Intelligence

Jeffrey Gettleman, “Africa’s Dirty Wars,” The New York Review of Books, March 2012. I saw how hollow such leadership can be when I attended an expensive Darfur peace conference in Sirte, Libya, in 2007. What fascinated and attracted the rebels was not the plenary sessions or the one-on-one meetings with United Nations officials. It was the all-you-can-eat hotel buffet where turbaned figures laughed as they heaped mountains of rice and meat onto their plates and drank gallons of Pepsi. None of the Darfurian rebels I talked to at that conference could tell me what he was fighting for. In fact, although I had spent much time in the region they came from, it was hard to know if any of these men were fighting at all. The leaders I had met in the field were not there. Shibley Telhami, “Do Israelis support a strike on Iran?” POLITICO, February 28, 2010. Only 19 percent of Israelis polled expressed support for an attack without U.S. backing, according to a poll I conducted — fielded by Israel’s Dahaf Institute Feb. 22-26 — while 42 percent endorsed a strike only if there is at least U.S. support, and 32 percent opposed an attack regardless. A majority of Israelis polled, roughly 51 percent, said the war would last months (29 percent) or years (22 percent), while only 18 percent said it would last days. About as many Israelis, 44 percent, think that an Israeli strike would actually strengthen Iran’s government as think it would weaken it (45 percent). (3PA: Only 19 percent of Israelis support attacking Iran without the United States, but fully 51 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. government should remain neutral in the event of an Israeli attack.) Yochi J. Dreazen, “Panetta Calls for Tax Increases, Not Defense Cuts,” National Journal, February 28, 2012. Panetta’s comments about the need for tax increases came as he reiterated his long-standing warnings that so-called sequestration – the roughly $600 billion in automatic defense cuts which would take effect if no debt-cutting deal is reached by the end of the year – would hollow out the nation’s armed forces and directly threaten U.S. national defense. In his typically colorful language, Panetta derided the sequester mechanism as a “meat axe” which would impose dangerous across-the-board cuts rather than the targeted plans the administration has also unveiled for shaving $487 billion out of the Pentagon’s budget over the next 10 years. (3PA: In 2009, it cost $515,000 to keep one U.S.  servicemember in Afghanistan per year. Today, it costs $850,000, according to Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale.) Sebastian Abbot, “Study: Militants, not civilians, are primary victims of drone strikes,” Arizona Central, February 26, 2012. The AP was told by the villagers that of at least 194 people killed in the attacks, about 70 percent—at least 138—were militants. The remaining 56 were either civilians or tribal police, and 38 of them were killed in a single attack on March 17. (3PA: For other estimates on the range of Pakistani civilian casualties from drone strikes: senior U.S. official: .0025%; Counter-Terrorism Committee: 3.5%; Long War Journal: 9.5%; New America Foundation: 20%; Bureau of Investigative Journalism: 17-27%.) Colin S. Gray, “Categorical Confusion? The Strategic Implications of Recognizing Challenges Either as Irregular or Traditional,” Strategic Studies Institute, February 24, 2012. “Clinton says Somalia air raids not ‘a good idea,’” Reuters Africa, February 23, 2012. Replying to a question at a news conference following an international conference on Somalia, Clinton said: "I am not a military strategist, but I think I know enough to say air strikes would not be a good idea and we have absolutely no reason to believe anyone, certainly not the United States, is considering that." (3PA: That very same day, a U.S. drone strike killed four people in Somalia—apparently the United States was doing more than considering air strikes.) Matthew M. Aid, Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror (New York: Bloomsbury Press). A few mid-level American intelligence officials opposed the new policy, arguing that instead of killing al-Qaeda operatives, some effort should be made to try and capture these men if and when the opportunity presented itself. According to two former CIA counterterrorism officials, because no senior or even mid-level al-Qaeda official had been captured for years prior to the initiation of the policy, the CIA’s knowledge of al-Qaeda’s internal organizational structure and management dynamics, as well as the group’s plans and intentions, remained very spotty. But their appeals were rejected on purely utilitarian grounds. According to a senior U.S. intelligence official interviewed in 2009, “Capturing al-Qaeda officials is a bother. It is so much easier to just kill ‘em when you can find them.” (139) Since entering office in 2009, the Obama administration has continued the policy initiated during the Bush administration of killing al-Qaeda leaders and fighters whenever and wherever they are found. The widely held sentiment inside the U.S. intelligence community remains that the only sure way to ensure that there will be no more 9/11s is, as one current senior administration official starkly put it in a 2009 interview, “We have to kill them all, every last one of them.” (145)

In 1982, on a tour of the Middle East to monitor the deployment of U.S. Marines to Beirut, Lebanon, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger received a security briefing from his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon. As Weinberger later recounted of his visit with Sharon in his memoirs: “I was also shown the Israeli camera-carrying drone, a remotely piloted vehicle that had made video tape recordings of me the day before, on my visit to our troops in Beirut. It was a most impressive technical achievement. The drone was in effect a model airplane, but one equipped with sophisticated photographic and recording capabilities. Its small size and low cost were also welcome features, particularly for short range battlefield reconnaissance. Especially appealing was the fact that the drone did not put lives at risk, and was hard to detect, given its small size. Later, I directed the Joint Chiefs to give us that same capability again: The Israeli drone had actually be developed by us, but the Congress had refused to fund its deployment. It was then sold to the Israelis.” In the thirty years that have passed since Weinberger was awed by drones, the U.S. military and intelligence community have developed drones for an ever-expanding number of surveillance, strike, and transportation missions. For a description of some of these missions, as well as some little-known facts on drone technology, read my new piece in the current issue of Foreign Policy, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Drones.” A point that I did not address—to which no one knows the answer—is the scope of potential applications of drones in the future. In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution concluded with an important insight (which echoes conversations I’ve had with countless U.S. officials): “Last year, I met with senior Pentagon officials to discuss the many tough issues emerging from our growing use of robots in war. One of them asked, ‘So, who then is thinking about all this stuff?’” Two weeks ago, I posed this question to a senior Air Force official whose military occupational specialty is unmanned systems, to which he replied, “You’re speaking to him.” Although this official could have been exaggerating, there is a disconcerting lack of critical thinking and strategic planning for the future of drones in support of U.S. foreign policy and military objectives. I can think of three reasons to explain this apparent disconnect: First, the average senior civilian appointee in the Pentagon serves less than two years, so critical institutional knowledge comes and goes as some head into the private sector or a new administration enters the White House. Second, the relatively limited number of drone experts has been extremely busy over the past five years supporting the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Consequently, many may not have received time off for staff or joint appointments, or to go back to school in the professional military education system, which is an essential prerequisite for promotions. Third, drones are incredibly popular. Representative Brian P. Bilbray declared, "If you could register the Predator for president, both parties would be trying to endorse it.” As a result, some members of Congress and their staffs simply have not performed the necessary oversight into drone acquisition, system-wide architectures, or military and intelligence missions. As the aforementioned senior Air Force official told me, “When you speak with members of Congress about the differences between C-Band, X-Band, and KA-Band [microwave bands on the electromagnetic spectrum] their eyes glaze over.” Despite the demonstrated popularity of drones today, a number of current and former officials, policy analysts, nongovernmental organizations, and concerned citizens have voiced their unease over the use of drone technology, and the apparent lack of ceiling for how and where it might be used in the future. Some of this concern stems from the relative absence of transparency and accountability, particularly regarding the use of drones for targeted killings. President Obama inched the CIA drones out of the shadows when he acknowledged the strikes in Pakistan during a Google+ “Hang Out.” However, the president’s temporary transparency was soon reversed by his administration, and many remain apprehensive about America’s unmanned future.

