Report Portrays U.S. Intelligence as ‘Insufficient’

WASHINGTON — In a sharply critical assessment of U.S. capabilities, a new report issued Wednesday charged that American intelligence is “insufficient” to meet national security needs in the next decade and called for significant reforms.

The grim assessment carries particular weight because it came not from outside analysts but largely from leading figures in the top U.S. intelligence bodies. Among the contributors were Robert Gates, deputy CIA director, and James Geer, the FBI’s top intelligence official.

The report, “Intelligence Requirements for the 1990s,” released by the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, culminates 10 years of analysis by an independent panel of policy-makers and academics.

Policy Impact Seen

Intelligence community insiders are predicting that its recommendations will have an impact on the policies and appointments of President-elect George Bush, who will be the first President to have served as chief of U.S. intelligence.

It already has been endorsed by three former national security advisers, including retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who is reportedly being considered for that post or the top CIA job in the Bush Administration; Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; and former President Richard M. Nixon.

The report calls for reform and modernization of espionage and analysis capabilities, creation of a new counterintelligence body and increased use of covert action.

“The missions and procedures in American intelligence were basically set into being in the 1950s and 1960s,” said Roy Godson, a Georgetown University government professor and editor of the report.

“We’re saying that that’s not good enough for the 1990s. American intelligence as presently constituted will not be up to the challenges of the 1990s.”

The report also warns that the United States may soon face the prospect of limiting the scope of its intelligence operations.

“In a period of declining resources, as the 1990s are sure to be, we can’t defend against every threat,” Godson said in an interview.

The report comes at a time of growing controversy within the intelligence community because of a series of unprecedented setbacks, which the report links to growing U.S. weaknesses.

‘Decade of the Spy’

Over the last decade, more than 60 Americans employed by U.S. intelligence units have been caught spying for foreign governments. The so-called “decade of the spy” occurred in large part because of inadequate coordination of counterintelligence among the more than half dozen major U.S. intelligence agencies, the report said.

“In personnel security, we spend most of our money doing background checks on people who are entering government. But people get recruited not before they get into sensitive jobs, but after,” said Kenneth deGraffenreid, senior director of intelligence programs at the White House between 1981 and 1987 and a contributor to the report.

He cited the case of Edward Lee Howard, a fired former Soviet specialist at the CIA who defected to Moscow. “Even though relations between the FBI and CIA were closer than they’d ever been, he escaped largely because the two weren’t talking enough,” he said.

The report calls for the creation of a new body or interagency committee to monitor counterintelligence in this nation and overseas.

Another weakness was revealed when secret listening devices were discovered in the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow, which led to reassessments of Soviet espionage technology. The report claims that Soviet spy technology now equals or, for the first time, exceeds that of the United States.

While stressing that American technical capabilities must be improved, the report predicted that technology will play a less important role in espionage in the next decade.

“The machines that see and hear things were very good for us in the 1960s and 1970s when the basic concern was the Soviet military,” Godson said, specifically citing Soviet missile silos photographed by satellites.

“But now we are going to be concerned with technology that is not seeable at all, such as bioengineering or chemical warfare.”

The report calls for more innovative use of human resources and recruitment of more specialists. In too many areas, “generalist case officers usually operate under thin cover,” which often limits their contacts and knowledge, and contributes to the discovery of their identities, the report said.