of course the stuff of fiction though also the stuff of worse casenightmares after 9/11. Yet as Kennedy-Pipe and Mumford note, in some 30years of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, ‘there was, in the whole historyof the Irish case, not a single example of anything remotely resembling the‘‘ticking bomb case’’’.57

The experience of applying harsh measures in pursuit of counter-terroristadversaries is by no means confined to the British (the French, for example,

and P.D. Jackson (eds.) Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century: Journeys inShadows (London: Routledge 2004) pp.195–215 (and Intelligence and National Security 19/2(2004) pp.359–81).54This was part of a speech of 13 October 2008 in which Smith told the House of Commonsthat plans to extend terror detention to 42 days would be removed from the proposedCounter-Terrorism Bill. This resulted from a heavy defeat for the government in the House ofLords by 309 votes to 118. But the Home Secretary also declared that the 42-day rule mightbe re-introduced in the future as a separate piece of legislation if required. The Shadow HomeSecretary, Conservative Dominic Grieve, told Smith that ‘You somewhat demean yourselfwhen you, yet again, come back to this argument that those who oppose the government’smeasures are weak on terrorism.’ ‘Ministers shelve 42-day detention’, BBC News, 13 October2008, 5http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7668477.stm4.55Baroness Manningham-Buller, HL Deb., Vol. 703, Col. 647, 8 July 2008.56For an interesting discussion of the ticking bomb scenario, see Omand, ‘Using SecretIntelligence’, pp.162–5. For a critical analysis of the issues, see Gary Kern, ‘America andTorture in the Global War on Terror’, Intelligence and National Security, forthcoming.57Kennedy-Pipe and Mumford, ‘Torture, Rights, Rules’, p.125.

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engaged in a bitter war against Algerian nationalists between 1954 and1962).58 But, without doubt, understanding how jihadist terrorists arerecruited and motivated remains a crucial priority for security services.Perhaps the most worrying and difficult challenge concerns the speed withwhich sympathizers can be turned into activists and then terrorists. Yet onetried and trusted means of ensuring failure in the ‘War on Terror’ is surely toalienate those on whom the terrorists may depend and from whom they willcertainly recruit. This is certainly what the British did when they introducedinternment without trial in Northern Ireland between 1971 and 1975(providing, as it did, ‘a powerful recruiting sergeant for the [Irish RepublicanArmy]’).59 As the backbench Labour MP, Diane Abbott, argued in 2001:

Let me remind the House [of Commons] that it has long beenaccepted . . . that internment was one of the best recruitment sergeantsthat the IRA ever had. We are supposed to be acting against terrorismand reassuring young people, whether they are Muslim or Catholic,about the fairness of British society and the things that we stand for,but the notion of internment without trial runs clean contrary to theidea of an effective war against terrorism. Even if it were possible topersuade some of us that in certain limited circumstances – much moreprescribed than those in the Bill – internment was the only practicaloption, the notion of internment without judicial review would becompletely unacceptable.60

Contrary to those European countries with large indigenous ethniccommunities, the United States does not yet have to face the problem of‘home grown’ Islamist terrorists.61 Rendition, waterboarding and targetedkilling involve non-Americans away from American territory.

58See Alastair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962, 3rd rev. edn (London: PanBooks 2002 [1977]); Martin Alexander and J.F.V. Keiger (eds.), France and the AlgerianWar, 1954–62: Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy (London: Frank Cass 2002); MartinAlexander, Martin Evans and J.F.V. Keiger (eds.), The Algerian War and the French Army,1954–62: Experiences, Images, Testimonies (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2002); and PaulAussaresses, The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Algeria 1955–1957 (New York: Enigma Books 2002).59Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response (London: FrankCass 2001) p.116.60HC Deb., Vol. 375, Col. 395, 21 November 2001. When introducing internment inNorthern Ireland, Britain left itself open to charges that it was violating the United Nations’Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted on 10 December 1948 by the UN GeneralAssembly). It is article ten that is of particular relevance here: ‘Everyone is entitled in fullequality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in thedetermination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.’ AugustReinisch, International Organizations before National Courts (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press 2000) p.281.61On this question in Europe, see Alison Pargeter, The New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islamin Europe (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 2008).

