Reforming the ODNI and the National Intelligence Community (IC) is a strategic imperative for the 21st century.
Part 1 introduced the idea of reforming the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Intelligence Community (IC) with a top-level plan. Part 2 was a review of world and US events over the years that led to an event that greatly influenced the later ODNI establishment.
Part 3 detailed that event-a 1995 CIA Ballistic Missile National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and a subsequent battle over the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) nominee. Part 4 covered tumultuous events (impeachment, 2000 election, 9-11) that further stratified the political landscape, introducing disarray in the process to stand up the ODNI.
The point of walking through the largely political events of the decade from 1995-2005 as concerns the effort resulting in the establishment of the ODNI is to clarify how it came to be that the one overarching goal of the 9-11 Commission (The 9/11 Commission Report, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States) simply was not achieved.
That one goal was “Unification” of the IC in order to prevent the events that culminated in 9-11 from ever happening again.
Unity among the IC was a noble objective and seemingly achievable, given how America pulled together after the horrific event of 9-11 that played out on television like some slow motion, horrific worst nightmare.
The Radical Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists struck the homeland from US soil using the tools of Capitalism-airplanes-as weapons, striking iconic landmarks and killing US citizens on US soil: an unthinkable event.
American citizens rightly asked: How could this have happened without warning? And demanded answers. The Commission addressed and answered those questions, identifying signs-clues-indications and warning of intent-planning-coordination.
The short answer was there had been clues “in the system.” The apparent problem was the failure to share that information widely between and among the IC sufficient for it to reach the level of awareness-warning-that would have “tripped” or kicked into action the type of response that might have ferreted out the plot and prevented the action.
In truth I personally don’t believe we would have ever had sufficient proof or evidence to shoot down a commercial jet loaded with American citizens until one of those planes met what constitutes an almost impossible bar or burden of proof that it was so…there are still disputes raging in the background that one of the planes was shot down by USAF jets (not my story for today.)
The apparent mandate going forward-in the eyes of ODNI planners-was to establish the ODNI with a much bigger footprint than congress anticipated or imagined. Some four times larger than the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Community Management Staff (CMS) that preceded it, with an overarching mandate to unify the IC by leading it.
Which set the ODNI on a course that I would argue has not fulfilled the goal of those noble efforts undertaken in the wake of 9-11.
As evidenced by a litany of intelligence failures since 2005 that continue to this day, with some unfolding as we speak.
We could walk through a dozen or more to bolster my point-but that would represent nothing more than a redundant attempt at gilding the Lilly on a conclusion that most thinking Americans have already arrived at: we spend too much taxpayer money on this bloated IC led by the ODNI-bad schtick keeps happening and we always seem surprised.
Why is that so? There are two major reasons I believe the ODNI has been a failure, and we seem to continue to get surprised over world events.
Number one is obvious, in that the ODNI was, has been, and is a political response to a practical problem and simply is not structured to do the job necessary in the 21st century. I liken the ODNI to be like a set of advisors lording over an automotive shop attempting to second guess the mechanics on problems and billing: like a canard on a toothbrush.
Number two is less obvious but all the more important, and that is the fact that we still have a Cold War mentality predominant in our intelligence structure that has not been modernized to embrace the 21st century information landscape: and no amount of “tweaks” or ‘adjustments” on the margins is going to fix that deficiency.
A replay of the tape of the standup of the ODNI reveals pretty much all you need to know about what congress was looking for in terms of IC unity.
One of the first major decisions made by the new DNI Ambassador John Negroponte was the 2005 cancellation of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) contract optical component (electro-optic satellite) that had been inexplicably awarded to Boeing in 1999, and awarding it to the Lockheed Martin Corporation.
There is much to say about this climactic event-but I’ve already said most of it in a very long series that stretched on for some ~30 articles that provides somewhat of the intel programmatic disastrous backdrop events that led to this decision. See National Intelligence Folly: How an Unsolved Murder Led to Billions of Dollars of Program Fraud, Waste and Abuse Part 1.
I’m reticent to assign what might be taken as a homework assignment, but the above series covers a lot of “ground that could use repair” in the IC. It is almost a primer on program and people problems in the IC covering several decades of mis-and-malfeasance encompassing nearly four decades.
A scant few years later another DNI made a similar decision on scuttling a national satellite program (link modified to avoid paywall.) One of the distasteful aspects of these two cancellations was the very public campaign waged to terminate these highly classified programs.
