National Insecurity

The National Security Act of 1947 created the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA was supposed to become a central office where all the information being collected by the US government could be pulled together and analyzed. The intention was to avoid another Pearl Harbor which, at that time, was regarded as an intelligence failure in that the information that would have revealed plans for an attack by the Japanese was not properly connected and acted upon. Most Americans would agree that an intelligence function is necessary for any country that has worldwide interests and most would likely also agree that a center for collecting and analyzing information would be a valuable resource for those who run the government. But the Agency did not operate in a political vacuum and, unfortunately, it soon turned into something quite different. Almost immediately the objective of collecting and analyzing intelligence became secondary to the role as the president’s private army as a series of heads of state quickly appreciated that they had an instrument that could operate in secrecy and outside the normal rules. The CIA overthrew Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran, invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and carried out various assassinations that would now be referred to as regime changes. Throughout Latin America it supported right wing military regimes against democratic forces and in Europe it plotted to keep left wing parties out of power. This interventionism was referred to by the euphemism “covert action.” During the Vietnam War , the CIA also flexed its paramilitary muscle, running the Phoenix program which assassinated as many as 20,000 Vietnamese.

The reforms initiated by the Church Commission in 1975 followed by legislation defining the Agency’s proper role, checked the worst excesses of CIA and during the cold war, the collectors and analyzers of information again became dominant. In 2001, however, 9/11 again turned the Agency on its head. Agency officers who were adept at operating overseas and painstakingly collecting information that would be forwarded to analysts back in Washington were suddenly no longer in demand. The CIA paramilitary arm, the Special Operations Group, took control. Collecting intelligence took a backseat to killing as many suspected terrorists as possible, turning an organization whose original raison d’etre was information, into group whose mission was largely military in nature. Speaking the local language and understanding its culture were no longer de rigueur. On the contrary, the less one knew about the people on the ground being attacked by hellfire missiles launched from pilotless drones in the middle of the night the better.

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