CSIS

September 21, 2004

The Principles below have been endorsed by David Boren, Bill Bradley, Frank Carlucci, William Cohen, Robert Gates, John Hamre, Gary Hart, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Warren Rudman, and George Shultz.

Guiding Principles for
Intelligence Reform

AMERICA'S SECURITY DEPENDS ON STRENGTHENING OUR INTELLIGENCE collection and analysis. Debate is under way on intelligence reform, and harnessing the energy of an election season is a healthy way to assure the issue receives the attention it deserves. Racing to implement reforms on an election timetable is precisely the wrong thing to do. Intelligence reform is too complex and too important to undertake at a campaign's breakneck speed. Based on our experience in both the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government and on both sides of the political aisle, these are the basic principles we believe should guide any reform effort:

Identify the Problems

Rushing in with solutions before we understand all the problems is a recipe for failure. Only after a full appreciation of the Intelligence Community's problems—and its strengths—can sensible decisions be made about reform, including whether to restructure. Moreover, reform will have to be comprehensive to succeed. Addressing this or that shortcoming—however grave—in isolation will fail to produce the improvement in intelligence capabilities our nation's security demands.

Strengthen the Intelligence Community's Leader

The individual responsible for leading the Intelligence Community must be empowered with authority commensurate with his or her responsibility. Specifically and crucially, future leaders must have the ability to align personnel and resources with national intelligence priorities. Whether we maintain the Intelligence Community's current structure or create a new one, we must ensure that the Intelligence Community's leader has the tools to do his or her job.

Separate Intelligence from Policy

A fundamental principle for Intelligence Community reform must be that the intelligence community remains independent from policymakers. Nothing could be more important to a healthy national security structure. When intelligence and policy are too closely tied, the demands of policymakers can distort intelligence and intelligence analysts can hijack the policy development process. It is crucial to ensuring this separation that the Intelligence Community leader have no policy role. Otherwise, an Intelligence Community leader's voice could overwhelm those of Cabinet

**David Boren**
Former Senator from Oklahoma

**Bill Bradley**
Former Senator from New Jersey

**Frank Carlucci**
Former Secretary of Defense

**William Cohen**
Former Secretary of Defense and
Senator from Maine

**Robert Gates**
Former Director of Central
Intelligence

**John Hamre**
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense

**Gary Hart**
Former Senator from Colorado

**Henry Kissinger**
Former Secretary of State and
National Security Advisor

**Sam Nunn**
Former Senator from Georgia

**Warren Rudman**
Former Senator from New
Hampshire

**George Shultz**
Former Secretary of State

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR INTELLIGENCE REFORM

page two

secretaries and the National Security Advisor and deprive the President of the benefit of robust, informed policy debate. A single individual with the last word on intelligence and a say in policy as well could be a dangerously powerful actor in the national security arena—using intelligence to advocate for particular policy positions, budget requests, or weapons systems that others lacked the knowledge to challenge.

For this reason, the leader of the Intelligence Community should not work inside the White House; he or she should be at arm's length from the policy process, not at the President's right hand. Nor should the leader become an instrument of diplomacy or policy formulation; his or her role should be to support others in these functions. Similarly, Intelligence Community reform must not rob Cabinet secretaries of their own ability to assess intelligence by centralizing the bulk of assessment resources; the secretaries must be able to turn to their own analysts for independent perspective and be able to task the Intelligence Community leader for input to the policymaking process. Finally, to protect against an unhealthy mixing of functions, we believe the person who is chosen to lead the Intelligence Community should be broadly acceptable to both parties and chosen for his or her substantive or management expertise.

## Improve the Quality of Analysis

Intellectual conformity and failure of analytical imagination have been the major culprits in most intelligence breakdowns, from our failure to predict accurately India and Pakistan's nuclear tests, to our misjudgment of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs. Improving the quality of the analysis on which policy makers rely must therefore be a top reform priority. The best analysis emerges from a competitive environment where different perspectives are welcomed and alternative hypotheses are encouraged. Intelligence reform must institutionalize these traits in the analytical process. To preserve their independence, analysts must be insulated from policy and political pressure. Finally, we must not only concern ourselves with the appropriate structure of intelligence analysis, we must also address the critical shortage of human expertise in critical fields. Funding for programs to address this deficiency is dangerously low and the trust funds for the National Security Education Program will be fully depleted within the next two years unless Congress acts.

