Robert Hutchings
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- June 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190940003
- eISBN:
- 9780190053086
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190940003.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Robert Hutchings arrived as chairman just a month before the US invasion of Iraq, a move that he privately felt was a major mistake, for reasons that proved all too accurate. Once combat operations ...
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Robert Hutchings arrived as chairman just a month before the US invasion of Iraq, a move that he privately felt was a major mistake, for reasons that proved all too accurate. Once combat operations gave way to a heavy-handed US occupation regime, the analysis the NIC provided—that the anti-American insurgency was intensifying, and that this was because of the occupation itself—was badly received by policymakers. Such can be the consequences of telling truth to power. Moreover, when no WMD were found in Iraq, criticism mounted, some of it justified but some pure scapegoating. The perceived “intelligence failures” of 9/11 and Iraqi WMD crystallized in pressure toward major reforms to US intelligence. Nonetheless, during this period the NIC did seminal work in reassessing the nature of the terrorist threat and in producing the pathbreaking report, Mapping the Global Future, the newest iteration of the Global Trends series.Less
Robert Hutchings arrived as chairman just a month before the US invasion of Iraq, a move that he privately felt was a major mistake, for reasons that proved all too accurate. Once combat operations gave way to a heavy-handed US occupation regime, the analysis the NIC provided—that the anti-American insurgency was intensifying, and that this was because of the occupation itself—was badly received by policymakers. Such can be the consequences of telling truth to power. Moreover, when no WMD were found in Iraq, criticism mounted, some of it justified but some pure scapegoating. The perceived “intelligence failures” of 9/11 and Iraqi WMD crystallized in pressure toward major reforms to US intelligence. Nonetheless, during this period the NIC did seminal work in reassessing the nature of the terrorist threat and in producing the pathbreaking report, Mapping the Global Future, the newest iteration of the Global Trends series.
Robert Hutchings
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- June 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190940003
- eISBN:
- 9780190053086
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190940003.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
“Truth to power”: it is a stirring phrase, but what does it mean? It certainly does not mean that US intelligence believes itself to possess the Truth with a capital T, but the phrase grows out of ...
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“Truth to power”: it is a stirring phrase, but what does it mean? It certainly does not mean that US intelligence believes itself to possess the Truth with a capital T, but the phrase grows out of the initial mandate given by President Harry Truman: “to accomplish the evaluation and dissemination of strategic intelligence” and to do so independent of the principal policy agencies. This mandate created a built-in and deliberate tension between intelligence and policy—sometimes friendly and constructive, other times conflictual. The Office of National Estimates, set up in the immediate aftermath of World War II, produced some highly regarded national intelligence estimates but acquired a reputation for “Olympian detachment” that led in the 1970s to its replacement by a National Intelligence Council composed of around a dozen national intelligence officers led by a chairman or chairwoman.Less
“Truth to power”: it is a stirring phrase, but what does it mean? It certainly does not mean that US intelligence believes itself to possess the Truth with a capital T, but the phrase grows out of the initial mandate given by President Harry Truman: “to accomplish the evaluation and dissemination of strategic intelligence” and to do so independent of the principal policy agencies. This mandate created a built-in and deliberate tension between intelligence and policy—sometimes friendly and constructive, other times conflictual. The Office of National Estimates, set up in the immediate aftermath of World War II, produced some highly regarded national intelligence estimates but acquired a reputation for “Olympian detachment” that led in the 1970s to its replacement by a National Intelligence Council composed of around a dozen national intelligence officers led by a chairman or chairwoman.
