Why the Intelligence Community Ineffectively Uses HUMINT
“To address the challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community in the 21st century, congressional and executive branch initiatives have sought to improve coordination among the different agencies and to encourage better analysis.”—Richard A. Best, Intelligence Issues for Congress, 2011, p. 2

Introduction

Since 9/11, the intelligence community has been at the heart of numerous policy decisions—from the invasion of Iraq to U.S. foreign relations with China and Russia. While the objective of the intelligence community is to provide legitimate intelligence to policy makers, numerous researchers have pointed out that in the post-9/11, policy has often shaped intelligence rather than the other way around, as it is intended to be.[footnoteRef:2] As Best notes, “intelligence from human contacts—humint—is the oldest intelligence discipline and the one that is most often written about in the media.”[footnoteRef:3] As the CIA is the primary collector of human intelligence along with the Department of Defense (DOD), it plays a leading role in the use of HUMINT in the intelligence community. With the wars in the Middle East now dragging on for nearly 2 decades, many are wondering why, with so many HUMINT sources, these wars have proven so difficult and disastrous on many levels, and why faulty intelligence was used in the build-up to the Iraq invasion. This paper asks specifically: Why is the intelligence community so ineffectively using HUMINT? What is going on behind the scenes? This issue remains a puzzle because the reputation of the intelligence communities is that there is virtually very little that is kept from them in this day and age: there are few secrets—and fewer surprises. So for the intelligence community to get something so spectacularly wrong (as Hussein having mobile weapons labs and WMDs) is to give one considerable pause: how could such gross miscalculations of judgment occur? It is hypothesized that in the post-9/11 world, the intelligence community has allowed itself to be guided by policymakers instead of the intelligence community being the guide for policy. This study will conduct a case study analysis to determine if such an inversion has indeed taken place. [2: J. Pfiffner and M. Phythian, Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives. TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2008), 178.] [3: Richard Best, Intelligence Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service: CRS Report for Congress, 2011, 3.]

By using the qualitative approach and the case study research design, the study will answer those questions so as to better understand why HUMINT is not being effectively used by the intelligence community in the post-9/11 era. The specific case this study will examine is the way in which HUMINT was misused in the build-up to the Iraq War post-9/11, particularly with respect to the source CURVEBALL, whose information was problematically used to justify a full-scale invasion. This study will provide a review of relevant literature, with a focus on current knowledge gaps and explain how the study will address those gaps. It will also provide a discussion of the methodology used for collecting data and how data was analyzed. Finally it will present the analysis and findings with a section for discussing the findings in detail and explaining what it means in terms of the research question and hypothesis.

Review of the Literature

“Counterterrorism is highly dependent upon human intelligence (humint), the use of agents to acquire information (and, in certain circumstances, to carry out covert actions). Humint is one of the least expensive intelligence disciplines, but it can be the most difficult and is undoubtedly the most dangerous for practitioners. Mistakes can be fatal, embarrass the whole country, and undermine important policy goals.”—Richard A. Best, Intelligence to Counter Terrorism: Issues for Congress, 2002, p. 2.

While Colin Powell was testifying before the UN about Iraq’s yellow cake uranium deals with Niger (which former ambassador Joe Wilson vehemently denied ever took place)[footnoteRef:4], Richard Perle, who chaired the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had been collaborating with Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard and Robert Kagan (both of who also headed the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)—a quasi dual-American-Israeli think tank) to put forward the story that Saddam Hussein was a legitimate threat to the U.S. particularly for its terrorist connections. Perle, Kristol and Kagan were advisors to policymakers: their role was to put forward ideas about how foreign policy should be conducted. They were not intelligence analysts. The CIA did not corroborate the story these policy advisors were putting forward: yet these advisors had the ear of the White House.[footnoteRef:5] Meanwhile, “CIA analysts complained publicly (through anonymous media leaks) that Vice President Dick Cheney was wrong to insist on a significant tie between al Qaeda and Saddam. Intelligence reporting had come to just the opposite conclusion, although CIA analysts warned that indeed a bond might be forged between global terrorists and the Iraqi dictatorship …if the West invaded Iraq”[footnoteRef:6]—which is in fact exactly what happened. The West invaded Iraq, the Iraqi infrastructure fell, and out of the vacuum created by the destruction and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians came ISIS, which went on to wreak havoc throughout the Middle East. In other words, the HUMINT indicated that Iraq posed no threat and that the threat of terror stemmed not from Iraq but rather from an invasion of Iraq. In short, the U.S. invasion would be a catalyst for the growth of terror in the region, HUMINT implied. [4: Joe Wilson, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-find-in-africa.html] [5: David Rose, “Neo Culpa,” Vanity Fair, 2006. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/12/neocons200612] [6: Pfiffner and Phythian, 178.]

It was almost as though the think tanks and policy makers were simply operating according to a pre-arranged plan and were simply trying to usher together some HUMINT sources to justify the invasion and give a pretext to the invasion that would look feasible to the world public. In fact, such a plan did exist: it was Oded Yinon’s 1982 policy paper for Israeli strategists on how...…to respond, as it should have done. This project conducted qualitative research to assess why HUMINT is used ineffectively. The results show that policy has to be kept out of intelligence because the latter is what should be used to inform and shape the former—otherwise, entire nations can be leveled not because of intelligence but because of the policy advice of a small cabal as Hersh called them.

Selective intelligence was used by policy advisors, as Hersh pointed out, to shape the lead-in to the Iraq War. This use of HUMINT by policy advisors and the distortions that they brought about in the intelligence community indicates that the reason HUMINT is so ineffectively used is that there is no oversight to prevent policymakers from influencing intelligence. Intelligence should be influencing policy, not the other way around. Yet, as this case study shows, policy advisors and makers can cherry pick data and even use inappropriate or soft HUMINT to provoke actions that are in line with their policies rather than implement policies that are in line with the intelligence.

This is definitely problematic as it indicates a lack of ability to effectively use HUMINT at the top levels of government. If all the work that goes into verifying and substantiating sources is going to be disregarded by top level policy makers who have their own agenda in the upper levels of government, HUMINT itself because a façade of intelligence activity. It indicates a corruption within the system.

What these findings add to the current body of knowledge is that HUMINT is not always used in the shaping of policy as it should be used. If the case study of the lead-up to the Iraq War shows anything, it shows that policy advisors should not be privy to intelligence work that has not been confirmed, nor should they have the ability to plant stories as Libby did to create a false narrative. This shows a severe weakness within the intelligence community and how it handles data and conveys it to the President.

Avenues of future research for other scholars should include ways for the intelligence communities to safeguard their data and the way that data is communicated to the President. There should also be some investigation into the reasons why the intelligence community does not have a stronger role in the shaping of policy as opposed to those in roles that are of lesser stature and significance. Intelligence is there to be used effectively, and those in the intelligence community work hard to make sure all sources are properly vetted. More research has to be conducted, therefore, on the problems within the structures of government that can allow for HUMINT to be used so recklessly by advisors in the State Department just so they can push their policies in the White House. Research should focus on exploring whether this problem has ever been addressed and if it has how well the solutions have worked and whether any discernible improvement is measurable.

Bibliography

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