Reply #5: The analysis side has always... [View All]

[punpirate]

... prided itself on its independence from politics. Certainly, though, the general political milieu could have been a factor in those estimates.

But, here's an indication of how politics attempted to influence the CIA analytical side. During the `70s, the neo-cons tried to use the president's intelligence advisory council (largely made up of private individuals and industry leaders) to get access to raw intelligence data for an "independent" review of the CIA's intelligence estimates. This was the so-called "Team B" exercise.

Team B was largely peopled by neo-con academics, right-wing military, etc. They said that the CIA had grossly underestimated the strength of the Soviet Union (basing their opinions on CIA data which the CIA later admitted were unreasonable over-estimates). Rumsfeld and Cheney, at the time in the Ford administration, pushed this view for all they were worth, despite the arguments against doing so by the CIA.

So, the analytical side of the CIA had tried to resist politicization, even if they were sometimes excoriated by presidents for making mistakes (Carter told his CIA director, Admiral Stansfield, to raise hell with the agency because of its failure to adequately predict the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, for example).

They do make mistakes, and that can be a result of a sort of institutional bias toward US interests, as one might expect. But, one must understand that ever since William Casey, the ideological and political biases of the director have infected the analytical side of the agency in ways that were not previously present.

The paramilitary side of the Operations Division has always been very nearly out of control at all times, but the gradual changes toward politicization of the analytical side is a relatively new phenomenon.

Cheers.