In 1995, Kenneth Waltz and Scott Sagan coauthored the book, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, which sought to address the question: what are the likely consequences of the spread of nuclear weapons? In a self-help international system, Waltz contended, “states must rely on the means they can generate and the arrangements they can make for themselves.” He argued that a second-strike nuclear capability is the most reliable means for a state to assure its survival by dissuading other states from attacking. Due to fears of escalation, “new nuclear states will feel the constraints that present nuclear states have experienced.” Sagan, meanwhile, countered Waltz’s optimism with two arguments based in organizational theory. First, “professional military organizations—because of common biases, inflexible routines, and parochial interests—display organizational behaviors that are likely to lead to deterrence failures and deliberate or accidental war.” Second, “future nuclear-armed states will lack the positive mechanisms of civilian control.” Sagan therefore called for a U.S. nonproliferation policy that includes reaffirming to nascent nuclear states that the bomb “will make their states targets for preventive attacks by their potential adversaries, will not easily lead to survivable arsenals, and will raise the specter of accidental or unauthorized uses of nuclear weapons.” This academic discussion has direct relevance to the ongoing policy debate over Iran, and whether Israel, the United States, or some combination of states should use preemptive military force against the regime’s suspected nuclear weapons program. We cannot ask the Iranian government directly what they would do with a bomb, because it continues to maintain that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful for the purposes of producing nuclear power and medical diagnostic isotopes. Nevertheless, as President Obama stated recently, it is U.S. policy “to do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and creating an arms race, a nuclear arms race, in a volatile region.” To explore this issue further, I asked several international relations and security studies scholars who have extensively researched and written on the topic of nuclear proliferation to contribute their thoughts on the impact of a potential Iranian nuclear weapon. Specifically, I asked: “If the international community believed—through testing or intelligence estimates—that Iran possessed a nuclear weapon, what impact would the bomb have on Iranian foreign policy?” ____ Kyle Beardsley is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory University and is the author of The Mediation Dilemma. A nuclear-armed Iran is not likely to act much differently. Most importantly, Iran will have no incentive to use its nuclear weapons in aggression; doing so against Israeli or American targets would gain Iran little and cost it much. On a more practical level, an Iranian bomb also will not substantially change the general strategic dynamics. In a series of articles, Victor Asal and I have shown that states with nuclear weapons tend to face less hostility from opponents, be in shorter crises, and prevail more often in their crises against non-nuclear states. The logic is that nuclear weapons are an effective deterrent that temper aggression. According to this logic, the main benefit to Iran of acquiring nuclear weapons is to deter military threats by its primary adversaries, Israel and the United States. Given that Iran already has a strong deterrent—via its importance to hydrocarbon supplies, robust conventional forces, ability to disrupt fragile situations in Lebanon and Iraq, and Western war weariness—it is doubtful that Iran will notice much immediate advantage from obtaining nuclear weapons. Its main incentive for proliferating apparently is to lock in the regime’s security in the long run. Victor Asal and I also find that proliferators are sources of instability prior to attaining weapons, so a modest upside to successful proliferation would be movement away from the current alarming exchanges. Sarah Kreps is Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University and is the author of Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War. To answer this question, we should distinguish between Iran’s bark and bite. Having a nuclear weapon would give Iran a bigger bark. Armed with the bomb, Iran could make threats that might win it economic aid and political concessions. Influence, as Schelling noted, comes from “the power to hurt,” and nuclear weapons provide the ultimate power to hurt.  Having such “latent violence” in the form of nuclear weapons can translate into considerable bargaining influence. The North Korea model is instructive here. The Kim Jong-il regime used its nuclear program as a bargaining chip, promising to dismantle its Yongbyon reactor in exchange for political concessions and economic aid. Often they gained concessions, however, while only temporarily or incompletely complying with their end of the bargain. On the other hand, it seems doubtful that having the bomb would give Iran a bigger bite. Rather, there’s every reason to believe that deterrence theory should hold. How much influence Iran’s weapons can confer, again drawing on Schelling, “will indeed depend on how much the adversary can hurt in return.”  Iran’s primary rivals are Israel and the United States, each with arsenals that are far more lethal than what Iran could assemble even over the next decade. That each has enough weapons to hurt Iran quite badly should be enough to keep Iran’s bite in check. Matthew Kroenig is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University and a Stanton Nuclear Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons. A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a grave threat to international peace and security.  It would lead to further nuclear proliferation as other countries in the region sought nuclear weapons in response.  As I discuss in Exporting the Bomb, a nuclear Iran would likely become a nuclear supplier and transfer uranium enrichment technology—the basis for dangerous nuclear programs—to U.S. enemies in regions around the world. Iran currently restrains its foreign policy for fear of U.S. military retaliation, but with a nuclear counter-deterrent it would be emboldened to push harder, stepping up support for terrorist groups, brandishing nuclear weapons for coercive purposes, and adopting a more aggressive foreign policy. A nuclear Iran could constrain U.S. freedom of action in the Middle East by threatening nuclear war in response to major U.S. initiatives in the region. A more aggressive Iran would lead to an even more crisis-prone region, and any crisis involving a nuclear-armed Iran could spiral out of control and result in a nuclear war against Israel or even, once Iran has developed the requisite delivery vehicles, the U.S. homeland. In sum, a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a severe threat that Washington would have to live with as long as Iran exists as a state and has nuclear weapons, which could be decades or even longer. Annie Tracy Samuel is a Research Fellow in the International Security Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of History at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Iran-Iraq war, and Iranian security and foreign policy. Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon would be a troubling and disturbing development, especially for the future of the nonproliferation regime and for stability in the Middle East.  However, there is reason to believe that Iran’s theoretical possession of a nuclear weapon would not profoundly alter the essence of its foreign policy. Iran’s foreign policy, both before and after the 1979 revolution, has been largely pragmatic, particularly in action if not always in rhetoric. Though it has miscalculated the effects of and reactions to its policies, as well as adopted violence as a tool to achieve its strategic goals, Iran’s policies have generally been conceived with rational security objectives in mind.  The hypothetical development of a nuclear weapons capability would not fundamentally alter Iran’s overriding foreign policy objective—regime security. Iran’s leaders, like those in other states, want to remain in power.  They want the regime in which they have invested and which serves their interests to endure.  Foreign policy, in addition to safeguarding Iran’s borders and national integrity, is a means for safeguarding the regime.  Possession of a nuclear weapon will likely make Iran more impervious to attack and may make Iran bolder in its support for armed groups.  However, possessing a nuclear weapon will is not likely to alter Iran’s paramount foreign policy goals of national and regime security. Further, possession of a nuclear weapon is likely to cause Iran’s isolation from the international community, an outcome Iran does not want.  Iran would therefore be likely to use any advantages of possessing a nuclear weapon in a way that would not significantly increase its international isolation even further. The Islamic Republic is not an irrational or suicidal regime.  A nuclear weapon will not make it one. Todd S. Sechser is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. For further information, read his op-ed coauthored with Matthew Fuhrmann, “Would a nuclear-armed Iran really be so dangerous?” What could Iran achieve with a few nuclear weapons?  The historical record offers a clear answer: very little. Pessimists worry that a nuclear Iran would be able to blackmail Israel, seize major oil fields, or force the United States out of the Middle East. But they ignore a key lesson of the nuclear age: nuclear weapons are not very useful for coercion. Israel, for example, did not suddenly acquire the ability to push around its neighbors when it obtained nuclear weapons. (If it had, it might have dissuaded Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons today.) Nor did China, North Korea, South Africa, or any other state that has ever built nuclear weapons. The reality is that nuclear weapons have never been very useful tools of blackmail. The reason is that nuclear threats lack credibility. If Iran ever used nuclear weapons against one of its neighbors, it would suffer unprecedented international isolation, unify the region against it, and even trigger nuclear retaliation from the United States or Israel. Given these prospects, Iran’s neighbors are likely to doubt whether its nuclear threats are actually sincere. At best, nuclear weapons are credible tools of self-defense. But we need not worry that a nuclear Iran will wield vast new coercive leverage in the Middle East. In 1983, Robert McNamara observed that nuclear weapons "are totally useless – except only to deter one’s opponent from using them." This lesson is worth remembering today.

Reading the professional punditry in Washington or the rhetorical nuclear and military pronouncements from Tehran, one would assume that Iran is very close to acquiring a nuclear weapon—and that the United States and Iran are on the brink of war. In the United States, serious thinkers have offered articles that make “The Case for Military Action in Iran,” advocate for “Why Obama Should Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program,” and assert it is “Time to Attack Iran.” Earlier this week, a more extreme version of the Iran-war-determinism meme was penned by Thomas P.M. Barnett, chief analyst at Wikistrat, an organization that refers to itself as “the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Online Consultancy.” In an op-ed entitled, “The New Rules: The Coming War with Iran,” Barnett wrote: “Israel and America will soon go to war with Iran—for as many times as it takes. In each instance, our proximate goal will be to kick the nuclear ‘can’ as far down the road as possible, but our ultimate goal will be regime change…Nothing is going to stop this war dynamic from unfolding…nothing. So get ready for war with Iran. Because once Assad is gone, that is what comes next.” In Tehran, meanwhile, claims are made weekly about the supposed indigenous development of nuclear fuel rods, killer drones, next-generation centrifuges, and long-range missiles. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dons a white lab coat, points at some new technological innovation, or walks amidst a uranium-enrichment centrifuge cascade (which itself is under IAEA comprehensive safeguards). Elsewhere, ballistic missiles are rolled through Tehran like a homecoming parade for threat projections. Or, the possible mock-up of the downed U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone is prominently displayed next to uniformed men who run their hands over its radar-reflective skin. These supposedly groundbreaking “threats” from Tehran are then elevated by the Western media, rewarding the Iranian regime with the strategic communications coup that it so desperately seeks. Outside of the threat industries in Washington and Tehran, however, are the professional analysts of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), who provide assessments of foreign policy and national security issues for policymakers. Yesterday, two senior members of the IC testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Over the course of two-plus hours, the officials made four statements that provided a much-needed clarifying perspective amidst all the hyperventilating by the media. Clapper: “We believe the decision [to pursue a nuclear weapon] would be made by the supreme leader himself, and he would base that on a cost-benefit analysis.” Iran does not want “a nuclear weapon at any price.” Sen. Carl Levin: "Is it your implication that it will take more than a year for Iran to build a bomb?" Clapper: "Yes, sir." Burgess: "The [DIA] assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict.’’ Burgess: "To the best of our knowledge, Israel has not decided to attack Iran." In other words, according to the heads of the IC and DIA: 1) against all odds, the supposedly “mad Mullahs” of Tehran are endowed with the capacity for rational human thought, and thus there might be diplomatic or economic inducements that could compel an agreement on outstanding questions regarding the nuclear program; 2) the United States has at least a year; 3) Iran is not looking to start a war with the United States; and 4) Israel has not yet decided to undertake a preemptive war with Iran.

