Context matters

We consider the question of how IC analysts can present their findings when the debate around a topic, in this case Iran’s nuclear program, has already become heated and polarized. Assessments on Iran’s nuclear program are always politically charged given the high stakes for US interests. The level of difficulty was raised further in part thanks to the illegal, and seemingly politically motivated, leaking of several preliminary intelligence reports that purportedly downplayed the effects of the bombing campaign. Then came President Trump’s sensationalist description of the bombings’ effects, calling Iran’s nuclear program ‘obliterated’ and his supporters’ adamant doubling down on this language before a thorough investigation had even begun. An even broader contextual lens includes charges of politicization on other topics by both analysts and analytic managers and by political leadership.

I do not envy those holding my previous positions in the IC who are responsible for producing an assessment on this highly complex, nuanced, and fraught topic or any other. But I do know many IC analysts and managers and their deep commitment to analytic excellence and integrity. With care and craftsmanship, I believe that an intelligence assessment that meets the IC’s high standards for analytic integrity can and will be produced.

It seems inevitable, however, that regardless of its findings, any assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and intentions will be misunderstood, mischaracterized, and even – shock, shock – politicized by some people across the political spectrum. Considering the implications of bad intelligence on decisionmaking by the likes of autocrats like Russian President Putin, I would humbly suggest that it would also be wise for the receivers of this assessment to avoid either shooting the messengers or leaking it. Doing so will only make their jobs harder and risk national security by extension.

Past is often prologue

Let’s start with some lessons learned from the trials and tribulations surrounding the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program.¹ The similarity of the context of the 2007 NIE to today are striking both in the questions it sought to answer and the political environment in which it was written. That this NIE was one of the most criticized and debated in the NIC’s nearly 50-year history provides its most obvious lesson: even an assessment that met the highest standards of analytic tradecraft fueled political controversy both because of how its judgments were presented and how policymakers chose to receive them.²

A bit of context, the 2007 NIE marked a major departure in the IC’s previous assessments of Iran’s program, which was the main reason it was written. The NIE starkly led with that new analytic line: we judge with high confidence that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. This was seen by many as a proverbial stick-in-the-eye to the Bush Administration, which had been arguing that Iran’s nuclear program was a growing danger that required urgent policy action.

Critics emerged immediately. Then Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Pete Hoestra (R), called the NIE a ‘piece of trash’, attacking the ‘authors’ – a complete mischaracterization of the collective nature of such documents – as unqualified, using phraseology that now we would translate as ‘deep-state’.³

But it was John Bolton, fresh out of his role as Bush’s UN Ambassador, whose stinging but fair rebuke posed the question encapsulating the hubbub over the NIE, ‘This was a sin either of commission or omission. If the intelligence community intended the NIE’s first judgment to have policy ramifications – in particular to dissuade the Bush administration from a more forceful policy against Iran – then it was out of line, a sin of commission. If, on the other hand, Mr. McConnell [then DNI] and others missed the NIE’s explosive nature, then this is at best a sin of omission … Does he believe in fact that the first sentence is the NIE’s single most important point? If not, why was it the first sentence?’⁴

The unequivocal answer to Bolton’s question is that the choice was one of omission, according to a thorough lessons-learned study conducted by former NIC Chair Greg Treverton. Leading with their chins was, ironically, an outgrowth of the IC’s soul searching and reforms in the wake of the 2002 Iraq WMD debacle that had burned this same President. Best to show your work and highlight the major analytic changes, they had concluded.⁵ One could very well argue that more important, fundamental judgments were buried in the seven subsequent judgments.

The NIE was, in fact, a tradecraft exemplar clocking in at a whopping 140 pages – thankfully, modern NIEs are a fraction of this – 1,500 source notes, an annex outlining alternative hypotheses, and a chart comparing current judgments to the previous NIE on this topic. Agencies that collected intelligence reviewed all the sources used in the NIE – another outgrowth of the Iraq intelligence failure – and the NIC Chair ordered an unprecedented separate independent tradecraft review.⁶ The analysis itself was locked down, and it is a testament to its tradecraft that most of the NIE’s conclusions still stand correct today, almost two decades later.

But the tradecraft, nuance, and other key points didn’t matter to those whose policies were kneecapped by the first paragraph. Here, we can place some blame on the authors and managers who didn’t consider that policy readers would fail to take a more wholistic view of the analysis. Nonetheless, the selective focus of policymakers and politicians, either inadvertent or politically motivated, on the NIE’s first judgment largely drove the controversy.

