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A. J. Rossmiller
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Still Broken: A Recruit's Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, from Baghdad to the Pentagon Hardcover – February 12, 2008

by A. J. Rossmiller (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 19 ratings
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"Graduating from college with a degree in Middle East studies, Rossmiller joined the Defense Department's Intelligence Agency in 2004 and soon volunteered to join a DIA unit in Iraq. He vividly recounts his six-month tour—the physical misery of the environment and the frustrations of feeling his work rarely made a difference. Good intelligence, he explains, begins with people on the spot (in this case usually Iraqis), who take risks but supply information that is often fragmented, out-of-date and even self-serving or false. Analysts, such as the author, tease out useful data and deliver it quickly to fighting men. Hobbled by clueless superiors and their turf wars, as well as ignorance of Iraqi culture, DIA units, including Rossmiller's, witnessed American forces repeatedly acting on poor or outdated intelligence. They killed and arrested plenty of genuine insurgents but also killed, arrested and infuriated many innocent Iraqis, which crippled their efforts. Back in Washington, Rossmiller discovered the agency under pressure to provide good news for the Bush administration. Superiors regularly rejected his analyses of Iraqi politics as “too pessimistic.” If repeated rewrites lacked an upbeat conclusion, superiors inserted one. That his predictions turned out to be correct made no difference. This intense, partisan arm-twisting devastated morale, resulting in an exodus of agency experts, including the author. Rossmiller gives a lively insider's view of the petty and not-so-petty politics that affect the intelligence our leaders receive in their efforts to pacify Iraq; it is not a pretty picture."
-Publishers Weekly


After 9/11, billions of dollars were spent to overhaul America’s dysfunctional intelligence services, which were mired in bureaucracy, turf wars, and dated technology. But in this astonishing new book, A. J. Rossmiller, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst honored for his efforts here and in Iraq, reveals firsthand evidence that the intelligence system remains in disrepair. Still Broken is a blistering account of the ideology and incompetence that cripple our efforts to confront our enemies and fight our wars.

Like many Americans, Rossmiller was moved to action by the attacks on 9/11. Freshly graduated from Middlebury College, he went to work for the U.S. government in 2004. But his enthusiasm slowly turned to disillusion as he began to fulfill his duties for DIA, the spy arm of the Department of Defense. There he found the Cold War and 9/11 generations at odds, the cause of fighting terrorism superseded by the need to contain a dismally managed war in Iraq, the Bush administration widely mocked and distrusted, and the intelligence process crippled from top to bottom.

Rather than give up, Rossmiller instead went further, volunteering to go to Iraq to aid the troops on the ground, contribute to tactical intelligence, and, he hoped, help bring about an end to a fatally mismanaged war. For six months in that besieged country, he worked for the Direct Action Cell, the “track ’em and whack ’em” unit devoted to unmasking and targeting insurgents. He learned that, to put it mildly,

the intelligence process bears no resemblance to the streamlined, well-resourced, and timely operation in a James Bond or Jason Bourne movie. He also experienced the disastrous counterterrorism and detainee strategies for which mass imprisonment–with little interest in guilt or innocence–is standard operating procedure.

Back at the Pentagon as a strategic issues expert in the Office of Iraq Analysis, Rossmiller saw the administration’s heavy hand in determining how information is processed. In a dysfunctional office filled with outsize personalities and the constant drone of Fox News, he filed reports on the ever-worsening situation in Iraq. These assessments, ultimately proven accurate, were consistently rejected as “too pessimistic” and “off message” and repeatedly changed to be more in line with delusional White House projections.

Written with passion, intensity, and self-deprecating humor, Still Broken is a riveting and sobering portrait of Bush-era intelligence failures and manipulations, laid out by someone who witnessed them up close and personal. It also offers a sincere, thoughtful prescription for healing the system so that a new and motivated generation won’t disengage completely from its government.
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  1. Print length
    236 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Presidio Press
  4. Publication date
    February 12, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    6.37 x 0.98 x 9.56 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0891419144
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0891419143
  8. See all details
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4.2 out of 5 stars
19 global ratings

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Customers find the book engaging and easy to read. They appreciate the good information and insights into the professional life of an analyst. The stories provide a compelling glimpse into the working life of an analyst in both the US and Iraq.

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5 customers mention "Readability"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable and interesting. They describe it as an easy, well-crafted read that keeps them interested throughout.

"...is an acute observer and a facile writer who has written a well crafted book...." Read more

"Rossmiller has thrown together a highly readable and accessible story of his time in DIA, roughly from 2004-2007...." Read more

"...stories, and his sense of humor helped make it a relatively easy, very interesting, and sometimes entertaining read...." Read more

"This was a pretty good read and kept me interested throughout the book...." Read more

4 customers mention "Information quality"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book provides good information about flaws in the system. They say it provides a snapshot of the professional life of an analyst both here and in Iraq, presented via compelling stories with humor. The book is great for setting the scenes inside the DIA and downrange.