After the release of the Pentagon’s core budget request of $525 billion for fiscal year 2013, pundits are picking the winners and losers. While the defense budget has increased by 45 percent from $365 billion in 2001, the Obama administration’s current proposal is only a 1 percent reduction from last year; targeted programs to cut include the Joint Strike Fighter (179 fewer purchases in the next five years) and the conventional Army (shrinking its currently authorized level of 570,000 troops to 490,000 by 2017). The winners, unsurprisingly, are special operations forces, surveillance and strike drones, and cyber capabilities. In other words, by re-focusing spending on such twenty-first century tools, the big budget winner is secrecy. All three capabilities play an important role in protecting and advancing U.S. national interests. But, for all of their benefits, the programs are overly-classified, with poorly articulated strategic goals and limited Congressional oversight. As they will incorporate an increasing share of Pentagon spending and defense planning in the coming years, an even greater amount of U.S. military activities abroad will inevitably be conducted in secret. Consider the emergence of Special Operations Forces (SOF) over the past decade. Since a team led by U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, SOF have received unrelenting, if unsolicited, media attention. Since the John F. Kennedy administration, Democratic presidents have been attracted to the lower cost, smaller footprint, and minimal Congressional oversight aspects of SOF. Debating methods of attacking bin Laden in Afghanistan, President Clinton proposed: “[It would] scare the shit out of al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp." Earlier this week, the New York Times appropriately described SOF as the Obama administration’s “military tool of choice.” (I’d add drone strikes.) Since September 11, 2001, Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has more than doubled in size and budget—from some 30,000 troops for $2.2 billion in 2001 to 67,000 and $10.5 billion today—as well as quadrupled overseas deployments to over one hundred countries. Presently, 85 percent of the estimated 11,500 SOF troops deployed overseas are stationed in the Middle East, with the bulk in Afghanistan, where they are projected to have an enlarged role up to and beyond the withdrawal date of 2014. Senior defense officials envision that SOF will constitute between one-third and one-half of all U.S. forces in beyond 2014—pending an agreement with Kabul. Admiral William McRaven, commander of SOCOM, recently revealed that this could include “3,000 folks deployed outside of Afghanistan.” Despite the levels of secrecy, as well as the myths promoted by the media and Hollywood, the functions of the SOF are actually well defined under U.S. law. Title 10 (Section 167) of the U.S. Code, “Special Operations Activities” enumerates ten roles and missions: direct action strategic reconnaissance unconventional warfare foreign internal defense civil affairs psychological operations counterterrorism humanitarian assistance theater search and rescue other activities as specified by the president or the secretary of defense. The increasing use of SOF to conduct U.S. foreign policy correlates with the growth of ultra-secret Pentagon intelligence, support, and operations, known collectively as Special Access Programs (SAPs). Although most programs are technically required to provide annual reports to Congress, under U.S. law (Title 10, Section 119 (e)) the secretary of defense can waive the normal reporting requirements for SAPs. Instead, these "waived SAPs" must only be reported to the chairman and ranking minority member of the House and Senate committees of the Armed Services, Appropriations, and Defense Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations. In total, six members of Congress. It is impossible to know the number of existing SAPs, and it is entirely plausible that no one knows. According to the book Top Secret America, a Pentagon list of highly-classified SAP code names runs over three hundred pages. As described by the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper: "There’s only one entity in the entire universe that has visibility on all SAPs—that’s God.” On the same day that the Obama administration released its defense budget, a New York Times headline read, “Admiral [McRaven] Seeks Freer Hand in Deployment of Elite Forces.” The article notes that McRaven has asked for “the authority to quickly move his units to potential hot spots without going through the stand Pentagon process,” which is termed “cautious and deliberate.” Unnamed SOF commanders “pledged that their efforts would be coordinated” with U.S. country ambassadors and “local security forces,” except “when a local government was unable or unwilling to cooperate with an authorized American mission.” There are a number of troubling elements to this proposal, but it is not hard to imagine that most countries would reject the prospect of Navy SEALs routinely infiltrating their sovereign territory to kill or capture suspected terrorists, or destroy things. Moreover, the most likely candidates for such operations—Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia—have already seen their fair share of kinetic SOF missions. (For how the SOF-centric approach to Yemen—missile strikes and training a dictator’s security surrogates—read this excellent reporting by Jeremy Scahill.) As a Pentagon official explained, McRaven’s “proposal is anticipating what the future will be for these guys and getting ahead of it.” The military, however, has a poor track record of predicting or anticipating where they will fight. According to General James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command (covering 85 percent of SOF deployments): “I think as we look toward the future I’ve been a horrible prophet. I have never fought anywhere I expected to in all my years.” To reduce the risk of potentially inaccurate predictions, under McRaven’s proposal, SOF teams will have to be everywhere, just in case they are needed anywhere. The enthusiastic and unchecked support for SOF was made crystal clear as articles reporting on McRaven’s proposal received almost zero attention in Washington. As a Pentagon official insisted, there is no reason for concern because McRaven “is not looking for complete autonomy unanswerable to anybody.” When determining what should be the proper authority and oversight for U.S. military activities, that is a dangerous ceiling to imagine.

Shaun Waterman, “Drones Over U.S. Get OK By Congress,” Washington Times, February 7, 2012. The FAA Reauthorization Act, which President Obama is expected to sign, also orders the Federal Aviation Administration to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015. According to some estimates, the commercial drone market in the United States could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars once the FAA clears their use. The agency projects that 30,000 drones could be in the nation’s skies by 2020. Andrew Tilghman, “Official: U.S. Misjudged al-Qaeda Capabilities,” Air Force Times, February 7, 2012. “Al-Qaeda wasn’t as good as we thought they were on 9/11,” said Michael A. Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict. The true limitations of al-Qaeda are one of two key reasons that America has not suffered a major terrorist attack since 2001. “The other reason is that we actually responded … and crushed al-Qaeda immediately after 9/11, and continually for the last 10 years,” Sheehan said. “We are better than we often give ourselves credit for. We have a very polarized political system and it’s very difficult for anybody to actually give credit or receive credit for how good we are.” Barbara Opall-Rome, “U.S. Seeks Space Hotline with China,” Defense News, February 6, 2012. Washington has proposed a bilateral space security dialogue with China patterned after a U.S.-Russian forum that kicked off in mid-2010 and expanded last summer into a direct hotline connecting U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Space Operations Center in California with the Russian Space Surveillance & System Command Center in Moscow. In a seminal 2007 study for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Pentagon analyst Michael Pillsbury reported some 30 Chinese proposals and scholarly articles advocating the development and deployment of a variety of weapons that could disable or destroy satellites. Frank Rose [deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defense policy] said direct strategic dialogue with China…are important for preventing misperceptions and miscalculations. Scott Shane, “U.S. Said to Target Rescuers at Drone Strike Sites,” New York Times, February 5, 2012. The report, by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, found that at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile. The bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals. A senior American counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, questioned the report’s findings, saying “targeting decision are the product of intensive intelligence collection and observation.” The official added: “One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let’s be under no illusions—there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help al-Qaeda succeed.” Washington Post-ABC News Poll, February 4, 2012. (3PA: According to this poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News with 1,000 Americans, 83 percent approve the “use of unmanned ‘drone’ aircraft against terrorist suspects overseas” and 79 percent approve the use of drones against suspected terrorists who are U.S. citizens.) David Brown, “New study doubles estimate of global malaria deaths,” Washington Post, February 2, 2012. The number of people who die annually of malaria is roughly double the current estimate, with a huge overlooked death toll in adults who, according to conventional teaching, rarely die of the tropical disease. That’s the conclusion of a new study that, if widely accepted, could affect billions of dollars of charitable spending and foreign aid in the developing world. The new estimate is likely to spur increased competition for global health spending, which has stalled in the economic downturn. Charles Kurzman, “Muslim-American Terrorism Since 9/11: An Accounting,” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 2, 2011. The total for 2010 suggests that the previous year may have been more of an aberration than a trend. The number of suspects dropped by over half, from 47 in 2009 to 20 in 2010. This brings the total since 9/11 to 161 Muslim-Americans terrorist suspects and perpetrators. Much of the spike in 2009 was due to a group of 17 Somali-Americans who had joined alShabaab in Somalia; it appears that only one additional Somali-American (Farah Mohamed Beledi) was indicted in 2010 for joining al-Shabaab. However, the number of individuals plotting against domestic targets also dropped by half, from 18 in 2009 to 10 in 2010. National Security Council, “U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan,” October 30, 2001. The U.S. should be involved in the diplomatic effort, but it is not within U.S. power to assure a specific outcome. U.S. preference for a specific outcome ought not paralyze U.S. efforts to oust Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The U.S. should not commit to any post-Taliban military involvement, since the U.S. will be heavily engaged in the antiterrorism effort worldwide. (3PA: That was written 3,573 days ago.) Colin Powell, My American Journey, Random House, Inc., September 1995, pg. 280. I was developing a strong distaste for the antiseptic phrases coined by State Department officials for foreign interventions which usually had bloody consequences for the military, words like “presence,” “symbol,” “signal,” “option on the table,” “establishment of credibility.” Their use was fine if beneath them lay a solid mission. But too often these words were used to give the appearance of clarity to mud. (3PA: Powell provides a useful list of terms to avoid when proposing to use military force to actually destroy things and kill people.)

