PRESIDENT ELECT TRUMP AND THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.

 WHAT'S GOING ON?

I didn’t go back and check, but I am fairly sure I’ve addressed the intelligence communities “issues” in the past. Now, it’s safe to say, I have a firsthand experience with this operation and it’s “community” and as such, my opinion of what is taking place between them and the President elect may not be to the liking of either side of the US political arena. Let me get a few key statements out of the way and then I will defend my opinions.

·        Does the Intelligence community “shape” reports / briefings based on political / leadership issues? Yes.

·        Is the information that is often derived from the field level collection points changed? Yes.

·        Does this take place at only the highest levels of political leadership? No! It takes place, to some degree, at all levels. The art of editing “intelligence” is a poorly executed process.

·        Are Intelligence agency leaders politically influenced? Yes. The higher the brief, the more influenced they become.

·        Is the private sector as good as or better than government controlled agencies? In many cases, yes!

·        Do agency heads worry about not upsetting their Bosses? Sadly, the answer has become “yes” with an ever increasing trend.

·        Must “intelligence” be weighed against foreign policy or economic issues? Yes.

Okay look. Gathering relevant intelligence / information / at almost every level is difficult once you get past the “raw data” stage. A street cop gets a tip on a criminal and passes it on to a line supervisor. Then, the line supervisor decides is it worth passing on to the next level or did the Officer tell someone else without the Supervisor knowing about it. How many times does a slice of intelligence get reviewed, modified before it’s passed on, incorporated into a larger topic or just dropped? The whole process of initial gathering and then collation and then review and then more collation and then more approval is almost universal. It takes place to some degree at all levels, local law enforcement or satellite data. It’s a cumbersome, methodical process that has far more opportunities to be wrong that it does to be right. A picture of a new launch pad in North Korea doesn’t equate into the North Koreans are going to attack South Korea. Slices of information that must be combined with multiple levels of other data has a real tendency to become lost or worse, corrupted. When you factor in speed, the need for information in a very short period of time, the process becomes far less reliable. So, the “Art of intelligence gathering is extremely difficult. It’s often very expensive and even more often provides poor results or worse, false information! In the end, it’s a never the golden key to proper decision making. To some of my close friends out there, we lived by a saying. “First reporting is almost always wrong”!

Does this down and dirty explanation of how intelligence gathering works explain what is going on with Trump and the “Community” in the US? It only tells part of the story. The rest is ugly, in my opinion and just about as dangerous as anything can possibly be for the safety of the nation.

INTELLIGENCE LEADERSHIP:

Is it new news that agency level leaders can be politically motivated, intimidated? No. It’s been going on from the beginning.

Is something that has been going on in the past less dangerous in the 21^st century simply because, “it’s always been like that”? No! The world is changing by the minute and those changes can make old concepts, old accepted practices, extremely dangerous in today’s word.  Remember, with social media and the World Wide Web, opinions and perceptions move far faster than political response. “ Arab Spring”!

Leon Pennetta! Totally unqualified to lead the organizations he was politically chosen to head. Does anyone think for a minute the briefings he had prepared for his Boss were not skewed based upon what he thought his Boss wanted to hear or even worse, needed to hear? Is that any different that anywhere else? Pennetta is just one example of what takes place all over the world. Do you think for a second the Tsar’s key leaders shape reports based on what may upset him? The only time that takes place in the West is when an agency head is looking to expand their budget and even then, the information is taking with a grain of salt. “He” or she, “ Is just trying to protect / grow / their budget”!  

In the 21^st century, can nations afford to have such a key process such as “intelligence” manipulated based upon, “the old ways”? What happens when a person comes along and wins the election in the most powerful nation in the world and that person didn’t come from that “old way”?  What happens when that person is a Billionaire who has conducted “Business / Intelligence all over the world with just about every government that matters? What should happen when that person says, “what are you doing and how are you doing it”?

Look! Calling out the US Intelligence Community in the US is a very bad idea.

Having the political counterparts leaving office and the media that supports them inflame that issue is so dangerous to the US, the people should be very…very….worried.

It’s a hard, inaccurate and messy job. It’s a process that needs to run by complete professionals. It’s a process that cannot become a political tool as it has in the past.

Beware! This nonsense is more dangerous to the US than most of its people know.

Trust me when I tell you, the US’s enemies know this all too well!