Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The production, dissemination, and
consumption of intelligence analysis and estimates has long been viewed
by practioners, policy makers, and scholars as a highly secret
undertaking where debates over the meaning of events and plotting of
trends occur out of public view. Because of this intelligence
controversies have tended to be after-the-fact affairs focusing on
instances of strategic surprise such as the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, or the Falkland Islands War, or
the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The recently concluded Iraq War, however,
broought to light another dimension of intelligence analysis. Here we
saw the public use of intelligence to build a case for action. It is
not the first time this has happened. One can look back to the Reagan
administration and its attempt to build support for action in Latin
America against rebel forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua. In this
paper I will examine the phenomenon of public intelligence by reviewing
the manner in which intelligence was used by the Bush administration in
the lead up to the Iraq War and in earlier periods. The conceptual
argument will proceed in three parts. First, it will review the forces
that gave rise to the advent of public intelligence in the United
States. These are found overwhlemingly in the nature of American
domestic politics. Second, it will examine the characteristics of
public intelligence. Third, it will look at the consequences of public
intelligence for the quality of secret intelligence and the policy
making process. I have edited or co-edited two volumes on intelligence
both publlished by Frank Cass Ltd. Intelligence Analysis and
Assessment,and Controlling Intellligence. I have also authored several
articles and book chapters on intelligence. I am the author of an
American foreign policy textbook, American Foreign Policy: Past,
Present, Future, 5th edition Prentice Hall.
I would be happy to serve as chair or discussant on a panel as well and
if desired could put together a panel on intelligence.