BEFORE U.S. INTELLIGENCE CAN BE REFORMED, THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION MUST STOP DEFORMING IT

(Washington, D.C.): With President Clinton in full-time
reelection campaign mode, his Administration is going to
considerable lengths to readopt the coloration of centrism that
won the White House for a so-called “New Democrat” in
the first place. In particular, there are few indications
of the looney Left agenda that would almost certainly
characterize a Clinton second term unconstrained by the
requirement to secure any further popular mandate. But
— despite Dick Morris’ best efforts — every once in a while,
the truth will out.

One such insight comes from the memorandum issued on 16 April
by John Deutch, Bill Clinton’s Director of
Central Intelligence — a position that is currently being given
unprecedented influence over all aspects and agencies of the U.S.
Intelligence Community. The self-declared purpose of this
unclassified document, which was sent far and wide throughout the
government, is to revise “Security Controls on the
Dissemination of Intelligence Information.” As such, it
appears to fall within the rubric of “reform” of how
and with what the United States performs intelligence functions
in the post-Cold War world.⁽¹⁾

Hidden Agenda

This Director of Central Intelligence Directive (DCID
1/7-1), however, offers an insight into the truly radical nature
of the Clinton Administration’s agenda for U.S. national security
and foreign policy institutions. Simply put, that agenda seems
designed to dismantle or incapacitate such institutions or
otherwise to reduce their effectiveness. href=”96-D44.html#N_2_”>⁽²⁾

Specifically, the Deutch directive appears to embrace the
Hazel O’Leary syndrome: The rightful protection of the necessary
secrets which protect Americans’ values and way of life and
the lives of those sent into harm’s way for that protection
is regarded as insidious and repressive. The order of the day is
to disclose sensitive information, no matter how
ill-thought-through or how dire the likely consequences.

This policy seems rooted in a conviction that potential
adversaries who gain access to U.S. secrets will not use them to
this country’s detriment — not least by using such information
to neutralize U.S. “sources and methods” of collecting
such information and exploiting the openness to penetrate
whatever secrets as are still closely held. An Intelligence
Community still reeling from the effects of one Soviet/Russian
mole, Aldrich Ames, should be exhibiting more care about
facilitating the burrowing of his successors.

Now Hear This

Consider, for example, the following highlights of the Deutch
directive that would more likely deform than reform
American intelligence operations:

• The purpose of this memorandum is to enure “the
  widest possible dissemination of information to policy
  makers, warfighters and other consumers.” Other
  “consumers” are identified as “foreign
  governments, international organizations or coalition
  partners consisting of sovereign states.” It
  is not altogether clear from the text exactly what
  priority Director Deutch assigns to sharing U.S. secrets
  with the latter “consumers” but it seems a
  reasonable inference that such information-sharing is
  equal in priority to the U.S. government
  “consumers.”
• The guideline for determining the appropriateness of
  sharing is whether it “promotes the interests of the
  United States, does not pose unreasonable risk to U.S.
  foreign policy or national defense and is limited to a
  specific purpose and normally of limited duration.” This
  formulation allows even intelligence compromises that
  would pose a “reasonable” risk to the security
  of this Nation, as long as someone believes they will
  “promote” ill-defined interests of the United
  States.
• “Classifiers shall carefully consider whether there
  is a need to mark material with any dissemination control
  marking and to use control markings only in the limited
  instances authorized by this Directive.” Read: The
  default setting with regard to sensitive U.S.
  intelligence information is no classification —
  not protect secretly acquired information unless
  specifically directed otherwise.
• “Intelligence producers shall prepare their reports
  and products at the lowest possible classification level
  commensurate with expected damage that could be caused by
  unauthorized disclosure.” At least this
  sentence acknowledges that damage could be
  caused by unauthorized disclosure — a sentiment that
  seems largely absent from the rest of the text. Still, a
  premium is placed upon disseminating, rather than
  protecting, classified data.
• “In ‘writing for the consumer,’ Intelligence
  Community elements shall prepare their reports and
  products at the collateral, uncaveated level to the
  greatest extent possible, without diluting the meaning
  and value of the intelligence for the consumer.” href=”96-D44.html#N_3_”>⁽³⁾ In layman’s
  language, this sentence orders intelligence officials to
  consider it their normal duty to communicate highly
  classified information to “consumers” by
  routinely packaging it in such a way as ostensibly not to
  disclose how the U.S. government came by it. The risks
  associated with failing to prevent such disclosures are
  evidently considered secondary to the risks of not being
  sufficiently forthcoming with America’s secrets.