Let’s consider a summary of these other, largely ignored judgments:

• Iran had been trying to build a nuclear bomb and lying to the world about it;

• ‘at a minimum’, Iran’s decision to halt the weaponization part of its nuclear program was a result of international pressure, but this decision is inherently reversible and ongoing pressure would be needed to prevent this;

• Tehran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons;

• It has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually succeed;

• Iran’s declared enrichment of uranium continues apace, even though it will take some years to enrich enough uranium for a weapon;

• It continues to develop technical capabilities applicable to producing nuclear weapons;

• Iran’s leaders see the development of nuclear weapons as essential to their national security, so convincing them to forgo their eventual development will be difficult;

• The IC does not have enough information to judge whether the current halt will continue or whether Tehran will or already has set criteria for when to restart it;

• If it does, Iran would probably use covert facilities.⁷

If the assessment included only these judgments, and not the first one that said Iran had halted its weapons program, policymakers would have applauded. With this in mind, we might ask, would slightly different packaging of the Key Judgments have helped? I’m not sure it would have prevented the uproar, but it probably would have been more muted and helped the Administration manage the damage to their policy objectives. What if it had been reordered as follows, leading with the most foundational judgment, as Bolton suggested should have been the lead, rather than the attention grabber?

Treverton concludes his study of the NIE with this passage, which rings as relevant today as ever. ‘Intelligence analysts and managers … [must] pay attention to how their conclusions are written, argued, and structured and the context in which they will appear so as to reduce as much as possible the potential for partisan manipulation of their conclusions. There is no way to bulletproof an estimate, particularly one on a controversial subject, but the lessons of this case suggest some things can legitimately be done [to] prevent unwanted consequences’.⁸

What the next Iran nuclear assessment will and will not be

Although I have no inside knowledge and in no way speak for the IC, I suspect the IC will produce an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that will be tightly focused on three big questions: 1. What is Iran’s remaining capacity to build a nuclear weapon; 2. Will Iran’s regime try to rebuild its program and try to build a nuclear weapon? 3. How long would it take them to do so, and what might dissuade or prevent them?

Given the complexities of building a nuclear weapon and the likely fragmentary nature of intelligence reporting, I expect its conclusions to contain a great deal of ambiguity, wide ranges on potential timelines, and some scenarios or alternative analysis. I also suspect these circumstances will generate differences of opinion among various analysts and agencies about how confident they are in the ICA’s various judgments or even the judgments themselves. I think this is good. Analysis should not be reduced to the least common denominator. Differences of views in such circumstances is normal, healthy, and helpful to the readers, allowing them to think through their own views.

Content wise, assessments like this seek to analyze the capabilities, plans, and intentions of the adversary. In this case, analysts probably will assess Iran’s remaining capabilities in four areas: remaining expertise and know-how, fissile material (does Iran still have access to Highly Enriched Uranium), enrichment (can it produce weapons grade uranium), weaponization (can it produce a bomb and delivery system). Intent means judging Iran’s desire to attain a nuclear weapon and its evaluation of the costs and benefits of doing so. We already know that Iran’s leaders have long wanted a nuclear weapon; US leaders worried about this even during the Shah’s regime in the 1970s.⁹ But the piece will strive to provide as much clarity as possible on how the US and Israeli bombing has affected Tehran’s risk calculations for building a bomb and what conditions would affect this.

Just as important in setting realistic expectations for this assessment, and mitigating the expected dissatisfaction, is understanding what this IC assessment will not be. Embracing these ‘nots’ could help shift attention to what needs to come next rather than pointlessly debating semantics. After all, we all want the same thing: informed policy that makes America and its allies safer.

1. The IC isn’t a Magic 8 Ball, it makes judgments not predictions.

Such assessments cannot and will not assume or predict the will or capability of the United States to change the assessed trajectory. In fact, some IC assessments have prompted US action that did change outcomes. This makes the assessment look wrong, but it is a win. IC assessments are designed to inform, not influence, US decisionmaking. In this case, I would hope that subsequent US action informed by this assessment would positively affect Iranian decisionmaking about whether to seek a bomb and/or to delay Iran’s ability to build a bomb.

2. Unlike diamonds, information and assessments are not forever; they will change.

Assessments are based on knowledge available up to an ‘assessed-by date’. After publication, the IC’s base of knowledge will continue to grow as it uncovers secrets and gathers open-source information, alongside foreign partners like Israel. Iranian leaders’ cost–benefit analysis, or even the leaders themselves, also will change over time, perhaps in response to US or Israeli action, domestic pressures, their relationships with foreign partners, or their own mortality.

