UnIntelligence Credulity: Guest Post

Much of intelligence work depends upon oneself not falling into credulity, a disposition arising from weakness or ignorance to believe too readily, and to take advantage of others’ credulity.

There’s been much discussion about why the release of the recent National Intelligence Estimate summary, reducing the threat of Iran’s nuclear program, and about whether this NIE is complete, correct, or even deceptive.

A recent discussion of these matters delves into the means of encryption and its uses, to protect or deceive. PBS described the panel:

The Bush administration made an extraordinary turn around from declaring Iran had a nuclear program to saying it hadn't. Why was the intelligence gathered from the Iranians so easily accessible? Why didn't they use encryption? Why don't you? To discuss this are encryption experts Thomas Lipscomb, Senior. Fellow, Information Technology and Telecom, The Heartland Institute, and Kim Taipale, Executive Director, Center for Advanced Studies. James Goodale, former Vice Chairman, The New York Times, and head of the Digital Law practice at Debevoise Plimpton hosts.

The link, and the video is here:

Of note, is that the former Vice-Chairman of the New York Times was so willing to give credulity to the NIE, when the NYT’s believes so little else from this administration.

Thomas Lipscomb, one of the panel participants, offers us these additional considerations:

SHOULD YOU TRUST THE MUCH-HERALDED NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE ON THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM?

One of the most stunning “revelations” in US intelligence history was the agreement between the Bush Administration and the National Intelligence establishment to publicly release an extracted summary they called “The National Intelligence Estimate” recently. Since NIEs are internal documents within an Administration, Republican or Democrat, to help guide or inform policy decisions, not to rally popular support, surfacing even this summary was an exercise in pure propaganda.

Both the Bush Adminstration and its intelligence agencies have been badly battered by questions about intelligence failures and suspicions of outright lies about the underlying reasons for the Iraqi War. The clumsy and inarticulate Bush Administration has been constantly on the defensive against assaults by its political enemies as well as the press on these points. And the intelligence community has been trying to regain at least the appearance of its “objectivity” by leaking damaging information about the Bush Administration for months that led to the absurdity of the Valerie Plame witch hunt. George Tenet’s “slam dunk” remark to Bush about the Iraqi nuclear capability in the run up to the invasion of Iraq has been dragging like an anchor behind its own credibility for the past 4 years. Tenet himself retired quietly waving a Medal of Freedom.

In what appeared to be an uneasy alliance, the NIE was released at the end of 2007 indicating that more recent intelligence had shown a slow down in Iranian activity to gain a military nuclear capability subsequent to the American invasion of Iraq. This was quickly read by the media and politicians as a welcome indication that perhaps the Bush Administration was not so eager to decapitate the Iranian nuclear threat as they had feared.

Was the NIE release the mutual protective ploy described? Was it misread by the press? Was a laptop belonging to a top Iranian nuclear scientist that German intelligence gave the US THE key to the change in the NIE?

What everyone seems to have forgotten is that the primary purpose of intelligence is to create confusion for others while clearing it up for its own purposes. No one in their right mind would believe “revelations” from US intelligence in a public display of matters like this any more than they should believe the Iranians.

What one should remember in considering these issues is that everything we are allowed to see is for effect. There is a deadly game going on here and no one is going to risk something of value by blathering anything of any importance to anyone else, much less the public. It is rather like the climactic scene at the end of Orson Welles’s LADY FROM SHANGHAI in which zillionaire cripple Everett Sloane and his not so loving wife Rita Hayworth shoot it out in a fun house full of mirrors. Everything about the shoot out is set in a total atmosphere of deceit. Neither party knows if they are shooting at their target or its reflection. Neither party really understands their own vulnerability either.