U.S. Secrets Can Become a Non-renewable Resource

In short, Director Deutch intends to institutionalize
the widespread sharing of sensitive U.S. intelligence material —
much of it collected at enormous cost to the American taxpayer
and often at considerable risk to personnel working for or with
the United States government — with the U.N. and other
multilateral organizations, with foreign governments and their
nationals. The result of such sharing could well be to
jeopardize the often fragile, and sometimes irreplaceable,
sources and methods by which it was obtained.

This being the case, it is all the more extraordinary that
such sharing no longer has to be deemed essential to U.S.
national security. Instead, one need only assert that
intelligence sharing “promotes the interests of the United
States” and poses “reasonable” risks to U.S.
foreign policy or national defense. Even this may understate
actual Clinton policy. After all, in May 1995, the State
Department’s senior intelligence official — Assistant Secretary
of State Toby Gati — told Congress that the United States had to
share intelligence with the U.N. even when it is not in U.S.
interests to do so. Her reasoning? Doing so might
assure that the United Nations would be willing to make use of
American secret information when Washington wanted it to.

To be sure, DCID 1/7-1 also avers that “any component
disseminating intelligence beyond the intelligence community
assumes responsibility for ensuring that recipient organizations
agree to observe the need-to-know principle and the restrictions
prescribed by this directive, and to maintain adequate
safeguards.” The United Nations refuses to agree to
such arrangements, however. Worse yet, the Clinton
Administration does not want to ask that of Boutros
Boutros Ghali — as it made clear in objecting to legislation
requiring such safeguards that was introduced last year by Sen.
Olympia Snowe (R-ME). And, according to a cover memorandum
accompanying the DCID, Director Deutch orders senior officers in
the Intelligence Community to “establish…challenge
procedures by which consumers may register complaints about the
misuse of control markings….” One can only imagine
the use foreign consumers of U.S. intelligence like Boutros Ghali
or old KGB man/Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov will
make of this “Complaints Desk”!

The Deutch directive complements a number of other, similarly
motivated initiatives, for example, governing the process whereby
intelligence information is classified in the first place and
establishing that personnel fitness reports — and, therefore,
one’s career in intelligence — will be adversely affected by a
documented tendency to err in favor of classifying data. The
predictable effect of such steps will be to make it harder to
protect secrets that, if divulged, could prove inimical to the
national security.

The Bottom Line

The good news is that this Deutch directive does not go into
effect until 15 June. Republicans looking for grounds to justify
their continued control of the Congress could do a lot worse than
to use the next five weeks to halt this irresponsible
intelligence deform. In the process, they should
consider a very constructive blueprint for intelligence reform
actually commissioned — and then ignored — by the
Clinton Administration: Redefining Security by the Joint
Security Commission. Neither the Clinton revised
Executive Order on Classification (E.O. 12958) nor the Deutch
DCID reflects a single idea from the Joint Commission’s work.

To the extent that the Deutch directive also serves as
microcosm of the broader and purposeful Clinton wrecking
operation now underway in every one of the country’s national
security and foreign policy institutions, it also offers
a powerful argument for ensuring that the White House does not
remain in such hands for another four years.

1. For more information regarding how the
Clinton Administration’s “reforms” are hurting the
Intelligence Community, see the Center’s Decision Brief
entitled Chairman Hyde Sounds an Urgent Warning About
the Need to Strengthen, Depoliticize U.S. Intelligence
(No. 96-P 06, 22 January 1996).

2. Such ill-advised intelligence sharing
is just one aspect of the Clinton Administration’s
“counterculturalist” approach to national security
policy-making. For other examples, see the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled Center’s Gaffney Warns
Heritage Foundation Audience About Bill Clinton,
‘Counterculturalist-in-Chief,’ ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=96-P_04″>No. 96-P 04, 16 January 1996).

3. “Writing for the consumer”
could be a laudable goal unless what is meant by it is really the
sort of egregious politicization evident in the recent National
Intelligence Estimate on ballistic missile threats to the United
States. In this regard, see the recent op.ed. piece by the
Center’s Director, Frank. J. Gaffney, Jr., entitled “Reforms
Deform U.S. Intelligence” (Defense News, 8-14 April
1996).