3. Assessments don’t equate analytic apples to oranges, and neither should you.

Some protagonists in this play have wrongly equated Iran’s capacity and intention to ultimately possess a nuclear weapon with its decision to rush to build a deliverable nuclear weapon. Another linked assertion is that obtaining a weapon would automatically mean that Iran would use it to strike Israel. While related, these three questions (capacity, commitment to implementation, intended use) are distinct and should have separate assessments.

Similarly, some have argued that Iran’s ability to produce enough weapons grade uranium for a bomb in X amount of time (termed ‘breakout’) meant that Iran would have a nuclear weapon in that same amount of time. The timelines for producing fissile material and for making a deliverable bomb overlap and have become much shorter, but each part of the process needs to be examined separately, in part because it helps decisionmakers prioritize what aspects of Iran’s nuclear program needs to be monitored and restricted.

4. Declassified Key Judgments Will Not Provide the Public with ‘Proof’

Sorry, but despite the recent (despicable) leaks, the public should not and hopefully will not be able to read details about the classified intelligence (evidence) that backs up the judgments. If you can read it, so can our adversaries, and with dangerous consequences and potentially lost lives. The scant amount of supporting material underpinning the declassified Key Judgments will prompt howls of ‘how do they know that?’ and ‘I don’t believe that!’ by people who disagree. So be it. Better that than risking the ability to collect intelligence that could be vital for US national security.

5. Assessments Can’t Answer Every Question

The scope of such a project, monumental in the first place, must be kept tight for practical reasons. NIC history is littered with NIEs that failed to materialize because their scope was impractically large. Broader, though relevant, questions about other Iranian threats – its missile force, proxies, and gray-zone activities – and what is next for the Iranian regime, for Israel’s response, and for the future of the Middle East must be left for another day and other assessments. The ICA’s laser focus must be on Iran’s nuclear program. And please hold the applause; it will only mention US military prowess or other actions in the context of their effects on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, plans, and intentions. This assessment will be clinical and technical.

How the sausage is made … It’s not pretty

For policymakers, it is essential to understand why assessments are written the way they are; something that analysts rarely have a chance to explain. The tradecraft standards long held by the IC and codified in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA), crafted in the wake of the September 11 intelligence failure, require analysts to show their sourcing, express confidence levels in their judgments, and lay out alternative hypotheses.¹⁰ Analysts do not expect policymakers to agree with every judgment, but their hope is that the analysis leads to better decisionmaking. This ‘show-your-work’ method is therefore designed to give policymakers the wherewithal to understand the reasoning and limitations of the analysis and to think through the basis for their own reasoning when it might differ.

The process of putting together an interagency assessment with such rigorous tradecraft, representing the views of 18 agencies – or at least those that are relevant to the question – is hardly child’s play. Assessments that are deeply and thoroughly coordinated with the whole IC are produced only by one organization, the NIC, which has been producing strategic assessments including NIEs for the past 46 years, 11 of these as part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. I’ll note that a recent CIA tradecraft review of the 2016 ICA on Russia’s electoral influence efforts faulted the intentional marginalization of the NIC in its production, saying that doing so ‘limited opportunities for [full IC] coordination and thorough tradecraft review but also resulted in the complete exclusion of key intelligence agencies from the process’.¹¹

Why Does it Take So Long? ‘Do you want it fast or do you want it good?’ is as applicable for intelligence analysis as anything else. The collective nature of drafting, coordinating, and finalizing IC assessments is a strength in producing sound, rigorous analysis that has been considered and debated by a wide array of experts. But it is also a drawback; herding cats takes time.

Interagency coordination starts from conceptualization and continues until finalization. The assigned NIC officers solicit IC views to draw out areas of consensus and disagreement. Drafts are circulated for comment and language changes. Then, analysts representing each relevant IC organization will gather to review the draft assessment, literally line-by-line. These coordination sessions last many hours and often days, during which analysts will challenge each other on the relative strength of intelligence reporting underpinning the judgments and the confidence that should be assigned as a result. If an organization disagrees strongly, they may write a dissent.

