U.S. Intelligence Community Reaches Crossroads: CIA official says agency is implementing reforms to address new threats.

• Author: Stanton, John J.
• Position: Analysis

Unless the U.S. intelligence community makes rapid changes in the way it collects and processes information, the United States and its allies may not be able to prevent future terrorist attacks of the massive scale seen on September 11, experts said.

According to several experts interviewed for this article, U.S. officials currently planning a global campaign against the Al Qaeda terrorist network are relying on the same flawed intelligence that failed to anticipate the violent acts that ultimately would kill more than 5,000 people in New York and Washington, D.C.

The most widely voiced criticism of U.S. intelligence agencies is its over-reliance on high-tech surveillance, at the expense of human spying, known as Humint. Some critics observed that key U.S. intelligence agencies are organized under Cold War-era bureaucracies that no longer are suited to manage an asymmetric war against a worldwide network of nimble enemies.

Among the harshest critics of U.S. government intelligence operations is Steve Pieczenik, chief executive officer of Strategic Intelligence Associates, a consulting firm. He describes the U.S. intelligence community as "atavistic and rusty" and goes as far as to advocate that intelligence work should be outsourced to private industry. Retired intelligence officers currently working for political campaigns, investment banks and corporations could provide valuable assistance, Pieczenik said.

"The events of September 11, 2001 were the ultimate damnation and clear statement of intelligence services failure and the self delusion it has had for the past 20 to 25 years," Pieczenik said. He parcels out blame equally to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Defense Department.

Since 1970, Humint capabilities have deteriorated steadily, he said. He estimated that nearly 50 percent of the Humint resources during that time have been reallocated to electronic signals collection methods, known as Elint and Sigint.

During recent weeks, officials from the former Clinton administration and Bill Clinton himself defended the current intelligence collection methods and even catalogued instances of terrorist attacks that were prevented, because they were able to gather good intelligence. "They will tell you about all the attacks they allegedly stopped," Pieczenik said. "But make no mistake, the intelligence community is completely ossified and out of sync with reality."

Citing an old cliche, he added, "There's no thinking out of the box here, because there is no box when it comes to intelligence".

Pieczenik gained notoriety...