[iwar] FW: (ai) Covert Counterattack (fwd)
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Sent: September 19, 2000 5:45 AM
Subject: FW: (ai) Covert Counterattack
Some interesting comments on national security today and also on threats.
Main topic is the formation of a new counterintelligence organization.
National Journal
September 16, 2000
Pg. 2858
Covert Counterattack
The President is about to sign off on reforms that backers say will, at l=
ong
last, unite the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon counterintelligence operations.
By James Kitfield, National Journal
Barely three weeks after the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of American embassies=
in
Kenya and Tanzania left 258 people dead and more than 5,000 wounded,
Attorney General Janet Reno received a classified briefing by senior
officials in the FBI's International Counterterrorism Operations Center. =
The
FBI had sent roughly 300 FBI agents to Africa to work on the case and wer=
e
already on the verge of making their first arrests. They also had
intelligence indicating that the bombings were the work of a terrorist
network run by Saudi-born Islamic zealot Osama bin Laden.
Reno was insistent that the CIA be fully apprised of the FBI's findings,
according to sources present at the classified briefing on the 5th floor =
of
the FBI's headquarters. Reno was so concerned about CIA-FBI cooperation t=
hat
she broke in abruptly during the briefing to again stress the point. You
have to make sure, Reno repeated, that the CIA knows about this.
At that point, the deputy director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division
spoke up and said: "Madam Attorney General, I'm from the CIA. I assure yo=
u
the agency is fully aware of this intelligence." What Reno didn't realiz=
e
was that her No. 2 official for counterterrorism was in fact a CIA agent,
and that over in Langley, Va., the CIA's No. 2 official for counterterror=
ism
was an FBI agent. The two rival outfits had already swallowed their pride=
,
ingested the=20
message of agency cooperation that had been tossed at them for years by
Congress, and allowed previously hostile agents into their midst.
More recently, FBI and CIA counterterrorism experts worked together to
thwart another suspected bin Laden bombing plot that was timed to coincid=
e
with year 2000 celebrations, and which targeted many hundreds and perhaps
thousands of Americans for injury and death. Indeed, after years of
resisting such cooperation -- as much for bureaucratic reasons as for
constitutional ones -- the CIA, FBI, and now the Defense Department belie=
ve
that the federal government must reorganize itself in a more collaborativ=
e
way if it is to successfully combat new threats from terrorists, spies,
cybersleuths, and international criminal groups who have few ties to fore=
ign
governments. Most significant, senior officials of the CIA, FBI, Defense
Department, and National Security Council have worked quietly for more th=
an
a year to draft a plan to broaden cross-agency cooperation to encompass
virtually the government's entire national security apparatus. Called
"Counter-Intelligence 21," or CI-21 to insiders, the plan, which includes=
a
new governmentwide counterintelligence czar, has been undergoing finishin=
g
touches during August after input from the Senate Intelligence Oversight
Committee. The executive order should be ready for President Clinton's
signature in coming weeks. If successful, the reforms will institutionali=
ze
a level of cooperation never before seen between the FBI, the CIA, and th=
e
Pentagon. In the process, CI-21 may also force lawmakers and the American
public to rethink long-accepted notions of what constitutes national
security, as well as the once-clear boundaries between domestic law
enforcement, foreign intelligence gathering, and defense preparedness.
"Everyone who works this problem has quickly realized that the old paradi=
gm
of the threats to U.S. national security -- hostile nations and their
intelligence services -- is far too narrow of a definition in the post-Co=
ld
War era," said John McGaffin, a longtime CIA operative and FBI consultant
who spearheaded the CI-21 effort. "There are countless potential bad guys
capable of doing us significant harm." McGaffin also said that during the
CI-21 drafting process, the various agency officials discovered "this
terrible disconnect" in which the makers of national security policy in t=
he
White House and State and Defense departments simply were not talking to =
the
counterintelligence and counterterrorism communities. More important, the
spies and counterspies found it hard to do their work because the
policy-makers had not laid out new definitions of national security. No
longer is national security simply about protecting armies, navies, and
military secrets -- it's about defending the banking system, the Internet=
,
and new technologies. Said McGaffin: "Because the policy community has no=
t
defined or prioritized the 'crown jewels' of American prosperity and
national security, we in the=20
intelligence community cannot tell if those assets are being threatened o=
r
adequately protected."
