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The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq (Stanford Security Studies)

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The explicit concept guiding this book is that intelligence failures (or successes) are not isolated events, but rather occur within the context of the national security processes. Or as Diamond succinctly puts it: "The biggest intelligence failures are usually the product of accumulating misjudgments and lapses..." at all levels of the national security establishment. He also makes the important point that there is a very thin line between intelligence successes and failures. These related concepts are the bases for Diamond's central argument that the legacy of real or perceived failures at CIA, its culture of failure, makes its intelligence production processes vulnerable to pressure from other elements of the national security establishment. Diamond believes this culture of failure leads to other intelligence failures that are caused by the reluctance of CIA analysts to make the same mistake twice or to present intelligence that may be counter to the thinking of senior policy makers.

Diamond also makes a very valuable observation that there is a wide gap between the line intelligence analysts and the senior intelligence officials who present the face of CIA to the executive branch and congress. Much of the problem of so-called "bad" intelligence stems from the reluctance of seniors to accurately reflect analytic positions if those positions run counter to the direction that policy formulation is taking. As
Diamond points out, analytic processes and conclusions are often by necessity convoluted and ambiguous. Therefore, both senior intelligence managers and their policy making clients find many accurate intelligence products confusing and frustrating. As a result, staff functionaries often will `scrub' intelligence products to eliminate contradictions and ambiguities. The resulting product may not be accurate, but it is much easier to understand than the original.

That said, Diamond also notes that CIA analytic tradecraft is sadly lacking. He cites numerous examples where CIA working analysts demonstrated a shocking lack of competence. For example, the CIA misinformation that caused the U.S. to execute a precision air strike that hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, instead of its intended target a Serbian military target was the fault of inexcusable carelessness of CIA analysts (this included failure to use readily available open sources, existing local CIA and U.S. Embassy sources, and an unwillingness to examine current information). Even allowing for all the mitigating factors, CIA has a sub-standard record for intelligence production that is as much due to poor analysis as to outside pressures and the complexities of the analytic craft.

This book is fair to CIA and to the national security establishment. Diamond is on the fringes of this establishment and not of it and this has enabled him to be objective about its failings and successes.

THIS IS AN INDISPENSABLE BOOK ON THE C I A, WELL-BALANCED AND HIGHLY INFORMATIVE. IT COULD BE SHORTER BUT IT HAS MUCH INSIGHT AND INFORMATION--AND I KNOW THE LITERATURE.