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Perhaps the most important lesson to draw from the past, as various Britishofficials and former officials have made clear, is that the challenge ofinternational terrorism is crucially a battle of ideas.62 Integral to that battle isthe preservation of the core values and principles by which liberal democraciesseek to define and promote their identity. Paul Wilkinson has identified threecrucial safeguards for democratic states to observe when adopting special anti-terror legislation. First, all such measures must remain under civilian controland as democratically accountable as possible; second, the government andthe security forces must conduct all operations within the law and thosecharged with terrorist offences must be brought before the courts of law; third,emergnecy powers should be adopted for only the shortest conceivable timeperiod and be renewed in an open fashion at regular interveals (with no morethan one year between reviews). Such powers should be drafted as clearly aspossible and recieve the widest possible circulation and the legislature must beprepared to rescind or alter such powers as soon as circumstances alter.63 Theobservation of such norms of civilized behaviour are essential in the current‘War on Terror’. And, as Sir Richard Dearlove observes, ‘America’s cause isdoomed unless it regains the moral high ground’.64

Talking to Terrorists

A second legacy concerns how conflicts with terrorists can be ended or at leastturned into recognizable political conflicts. In Northern Ireland the role of theBritish security and intelligence services in facilitating forms of communicationbetween the British government and the Provisional Irish Republican Army(PIRA) has become apparent.65 More dramatic has been the revelationsconcerning the clandestine relationship between senior figures in the UKgovernment and Provisional Sinn Fein, the political arm of the PIRA. PrimeMinister Thatcher was adamant that she would not do deals with terrorists.This rhetoric was shared by her NATO allies at the time, even though herclosest ally, Ronald Reagan, was involved in secret deals with those he hadtermed sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East to secure the release ofAmerican hostages in the Lebanon. While Thatcher’s successors may haveshared key aspects of her ideology, John Major and Tony Blair took a radicallydifferent view to negotiating with Sinn Fein. Jonathan Powell, Blair’s Chief ofStaff from 1997 to 2007, provides a fascinating account of the complex and

62See Richard Mottram, ‘Protecting the Citizen in the Twenty-First Century: Issues andChallenges’ in Hennessy, New Protective State, pp.50–51; and Eliza Manningham-Buller,‘The International Terrorist Threat to the United Kingdom’ in ibid. pp.69, 72–3.63Wilkinson, Terrorism Versus Democracy, p.117.64Quoted in James Fallows, ‘Foreword’ to John Robb, Brave New War: The Next Stage ofTerrorism and the End of Globalization (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons 2007) p.vi.65Peter Taylor, The Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein (London: Bloomsbury 1997) and idem,Brits: The War Against the IRA (London: Bloomsbury 2001). For discussion, see Len Scott,‘Secret Intelligence, Covert Action and Clandestine Diplomacy’, Intelligence and NationalSecurity 19/2 (2004) pp.162–79.

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intimate relationship that developed between the British Prime Minister andthe leaders of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness.66 Powell, whoemerges in his account as a key figure in the development of these relationships,has subsequently argued in favour of the idea of negotiating with the Talibanand al-Qaeda: ‘at some stage you’re going to have to talk to the people you’refighting’.67 Likewise, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Orde,has stated that one day it may be necessary to talk to al-Qaeda.68

Negotiating with insurgents has a long, opaque and controversial history.The CIA developed a relationship with the PLO in the 1970s and latersought to play a direct role in Middle Eastern peace efforts.69 A significantventure in clandestine diplomacy was in the negotiations between the Israeliofficials and those associated with the PLO which facilitated directnegotiations between Israel and the PLO and the ensuing Oslo Accords.70