A Hidden Menace
Most Americans perceive the United States as a nation at peace abroad and
prosperous and secure at home. A globe-spanning U.S. military helps keep =
the
lid on conflicts around the world, no superpower rival appears yet on the
horizon, and the U.S. economy cruises along in hyperdrive with the help o=
f
Information Age technologies.
Yet, select lawmakers and intelligence experts are troubled. They remembe=
r
the terrorist bombings aimed at U.S. citizens in such places as the World
Trade Center in New York in 1993, the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arab=
ia
in 1996, and the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. They're aw=
are
of just how narrowly the United States averted similar bombings during
millennium celebrations in January. They've seen classified intelligence
showing that numerous terrorist organizations, including the loose networ=
k
linked to Osama bin Laden, are now actively seeking chemical, biological,
radiological, and nuclear weapons of terrible lethality, and these groups
are seriously contemplating their use.
Nor is it difficult for these analysts to see a malevolent hand behind
"Moonlight Maze," a massive cyberassault on U.S. computer networks that w=
as
first detected in 1998 and that the FBI has traced to Russia. The experts
also know that the eyes and ears of the U.S. intelligence community went
dead in January, when computers at the eavesdropping National Security
Agency crashed unexpectedly. They know the details behind what many consi=
der
a botched counterintelligence investigation of Wen Ho Lee at the Los Alam=
os
national laboratory in New Mexico. They ponder the unexplained=20
disappearance of top-secret computer data at Los Alamos and the U.S. Stat=
e
Department during the past year. They haven't forgotten that unknown
accomplices of accused Russian spy Stanislav Gusev, who was expelled from
the United States in December, were able to implant a secret listening
device into the wall of a supposedly secure State Department conference r=
oom
near the office of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Intelligence experts say these newer, more insidious threats to national
security are just as real as the threat of a conventional military attack=
on
the United States or its interests. "As we face a new century, we face a =
new
world where nation-states remain the most important and powerful players,
but where multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and
even individuals can have a dramatic impact," said CIA Director George Te=
net
in testimony earlier this year before the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence. "It is against that backdrop that I want to describe the
realities of our national security environment in the first year of the 2=
1st
century -- where technology has enabled, driven, or magnified the threat =
to
us; where age-old resentments threaten to spill over into open violence; =
and
where a growing perception of our so-called 'hegemony' has become a
lightning rod for the disaffected."
Congressional Alarm
Taking those warnings to heart, a spate of congressional committees and
independent panels has strongly criticized the federal government in rece=
nt
months for failing to adequately adapt to the changing threats. The
critiques, which recommend many different solutions, are varied and
disjointed. But intelligence oversight committees on Capitol Hill agree t=
hat
federal responsibility for counterintelligence and counterterrorism is to=
o
divided among a=20
hodgepodge of agencies that lack direction and accountability. In their
view, law enforcement, defense, and intelligence agencies too often seem
more interested in defending their turf than in coordinating their effort=
s
and sharing sensitive intelligence.
A congressionally mandated report by the National Commission on Terrorism
that was released in June, for instance, faulted both the CIA and FBI for
being "overly risk averse" and insufficiently aggressive in investigating
terrorist organizations. "We've found that in many areas, the federal
government is stymied by bureaucratic and cultural obstacles to the quick
and broad collection of important intelligence," said L. Paul Bremer III,=
a
former career diplomat who chaired the commission.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, citing the FBI's lack of adequate fo=
cus
on new threats, recently approved spending $23 million to fund a new
domestic counterterrorism "czar" at the highest levels of the Justice
Department, although the idea is opposed by the Clinton Administration.
Meanwhile, in July, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill authored by Re=
p.
Tillie K. Fowler, R-Fla., that would create a six-person Council of
Terrorism Preparedness, chaired by the President, to eliminate bureaucrat=
ic
confusion and wasteful overlap in preparing the nation against terrorist
attack. Not to be outdone, the House Select Committee on Intelligence
recently released its own scathing assessment of the U.S. intelligence
community, faulting it for poor organization and calling for a more
"corporate" approach to intelligence gathering that includes the entire
intelligence and national security complex.
