Intelligence And Law Enforcement: Stewart Baker Gets It Half Right

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Instapundit links to a thoughtful article by Stewart Baker about the underlying causes of U.S. pre-September 11 intelligence failures.

Baker is right that there should be more cooperation between intelligence people and law enforcement people, and that increased after-the-fact auditing of law-enforcement activity is probably better than increased a priori regulation.

However, he is only partially correct in his explanation of why the “effort to build information technology tools to find terrorists has stalled.” While it’s true that civil libertarians have hamstrung government efforts to deploy such tools, they have done so mainly for good reasons. Widely discussed information analysis proposals have been badly conceived: mining error-filled credit and financial databases is certain to produce a huge number of false positives, all of which must be evaluated. These proposals also appear to be designed, at least in part, to satisfy various old bureaucratic agendas. (Where have we read this before?)

Civil libertarian skepticism about the government’s anti-terror analysis proposals parallels popular skepticism about airport security. In both of these areas government tends to favor ineffective and intrusive conventional solutions, and LE/intelligence pork barreling, over politically difficult courses of action (air passenger profiling; firing failed FBI and CIA decision makers) that go to the heart of the issue.

While some of the opposition to the TIA program etc. has been overwrought or politically motivated, much opposition appears to originate out of sincere concern about the poor quality of the government’s proposals. I think we are more likely to make progress in this area if the Administration’s backers admit that this is the case, and encourage the government to improve its proposals, rather than continuing to try and deflect blame onto the critics.

New Year’s Eve

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I was across the street at a party. Neighbors. Karaoke. Three beers. Unseasonably mild weather, some of the guys smoking cigars on the porch. Kids upstairs watching some damnable cartoon movie on video. My wife sang about 23 songs — “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” “Space Oddity,” “Tracks of My Tears,” “All My Exes Live in Texas,” etc. She is the queen of karaoke. I just sang Merle’s “Swingin’ Doors,” and a duet on “Fightin’ Side of Me.” Our two year old was walking into furniture she was so tired, and had defecated in her diaper. Time to bring her home. I got her cleaned up, pajamaed, she said her prayers in repeat-after-me fashion (she can say “trespasses”), and she was instantly out like a light.

Being some kind of junkie blog addict, I had to turn on the machine. Some people are wearing tuxedos and drinking champagne right now. I’m standing in my kitchen in my socks, doing this. Hey, it’s a big world. There’s room for all of us.

It’s about 11:31 here, and this year of grace 2003 is dribbling its final grains of sand into the big hourglass. A good time to wish all of you a healthy, happy, safe and prosperous 2004. Predictions for ’04 and “Best Ofs” for ’03, time permitting in the next few days. For now, one forecast: ’04 will be good year. Lots for the Boyz to kvetch about. Count on it. See y’all next year.

So If There Weren’t Any Iraqi WMD Programs …

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What can this possibly be about? Whaddaya know, turns out that “more than a thousand [Iraqi] Ph.D.’s were trained in the black arts of making nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.” Now we’re going to spend $22 million giving them non-WMD work.
It may be glorified welfare — a similar program for Russian scientists “has yet to develop a single commercial product” after eleven years — but the concept of redirection training is sound. I note that $22 million over 2 years would employ only about 50-60 Americans at high-tech labor-market rates, but presumably could pay 10-20 times that many Iraqis a comfortable salary by regional standards.


Bush’s “Centralized” Management

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Jonathan sent me this good snippet from Bruce Bartlett, one of the better economics commentators. Bartlett states that:

It has long been apparent to observers like myself that this is the most centralized administration since Nixon’s. Cabinet secretaries and cabinet departments seem to have less influence on policy than at any time in recent memory. All key decisions appear to have been made in the White House and the only job of cabinet secretaries is to sell the policy, get votes in Congress, and raise money for the president’s reelection. It has long been apparent to observers like myself that this is the most centralized administration since Nixon’s. Cabinet secretaries and cabinet departments seem to have less influence on policy than at any time in recent memory. All key decisions appear to have been made in the White House and the only job of cabinet secretaries is to sell the policy, get votes in Congress, and raise money for the president’s reelection.

My response was more or less as follows:

Not surprising. Bush runs a tight ship. He learned a lot of lessons from his earlier experience with his Dad’s administration, which was crippled by his Dad’s overly collegial and genial and too-trusting style, and by in-fighting and leaking and political posturing. So, he is like a CEO who dictates policy and it is up to the division chiefs to execute it successfully or get new jobs. W may be going to[o] far the other way. But in W’s experience the alternative is not a healthy airing of views, and the dynamic generation of innovative policy initiatives, but a rudderless executive presiding over ill-disciplined subordinates, leading in turn to stasis and disaster. Also, W has guts. He is not afraid to give clear orders. He is not covering his ass. If something goes wrong he cannot blame a subordinate. He is in charge, and everybody knows it, and there is nowhere to hide. And he wants it that way. He is willing to bear the costs of command to obtain the benefits. And as to the comparison with Nixon, the salient comparison from Bush’s perspective is that Nixon was reelected in a landslide. Maybe Nixon’s management style had something to do with that.

So, this doesn’t bother me too much. Maybe I should think it is awful that Bush’s administration is highly “centralized.” But I don’t see why. I think he’s doing pretty darn good, myself.

See if Peter Jennings reports this

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Slowly, reality seems to be sinking in.