For the Record; 1603; Col. W. Patrick Lang

what was that what you want to reveal information or they'll try to people get

off of the airplane in boston you wanna be there waiting for you know if you have somebody that's significant for the record collection funding is provided by the prairie foundation and by the bern porter found serving the commonwealth of virginia for the writer who's created in partnership with the university of virginia's miller center of public affairs their conversation on politics and policy of the president for the record hello i'm violent wake and welcome to for the record with me in the studio with a w h t j charlottesville pbs is colonel patrick lang retired senior officer of us military intelligence and a former green beret with the us army special forces colonel lang service chief middle east analyst and have human intelligence for the us defense intelligence agency during the nineteen nineties and he was a member of the senior executive service and today we'll be talking about us intelligence and least

in iraq colonel lang welcome to for the record i wanted to start with a definitional question if you will cause i think the intelligence of the complicated nation can you define intelligence intelligence gathering or i'm sure as a government function which he talked about his information via the process by which you acquire information and then people who are wise think about it can decide what it means and then they pass those judgments about the meeting him information on and folks have to make decisions whether a high political officials or government or military commanders the field and course the content areas the family and bring your customers the census what information it's not about covert action you know the kind of thing you think about it which they will try to alter government's things like that there's always a minute confusion and art there are going to hear about that because the cia was cast for a long time with the record action as well as intelligent and intelligence correctly is just about information you can use a different path a difference between human intelligence signals intelligence and different types of of

things that have come under the umbrella of intelligence gathering sure what they're really all sweet and killed when a critical kind of wrong on radio a ray of pseudoscience is that can describe what they are because as americans we like science and so we describe the various ways in which you collect information michael and various kinds of tents and in the case of earl love for example the national security agency the new signals intelligence again they collect the us and also abroad and now apparently in some instances of home and they had this i what the symbols mean an impasse until years later alison the analytic agencies to decide what the larger meaning as on the new human intelligence which is largely a matter of either either overtly going to work around to meetings and conferences and things like this and going back reading reports about what your we saw are also requiring for now the personnel who were willing to help you find out things at their own governments would rather we don't know farmers are foreigners like a glider and then there are there's a love there's another one the cs go in

and measure that imagery intelligence in which you have or many platforms aircraft satellites these efforts which had pictures of various kinds or the single provide different kinds of information which go into the minds of the analysts initially go through the mind of the analysts before they give the decision maker because the al aqsa spent his life trying to understand the context the stuff is very easy to misunderstand a particular piece of information you've been a pretty strong proponent based in your writing and having a pretty sharp downturn in between the persons with collecting information and the person who make policy based on intelligence was why are you anxious about not to learn that it's not just the prisoner poets and richard sohl intelligence function these people have different functions of the decision making process with regard to policy combat operations explains the policy people or the commander is there are those people who were trying to advocate a particular future they want to help them and b world of the future that they want to have exist and so they can see things in terms of things that nest but that support the

idea that that's possible to do that or that it's impossible for the intelligence function as the purpose of describing reality is as he's best the analysts can understand it either present reality or future reality based on probabilities and experiences which are probably three to bring these two things together too closely and the iran and the decision makers start taking the wrong from asia and aside from the solid means that pretty soon they start singing and then in terms of what it is they want the future to be rather than what is is there is there a structural way to keep those those two tasks really separate their way that for instance i think he really felt that that the bush administration may be conflating those two jobs out when looking at the intelligence we had about iraq if there is a system to put in place to keep those visitors and it is for this reason that we choose starting at the very top of the national level created by the national security act of nineteen forty seven the whole structure of organizations a sole function is to is to create an

unimpeded on policy affected view of reality in the feed that the decision it was built that way to separate those two things and in under normal circumstances what happens is that one of the very most senior people in the policy does is they understand that if they allow their our subordinates to pressure intelligence people too much push him and pushing and pushing him for results that are that they like after a while the information is just garbage and it will affect the quality of what they do and perhaps lead to disaster but let's talk about the nine eleven commission's suggestions about what we can do in different high in terms of intelligence gathering if you could pick one or two that are really urgent what would they be well we have the restructuring prop in the intelligence community before the national intelligence reform act of nineteen of two thousand and five which created the post of director national taught that structural problem was the fact that the person was head of the central intelligence agency has an organization was also the director of central coast and this this function was one of the chairman of the board