Intelligence Reform
Administration officials note that much has already been done to address
these criticisms. In 1998, for instance, the Justice Department and the F=
BI
created an intra-agency National Defense Preparedness Office to coordinat=
e
government efforts to prepare for terrorist attacks involving weapons of
mass destruction. They also created a National Infrastructure Protection
Center at FBI headquarters to coordinate efforts to protect government an=
d
private computer networks from cyberattacks. The Pentagon's National
Security Agency recently announced "Project Trailblazer," an initiative t=
o=20
develop a 21st-century "signals intelligence" system that can crack new
encryption software, hard-to-tap fiber-optic cables, and cellular phone
transmissions.
Meanwhile, the FBI's focus on counterintelligence and counterterrorism
operations has led to an almost fivefold increase in FBI intelligence
officers in the past eight years (from 224 in 1992 to 1,025 today), and a
corresponding but classified increase in FBI field agents, according to a
report released in August by a Syracuse University research center.
What is lacking, say national security experts -- echoing the congression=
al
critique -- is a central strategy and focused leadership to make sense of
the new threats and to coordinate an overall government response. The
Administration's answer is the new Counter-Intelligence 21 initiative. It
would create a national counterintelligence executive with independent
resources and staff to act as a focal point and conduit between
policy-makers, Congress, and private industry on the one hand, and the
intelligence, law enforcement, and defense communities on the other. This
counterintelligence czar would be appointed by, and answer to, a National
Counter-Intelligence Board of Directors composed of the head of the FBI, =
the
deputy director of the CIA, and the deputy secretary of Defense. He or sh=
e
would closely coordinate policy with a senior steering group drawn from
relevant government agencies.
The key function of the national counterintelligence executive (or NCIX i=
n
government-speak) would be to first develop a national counterintelligenc=
e
strategy identifying and prioritizing the keys to American prosperity and
security. The executive would then coordinate the efforts of the
intelligence, defense, and law enforcement communities to protect those
assets from conventional and unconventional threats.
CI-21, however, is not a revolutionary change. In many ways, it simply
advances -- albeit significantly -- an evolution that began in the mid-19=
90s
when circumstances forced the CIA and FBI to begin abandoning their own l=
ong
rivalry and history of animosity. "CI-21 is a manifestation of a process
that began five or six years ago, when we all began to realize that the
threats to U.S. security were changing in a way that our traditional
organizations and structures couldn't match," McGaffin said. "Globalizati=
on
and technology were lowering traditional boundaries between what constitu=
tes
an=20
international or domestic threat, and terrorists, drug cartels, spies, an=
d
hackers were all leaping those boundaries with impunity."
For the first time in their history, said McGaffin, the CIA and FBI began=
to
realize in the mid-1990s that their missions overlapped significantly in
numerous areas. "For instance, is counterterrorism a law enforcement or
intelligence mission?" The answer is both, he said. "That doesn't mean sp=
ies
should get involved in law enforcement, or FBI agents in spying. It does
mean that both agencies had to increasingly start leveraging one another.=
"
As is often the case, a catastrophe was required first to blast through t=
he
cultural and bureaucratic barriers that separated the CIA and FBI. That
event was the arrest of a former high-ranking CIA operative and Russian m=
ole
named Aldrich Ames.
Cities On Separate Hills
Many intelligence professionals still recall where they were on Feb. 21,
1994, when FBI agents pulled over a Jaguar driven by Ames and arrested th=
e
senior CIA operative. Ames had been the counterintelligence branch chief =
in
the CIA's Russia Division. But as it turns out, he had been acting as a
Soviet and then Russian mole for eight years, selling Moscow the names of
every important Soviet military and intelligence officer working secretly
for the United States. The Soviets executed 10 of these officers based on
Ames' information, and replaced them with double agents who for many year=
s=20
passed false information to the CIA that severely distorted Soviet
capabilities and intentions. Ames represented the worst case of betrayal =
and
the most profound intelligence failure in CIA history, and it devastated =
the
morale of the entire intelligence community.
