Retrospective Look at the Intelligence of Army Intelligence

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Does “Faulty Planning” by Army Intelligence Really Surprise Anyone?

The New York Times on February 8, 2008, reporting that the US Army “Buried" a study on faulty Iraq planning, recalled my own brief experience with Army Intelligence in the 1960s.

The recent RAND Corporation report, commissioned by the Army as a vehicle for learning how to plan future operations better, was apparently too rich in learning opportunities for the Army brass, as the RAND report strongly criticized nearly every facet of the Bush war machine. In fact, the Army now wants to put a lid on the report (that our tax dollars purchased) and have RAND rewrite it, with a due date in, say, 2025.

Imagine, also, that the Army actually needed to hire the RAND Corporation to learn these choice morsels of wisdom:

1. President Bush and Condi Rice failed to resolve significant pre-invasion differences among rival agencies;

2. Donald Rumsfeld was inappropriately assigned to oversee postwar Iraq despite the Army’s lack of capacity for civilian reconstruction planning and execution;

3. Former Army General Colin L. Powell’s State Department produced a voluminous study on the future of Iraq that was of “uneven” [read “terrible”] quality and “did not constitute an actionable plan…;”

4. Gen. Tommy Franks, whose Central Command oversaw the military operation in Iraq, had a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what the military needed to secure postwar Iraq;

5. The Pentagon’s military planners assumed that the reconstruction requirements would be minimal;

6. There was never an attempt to develop a single plan that integrated humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, governance, infrastructure development and postwar security;

7. The Bush Administration did not provide strategic policy guidance for postwar Iraq until shortly before major combat operations commenced;

8. That problem was compounded by General Franks, saying he took a narrow view of the military’s responsibilities after Saddam Hussein was ousted and assumed that American civilian agencies would do much to rebuild the country;

9. The Army’s poor planning had the inadvertent effect of strengthening the insurgency.

Could there be even one literate adult, in the United States or abroad, who hasn’t already reached these conclusions after a cursory reading of the “news” stream from ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, or MSNBC?

Recall, as well, the New York Times story regarding Army Intelligence activities from October 13, 2006:

Internal military [Intelligence] documents released Thursday provide new details about the Defense Department's collection of information on demonstrations nationwide last year by students, Quakers and others opposed to the Iraq war……

The documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under

a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, show, for instance, that military officials labeled as "potential terrorist activity" events like a "Stop the War Now" rally in Akron, Ohio, in March 2005……

An internal report produced in May 2005, for instance, discussed antiwar protests at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and was issued "to clarify why the Students for Peace and Justice represent a potential threat to D.O.D. personnel."

"The clear purpose of these civil disobedience actions was to disrupt the recruiting mission of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command by blocking the entrance to the recruiting station and causing the stations to shut down early," it said.

The documents indicated that intelligence reports and tips about antiwar protests, including mundane details like the schedule for weekly planning meetings, were widely shared among analysts from the military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.

But the document also noted that "to date, no reported incidents have occurred at these protests."

These stories reminded me of my own brush with Army “Intelligence” in 1965 when I was an undergraduate student at Ohio State University. Soon after I dropped out of school I was told by my Draft Board to report for induction, so I quit my job, resigned from the Lutheran Church choir, packed a few personal items and a book, and headed for the Army Induction Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

After a day of grinding boredom and pettiness--various physical examinations and aptitude testing--we inductees reached the final stage of induction. We were seated at tables in a large room, handed copies of the “Attorney General’s List,” and told to indicate whether we had any knowledge of the organizations listed.

These were the waning years of 1950s McCarthyism, and from my readings about various philosophies of government and civil liberties I was familiar with the infamous Attorney General’s List, about five pages of foreign and comical-sounding “Communist front” organizations from the ‘40s and ‘50s. The List also included hundreds of non-Communist democratic alternative parties, some of which I had explored in my quest for a place to hang my political allegiance.

The form asked us to check Yes if we had ever belonged to, known of, or even known someone who belonged to, any of hundreds of splinter groups and organizations. The List made no attempt to differentiate levels of interest or commitment. It was the ultimate blunt instrument, simply an aggregation of dissident groups the Attorney General didn’t like. Scrupulously honest, I checked Yes on so many of the organizations that the commanding officer at the Induction Center deferred my induction and sent me home. I went back to work the next day and resumed my life as before.

The next Fall I returned to Ohio State. One fine autumn day I answered the doorbell and found two fellows in charcoal grey suits, white shirts, skinny black ties, white socks, and black wing-tip shoes. Their haircuts were identical—shaved up the sides, a few hairs each side of a part, and cowlicks in back.

They identified themselves as being from Army Intelligence, and asked to visit with me for a while. I readily agreed, and we proceeded upstairs to my room, where I offered them tea. They had been trained to open interviews with a few ice-breakers for conversation, so we chatted about OSU and Davidson College, where they had both graduated as ROTC students. Then they turned to my affirmative answers on the “Attorney General’s List.”

I realized quickly that Army Intelligence, in its vast wisdom, had selected these two whiz kids to determine, in one interview, whether I was (a) too dangerous to be inducted into the Army, or (b) harmless. I also realized immediately that I could shape their answer as I wished. Did I want them to report me as (a) dangerous and therefore best left alone by my Draft Board forever? Or did I want (b) to be returned to the induction center for another try?

From the puzzled expressions of my Army Intelligence interviewers, as I contrasted the fine distinctions between the philosophies of various political groups on the Attorney General’s List, it was clear that their political comfort zone extended only as far as standard Eisenhower Republican ideology. Attempts to discuss political philosophy critically with these Davidson College grads soon brought to mind Hamlet’s dialogue with Polonius, e.g.,

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in the shape of a camel?

Polonius: By the mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed.

Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.

Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.

Hamlet: Or like a whale?

Polonius: Very like a whale.

(Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act III, Scene ii.)

After some harmless fun tweaking their non-intellectual little noses, I gave them enough harmless pabulum to use in their report and sent them on their way. (Oh, yes, my Draft Board approved my I-O status in the interim, and I happily served two years in a university hospital as a Conscientious Objector.)

Now, in 2008, these two NYT articles recall those two naïve Army Intelligence lieutenants who investigated me in 1965. If they made their careers in the Army, as they expected to, they’re probably high-ranking Pentagon officers now, surrounded by hundreds of peer officers who came up through the ranks as they did.

And they and their peers were probably among the Pentagon staff charged with planning the Iraqi invasion and occupation, the Afghanistan occupation, winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis, and, of course, with finding and capturing Osama Bin Laden.

So if I had to bet my modest bank account on Army Intelligence or Osama Bin Laden, on success or failure in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, I guess my bet should be pretty obvious.

Authors Bio:
I am a progressive activist. After 28 years in health care management I left in disgust at the mess that commercial health insurance companies have created.

I must work to live (self-employed) and enjoy performing with several classical & jazz groups.