of the intelligence community and the fact that those two things were in the same human being that that oftentimes that the the pa interest development and potential use of the of all the other at the government sometimes were ignored because the fact that he was sitting right in the cia building plank and so when the principal things about what the commission recommended was to separate those two offices and now we've seen a dog and an investor are appointed music director national coalition against all are probabilities probably against the odds and against most people's expectations is rapidly succeed in gaining control over large parts of the of the whole community and intelligence agencies along this process is not finished and that's a great improvement do to make its average doing urgently required there are many other things didn't get done as well and we remade have much better cornets in human intelligence in the us we're kind of

cultural bias against spying nobody was a spy in general about the intelligence business but but really if you talk about spy you talk about espionage which is going to convince people overseas that they should find after you things a that they're government would say it is illegal for them to give the band or the movement they belong to would probably kill of victory but in fact these things are springing important to know because it's the kind of thing that will tell you what they're going to do next so i mean you could they were all assembled an interception world only energy from outer space will elaborate research we put it all together when in the end if you don't have somebody who can tell you what this these people's intentions that's about attention to their art they're infected never sure you're always get what you want to do is be there waiting for when they show up and they'll try to be able get off the airplane in boston you wanna be there waiting for the only hinted at an unusually busy have somebody and that's that's the biggest single thing to witness and that's what you're calling espionage

versus the human component year the process of recruiting and i am directing for human assets to find out things for them that their parents wouldn't or movements would not want him to know but the the art of being able to persuade people that they should risk all for you and for your country isn't is a very impressive art and there is never been in the world could do it early some people are capable of it surveyed say how it's a skill which is developed in schools and his practice of the years a person has to be a tremendous and tough person has to be careful to be able to be objective about the person you're working with at the same time an end and still be able to maintain the discipline such wishful thinking if you can do that if you come up with that five percent of the information that you need to know that cannot be gotten any other way a left turn for a generation in iraq ah i guess my first question is what's the difference between the quality of the intelligence we have

regarding iran inequality the intelligence we had regarding iraq pre invasion well i think they probably had with in both cases is really a problem of collection rather than mouse and that because we lacked the kind of intelligence we were just talking about it's difficult to know what is there are actually do it with the things that you see them construct you need to have somebody inside who can tell you what is really going on they always talk about connecting the dots will have to be enough dots to connect you know that each one of those dogs presumably is a data point that tells you so this or that or that is in the possession of more more darts builds up the probability that such and such a thing might be true so yeah so that collection capability now with regard to iraqi we had practically nothing in the way of the data points because so we had several relations contact with them on everything else previously and so people were free to guess where they wish the court and their proclivities about what the situation might be and it

turned out not to be too well and the analysts were in the position with people who believe that you were actually paulson people could tell him in fact that will mike get my judgment is is that as your think that you have enough information are you with me i thought in the case of iran so different because in fact you have a very large program which we clearly know was there and given the kind of capabilities we have the us government you can be sure we have pictures of these places to go back from that mold construction started so this is a good base to start with and i am recently heard general hayden say that infected the way they're going about looking at this data now is on the base is the fact you have to look at it in the context not just what you think might be true but the whole context of iranian culture civilization history religion was so much water this approach before and probably gives a better ability of true true for a moment to the

cia which has seen a lot of turnover of a lot of changes that and ask you if you can give us some assessment of whether all those changes is is is taking us in the right direction wrong but i realize we're in a moment of real change over right now but what needs to happen to the cia in and ana are they getting made well i never worked for the cia worked all around them and all the other organizations and with them on operations all kinds of things and an analysis but as i kept track and i think that there are real crossroads you know they after the end of the cold war their capabilities are all other rundown gold particular sticks their endowment and there was far too much reliance on now on techno music you can finish the process of rebuilding and then through a real sort of whirlwind of change to many directors to much confusion and to many of the many internal feuds factions by fighting each other kind of things

