Attacks highlight intelligence holes
By MARIBEL MOREY
Assistant News Editor
As the world watched New York and Washington, D.C. under attack by terrorists, it wondered how hijackers could go undetected by United States intelligence.
There are questions concerning whether the United States' addiction to new technology has lead to the neglect of the day-by-day human intelligence that might have prevented a sophisticated, but technologically basic, act of terrorism.
However, no matter how much money is spent on intelligence, some scholars wonder whether another catastrophe like Tuesday's can be prevented.
"We could spend another billion dollars on intelligence, but we couldn't end it," said Louis Ayala, assistant professor of government.
One of the problems is that the terrorist groups from the Middle East do not operate in ways Americans would expect.
"Part of the problem is that they are not organized in the same manner we would expect in the western world. They're not hard core KKK or militia groups, [but rather] family or clan based so they're going to be harder [for intelligence agents] to get involved with," said Ayala.
Regardless of the inherent difficulty posed by these types of terrorists groups, many across the nation are calling for an increase in intelligence spending.
"We're going to spend more money in it, if anything from political pressure. But no amount of money is going to be able to stop a determined terrorist from attacking an open society like ours," said Ayala.
Another obstacle for intelligence expansion comes from within.
"The current CIA director has embraced the new policy not to have [intelligence members] who have been involved in terrorist groups or who have criminal records," said Ayala.
Some senators claim this is a reason why the United States doesn't have an extensive human intelligence.
To increase human intelligence, the government needs to be prepared to deal with sources of information that are not entirely clean, according to Ayala.
Without enough human intelligence, the government sometimes relies on others outside of the government.
"Often they have to [turn to] other people for advise — scholars, independent experts and in some cases, even journalists who have extensively traveled the region," said Kevin Christiano associate sociology professor.
Since Afghanistan is neither safe nor welcoming for Americans, it is more difficult to gather information in a country that is not as open as the United States.
"One of the problems we have is that we're an open society," Christiano said.
Not only is the gathering of information a large challenge, but also finding further financial support and future agents might be a challenge.
"The tendency of lay people is to think — oh, James Bond — but this job is to have a sense of how things will change in the future, reading the paper, and talking to people," said Christiano. "This type of intelligence gathering is unglamorous and there's a tendency [by the public] to overlook intelligence. It's not as glamorous as a high-tech satellite."
With its current intelligence, the government has been currently targeting intelligence towards Asia and the Middle East, foreseeing possible conflicts with involved nations.
"There is a naval war college in the West Coast where they bring in academics and then they bring military officers from the U.S. and around the world who do research on military preparedness. They've been moving away from studies of European interests to the study of Asia and the Middle East," said Ayala.
Christiano agrees.
"There are many places troubled in the world and it's important to understand what motivates people."
In America's history, the government has overlooked regions.
The United States was taken by surprise by the outcome of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.
"We weren't adequately paying attention to the Islamic world, generally speaking," he said. "But the lack of a defined adversary may mean it is hard to pin point what they should investigates—what point of the world people should be studying."
All News Stories for Thursday, September 13, 2001