As John McLaughlin, a former Deputy Director of CIA who also led the NIC, recently put it, ‘That’s complicated stuff, but it boils down to a certain discipline: being very careful to draw the distinction among three things: 1) what they actually know with confidence; 2) what they don’t know and; 3) what they conclude, with a specified level of confidence, based on balancing those two things’.¹²

Analysts are from Venus, Policymakers are from Mars. The IC and the policy community often speak past each other because they have profoundly different goals, missions, and cultures. These differences prevent both ‘tribes’ from understanding the other when the other tribe behaves differently, even if predictably to a knowledgeable observer. Frequently this prompts charges, mostly but not all unfounded, that the other is incompetent or engaged in sabotage. This lack of understanding creates unnecessary friction and results in needless, self-defeating mistakes and distractions.

Let me explain, in a nutshell. Policymaking is the art of the possible. Analysis is the art of the probable. Analysts are taught to warn of danger, while policymakers must navigate danger. Policymakers, understandably, have long complained that IC analysts focus on what won’t work but provide few solutions.

Frustrating, but this is because the system is purpose-built to ensure that someone – the IC – is informing policy rather than pushing their favored outcome. Although the DNI and Director of CIA at times bypass this in practice as the President’s advisers, IC analysts are proscribed from policy prescription. As the former director of training for new CIA analysts, I can tell you, not only is it in the statute, it is drilled into all analysts’ heads.

Setting up for success

The security of the nation rests on the close partnership between the IC and national security decision makers. If that relationship fails, the nation is less safe. Sins of omission are still sins. Failing to adjust the tone – but not the content – is essential to ensure that intelligence is heard and valued. Those on the other side of the ledger bear responsibilities as well. Lining up the firing squad to shoot the messenger constrains policy options, creates distractions, and makes it harder for the IC to inform the Administration across the board.

Use Your Inside Voice, Stop Leaking Intelligence. It is said that in Washington everyone leaks. Maybe. But I think the record shows that most intelligence leaks come from policy folks and politicians, not the IC. Regardless of the source, this activity is not only illegal but, it also threatens the IC’s ability to protect Americans. As we have seen with the recent leaks on the Iran nuclear issue, it is also unhelpful in providing analytic clarity to the public. Worse, it creates a chilling effect on all inside government who need to have candid discussions about national security, particularly those who need to tell the President things he does not wish to hear. Leaks make the IC’s vital mission to inform harder.

Finesse IC Presentation Without Compromising Analytic Integrity. Presenting the findings of the 2007 Iran nuclear NIE without an eye to the political context was a failure. The trick is nailing the fine line between presenting an assessment that can be heard without changing its meaning or politicizing it. This paper does not argue for tailoring content to political preferences. Rather, it argues that careful presentation – including order, tone, and clarity – can help ensure that objective analysis is received as intended. This is fully consistent with the IC’s statutory mandate to provide objective analysis independent of political preferences.

Embrace Nuance and Complexity. One can be both clear and nuanced. In this case, Lindsey Graham shows us how, ‘Operation Midnight Hammer was a tremendous military success … But the question for the world [is], does the regime still desire to make a nuclear weapon? The answer is yes. Do they still desire to destroy Israel and come after us? The answer is yes’. More of this would be helpful.

Accept (even if grudgingly) the IC’s Role in Calling It Like They See It. As noted above, the statute establishing our present-day IC structure requires the DNI to ensure that IC analysis is ‘timely, objective, and independent of political considerations’.¹³ While easier said than done, it would be optimal if policymakers facing an unwelcome assessment could take a moment to quietly swear, remind themselves that this is the IC’s job, and then consider the consequences of the alternative. Would they prefer Russia’s intelligence leadership, who are so afraid of falling out of windows that they tell President Putin exactly what he wants to hear? More than three years after a ‘fool-proof’ 72-hour plan to seize all of Ukraine, over a million departed souls would beg for a chance to vote for analytic integrity over sycophancy.

I have seen many policymakers and military leaders embrace or at least take on board inconvenient IC assessments. One such episode, from when I led CIA analysis on South Asia, sticks with me as it was in marked contrast to conventional practice at that time. After receiving a CIA study that revealed failings in the campaign to defeat the Taliban, I was told that then Commander of Coalition forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McCrystal, made the report required reading for subordinates. The thought behind McCrystal’s command was to help his subordinates use its insights – the good, the bad, and the ugly – to achieve better results. This is exactly the desired purpose of all analysts, which we call ‘mission’. Fast forward to today. Achieving President Trump’s vision of a more stable and prosperous Middle East can only be accomplished with eyes wide open, opened in part by objective analysis provided by the IC.¹⁴