but this one has a switch if you don't have an opinion sort of choose upside to go barefoot cried then and i really think that that this out of the limo which separated the two jobs of the directors it was it was a sound thing and that the idea now appears to be that cia it will be the national human manager and all human operations of the government will be subordinate to that unit commander some like hayden and i think that's a very good thing health the human intelligence component changed since nine eleven human beings are human beings the there's a lot of discussion around as to whether or not islamic jihadi organizations like a fight that can be penetrated i am of the opinion that they can be it's a question really of low of your willingness to accept the idea that you can penetrate them and i'm going about

it in a way which has a certain smuggler settled into a rented knocking on the front door and torture could be done and then the techniques of hanley people never checked because as i said people of the same always the basic way you weren't at any boat were koreans have businesses to simply figure out what it is that they want or they think they are and if they believe in the end that you represent progress toward you had bolder probably was the weather talking about handling people and curious about your thoughts about torture it's been it's been part of an enormously this awful lot of speculation right now about black sites about rendition is there any sense of so the intelligence value of torture and i know torture isn't a word but i wonder if you can give us a fine well the other or standard things out there about about the lack of utility of torture and i have to say i spent before one of these so important government i spent twenty seven years new orleans in vietnam for three

years and on and on two occasions i ever see a prisoner abuse and the abominable over a polar cap for unit grounded troops to stop and they stop immediately and so this is a new thing for me and i've never seen anything like this before hi i am on principle opposed to the idea of doing this not only because it's probably not useful most the time and that somebody will likely to get you to stop also just because it's immoral and wrong that this is you know most of us didn't join the us government to do things that were morally wrong and i think that that this is not something to be done on one record in that number of places so if you do something in an extremist that that you think has to be done you should understand that you should do your subject big prize for what is being shipped from the paradigm of called warsaw actually of course the rangers actually i you know i spent all that time in government working on the islamic world the arabs various other kinds of tribal peoples around the

world things like this and i was always interesting window and valued work but they really understood that the main thing was the soviet union it is understandable it was that way so people who are going to work on a non western cultures and things like this that were always thought i was being a miner theme in the government by an antique and focus really was placed on them so the people who ran the big government structures involving foreign policy and in the posterior and how they were typically the people who are specialists in the soviet union so i think that that's when the main thing is change has been a radical re orientation of people are saying well this is different for several different you know it's entirely different than us in a different world although in fact those the people who are attacking his now hated us then wanted nothing more than to attack this before and in fact they finally got our attention that's the big difference really and so now we have to think about this in terms of what they're like you know what their cultures like

why their culture drives the two attackers drive them to kill themselves in the process of actually was discussed thing for us this is a radical new thought that encounter would be like nero sudden very popular among a lot of places but they're infected so innocent that that the world stage we've changed because our perceptions change just having a hard time and they're the weekend including the armed forces we tended to approach the whole world problem of comprehending read all of these things from a kind of either technological we're also operations research systems analysis cannaday says there's a whole world of applied mathematics and engineering work on things a parent and in many cases they were still fun to use these same ways of thinking to deal with people who are essential living in the middle ages to the mines knows essentially what they are safe and effective doesn't work and you know i don't care how much or essay stuff you applied to try and figure out why roadside bombers interact persisted doing what they believe you're never going to

understand that initial understand that you've written about it so interesting this or the extent to which we still have the sort of monolithic view of what the islamic culture is or what muslims want an element that that doesn't move the ball forward at all can you explain to us what we are where we're born with apprehending what what the enemy our economic specialists are going to be like me you know the the mainstream people and our government are are playing catch up ball from so far behind that they're mostly only just up to the stage now where they understand that there could be a monolith called islamic culture that it dominates a culture problem from morocco to india and of the idea that there are a lot of very subtle subdivisions and parts of these in that each country is a little different have all these at the groups that the religious factions always had these very difficult i was a professor of arabic west point for her three four years when we started this program back there twenty five years ago

