Getting intelligence right
In the wake of weaknesses exposed over Iraq’s WMDs, and the ongoing challenge of terrorism, Australian intelligence is about to undergo major reforms. Ian Wing has this report.
“Australia’s intelligence community can do better… Australia’s intelligence needs, and the resources and capabilities of Australia’s intelligence agencies, must coincide.” Phillip Flood’s Report Into Australian Intelligence, July 2004.
The Flood Report is the latest of a series of reviews of Australian intelligence that stretches back to the Hope Royal Commissions of the 1970s and 1980s.
Flood investigated intelligence performance by focussing on three case studies – Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; the terrorist threat posed by Jemaah Islamiyah prior to the first Bali bombings; and the breakdown of law and order in the Solomon Islands.
From Australia’s perspective, each of these cases could arguably be seen as an “intelligence failure”.
Flood also investigated claims about Australian intelligence weaknesses on East Timor and Indonesia.
His report described the strengths and weaknesses of Australia’s intelligence efforts.
The four years that have followed the Flood Report have seen some reforms and increased spending on intelligence – but more major changes are now imminent.
These changes will seek to deal with the major weakness exposed by the series of intelligence shortfalls over the last decade – the lack of coordination between the intelligence agencies.
The background to this weakness lies in history.
Australia’s intelligence structures were developed during the Cold War and the majority of our intelligence agencies were actually formed straight after the Second World War.
Since then, few major organisational changes have been achieved. While the old structures have stayed the same, the intelligence picture has radically changed.
Four main thematic changes have now occurred and each demands a more effective response from Australian intelligence leadership.
The first of these changes is the decline of inter-state conflict as a threat to Australia and its replacement by other threats including terrorism, organised crime, natural disasters, pandemics and breakdowns of law and order.
This change has come about since the end of the Cold War and our military operations overseas are now about counter-insurgency instead of conventional or nuclear warfare.
The second of these is the declining importance of espionage, which was once the main role of security intelligence agencies, but which has been largely superseded by counter-terrorism.
The third, and closely associated theme, is the rising importance of law enforcement intelligence.
This change has been accelerated by the need for effective intelligence responses to terrorism and it is clearly demonstrated by the much greater importance of the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
It is now quite reasonable to describe the AFP as possessing the power and influence of an intelligence agency in its own right.
The most notable example of this was Operation Pendennis which led to the arrests of 22 alleged members of an Islamist extremist conspiracy in Sydney and Melbourne.
They are undergoing trial, and evidence derived from intelligence sources is the strongest suit in the prosecution case.
The increasing influence of the Australian Crime Commission, which includes very impressive intelligence capabilities, is further evidence of the new and dominant role of law enforcement intelligence.
The fourth change is the rapid growth of Australia’s established intelligence agencies.
The personnel strengths and budgetary outlays of the agencies have more than doubled since 2001.
They continue to grow, and advertisements for these once secretive organisations now appear regularly in the employment sections of newspapers.
Two recent issues have thrust Australian intelligence into the spotlight – where it is always very uncomfortable.
The illegal detention of Izhar Ul-Haque by Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) agents and the botched prosecution of Dr Mohammed Haneef revealed continuing weaknesses.
The Street Review, which was commissioned by the AFP and has recently been made public, found that the Australian Federal Police and ASIO suffered from cultural and organisational barriers to sharing information.
The Review warned that these barriers could lead to the failure of future counter-terrorism efforts.
The review’s ten recommendations surprised no-one because they followed the normal bureaucratic pattern seen over the preceding 25 years.
Street recommended the creation of another committee, a joint operations protocol and the co-location of liaison officers.
The last 25 years of intelligence reviews show that two fundamental problems haunt Australian intelligence.
The first of these is the ongoing difficulty in sharing important information.
This difficulty is due to incompatible electronic systems and in some cases personal mistrust.
The second problem is the lack of accountability to a centralised decision-maker.
This leads to uncoordinated planning, operations and review processes.
These clunky arrangements are being mitigated by a complex system of committees and liaison meetings which are aimed at the “deconfliction” of our intelligence efforts.
This constant round of interagency meetings is a major part of the careers of modern intelligence professionals as they strive to make an outdated system work.
These meetings, whether they meet once a week or even more regularly, can at best only iron out the obvious differences.
And they have no executive authority and instead develop minutes of their meetings to circulate to the actual decision-makers.
Paramount within these arrangements is the Office of National Assessments which is tasked with co-ordinating Australia’s foreign intelligence activities.
It tries to do this through a range of regular committee meetings but these still have no executive authority.
There are also two intelligence oversight functions, that have no operational management roles, and merely investigate things when they go wrong.
These are the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.
These review functions are important elements of our democratic system but their mandate does not extend to leading and managing Australian intelligence.
The creation of ASIO’s National Threat Assessment Centre enabled a small number of intelligence officers from other agencies to work on current threat assessments within the ASIO building.
Although falling far short of the capabilities of its counterparts created by our major allies – Britain’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and the National Counter Terrorism Center of the United States – this was a good first effort.
It is ironic that the solution to these serious coordination problems begins with one straightforward and long-overdue decision.
This is the creation of a National Chief of Intelligence, with responsibility for the leadership of the entire intelligence effort.
This decision has the potential to sweep away decades of agency turf protection and jealousy.
The new Chief would report directly to the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPM&C) and this change would alleviate the current struggle within Australian intelligence which must report via departmental bureaucracies to five different Federal Ministries.
While the AFP reports to Home Affairs, the Office of National Assessments (ONA) reports to DPM&C, ASIO to the Attorney-General’s Department, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) to Foreign Affairs, and the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) and the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO) report to Defence.
The new National Chief of Intelligence would have the full status of a Departmental Secretary and authority derived from the Prime Minister to lead the national intelligence effort.
This would include the harmonisation of its disparate communications, management, training and operational systems.
He or she would be directed to align the work of all of our federal intelligence agencies with the intelligence efforts of our law enforcement and compliance agencies and in so doing overcome decades of turf protection.
Under effective leadership, the competition between some intelligence agencies would be alleviated by a new spirit of mutual cooperation.
And, if Australia gets this right, it will be a safer place.
If Australia appoints a National Chief of Intelligence it will follow the examples of its two closest allies.
The United Kingdom’s intelligence effort is coordinated by the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, a post which has wielded executive intelligence authority since its formation in 1936.
The United States created the post of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in 2005, with Ambassador John Negroponte being appointed as its first Director.
The establishment of the Office of DNI, against the entrenched opposition of the CIA, FBI and Department of Defense, demonstrated that even the strongest bureaucratic resistance can be overcome.
The time is ripe for these changes for two reasons.
Firstly, the Rudd Labor Government has been in office for eight months and it has gained increasing confidence in the field of security (which was formerly dominated by the Howard Coalition Government).
Secondly, on gaining power the Government commissioned a range of high-level enquiries into defence, national security and border protection – all are underpinned by intelligence.
These reports are now in their final stages of development and will soon undergo consideration by Federal Cabinet.
The authors of these reports are not going to report that everything is working fine and nothing needs to be improved.
The media contains almost daily revelations about intelligence issues and the Government clearly needs to make progress in improving the old system.
So don’t be surprised if before the end of 2008 the Prime Minister announces some very big changes in Australian intelligence.
About the author: Associate Professor Ian Wing served for over 20 years as an intelligence officer. He now teaches intelligence at Charles Sturt University.