David Frum asks some obvious questions about intelligence “failures”;
I’m beginning to think that maybe the weakest link in America�s intelligence system isn’t the spooks who generate the intelligence. The weakest link may be the users, the policymakers. But then, the users, the policymakers are ultimately elected. So maybe the problem is us.
That’s the question that keeps hitting me as I read and reread the 9/11 report this summer. Yes, it tells of many disturbing intelligence failures. But even more disturbing are the intelligence successes – the many times that Osama bin Laden was within reach in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 and yet still nothing was done.
Why not? Well ultimately because decision-makers flinched from the consequences of making a mistake. They feared alienating world opinion and offending and upsetting the voters. In other words – they didn’t act because they weren’t sure that the public wanted them to act.
I would point out that this is what divides politicians from statesman.
Policy makers who place public opinion above national security don’t deserve much sympathy for their errors – they have lost track of their priorities. When national security is at stake, priority number one is not re-election, no matter how you want to fold and tweak the rationale.
But I also agree with Frum about the responsibility of both the public and the media to grow up and behave like thinking adults.
We’re not going to get an intelligence service that takes risks until its leaders know that the public will accept that risks sometimes go wrong, sometimes badly wrong. Accepts – and forgives.
Any sign of that? Not much, not in the current media environment anyway. The current environment accepts bold risky intelligence strategies that succeed – while reserving the right to brutally condemn those that fail. Not exactly a good formula for curing gun-shyness.
That’s because the media has also found ways to rationalize their behavior in placing election of their favoured ideological sons over the security of nations and their citizenry.
Well said how true.
Well said, but untrue.
It may be pleasant to say, “A real statesman would ignore the will of the public” — but it defeats the purpose of democracy. Elected leaders are not philosopher-kings whose decisions are wiser or sounder than the people they represent; they are proxies (“representatives” is the usual word) of the people who elected them.
That would presume that the people are privy to all the information that goes into the decision making process.
I agree, when it comes to issues of public policy, in which all the facts and debate are open and publicly available.
In a time of war, this is not the case. National security depends upon keeping ones’ cards close to ones chest. There is an enemy without – and for that reason, policy makers who do have access to intelligence must be prepared to lead, and to make the difficult and unpopular choices they believe to be in the best interests of the electorate – even if means sacrificing their own personal political aspirations in the process.
It’s the difference, frankly, between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.