and my former students are all for kernels now in the end bob interact and there they are a marvel to the people around them to the commanders they were for people like this because they understand this kind of instinctively because of saturated we understand stapleton would say to somebody to not offend in fact removed years the country and it's a hard thing to learn new we are we're starting from so far behind and are we ever going to have a record filled have a thing with the way we've we had a chorus whitfield a russian linguist right well it's early hits depends on how seriously the senior people in the government take this over a longer time there's a there's a there's a kind of a bias against this system for various reasons they don't really like the idea of cultural separateness and people and for those who've become specialists in these alien cultures some extent they become a little separate culturally as well that makes life difficult for the sellers there is a there's a personal perception amongst the officers it might twitter's

begun and programs like that they will be viewed as strange and curious outsiders to the extent that that that perception and the reality behind it goes on the newly very difficult to have a large group of people like that you want to be a dedicated person and if there's one thing we just fundamentally misunderstand about iraqis about the middle east about this and i realize it's not really an entity but arab culture what is that that we're missing the same way the same way any solace to that's true you know we are in fact we are for many of us and i'm not for you personally of course but that for many western religion if we have it is a matter largely of the comforting phenomenon going to church or synagogue or or whatever it is and that they're just big embrace life cycle of plants that kind of thing that for them it's not like that for the vast majority of work of muslims

they are in fact still living in the medieval period which in which god is all and god controls life and dictates how you live and how you relate to the people how you dress so your banking you mean if they're always sooners writer people who are actual trade away from that very six the court over the essential phenomenon of what they're like and that's the us as white as an ally of senior officers commanders say there was well i guess you know why is this culture thing is really important i guess no light is so then they say well what was said about them i said well that's about why they blow themselves up to get out of that was this isn't about kodak moments you know how you have those you have to understand is to understand this war absolutely and then you have to understand that inside every muslim there is in varying degrees there's some element of at least understanding for the jockeys leo understanding the point of view

that there is the world of song the world of the believers and then there are the world of your enemies enemies of progress do a lot in fact and in fact that that those two people cannot cannot come together and there is an understanding amongst most muslims in fact you have to you have to try to deal with the fact that these people are wrong for as a people that there humiliated by the fact that they're not a strong as they should be and the world as a justification kept well because they say is an entirely different mindset going to get inside that mindset without becoming one of the things inside that mindset you'll never really understand what they like and that's very difficult for them and that certainly suggests that all military model of the exact wrong approach because he can't possibly do anything other than sort of crushing humiliate further is that is that there's no hint in the united states we've always had that basically two armies you

know we've had we've had the big army that goes force on force and that ever since the american civil war has learned that the way to crush your enemies has to beat them by attrition i learned that the other army the army of the guys in the west to who ran the out the apache scalp them randell geronimo and live with the apaches made their food and a dancer dances discuss the swimmer said these two things we know about the we have been in vietnam we had these two armies you had the bigger army fought the north of the knees out in the jungle full force on force barber's about you know the other army the special forces army that which learn to live like these people were to sympathize with them and live among women to actually been in combat in midterms are understandable to that we had the same thing and now what we have now is we have the big army the big force on force army interact trying to learn how to do the other thing because it has been declared by the security fence and people around to be the

way you should be very difficult thing so it's you know you have the special forces guys were tiny fraction and of the of the big army stating that one side and working on an astonishment well these fellas of them from armored divisions are trying to transform themselves into something more less like that it's a very rough process and goes back here initial point that information gathering whatever that means it's really the tip of a strategic it's it's it's not special forces guys are really people who are on the green berets to help people with that special forces people are really practicing feel anthropologists monologue know a great deal about the theology languages and this is usually if you're not going to just a few months of that to foreigners you also underway that time were telling me so much time colonel patrick lang served as chief middle east analyst and head of

human intelligence for the us defense intelligence agent featuring the nineteen nineties for the staff encouraged of the h t j here in charlottesville and for a production partners at the miller center of public affairs at the university of virginia and diet with that please join us on the next for the record for more information about guests and topics on four the record visit our website at bellevue debbie wu bad idea stations dot org he came to power that's right you know for the record production funding is provided by the perry

foundation and by the burn carter foundation serving the commonwealth of virginia for the record has created in partnership with the university of virginia's miller center of public affairs to bridges a vhs copy of this program sent a check for twenty one ninety five to the address on the screen or call for three four to nine five seven six seven one please reference the program number fb fb

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