The failed terrorist attack on a North West Airlines plane last month has reignited the debate about just what can be done to improve the performance of America’s intelligence agencies.
Despite spending close to $100 billion since the attacks of 9/11 nine years ago, it has become clear in the aftermath of the failed attack that all the old problems that were identified after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still remain: Intelligence is not shared effectively and the analysis of available data remains weak.
To the reformers inside the intelligence community, none of this is exactly news. As money poured in after 9/11 there was little thought about overall strategy. The US intelligence system remains a mish mash, a massive and inert bureaucracy where insiders with no experience of managing budgets effectively are automatically appointed to the most senior jobs even though none of them would qualify to manage similar multi-billion budgets in the private sector.
The sheer scale of the mass that is US intelligence militates against efficiency – 200,000 people costing $75 billion a year in 16 different agencies all with their own parochial agenda.
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