## Ensure More Effective Information-Sharing

Intelligence Community players have overwhelming cultural and bureaucratic incentives not to share their information with each other or with those outside the community. These include a natural impulse to hoard information to protect turf, and a deeply ingrained passion for secrecy. Domestic agencies and foreign agencies, in particular, traditionally have resisted sharing information with each other. Yet our nation has learned with painful clarity that failure to share, coordinate, and connect available intelligence can have devastating consequences. The next time an FBI special agent suspects an Arizona flight trainee is an al Qaeda terrorist, the Intelligence Community needs to know. Reform must fundamentally alter agency incentives and culture to require sharing. This must include addressing the excessive emphasis on secrecy and classification that inhibits constructive, timely information flows, while continuing to respect the need to protect genuine sources and methods.

## Protect Civil Liberties

Collection of intelligence is inherently intrusive; spying on fellow citizens carries with it great potential for abuse. Even as we merge the domestic and foreign intelligence we collect, we should not merge responsibility for collecting it. Intelligence reform might well create a single strategic coordinator of domestic and overseas collection on cross-border threats like terrorism, but exclusive responsibility for authorizing and overseeing the act of domestic intelligence collection should remain with the Attorney General. This is the only way to protect the rights of the American people upon whose support a strong intelligence community depends.

page three

Preserve Situational Awareness for Tactical Military Operations

As we have seen from the skies over Bosnia to the sands and cities of Afghanistan and Iraq, tactical intelligence and situational awareness are indispensable to our military's unparalleled operational success. Any successful intelligence reform must respect the military's need to maintain a robust, organic tactical intelligence capability and to have rapid access to national intelligence assets and information.

Assure Clarity of Authority for Clandestine Operations

The war on terrorism has blurred agency roles for some critical national security activities. The Department of Defense now performs more clandestine and intelligence operations than in the past; meanwhile, the CIA's Directorate of Operations engages more in traditional military functions, such as the successful campaign in Afghanistan. Authority for these newer roles is murky, and there are sometimes disparities in the type or level of approval needed for an operation, depending on who performs it. The new challenges we face mandate a wide range of tools and creative approaches to intelligence. But establishing absolute clarity of chain of command, oversight, and accountability for clandestine operations is essential.

Reform Congressional Oversight Too

Intelligence reform will not succeed unless Congressional oversight of the Intelligence Community becomes more effective as well. Rather than relying on review of agency submissions and after-the-fact investigation of failures or abuses, Congress should reach out periodically to test and assure the Community's health. Whether meaningful legislative oversight demands a major overhaul of committee structure or merely a change of philosophy, Congressional reform is as vital as changes affecting the Executive Branch.

Elections are a perfect time for debate, but a terrible time for decision-making. When it comes to intelligence reform, Americans should not settle for adjustments that are driven by the calendar instead of common sense; they deserve a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to these critical issues. If, as seems likely, Congress considers it essential to act now on certain structural reforms, we believe it has an obligation to return to this issue early next year in the 109th Congress to address these issues more comprehensively. We hope the principles we've suggested will help shape serious discussion of reform.

CSIS

NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Mark Schoeff Jr. 202-775-3242 (mschoeff@csis.org); Gina Maffei 202-775-3167

# INTELLIGENCE REFORM PRINCIPLES
## Former State, Defense Secretaries, Senators Warn Against Race to Reform

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 2004 – A bipartisan group of 11 former Cabinet members, senators and other senior officials warn the Bush administration and Congress not to rush efforts to overhaul U.S. intelligence and outline nine guiding principles for the debate, in a statement released today (www.csis.org/0409_intelreformprinciples.pdf).

"Racing to implement reforms on an election timetable is precisely the wrong thing to do. Intelligence reform is too complex and too important to undertake at a campaign's breakneck speed," the officials wrote. "Rushing in with solutions before we understand all the problems is a recipe for failure. Only after a full appreciation of the Intelligence Community's problems—and its strengths—can sensible decisions be made about reform, including whether to restructure."