As President Obama articulated in his State of the Union address, the goal of U.S. policy toward Iran is clear: “To prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” There are a number of problems inherent to this objective, however. How do you operationalize it? How would you know that Iran has produced a nuclear weapon, or is nearing the completion of one? From recent history in North Korea, we know of five distinct steps on the spectrum toward becoming a nuclear weapons state. 1. The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) estimates that North Korea has sufficient weapons-grade fissile material to build a nuclear weapon. In 1989, North Korea shut down its 5 megawatt graphite-moderated reactor at Yongbyon and removed the nuclear fuel rods, which were reprocessed into plutonium in March 1990. However, the full extent of North Korea’s deception regarding spent fuel removal and reprocessing as well as its plutonium cache was unknown until the release of IAEA environmental measurements in 1991. In November 1993, the CIA briefed President Bill Clinton that North Korea has a “better than ever” chance of possessing enough plutonium for one or two nuclear weapons,” based on estimates of the maximum it could have produced during the shutdown. (Today, North Korea possesses between six to ten bombs worth of plutonium.) 2. The U.S. IC estimates that North Korea has a weapon. In April 2001, Deputy Director for Central Intelligence John McLaughlin stated, “ North [Korea] probably has one or two nuclear bombs.” It is important to note that this belief was not based on a nuclear test.  In August 2001, in an unclassified response to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the CIA revealed: “North Korea has produced one or two simple fission-type nuclear weapons and has validated the designs without conducting yield-producing nuclear tests.” 3. North Korea informs U.S. officials that it possesses a nuclear weapon. In December 2002, North Korea removed the metal seals and disabled the fifteen surveillance cameras installed by the IAEA at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and reprocessing facility. On December 31, 2002, the final two IAEA inspectors (both Russians) in North Korea were forced to leave the country. In April 2003, North Korean negotiators disclosed to U.S. diplomats that they possessed nuclear weapons and had reprocessed all of the spent fuel previously frozen under the 1994 Agreed Framework. In February 2005, in its most definitive public statement to date, the North Korean foreign ministry stated that the country had indeed “produced nuclear weapons.” 4. North Korea conducts a verifiable nuclear test. On October 9, 2006, North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, which it claimed was “conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent” and created a “powerful self-reliant defence capability.” One week after the test, the Office of the Director of Intelligence (ODNI) released a statement affirming North Korea’s nuclear progress: “Analysis of air samples collected on October 11, 2006, detected radioactive debris which confirms that North Korea conducted an underground nuclear explosion…The explosion yield was less than a kiloton.” After claims of a second test in May 2009, the ODNI assessed, “North Korea probably conducted an underground nuclear explosion…The explosion yield was approximately a few kilotons.” 5. North Korea has a verifiable nuclear delivery vehicle. North Korea could attempt to covertly transport a nuclear weapon aboard an airplane, ship, submarine, or ground vehicle, although all are probably too unreliable to successfully deliver such a highly-valued weapon. If there were a crisis, however, North Korea could decide to rush a bomb onto one of those platforms, much as Israel quickly assembled nuclear weapons to be delivered by plane on the eve of the Six Day War in 1967. According to the National Intelligence Council in 2001, the more plausible delivery method is ballistic missiles: “Missiles provide a level of prestige, coercive diplomacy, and deterrence that nonmissile means do not.” In an unclassified report to Congress in August 2007, the ODNI stated, “North Korea has short- and medium-range missiles that could be fitted with nuclear weapons, but we do not know whether it has in fact done so.” In January 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that within five years North Korea could develop the capability of striking the U.S. homeland with an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM), presumably with the Taepodong-II missile, which failed in flight tests in July 2006 and April 2009. (Various Pentagon officials have acknowledged that the thirty ground-based missile defense interceptors deployed in Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, will be capable of intercepting a North Korean—or Iranian—missile “for some years to come.") In the case of Iran, the U.S. IC does not believe that Iran has reached any of the five steps along the nuclear weapons spectrum. Moreover, as the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper affirmed last week in a Senate hearing, “we don’t believe they’ve actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon.” However, if Iran fulfills any of the five steps, it could spell failure for the Obama administration’s strategy to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. Prior to these steps are a series of “red lines;” policymakers and analysts continue to guess what specific Iranian actions would trigger a military response by the United States. In an upcoming post, I will tackle the question of red lines, and what could compel a preemptive attack against the Iranian nuclear program.

