The Washington Post published a report on Monday, July 19, about the Intelligence Community, in public and private sectors. The report, Top Secret America, has began a lot of discussion going. Heavies within the intelligence world have already started to take issue with its findings. Top Secret America has highlighted the Intelligence Community, which is a proper noun evidently, as having many inefficiency, waste, petty squabbles and disconnects throughout.
Top Secret America does not paint a flattering picture
The Washington Post investigation to the report Top Secret America was two years in the making. The amount of agencies, bureaus and contractors working on intelligence has grown exponentially since September 2001. Because the Intelligence Community relies on secrecy and non-transparency, the total cost of all these new agencies and contracts cannot be calculated. The report also claims the explosively growing intelligence community is grossly inefficient and is ill-equipped to discover consensus. The piece contains references to a recent interview with Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, who bemoans the lack of focus and clear details from the intelligence field.
Intelligence Community fires back
There was a response issued soon after the report from the intelligence field. David Gompert, Director of Intelligence, issued a press release in which he stated the report was not reflective of the Intelligence Community as a whole, and also the intelligence field was continuously working on improving itself.
The results of the report
It’s hard to know what effect, if any, the report will have. The nature of the spy business is that it is secretive. If a spy operation goes well, the success of the mission might never see the light of day. There have, of course, been some embarrassing, miserable, almost tragically comic failures . The Bay of Pigs invasion, WMDs that were never found in Iraq, etc. The Christmas bomber nearly pulled his plot off, and authorities were tipped off about him. The Fort Hood shooter was in contact with hostile Muslim groups for months, and he was a Major within the US Army. The intelligence field may have some very visible blemishes, but it is hard to keep faith whenever you can’t see the successes.
More information on this topic
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ (PDF)
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