TVO - "Interrogating Torture"

by Rick Francona

I appeared on the TVO (Ontario's public television network) show The Agenda with Steve Paikin on April 24 in Toronto.

The subject of the program was "Interrogating Torture."

The panel included Mark Bowden (Blackhawk Down), Melissa Williams, Ramin Jahanbegloo and myself.

The video can be seen by clicking here. The post-show web chat can be seen by clicking here.

Again, the terminology

by Rick Francona

Once again, the media has confused the terms used to describe various players in the intelligence game. On the face of it, that is not surprising - it happens virtually every day in the mainstram media. What is surprising is the use of the wrong term on the cover of an magazine associated with the intelligence community.

The March/April issue of Military Geospatial Technology, a publication focusing on military and DHS intelligence, features a cover article about Lieutenant General Michael Maples, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The title of the article: Intelligence Agent. (You can read the online version here.)

As any professional human intelligence (HUMINT) officer will tell you, the term "intelligence agent" is not the correct term to describe LTG Maples. The general may be called an intelligence officer, although his background barely qualifies him for the title. That's not to slight his career, it's just not a professional intellgence career. In any case, he is not an intelligence agent.

An intelligence agent is an asset who is working for an intelligence officer, usually a clandestine arrangement where a person agrees to provide intelligence information in response to taskings from a HUMINT case officer. That agent can also be called a spy. Intelligence officers are neither agents nor spies.

For one of my earlier pieces on this subject, see "CIA Agent - Let's Get the Terminology Straight."

Israelis ask for release of Jonathan Pollard - again

by Rick Francona

During President Bush's recent trip to the Middle East, the Israelis again raised the now tiresome request that we release Jonathan Pollard. Pollard was a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy intelligence service, convicted of spying against the United States for Israel and sentenced to life imprisonment.

He was arrested in 1985 and although he pleaded guilty and cooperated, the information he illegally provided to the Israelis was potentially so damaging to our national security and intelligence operations, the judge sentenced him to life in prison and recommended that he never be paroled. The actual damages have never been made public, but were so great that when President Clinton was asked by the Israelis to free Pollard, seven former Secretaries of Defense signed a letter asking him not to do it.

There is a group of Pollard supporters who want the felon released. They have a website - Justice for Jonathan Pollard - which is full of misleading information and comparisons to others who have been sentenced for the same crime. Although they claim that Pollard has been sentenced more harshly than others, they don't mention that others in the same class as Pollard - CIA officer Adrich Ames and FBI agent Robert Hanssen - were also sentenced to life in prison. My response to those lesser sentences - the judges in those cases got it wrong; the judge in the Pollard case (as well as with Ames and Hanssen) got it right.

During the President's visit to Israel, there was a campaign to highlight the plight of the Israeli spy. A member of the Knesset, Shas Party chairman Eli Yishai, presented the President a two letters asking that he free Pollard. One was from Israel's former chief rabbi, and the other from Pollard's wife Esther. The minister hinted that Bush's response would have an impact on Israel's consideration of American requests for Israeli cooperation with the Palestinians. The above posters (in English and Hebrew) appeared all over the country. Disgraceful, comparing the American president with Hamas leader and Palestinian prime minister Isma'il Haniyah and Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah.

What arrogance. In reality, bringing up Pollard likely only underscored American resolve to punish the traitor that is Jonathan Pollard. Many Americans do not want Pollard to be allowed parole or pardon, only to move to Israel and be treated as a hero. After all, in 1995, Israel granted Jonathan Pollard Israeli citizenship and in 1998 acknowledged that he had been an Israeli intelligence asset.

Pollard is a traitor who sold out his country for money. He worked in the intelligence community (I won't insult my former colleagues by calling him an intelligence officer) and knew the rules. It doesn't matter that he spied for an "ally" - the information he gave far exceeded the scope of our intelligence relationship with Israel.

Pollard's wife claims he is "rotting in an American prison." Actually, he's in a low/medium security federal prison in Butner, North Carolina. While it is incarceration, it's not the hard time an active duty Navy officer would be doing at Fort Leavenworth. If it was up to me, he'd be bolted into a cell at the Supermax in Florence, Colorado.

Esther, I missed the part where I am supposed to care about or feel sympathy for a traitor who betrayed my country.

Rick Francona is a retired USAF intelligence officer with over 25 years of operational assignments with the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East. He is an MSNBC military analyst.

A new D/DNI for Collection - when are we going to learn?

In December of 2007, the Director of National Intelligence announced the appointment of a new Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection - Glenn A. Gaffney. According to the DNI website, the D/DNI for Collection is to:

"...coordinate collection throughout the Intelligence Community under the authorities of the DNI and ensure that the National Intelligence Strategy (NIS) priorities are appropriately reflected in future planning and systems acquisition decisions. The Office of the DDNI for Collection looks across the entire collection business enterprise to develop corporate understanding of needs, requirements, and capabilities to ensure that a holistic view is taken on current and future collection systems.

Give me a break. I despise this bureaucrat-speak - what it says is the D/DNI for Collection is primarily concerned with the technical collection of intelligence - signals intelligence (SIGINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT). The phrase "...future planning and systems acquisition decisions" show that technology is the focus, not intelligence.

Collection is focused on technology at the expense of the area in which we really need to put the lion's share of our efforts - human intelligence (HUMINT), or as we used to say in the field, "lies and spies." All the pictures and intercepted communications that our sophisticated systems collect are terrific, but a spy - yes, a traitor working for us - with access, is priceless. Americans prefer the technological approach, not getting our hands dirty. We case officers always considered HUMINT the combat arms of the collection disciplines - out there face to face with the targets, not taking their pictures from space or intercepting their communications from afar.

Then we have the phrase "...collection business enterprise to develop corporate understanding of needs, requirements, and capabilities to ensure that a holistic view is taken on current and future collection systems." A holistic view? Now the bureaucracy has really taken over - we're trying to collect denied information from the bad guys, not have a zen business meeting in Washington. The use of the term "system" reinforces the technical nature of the focus - we should be talking about how recruit better assets and agents.

Gaffney has a degree in engineering science with an emphasis in astrophysics and spent years in the CIA's Science and Technology directorate. I am sure Mr. Gaffney is a fine manager and a competent engineer, but what we need is a case officer - an officer who has convinced someone to betray their country for us - to oversee the recruitment of better spies.


Rick Francona is a retired USAF intelligence officer with over 25 years of operational assignments with the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East. He is an MSNBC military analyst. See http://www.rickfrancona.com/.