2012 THREAT ASSESSMENT Selections from the Hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, "World Wide Threats," January 31, 2012. Senator Fienstein: Closer to home, since our hearing last year there were at least 20 individuals arrested in the United States on terrorism-related charges in 17 different investigations, which stopped them from carrying out or assisting in attacks on the homeland. General Petraeus: I believe [the IAEA’s] past report was a very accurate reflection of reality, of the situation on the ground. I think that is the authoritative document when it comes to informing the public of all the countries in the world of the situation there. (3PA: For the IAEA report that Petraeus is referring to click here.) Senator Wyden: Let me wrap up with…the question of the use of force in a speech that was given by Mr. Koh, Harold Koh, the State Department’s lawyer. And let me note at the beginning, it’s a matter of public record that the intelligence community sometimes takes direct action against terrorists, and this direct action sometimes involves the use of lethal force. And as you know, Director Koh gave a speech outlining our policy with respect to various terrorist groups. He talked about detention; he talked about the use of unmanned drones and noted that under U.S. law, the use of force against terrorist groups is permitted by congressional authorization, while under international law, it is permitted by America’s right to self-defense….I would like to know whether that speech that Mr. Koh gave contained unstated exceptions for intelligence agencies. General Clapper: With respect to counterterrorism, it does not. So it applies to all components of the government involved in counterterrorism, be it military or nonmilitary. Senator Wyden: So you believe that his speech -- the text of the speech -- because this will be important -- applies to all agencies? It applies to the intelligence community -- his entire speech -- the overall thrust of the speech applies to all the intelligence community? General Clapper: With respect to counterterrorism, yes. (3PA: For Koh’s speech, including the short section that is the Obama administration’s primary legal defense of targeted killings, click here.) Senator Snowe: I gather we agree with the fact that Iran has not made the decision to weaponize at this point. Director Clapper, do you agree on that? General Clapper: Yes, but they are certainly moving on that path, but we don’t believe they’ve actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon. Senator Snowe: Well, how will we decide that they have integrated all of these components in a decision to weaponize, at which point?... General Clapper: Well, certainly a key indicator will be -- without going into sensitive areas here, but a clear indicator would be enrichment of uranium to a 90 percent level would be a pretty good indicator of their seriousness. There are some other things they would need to do, which I’d rather not go into in an open session, that we would also look for, and apart from whatever we could glean from across the community on an actual decision to go forward. Director Mueller: Yes, Senator. I think it’s wrong to say we were excited or somebody should be excited about it. I can tell you that we are exceptionally concerned about that threat. I do not think today it is necessarily number one threat, but it will be tomorrow. Counterterrorism -- stopping terrorist attacks with the FBI is the present number one priority, but down the road, the cyberthreat, which cuts across all programs, will be the number one threat to the country. Director Mueller: Most of the [terror-plot related] arrests that we’ve made over the last year, year and a half, have been lone wolves -- those individuals who have been radicalized, trained on the Internet, have the capability of developing IEDs and other mechanisms on the Internet. General Clapper: That is precisely the intelligence community view or assessment, that to this point this is -- the sanctions, as imposed so far, have not caused [the government of Iran] to have changed their behavior or their policy. General Clapper: I particularly want to single out the Muslim community for its recognizing a threat and bringing it to the authorities. And I will tell you, over a period of time, many of our cases, if not most of our cases, have come with individuals from the Muslim community or the neighborhood who have brought to our attention concerns about the potential threat which we have run and ultimately have resulted in a disruption of a plot. “Could and Should the United States End Combat Operations in Afghanistan Early?” PBS Newshour, January 2, 2012.  Celeste Ward Gventer [deputy assistant secretary of defense in 2006 and 2007]: The principal architect and organization responsible for the attack on the United States is gone. And what’s happening in Afghanistan now has far less to do with 9/11 than it has to do with regional rivalries being played out on the stage of Afghanistan, which has happened many times in the history of Afghanistan. And the United States is right in the middle of it. And we need to start looking at what our fundamental strategic interests are. And if it’s to prevent a sanctuary for terrorism, there’s many ways to do that other than occupying Afghanistan in perpetuity. There’s no real evidence that, even if the Taliban were to come back into power, that there would be nothing we could do to prevent it becoming a sanctuary again. And the 9/11 argument, I think, frankly, even with the American public is growing a bit stale, if you look at polls and the way that the American public is viewing this war now. Interview with Former Secretary Of Defense Robert Gates, CNN, February 2, 2012. GATES:  Our military power has nothing comparable to it anywhere in the world or any combination of nations that come anywhere close to our military power. Our influence, I think that wanes and waxes, depending on the international environment. The one constant is that they see us, as Madeleine Albright once put it, as the indispensable nation. Nothing gets done internationally without American leadership. GATES: If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of, and, frankly, the facile way in which too many people talk about, well, let’s just go attack them. I think that the newest round of sanctions potentially do have the opportunity to get the Iranians to change their minds. But this is a very, very difficult and dangerous set of choices, frankly, before us, because those who say we shouldn’t attack I think underestimate the consequences of Iran having a nuclear weapon. And those who say we should underestimate the consequences of going to war. This is, I think, one of the toughest foreign policy problems I have ever seen since entering the government 45 years ago. And I think to talk about it loosely or as though these are easy choices in some way or sort of self-proclaimed, obvious alternatives, I just think is irresponsible. Aryn Baker, “TIME Exclusive: Q&A with Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar” TIME, February 1, 2012. TIME: Yet clearly there has been support within the military for the U.S. drone program, even if Parliament has been against it. Doesn’t this indicate a two-track relationship? HRK: There is not a single military person to date that has ever accepted in front of me that they have ever been supportive of drones. There is nobody in Pakistan who has ever been supportive of this. Eric Engleman and Chris Strohm, “Cybersecurity Disaster Seen in U.S. Survey Citing Spending Gaps,” Bloomberg, January 31, 2012. The study, described by Ponemon as the first to place a price tag on cybersecurity, is based on interviews with technology managers from 172 U.S. organizations in six industries and the government. Survey respondents were granted anonymity owing to the sensitivity of discussing cybersecurity weaknesses. To achieve security capable of stopping 95 percent of attacks—considered by the Traverse City, Michigan-based Ponemon Institute to be the highest attainable level—those surveyed said they would have to boost spending to a group total of $46.6 billion from the current $5.3 billion. Matthew Fuhrmann and Sarah Kreps, “Why Attacking Iran Won’t Stop the Nukes,” USA Today, January 30, 2012. “Firms Reported in Open Sources to Have Sold Iran Refined Petroleum Products Declined Since June 30, 2010,” U.S. Government Accountability Office, January 24, 2012. Foreign commercial activity in Iran’s energy sector has also declined in recent years, limiting Iran’s ability to produce gasoline to meet demand, much less to export refined petroleum products on world markets. However, according to State and DOE officials, Iran has attempted to reduce its dependence on foreign refined petroleum products by reducing gasoline subsidies to its citizens in order to reduce demand, converting petrochemical facilities to produce gasoline, as well as expediting the construction of new refineries or the expansion of current refineries. In 2009, Iran imported approximately 130,000 barrels of gasoline per day, but, according to DOE, in 2010 the amount of gasoline shipped to Iran declined to an estimated 78,000 barrels per day, and by July 2011 it had declined to 50,000 barrels per day, according to Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. FROM THE ARCHIVE: Micah Zenko, “Demystifying the Drone Strikes,” Washington Times, April 2, 2010.