Nevertheless, the idea of negotiating with those who planned and supportedthe events of 9/11 will remain utter anathema for many Americans (andmany non-Americans). Any serious consideration of such an idea mustexplore the purposes for which dialogue could be conducted.71 For thosewho view al-Qaeda and those it has spawned or inspired as holy warriorsintent on a jihad whose goals are non-negotiable, there is no purpose innegotiating and potential harm in legitimizing an enemy motivated byreligious fanaticism. Comparisons (if they can be made) are more withgroups like the Baader-Meinhof ‘gang’ whose view of catalytic violence wasdesigned to foment revolutionary objectives that would transform their ownsocieties and whose fanaticism prohibits any compromise.72 Whether suchclandestine diplomacy should be or can be used, any such endeavours willperforce be conducted in strictest secrecy. The more we learn about them thegreater the likelihood that they will be failing.

66Jonathan Powell, Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland (London:The Bodley Head 2008).67BBC TV Andrew Marr Show, 16 March 2008, 5http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/andrew_marr_show/7299374.stm4.68‘Cops and Bombers: Hugh Orde, the Northern Ireland police chief denounced foradvocating talks with terrorists, is not backing down. Could he soon be running theMet?’, The Guardian, 16 August 2008, 5http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/16/northernireland.police4.69George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: HarperCollins2007) pp.85–8. For an overview, see Shlomo Shpiro, ‘The CIA as Middle East Peace Broker?’,Survival 45/2 (Summer 2003) pp.91–112.70On this, see David Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO: the Rabin Government’s Roadto the Oslo Accord (Boulder, CO/Oxford: Westview Press 1996).71For systematic discussion of how the terrorism of al-Qaeda might end, see Audrey KurthCronin, Ending Terrorism: Lessons for Defeating al-Qaeda, Adelphi Paper 394 (Abingdon:Routledge for the International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2005). For discussion of thepossible use of negotiations see ibid., pp.38–43, 57–8.72On this, see Stefan Aust, Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe2008 edn. [1985]).

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Verdicts of History?

The investigations into the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor yielded nineinquiries.73 These provided considerable evidence for decades of historicalanalysis, reflection and debate. Yet it was not until 1962 that one of theseminal analyses of intelligence failure, Roberta Wohlstetter’s Pearl Harbor:Warning and Decision, appeared and not until 1991 that David Kahnpublished an article in Foreign Affairs that persuasively argued the keyfailure of intelligence was that none of the warnings pointed to the attackcoming at Pearl Harbor.74 It would be as hazardous to make predictionsabout the future of historiography as it would be to make predictions aboutfuture events. It is also the case that however much evidence is produced byhowever many enquiries, there will be writers and readers who preferconspiratorial explanations to those rooted in organizational dysfunction orlapses in personal judgement. In the United States conspiracy theory hasacquired the status of a cultural phenomenon (as well as that of a cottageindustry).75 The idea that the Israeli Mossad was responsible for the attackson the Twin Towers as a means of unleashing the wrath of the Bushadministration on the Arab world appeared almost immediately.76

The suggestion that the American government itself was complicit in theatrocities, and indeed organized the attacks on the Pentagon are now the