The statement was signed by former Secretaries of State **Henry Kissinger** and **George Shultz**, former Defense Secretaries **Frank Carlucci** and **William Cohen**, former Sens. **David Boren**, **Bill Bradley**, **Gary Hart**, **Sam Nunn**, and **Warren Rudman**, former CIA Director **Robert Gates**, and **John Hamre**, former deputy secretary of defense and CSIS president and CEO. The group urges energetic debate, but cautions against implementing reform that is too narrowly focused. The nine principles include ensuring that intelligence community remains separate from policymaking; taking steps to improve the quality of analysis, including institutionalizing a competitive environment; addressing the "cultural and bureaucratic incentives not to share information"; and remaining vigilant about civil liberties and the potential for government abuse as domestic and foreign information is merged. The nine principles include:

* **Separating intelligence from policy:** "A fundamental principle for intelligence community reform must be that the intelligence community remains independent from policymakers," the statement asserts. "A single individual with the last word on intelligence and a say in policy as well could be a dangerously powerful actor in the national security arena...For this reason, the leader of the intelligence community should not work inside the White House; he or she should be at arm's length from the process, not at the president's right hand. Nor should the leader become an instrument of diplomacy or policy formulation; his or her role should be to support others in these functions."

* **Improving the quality of analysis:** "The best analysis emerges from a competitive environment where different perspectives are welcomed and alternative hypotheses are encouraged. Intelligence reform must institutionalize these traits in the analytical process."

* **Ensuring more effective information sharing:** "The next time an FBI special agent suspects an Arizona flight trainee is an al Qaeda terrorist, the Intelligence Community needs to know. Reform must fundamentally alter agency incentives and culture to require sharing."

* **Preserving Situational Awareness for Tactical Military Operations:** "Any successful intelligence reform must respect the military's need to maintain a robust, organic tactical intelligence capability and to have rapid access to national intelligence assets and information."

* **Protecting civil liberties:** "Intelligence might well create a single strategic coordinator of domestic and overseas collection on cross-border threats like terrorism, but exclusive responsibility for authorizing and overseeing the act of domestic intelligence collection should remain with the attorney general."

"Elections are a perfect time for debate, but a terrible time for decision-making," the statement asserts. "When it comes to intelligence reform, Americans should not settle for adjustments that are driven by the calendar instead of common sense; they deserve a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to these critical issues."

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Office of External Relations • Center for Strategic and International Studies
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CSIS

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

CHAIRMAN

Sam Nunn

VICE CHAIRMAN &
CO-FOUNDER

David M. Abshire

CHAIRMAN OF THE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Anne Armstrong

PRESIDENT & CEO

John J. Hamre

TRUSTEES

Betty Beene
Reginald K. Brack
William E. Brock
Harold Brown
Zbigniew Brzezinski
William S. Cohen
Ralph Cossa
Douglas N. Daft
Richard Fairbanks
Michael P. Galvin
Ben W. Heineman, Jr
Thomas O. Hicks
Carla A. Hills
Ray L. Hunt
Henry A. Kissinger
Kenneth G. Langone
Donald B. Marron
E. Stanley O'Neal
Felix G. Rohatyn
Charles A. Sanders
James R. Schlesinger
William A. Schreyer
Brent Scowcroft
Murray Weidenbaum
Dolores D. Wharton
Frederick B. Whittemore
R. James Woolsey

September 23, 2004

The Honorable Henry Kissinger
Counselor and Trustee
Center for Strategic and International Studies
1800 K Street, NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20006

SEP 2 3 2004

Dear Henry:

Thank you for your participation in creating the "Guiding Principles for
Intelligence Reform." With your contribution, we were able to achieve an
unusual degree of bipartisan consensus on an impressive set of guidelines. Our
nine principles have had a major impact on the debate to create a stronger
Intelligence Community. If, as seems likely, structural reforms are enacted soon,
perhaps our efforts will lead the next Congress to address these issues more
comprehensively.

My fear remains that far reaching reforms will be undertaken prematurely
during this highly politicized season. My hope is that with the nine principles and
the continued efforts of respected public figures like yourself, we can persuade
Congress to take a more deliberate and comprehensive approach to reform.
Thank you again for your time and contribution to this important effort.

Enclosures

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