How do
states develop foreign policy to reduce the risk of WMD use?
First, states try to gather as much information as they
can about states or
non-state actors suspected of involvement in WMD-related
activities. Nearly
every state in the world has some form of
intelligence-gathering capabilities,
otherwise known as national assets,
ranging anywhere from human sources to advanced
satellite technology. In the United States, for example,
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is responsible for
the recruitment of foreign agents to spy on behalf of
the U.S. government. This form of intelligence
gathering is called human intelligence (HUMINT).
Other national agencies, like the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and
the National Security Agency
(NSA) are responsible for imagery (IMINT) and signals (SIGINT)
intelligence, respectively. SIGINT consists of
information gathered from communications, like computers
and cell phones. The satellites used to collect the
information used by these and other agencies are
produced and maintained by the
National Reconnaissance
Office (NRO). The various agencies and offices that are
involved in the intelligence process comprise what
is called the Intelligence Community (IC). Each member
of the IC (presently there are 15 member organizations
in the
U.S. Intelligence Community) is tasked with individual
responsibilities, but also work together to provide a
comprehensive picture so analysts can make accurate
assessments of another state's or non-state actor's
intentions and capabilities with respect to WMD.
Other states,
like Great Britain, France, and Russia also have
extensive intelligence-gathering capabilities, but each
vary in terms of organizational structure and access to
advanced satellite technology. Nevertheless, the
intelligence-gathering capabilities of states concerned
with WMD proliferation engage in similar processes of
intelligence collection and analysis. In general, a
state's national assets are used to collect
information deemed by policy-makers to be critical to national security.
That information is then processed and analyzed to
determine if a state is in fact engaging in illicit WMD activities.
Finished assessments of the analyses
are then passed along to policy-makers in government,
who may in turn pass the information on to international
organizations like the
International Atomic Energy Agency or
Organization
for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons. Leaders
can then make informed policy decisions based
on the information they receive from the intelligence
community.
Some of the
questions that state leaders may task their intelligence
services to find answers to include: Which countries or groups are trying to get WMD? How much progress are they making? Which countries may
be helping them? If they already have WMD, how fast are their arsenals
growing? Do they seek to threaten their immediate
neighbors or the international community at large?
The
intelligence services of most states are precluded from
making or otherwise unduly influencing the processes of
policy formulation and implementation. This way, heads of
states can be assured to the greatest extent possible that
the intelligence they are receiving is objective and
thorough. The separation of
intelligence gathering and policymaking helps prevent
the assumptions
that leaders have about the intentions and capabilities
of other states from guiding the work of the intelligence
community and perhaps slanting final
assessments.
The
inherent fallibility of intelligence. While no
intelligence in the world is infallible, intelligence
services attempt to collect information from a variety
of reliable sources to ensure that finished intelligence
products are as accurate as possible. By corroborating
data from different sources, reasonable assumptions can
be made regarding the credibility of the intelligence
received. Despite the best efforts to gather
comprehensive, timely, and credible intelligence,
however, sometimes mistakes are made and intelligence
services get it wrong. For example, intelligence once
thought to be from a trustworthy source could later be
found unreliable. In other cases, intelligence may not
be properly corroborated against the backdrop of
contrasting information, or may be taken out of context.
Conclusions may be reached out of human error or
misapplied.
Overall, analysts and policy-makers alike assign
value to data they receive based on preconceived
interpretations of how particular states operate within
the international system. Often times, analysts are
required to draw conclusions based on incomplete
information, and even the validity of the limited
information available may be questionable. In
consequence, analysts sometimes engage in
"mirror-imaging," which means that information is
perceived and processed through the filter of one's own
experiences. If these perceptions are misinformed, or
misguided, it will inevitably result in faulty
conclusions, which means that leaders presented with
these conclusions may unknowingly make poor decisions.
Conversely, even the most accurate intelligence in the
world will not do any good if it is ignored or
misapplied by the leaders and international
organizations that receive it. Both policy-makers and
analysts alike are subject to the same limitations of
human cognition and interpretation.
Debate over Iraq Intelligence. A
debate has erupted over the alleged misuse of
intelligence by British and U.S. sources to justify the
U.S. invasion of Iraq. A
2002 U.S. National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) claimed that Iraq
was rebuilding its nuclear weapon program, actively
pursuing chemical and biological weapons, and had
developed missiles with ranges that violated United
Nations restrictions. However, thorough inspections and
investigations by the 1,200 member Iraq Survey Group
(ISG) after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, turned up no
evidence that Iraq had active weapons of mass
destruction programs. In October 2004, the United States
released a 918-page report (called the
"Duelfer Report" after its author) with the
ISG's findings. The report concludes that the 1991 Gulf
War and subsequent UN sanctions and inspections
destroyed Iraq's ability to build a nuclear weapon
program and eliminated its long-range missile inventory
and production capability. The report also states that
Iraq abandoned its interest in biological weapons in the
mid-1990s, and Iraq has no production facilities for
chemical weapons or the key precursors to such weapons.
Given the Duelfer Report's findings, the 2002 NIE, which was pivotal in President Bush's
decision to invade Iraq, was incorrect in its primary
conclusions. A
March 2005 report
to the U.S. President that
assesses the intelligence failure in Iraq states:
The failure was in large part the result of analytical
shortcomings; intelligence analysts were too wedded to
their assumptions about Saddam's intentions. But it was
also a failure on the part of those who collect
intelligence--CIA's and Defense Intelligence Agency's
(DIA) spies, the National Security Agency's (NSA)
eavesdroppers, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence
Agency's (NGA) imagery experts. In the end, those
agencies collected precious little intelligence for the
analysts to analyze, and much of what they did collect
was either worthless or misleading. Finally, it was a
failure to communicate effectively with policymakers;
the Intelligence Community didn't adequately explain
just how little good intelligence it had--or how much
its assessments were driven by assumptions and
inferences rather than concrete evidence. (Overview, p.
3)
The report then offers recommendations
for reforming the Intelligence Community based on the
lessons learned from the Iraq mistakes. A similar report
(The
Butler Report) by a British commission
charged with investigating WMD intelligence criticizes
British intelligence with respect to Iraq, and
particularly the government's failure to point out the
limitations of the information it relied on when joining
the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
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