73The Knox Investigation (9–14 December 1941); The Roberts Commission (18 December–23 January 1941); The Hart Investigation (12 February–15 June 1944); The Army PearlHarbor Board (20 July–20 October 1944); The Navy Court of Inquiry (24 July–19 October1944); The Clarke Investigation (4 August–20 September 1944); The Clausen Investigation(24 January–12 September 1945); The Hewitt Inquiry (14 May–11 July 1945); The JointCongressional Committee (15 November 1945–23 May 1946).74Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 1962); David Kahn, ‘The Intelligence Failure of Pearl Harbor’, ForeignAffairs 70/5 (1991/2) pp.138–52.75Robert A. Goldberg, ‘Who Profited from the Crime? Intelligence Failure, ConspiracyTheories and the Case of September 11’ in Scott and Jackson, Understanding Intelligence inthe Twenty-First Century, pp.99–110 (and Intelligence and National Security 19/2 (2004)pp.249–61).76Nor are such opinions confined to the fringes of Western society. On 30 November 2007,the former President of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, wrote an article in Italy’s best sellingnewspaper arguing that ‘the democratic circles of America and of Europe . . . now know wellthat the disastrous [9/11] attack was planned and realized by the American CIA and Mossadwith the help of the Zionist world to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and topersuade the Western powers to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan’. Francesco Cossiga,‘Osama-Berlusconi? ‘‘Trappola giornalistica’’’, Corriere Della Serra, 30 November 2007,5http://www.corriere.it/politica/07_novembre_30/osama_berlusconi_cossiga_27f4ccee-9f55-11dc-8807-0003ba99c53b.shtml4. The former Labour Cabinet Minister, Michael MeacherMP, also suggested that the Bush administration connived in the attacks so as to facilitate itspre-existing agenda for the Middle East. See Michael Meacher, ‘This war on terrorism isbogus: The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its globaldomination’, The Guardian, 6 September 2003, 5http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/06/september11.iraq4.

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focus of television documentaries.77 Yet as some of us have noted elsewhere:‘One reason why there are conspiracy theories is because there areconspiracies. Indeed the history of covert action is the history ofconspiracy.’78 The need for governments to retain the confidence of theircitizens is crucial to any proper public understanding of the role ofintelligence in policy-making. The saga of Iraq has severely weakened thatconfidence far more than purveyors of bizarre or indeed ludicrousconspiracy theories.

The Crisis of Intelligence: Coming or Receding?

A lost tradition in British culture is the practice of wandering the streetsbearing sandwich boards advising people: ‘Prepare to Meet Thy Doom’. Inthe United States intelligence reform has been touted as a means of achievingsecurity from terrorist and other threats. The idea that whatever improve-ments may occur, some form of ‘intelligence failure’ is inevitable isnevertheless now well-rooted in academic study. The concept of intelligencefailure is based on a particular view of intelligence and a particular view offailure. Both reflect a set of expectations about what intelligence is and whatit can do. The need to understand the nature and limitations of intelligenceformed a cornerstone of the Butler Report, in contrast to some of theAmerican enquiries and debates. Various senior British officials have madeclear their view that it is only a matter of time before particular kinds ofcatastrophic terrorism succeed. In June 2003 the then Director-General ofMI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, warned that:

Al Qaida has the ambition to carry out unconventional attacks againstthe West. The Al Qaida leadership have said so. The question we mustask is do they have the capability to carry out such an attack? We knowthat renegade scientists have co-operated with Al Qaida and providedthem with some of the knowledge they need to develop these weapons.My conclusion, based on the intelligence we have uncovered, is that weare faced with the realistic possibility of some form of unconventionalattack.

That could include a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclearattack. Sadly, given the widespread proliferation of the technicalknowledge to construct these weapons, it will be only a matter of timebefore a crude version of a CBRN attack is launched at a majorWestern city.79

77As seen in, for example, the DVD ‘911: In Plane Site’, 5http://www.911inplanesite.com/4.78Len Scott and Peter Jackson, ‘Journeys in Shadows’ in Scott and Jackson (eds.)Understanding Intelligence, p.19.79‘Countering terrorism: an international blueprint’, Lecture by the Director General of theSecurity Service, Eliza Manningham-Buller, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)Conference on ‘The Oversight Of Intelligence and Security’, 17 June 2003, 5http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page378.html4. For a discussion of these issues, see Jonathan

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Intelligence failure is a matter of expectations, and seeking to adjustexpectations of what intelligence can and cannot do is surely essential toinformed democratic debate. Yet if and when a catastrophic terrorist actsucceeds, public confidence in the intelligence and security services willinevitably be tested. The view that intelligence is in crisis is surely overstated,although, in the United States, the CIA has been severely buffeted and its rolediminished.80 The political problems of taking intelligence-led internationalaction are apparent; though whether this is seen as good or bad may welldepend on how particular actions, such as preventive attacks on Iran, areseen in themselves.