"...As such it provides a snapshot of the professional life of a working analyst both here and in Iraq...." Read more

"The author's experiences and perspectives were presented via compelling stories, and his sense of humor helped make it a relatively easy, very..." Read more

"...Rossmiller gives a lot of good information about the flaws within the Intelligence Community." Read more

"Great for Setting the Scenes Inside DIA and Downrange..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Retired Reader
    5.0 out of 5 stars Perpetually Broken
    Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2008
    Verified Purchase
    This is a personal memoir of a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) intelligence analyst of his experiences at DIA. As such it provides a snapshot of the professional life of a working analyst both here and in Iraq. Based on his experiences, Rossmiller has concluded that DIA is a dysfunctional organization suffering from incompetent management, inconsistent leadership, and a lack of a coherent mission plan, hence the title of his book. Rossmiller joined DIA straight from college, served only two years, and was familiar only with a small part of the Iraq effort mounted by DIA in support of Operation Iraqi freedom and its aftermath. So how accurate is his account and his conclusions?

    Well to anyone familiar with DIA, his conclusions appear remarkably on the mark. Since its creation by Robert McNamara, DIA has been an agency in search of a mission. Although designed to be the military equivalent of CIA, DIA has never been able to acquire the cache' of CIA although it has also managed to miss most of the notoriety as well. The personal of DIA are an uneasy mix of military and civilian intelligence professionals under the often erratic management of military line officers and a few civilians of often dubious qualifications. DIA management is at best a mixture of competent and incompetent officers and civilians at all levels. This in large part is due to the Byzantine selection and promotion processes common to the IC as a whole, but exacerbated at DIA by the need to have a large number of military officers at field grade or higher in most senior positions whether or not they are qualified. Further, like the rest of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), DIA makes the fallacious assumption that all analysts of a given grade are identical so fails to recognize good analysts from bad. And it is certainly true that analytic judgments are often warped by the pernicious practice of letting rank trump facts or by elephantine attempts to support often badly conceived policies.

    Rossmiller's account of his assignment to a DIA counter-insurgency operation in Iraq is a classic example of inept managers who relied on the DIA team actually deployed to sort out a mess caused by their incompetence. But his account of his experiences in the `Direct Action Cell' under a Captain White (USAF) also explains why DIA is able to function at all. Rossmiller is an acute observer and a facile writer who has written a well crafted book.

    In case anybody cares, this reviewer worked with DIA on and off over a career of 42 years in the IC and actually worked at DIA for two years as an integrated analyst a quarter century ago. From Rossmiller's account it appears DIA today is unchanged from those far off times.
    20 people found this helpful
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  • David Southworth
    4.0 out of 5 stars Great for Setting the Scenes Inside DIA and Downrange
    Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    Rossmiller has thrown together a highly readable and accessible story of his time in DIA, roughly from 2004-2007. Those last two years were within the office covering Iraq intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

    Rossmiller joined the DIA young and naive, assuming that politics would not affect intelligence, which has such a direct affect on war and decision-making. Rossmiller was wrong

    What he found was a litany of characters, many of whom he tries to give aliases to here, though any reader of Tom Ricks would likely pick them out.

    Rossmiller's work for the Combined Intelligence Operations Center (CIOC) in Baghdad, the commands office meant to include the "best and the brightest." Anything would be farther from the case.

    Rossmiller bogs down when start to describe the well trodden failures of the Bush Administration. Most readers of Rossmiller likely already know this. It doesn't need to be included.

    But the stories, and the activities of the people he reveals on colonel on the bad side, John McCreary and his "Nighthawk" publication is the good.

    I recommend this book.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Kathy Calder Haselmaier
    5.0 out of 5 stars I learned a lot from this book
    Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    The author's experiences and perspectives were presented via compelling stories, and his sense of humor helped make it a relatively easy, very interesting, and sometimes entertaining read. Many of the author's warnings included toward the end now seem prophetic.

    This was a book club "assignment" for me, and I'm so glad that I read it. In fact, most US citizens would probably benefit from reading it. As the author points out, many of us know few, if any, of the people on the front lines of the wars we fight, and this lack of firsthand accounts of what is happening is likely very dangerous (to us and others).

    Thank you for writing this book, Mr. Rossmiller!
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  • Taylor S
    5.0 out of 5 stars This was a pretty good read and kept me interested throughout the book
    Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    This was a pretty good read and kept me interested throughout the book. Rossmiller gives a lot of good information about the flaws within the Intelligence Community.
    One person found this helpful
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