The period leading up to and following the establishment of the ODNI was rife with the outing of classified programs by the LSMBTGA. These very detailed and informed “leaks” disclosed and compromised sensitive programs that were later investigated: but this is the swamp, so nothing ever came of it.
Who was leaking this information, and why: who/which agency stood to benefit from such an action? Well, I don’t know Vern. But if you read a few of the above-mentioned articles about the FIA program, you may reach an inescapable conclusion on that from the LSMBTGA articles about how all those pleas for more Human Intelligence resources and funding never seemed to be arranged.
What was arranged? The funding of largely CIA Projects that had not-and were never-approved as programs. How did that happen? Look no further than the ODNI, PDDNI position that often executed the acquisition authority for the DNI.
If there is a common thread to many of my IC series of articles it is program mismanagement and untrained leaders who have been promoted into positions of authority who can’t reach the pedals. My Economics teacher at the University of Arizona felt that when unemployment was under 6% there were a lot of people employed who could “not reach the pedals:” you also get to that state through the Peter Principle in government.
I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years and it boils down to the “Joe Girardi principle.” That name likely sounds familiar, as he is renowned as the “world’s greatest salesman.” His philosophy entailed being nice to everybody you meet because of his “rule of 250.”
The corollary to Girardi’s principle is concerning when thinking about the IC. My article about this concern-Intelligence Community Soilage Campaign: Clouseau Without the Humor makes the case that our IC leaders who soiled themselves over the Hunter Biden Laptop letter stamped their values, beliefs and traits on scores of people in the 21st century at a critical time when the ODNI was established.
They were largely responsible for picking and promoting the leaders of the IC in charge today. It would not be surprising to find that the top 10-25% of seniors in most if not all IC organizations were promoted and/or selected by these “leaders.”
Does that make them automatically suspect??? Why yes, I think it does. Most of these positions and people in the IC require polygraphs to get and hold their clearances: every 5 years, but with an agreement that one can be administered anytime.
When you sign onto a government computer-classified or unclassified-you basically sign away your right to privacy by virtue of being afforded access: it is the first screen presented.
Under the first Trump administration it was inexcusable that the sieve-like environment leaks from the administration were not tracked down. Better to take that precaution before you need it than after it starts.
Besides, adding a section of polygraphers to the Eisenhower Executive Building-or LX-1 in ODNI spaces-or the FBI Hqs-will help with the burden of getting all those executive branch newbies cleared and on the job.
I wrote previously that I would proudly announce the establishment of a polygraphy section for the Executive Branch as if it were an LGBTQAMOUSE or diversity event: nothing keeps honest people honest more than the knowledge that government cares enough about it to take action at the drop of a hat.
The first shoe has already dropped in this battle with the National Security Agency INTELINK chat scandal that just broke. This is what happens when government leaders confuse their mission role and responsibilities-their oath of office-with civilian responsibilities to be diverse, open to new ideas and tolerant of aberrant lifestyles that have no place in government and are a total distraction to the basic taxpayer funded mission.
Somebody in leadership approved this “accommodation” and needs to be “talked-to.” Given the weird announcements and non-work-and job-related focus of the IC-led by the DNI/ODNI leadership over the past decade or so, this should be like shooting fish in a barrel.
The tooth-to-tail ratio of analysts to admin needs to be looked at and reduced across the IC to bring it back in line with mission requirements: which should also be revisited by all 17 entities. I would start with the FBI which has not improved one lick from an intel standpoint since the ODNI started giving them nearly a ba, ba, billion a year to up their intelligence game: they still suck at it. Worse is that it is largely incompatible with their evidentiary based legal mission.
At one point in my former agency, we had nearly 4500 analysts in an agency of less than 8K people. As I retired that percentage had dropped well below 50% with ever so much more mission added by the advent of commercial imagery sources and increased airborne collection in permissive environments.
Particularly in light of these intel failures such as 7 Oct 2023: this needs to be fixed and fixed fast.
You might have or be getting the impression that this NSA issue is an anomaly, new or an emerging trend. Somewhere in my archives I have an announcement from ~June 2000 that came out on our National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) “Sensitive But Unclassified” network soliciting softball players for the St. Louis-based Defense Mapping Agency Lesbian Softball Team.
The acronym “LGBTQ” was not used at the time. It was posted during a time the NIMA Director was on medical leave, and it was withdrawn with an apology the next day. When I read it, I sent a note to some folks asking the question, how can you tell LTG King is on medical leave????
Joe Girardi had it right, but it works both ways…
Max Dribbler
27 February 2025
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