What is undeniable is that governments will continue to depend ongaining understanding of things that others do not wish to disclose.Furthermore, contemporary theorizing in international politics rightlyemphasizes the challenges to the state as the referent point in ourunderstanding. Whatever the need for intelligence to focus on short-termresponse, the need for broader horizons is essential. It is, nevertheless,equally important to recognize the continuing significance of state activity inthe realm of security, particularly military security. Nuclear proliferationremains, save for idiosyncratic American iconoclasts, a matter of deepconcern and an issue high on the agendas of analysts and practitionersconcerned at the prospects of proliferation and the threat of regionalinstabilities.81 Here the consequences of Iraq will loom large in any attemptat preventive military attack on Iran (though whether the Israelis succeededin carrying out a successful intelligence-led preventive attack on Syriannuclear facilities remains an intriguing question).82

The failure over Iraqi WMD means that mobilizing domestic or moreimportantly international support for intelligence-based military actions willbe even harder. But it is also important to remember that, with the passing ofthe Bush administration and the eclipse of the neo-con agenda (already in

Spyer, ‘The Al-Qa’ida Network and Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Middle East Review ofInternational Affairs 8/3 (2004) pp.29–45.80R. Gerald Hughes, ‘Of Revelatory Histories and Hatchet Jobs: Propaganda and Method inIntelligence History’, Intelligence and National Security 23/6 (2008) pp.842–77 (esp. pp.844–7, 854–6, 860–62); Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, ‘Rise, Fall and Regeneration: From CIA to EU’, thisvolume, pp.108–18.81For an argument in favour of proliferation, see the views of Kenneth Waltz in Scott D.Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: W.W.Norton 1995).82‘Report: Israeli airstrike targeted Syrian nuclear reactor’, CNN, 15 October 2007, 5http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/14/israel.syria.ap4. Israeli targeting of Syrianinstallations is rarely a clear-cut affair. See, for example, Mark Mazezetti and HeleneCooper, ‘U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week’, New York Times, 12September 2007, 5http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/14/israel.syria.ap4. Is-raeli targeting of Syrian installations is rarely a clear-cut affair. See, for example, MarkMazezetti and Helene Cooper, ‘U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week’,New York Times, 12 September 2007, 5http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/world/middleeast/12syria.html4.

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decline for some time),83 semi-unilateral preventive military options arelikely to attract much less favour in Washington. The shift in Americanforeign policy will now be especially pronounced given Barack Obama’svictory in the November 2008 election. When accepting his party’snomination in August 2008, Obama stated that: ‘[Y]ou don’t defeat aterrorist network that operates in 80 countries by occupying Iraq . . . TheBush–McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations ofAmericans, Democrats and Republicans, have built, and we are here torestore that legacy.’84 Whatever the shape of the new administration’sforeign policy, we can surely be confident that things will change.85

83The departure of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in 2007 was hailed by manycommentators as signalling the end of Neo-Con ideas as the centrepiece of US foreign policy.See, for example, Sarah Baxter, ‘Decline and fall of the neocons: Paul Wolfowitz’s departurefrom the World Bank signals the end of an ideological era in Washington’, The Sunday Times, 20May 2007, 5http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1812924.ece4.84‘Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech’, Democratic National Convention in Denver, 28August 2008. For full text of the speech, see New York Times, 28 August 2008, 5http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/us/politics/28text-obama.html4.85Only a few days after Obama’s election victory it was reported that a number of influentialcongressional Democrats would seek to remove Director of National Intelligence MikeMcConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden from their posts. This was due toMcConnell and Hayden having been closely associated with controversial aspects of Bushadministration policy on matters such as interrogation and telephone surveillance. WalterPincus and Karen DeYoung, ‘Top two officials In U.S. intelligence expect to lose jobs: Obamasilent amid conflicting advice’, Washington Post, 12 November 2008.

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