The following is adapted from a talk delivered at Hillsdale College on October 3, 2023, during a conference on “U.S. Intelligence: History and Controversies.”

We need the CIA, but we also need to recognize the uncomfortable reality that the CIA is not performing at the level we require. It is not keeping us safe. It must be repaired, and it must be repaired quickly. The CIA was created after World War II with one overriding primary mission—to prevent a reoccurrence of what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. We were never going to allow an enemy to surprise us on that scale again. We were never going to find ourselves blind regarding a threat of that magnitude and immediacy. We would be forewarned and forearmed.................There are two reasons: bureaucratization and politicization.

BUREAUCRATIZATION

Forget for a moment all the gadgets and technology. The core business of the CIA is recruiting spies inside target organizations, handling them securely, and producing intelligence for policymakers in Washington, D.C...............At its heart espionage is a very old business. Its essence has remained unchanged for thousands of years. And it is not a science—it is an art. There is a reason intelligence officers talk about tradecraft. Espionage requires innate skills. Not everyone can do it...............

POLITICIZATION

On September 11, 2012, two American compounds in the Libyan city of Benghazi were attacked by a well known Islamic militia with a history of attacking Western targets. One of the compounds, occupied by the Department of State, was overrun. The American ambassador to Libya, who was visiting from Tripoli at the time, was killed..............Throughout the attacks on the compounds, a continuous stream of reporting was sent to Washington from the field. All that reporting told the same story: a large-scale assault had been launched on two American-occupied compounds by a heavily armed Islamic terrorist group.

Nevertheless, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the Obama administration began to peddle the narrative that a peaceful demonstration in Benghazi had simply gotten out of hand—that this was not an act of terrorism. The backlash against this transparent lie was immediate. The Obama administration came under scathing criticism...............Enter Mike Morell, acting director of the CIA, who stepped forward to take the blame for the erroneous claims of a peaceful demonstration. Analysts at the CIA, Morell said, had written an assessment to this effect, and he had passed it on to the White House. Obama and company were blameless. The CIA had given them bad intelligence. This was absurd on its face. ...................

SOLUTIONS

If the CIA is critical to our survival—and I believe it is—we need to appoint someone to run it who knows the terrain. The new director will have to understand what is meant in describing espionage as an art..............The new director must, from the very beginning, make crystal clear that there is no more business as usual, that the organization is returning to its roots and getting back to basics, that there will be zero tolerance for any involvement in domestic politics—and that individuals who involve themselves in politics will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  A significant number of senior officers should be removed immediately. Some of those officers are complicit in the actions I detailed above.......................To Read More...