Freedom in the World, Freedom House, January 2012. The political uprisings that have swept the Arab world over the past year represent the most significant challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism … A total of 26 countries registered net declines in 2011, and only 12 showed overall improvement, marking the sixth consecutive year in which countries with declines outnumbered those with improvements. While the Middle East and North Africa experienced the most significant gains—concentrated largely in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya—it also suffered the most declines, with a list of worsening countries that includes Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Syria and Saudi Arabia, two countries at the forefront of the violent reaction to the Arab Spring, fell from already low positions to the survey’s worst-possible ratings. Towards an ‘Energy-Plus’ Approach to the Poor (PDF), United Nations Development Programme, January 18, 2012. Nearly half of the world’s population still lacks reliable access to modern energy services. Roughly 2.7 billion people (40 percent of the world’s population) depend on the traditional use of biomass for cooking and 1.4 billion remain without access to electricity; 85 percent of these people live in rural areas. Tom Vanden Brook, “Coalition limits details on troops killed by Afghans,” USA Today, January 18, 2012. Military commanders in Afghanistan have stopped making public the number of allied troops killed by Afghan soldiers and police, a measure of the trustworthiness of a force that is to take over security from U.S.-led forces. The change in policy comes after at least three allied troops have been killed by the Afghan troops they trained in the past month and follows what appears to be the deadliest year of the war for NATO trainers at the hands of their Afghan counterparts. (3PA: Between May 2007 and May 2011, at least fifty-eight Western troops were killed by Afghan soldiers in twenty-six separate attacks--representing 6 percent of all hostile coalition deaths during that time period.) Press Statement: International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities, U.S. Department of State, January 17, 2012. In response to these challenges, the United States has decided to join with the European Union and other nations to develop an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. A Code of Conduct will help maintain the long-term sustainability, safety, stability, and security of space by establishing guidelines for the responsible use of space. As we begin this work, the United States has made clear to our partners that we will not enter into a code of conduct that in any way constrains our national security-related activities in space or our ability to protect the United States and our allies. We are, however, committed to working together to reverse the troubling trends that are damaging our space environment and to preserve the limitless benefits and promise of space for future generations. (3PA: For more information, see the accompanying factsheet and read my Policy Innovation Memo from November 2011.) Isabel Kershner and Rick Gladstone, “Decision to Attack Iran Is ‘Far Off,’ Israel Says,” New York Times, January 17, 2012. "We haven’t made any decision to do this," adding, "This entire thing is very far off." The assertion by Defense Minister Ehud Barak was at least the third indication from the Israeli government in the past few days that it was not considering armed confrontation over the nuclear issue with Iran anytime soon, and it came amid signs that Iran and Western powers led by the United States might resume talks that have been stalled for a year. David E. Johnson, Hard Fighting: Israel and Lebanon in Gaza, RAND Corporation, January 16, 2012. (3PA: See chapter four for which lessons from Israel’s fight against "hybrid opponents" in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are applicable to potential adversaries of the U.S. military.) Nick Turse, “The Crash and Burn Future of Robot Warfare,” TomDispatch.com, January 15, 2012. They catalog more than 70 catastrophic Air Force drone mishaps since 2000, each resulting in the loss of an aircraft or property damage of $2 million or more. Keep in mind that the 70-plus accidents recorded in those Air Force documents represent only drone crashes investigated by the Air Force under a rigid set of rules. Many other drone mishaps have not been included in the Air Force statistics.  Examples include a haywire MQ-9 Reaper drone that had to be shot out of the Afghan skies by a fighter jet in 2009, a remotely-operated Navy helicopter that went down in Libya last June, an unmanned aerial vehicle whose camera was reportedly taken by Afghan insurgents after a crash in August 2011, an advancedRQ-170 Sentinel lost during a spy mission in Iran last December, and the recent crash of an MQ-9 Reaper in the Seychelles Islands. U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems, Congressional Research Service, January 3, 2012. Due to the recent acceleration in UAS production and drawdowns in manned aircraft, manned aircraft have gone from 95% of all DOD aircraft in 2005 to 69% today. Previously described as complements to, or augmentation of, manned aircraft, user demand and budgetary push have increasingly promoted UAS into a principal role. (3PA: This is a great resource for the basics of the U.S. covert drone program.) 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, Heritage Foundation, January 2012. Matthias Doepke, Michele Tertilt, and Alessandra Voena, The Economics and Politics of Women’s Rights (PDF), Northwestern University, December 2011. In contemporary cross-country data, measures of women’s rights and development are highly correlated. The fact that women in today’s least developed countries have the least legal rights might suggest that rights will expand naturally once economic development takes hold, just as they did in developed countries. However, there are important differences between today’s poor countries and the historical situation in rich countries. Focusing on the cases of the United States and England, we show that the historical expansion of women’s rights unfolded through distinct stages: basic economic rights came first, political rights were next, and equal treatment in the labor market and greater control over their own body ultimately followed. In contrast, in most African countries women gained formal political rights (as part of the end of colonialism) before obtaining economic rights. Moreover, there are many specific traditions (such as foot binding, child marriage, and witch killings) affecting the rights of women that are specific to certain cultures. From the archive: Micah Zenko, “Expect Israel to hit Iran without warning,” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2009. If Israel attempts such a high-risk and destabilizing strike against Iran, President Obama will probably learn of the operation from CNN rather than the CIA. History shows that although Washington seeks influence over Israel’s military operations, Israel would rather explain later than ask for approval in advance of launching preventive or preemptive attacks.

