George R. Packard
President, International University of Japan;
Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, President, U.S.-Japan Foundation
George R. Packard was dean of SAIS from 1979 to 1993 and is now director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies as well as professor of East Asian studies at the school. He is also president of the International University of Japan. From 1965 to 1967, he was chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek. Prior to that, he served as special assistant to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer. In March of 1998, he was appointed president of the U.S.-Japan Foundation.
Packard Report - Mar. 2005
One of the great unwritten stories about the U.S. Government today is the total chaos that prevails in the intelligence community. Three and one half years after September 11, 2001, the U.S. ability to collect, process and make timely decisions based on secret intelligence is probably at its lowest point since before Pearl Harbor in 1941. And the risk today, according to all the "experts in the field" is greater than ever.
The problems began in the 1980's when a decision was made to invest heavily in electronic intelligence gathering ("Sigint") and to pay less attention to the more mundane work of infiltrating human spies into the secret councils of potential enemies.
The Central Intelligence Agency, as well as some 15 other intelligence gathering organizations in and around Washington, failed to recruit and train case officers and agents who could speak the languages of the Middle East. They focused on China and the Soviet Union as major potential threats to U.S. security.
After September 11, 2001, the Congress, over President Bush's objections, ordered an investigation into the terrible intelligence failure that resulted in the suicide attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Commission deliberated for more than a year, and then published its lengthy report in 2004.
One of its principal recommendations was that the President should appoint an intelligence "Czar" who would preside over the decentralized and rambling set of 16 organizations known as the "intelligence community." This was not a bad idea in principle, but it is a nightmare in the real world of Washington politics.
"Information is power," the old saying goes, and no organization gladly yields power in political Washington. Most threatened by the new position is Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, and the various spy units that work for him. Until now, Rumsfeld has controlled some 80% of the dollars devoted to intelligence work. Under the new regime, the intelligence Czar will decide which group gets how much money.
President Bush had trouble finding the right person to name as "Czar," and his first choice, Bernard Kerik, turned out to be a bad joke. Kerik, a former Police Commissioner in New York, had a number of "problems" in his career that would have been embarrassing had they turned up in Congressional hearings. He quickly withdrew.
The next choice was the current U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. (John is a friend of mine.) He is a very smart and decent man of conservative leanings. Nearly his entire working career has been in the Foreign Service, and there are skeptics who wonder if he can stand up to Rumsfeld when the bureaucratic battles over money and "turf" become heated.
Negroponte surprised people early on by insisting that he (not CIA Director Porter Goss) would be in charge of the Presidential Daily Briefing, a 10-20 page paper that is delivered in person by the top intelligence official in the U.S. at 8 AM each day to the president.
This is one of the most powerful positions in Washington. Only a few people ever see this briefing, and Negroponte will be in a position to put his own views and priorities directly into the president's ear.
The CIA is in a state of crisis. Goss fired the top echelon of career officials when he took the job in 2004 and brought in political hacks to be his main deputies. There have been many resignations by key career case officers, and morale is at an all time low. Now, with the arrival of Negroponte, the CIA will be relegated to the margins of power.
Meanwhile, Rumsfeld is working on a secret plan to allow military intelligence teams to carry out clandestine operations in foreign countries without the knowledge of the U.S. Ambassador to those countries - an unprecedented shift in policy which the State Department strongly opposes.
My guess is that Negroponte will outwit Rumsfeld in the clash that is sure to come soon.
Meanwhile, however, the U.S. is at least as vulnerable to terrorist attacks as it was on September 10, 2001, and the Congress won't wake up to the danger until after the next lethal attacks.
George R. Packard
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