Monday, July 19, saw the release of an investigative report by The Washington Post which concerns the health of the intelligence services of the US Government. It’s titled Top Secret America, and it’s creating many buzz. The findings of the report are already being contested by big players within the intelligence field. The Intelligence Community, which apparently is a proper noun, is painted in a fairly negative light by Top Secret America.
Top Secret America makes unflattering claims
Top Secret America took two years for The Washington Post to put together. 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 intelligence community is not well suited to efficiency, consensus, and lacks enough focus to be truly effective. The piece references an interview with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who lamented the barriers within the way of cooperation and focus within the intelligence apparatus.
The Intelligence field comes back
There was a response issued soon after the report from the intelligence field. The national Director of Intelligence, David Gompert, easily issued a press release that condemned the report for not being truly reflective of the Intelligence Community, and the community itself was consistently working on improving itself.
What the results of the report will be
It is hard to tell what effect the report will have. The nature of the spy business is that it is secretive. If a spy operation is successful, nobody will know about it until decades later, if at all. However, the U.S. Intelligence Community has had some spectacular failures. The Bay of Pigs, WMDs in Iraq, for instance. The Christmas bomber nearly pulled his plot off, and authorities were tipped off about him. The Fort Hood shooter was a Major in the US Army, and he had been in communication for months with Anti-American Muslim groups. Despite the public failures, some public successes would maybe restore a lot of faith in the system.
Find more information on this topic
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ (PDF)