- Nuclear Materials Security Index (PDF), Nuclear Threat Intiative, January 2012. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Nuclear Materials Security Index includes findings for each of 176 countries, including thirty-two with at least one kilogram of weapons-usable nuclear materials and 144 with less than one kilogram of or no weapons-usable nuclear materials. - Ken Dilanian and David S. Cloud, “U.S. intelligence report on Afghanistan sees stalemate,” Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2012. The U.S. intelligence community says in a secret new assessment that the war in Afghanistan is mired in stalemate, and warns that security gains from an increase in American troops have been undercut by pervasive corruption, incompetent governance and Taliban fighters operating from neighboring Pakistan, according to U.S. officials. In a section looking at future scenarios, the NIE also asserts that the Afghan government in Kabul may not be able to survive as the U.S. steadily pulls out its troops and reduces military and civilian assistance. (3PA: Released in December 2010, the previous NIE on Afghanistan reportedly strikes a similar tone to the 2012 NIE. According to anonymous U.S. officials, the 2010 NIE made the case that large areas of Afghanistan were at risk of falling to the Taliban.) - Tony Capaccio, “Navy Using Northrop Grumman High-Altitude Drone to Monitor Persian Gulf,” Bloomberg, January 11, 2012. The U.S. Navy is using its first high-altitude drone, part of a potential $11 billion program, to monitor Iranian military activity and vessel transit in and around the Strait of Hormuz, according to service officials. The unmanned aerial vehicle built by Northrop Grumman is providing broad coverage of the strategic waterway from 60,000 feet, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert said yesterday in an interview. The drone operation, a 24-hour mission every three days, complements the 12-hour sorties flown by manned P-3 aircraft, with the potential to alert the P-3 to focus on specific targets, according to the officials. The drone been used in the region since 2009. - World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 2005, U.S. Department of State, January 10, 2012. In constant-2005-dollar real-exchange-rate terms, world military expenditures appear to have risen about 30% from 1995 to 2005, reaching nearly $1.2 trillion in 2005.  The increase accelerated during the second half of the decade, from less than 6% between 1995 and 2000 to almost 24% between 2000 and 2005.  This acceleration appears due chiefly to rising military expenditures by the United States after the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, including expenditures for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. (3PA: This is the first WMEAT report released since February 2003, which covered 1989-2000. There was no reason given for the delay of nearly nine years.) - Critical Infrastructure Protection: Cybersecurity Guidance Is Available, but More Can Be Done to Promote Its Use (PDF), U.S. Government Accountability Office, December 2011. A wide variety of cybersecurity guidance is available from national and international organizations for entities within the seven critical infrastructure sectors GAO reviewed—banking and finance; communications; energy; healthcare and public health; information technology; nuclear reactors, material, and waste; and water… Given the plethora of guidance available, individual entities within the sectors may be challenged in identifying the guidance that is most applicable and effective in improving their security posture. Improved knowledge of the guidance that is available could help both federal and private sector decision makers better coordinate their efforts to protect critical cyber-reliant assets. - Economic Sanctions Reconsidered,3rd Edition, Peterson Institute for International Economics, May 2008. (3PA: This book examines 170 cases of economic sanctions from the end of World War I to 2006. Out of eighty cases where economic sanctions were imposed with the goal of regime change or democratization, they succeeded 31 percent of the time.) - Barry R. Posen, “Why We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran,” Washington Post, February 27, 2006. - Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus, “CIA Reportedly Got ‘License to Kill’ Terrorists,” Washington Post, October 5, 1988. President Reagan signed intelligence authorizations in 1984 and 1985 for aggressive covert operations against terrorists, saying that any actions taken under the orders would be "deemed" lawful if conducted in "good faith," according to informed sources. One source familiar with the details of the findings said the language was specifically designed to "circumvent the assassination ban," the latest version of which was signed Dec. 4, 1981, by Reagan. Officials at the CIA, including the late Director William J. Casey, wanted such language to protect U.S. field officers and foreign strike operations contemplated by the intelligence findings, sources said. (3PA: In September 1987, Ronald Reagan said: “Never would I sign anything that would authorize an assassination. I never have, and I never will.” As this article demonstrates, Reagan had signed two presidential findings that, in fact, did just that.)

In August 2006, I wrote a piece for the Washington Post, “Share the Evidence on Iran,” which called on the George W. Bush administration to declassify the main findings of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. As many aspects of Iran’s progress towards nuclear capability had already been selectively leaked to the media, I argued that “declassifying the key judgments and dissents would publicly establish the intelligence community opinion” and clarify erroneous judgments. My argument, formulated after reading several hundred declassified NIEs for a research project, was that, if President Bush authorized a preemptive attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities, his administration should put forth a compelling and qualified rationale for the necessity of such a risky endeavor. This should include the public release of the most accurate U.S. government estimates—in this case, the NIE—sanitized so as not to reveal classified sources or methods. President Bush was certainly aware of this reality when he revealed in 2006: “People will say, if we’re trying to make the case on Iran, ‘Well, the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore how can we trust the intelligence in Iran?” On December 3, 2007, the Bush administration decided to declassify three pages of the NIE entitled, “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities” (PDF). The opening statement was a shocker: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.” Over the course of seventeen months, counterintelligence analysts carefully drafted and then “red teamed” the 2007 NIE on Iran (in comparison, the infamous 2002 NIE on Iraq was compiled and approved in only twenty days). The authors of the 140-page document—led by Vann Van Diepen, former national intelligence officer for WMD—were told that its content would never be publicized. In addition, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell issued a directive to make declassification of the 2007 NIE impossible. However, according to David Sanger, “when Bush was briefed…he told McConnell that the conclusion was so dramatic that it would have to be made public.” For a document that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence described as the “IC’s [Intelligence Community’s] most authoritative written assessments on national security issues,” a large number of bipartisan policymakers were disappointed by the main judgments of the 2007 NIE on Iran. Senator Mark Kirk called the 2007 NIE “a mistake,” and ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Howard Berman said that “neither the administration nor Congress paid it much attention.” Greg Schulte, former U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, unequivocally stated: “I never want to see something like the 2007 NIE again. Nothing did more to set back my job [at the IAEA] in terms of how key judgments were drafted.” In late 2009, the IC began to update the 2007 NIE on Iran, with the final version reportedly completed in February 2011. Briefing Congress on the NIE behind closed doors, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified, “We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.” But, “We do not know…if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.” These discussions are significant because proponents of a preemptive attack on Iran’s suspected nuclear program rarely discuss how they are certain Iran will build a bomb, and how the American people should be made aware of this before the president orders military force. It is unlikely that the IAEA inspection process will provide the smoking gun evidence of Iran’s decision to build a bomb. All of Iran’s fifteen declared nuclear facilities are routinely inspected by IAEA, and the environmental samples and physical inventory verifications would make it extremely risky for Iran to attempt to engineer fissile material at those sites. Moreover, it is doubtful that inspectors have the requisite intelligence means to positively identify covert nuclear sites. It is true that the extensive circumstantial evidence is damning, and Iran has never fully implemented its Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Safeguards Agreement. But is it in U.S. national interest to bomb Iran to defend the principle of full cooperation with the IAEA? I would say no. The real questions for “attack Iran” advocates are: (1) how good would the intelligence have to be for President Obama to order an attack on the covert nuclear weapons sites, as well as the fifteen declared facilities, integrated air defense system, ballistic missile production sites, and other regime targets; (2) in what form would that intelligence be presented to the public? Given the massive intelligence failure in Iraq as well as subsequent costs to the United States and Iraq, President Obama must know that “trust us” will not suffice on Iran.