Nearly as shocking as the scope of the betrayal was the fact that it had
continued for six years after Ames first drew suspicion for his grand sty=
le
of living and well-known drinking binges. During that time, senior CIA
officials steadfastly refused to believe, even in the light of growing
evidence, that one of their own senior officials could be a double agent =
for
the Soviet Union. CIA officials thus resisted sharing their concerns or
asking for help from FBI counterespionage experts.
"For a very long time, the CIA and FBI had found ways to talk past each
other and refuse to cooperate with one another. We had built cities on
separate hills, and that wasn't very smart," a senior CIA official said.
"The dramatic events surrounding the Ames investigation helped us recogni=
ze
how much was to be gained by cooperating with the FBI. But it meant
overcoming decades of mistrust."
The scope of the Ames scandal, however, irretrievably changed the dynamic
between the two agencies. "The fallout from the Ames case was the key
catalyst to change. It became our Tailhook scandal, because afterward nob=
ody
could argue against reform," said a senior CIA counterintelligence expert=
,
noting that a number of the post-Ames reforms called for placing senior F=
BI
officials inside CIA headquarters at Langley. "I mean prior to Ames, the
idea of having an FBI official inside CIA headquarters running
counterespionage would have been heresy! And for the first few years, it =
was
definitely a shotgun marriage."
With congressional outrage over Ames hanging over the White House's head,
then-National Security Council official George Tenet penned in 1994
Presidential Decision Directive 24, a document that instituted the post-A=
mes
reforms. The directive placed a senior FBI official in charge of
counterespionage -- the spy vs. spy operations -- inside CIA headquarters=
in
Langley, and established a National Counterintelligence Center at the CIA=
--
run by an FBI official -- to take on the broader mission of protecting
American secrets and assets. Tenet went to the CIA in 1995 as deputy
director, where both he and Director John Deutch were reform-minded leade=
rs.
Later, when Tenet became director of the CIA himself, he helped ensure th=
at
not only the letter but also the spirit of the post-Ames reforms would be
embraced.
"I think the Ames case was the jumping off point in taking cooperation
between the FBI and CIA seriously, because it proved that we could no lon=
ger
tolerate petty bureaucratic jealousy and turf wars in dealing with threat=
s
to American security," Tenet said in an interview. "And from the very
beginning, we consciously sought to institutionalize the reforms at all
working levels so that they would become steeped in our culture and not
dependent on transient personalities. We wanted people to understand that=
,
when it came to dealing with these transnational threats, the fortunes an=
d
efforts of both agencies would rise and fall together."
Cautious Honeymoon
To keep the momentum for cooperation going forward as the Ames scandal
subsided, both Deutch and FBI Director Louis Freeh instituted a series of
weekly deputies' meetings that became known as the "Gang of Eight" sessio=
ns.
Led on the CIA side by then-Deputy Director Tenet, and including on the F=
BI
side Deputy Director for National Security Robert "Bear" Bryant, the Gang=
of
Eight explored new avenues for teamwork between their two agencies,
reporting once a month to the agency directors. Before long, the Gang of
Eight became the strongest proponents within their respective agencies fo=
r
an entirely new relationship between the CIA and FBI. Their goal was to
respect the significant legal and statutory distinctions between law
enforcement and espionage, but to eliminate the "arms length" attitude th=
at
had severely hamstrung cooperative FBI and CIA efforts in the past.
In an effort to allay deep-seated suspicions among the rank and file in b=
oth
agencies, officials convened a meeting in Rome in 1996 for all the overse=
as
FBI legal attach=E9s and CIA station chiefs in Europe and the Middle East.
Participants were encouraged to air their differences and gripes. They di=
d.
They clashed openly, as CIA officials played to type as tweedy Georgetown
intellectuals and FBI agents came across as blue-collar beat cops.
"From our point of view, it seemed at first that FBI legal attach=E9s ran=
ked
somewhere just above chauffeur in the embassy hierarchy," said one senior
CIA official who was present. "They had very little international experie=
nce
or foreign language capability, and theirmain concern seemed to be fugiti=
ve
bank robbers. It was almost embarrassing. The CIA station chief, on the
other hand, is a prettypowerful position in the embassy, and he often ser=
ves
as the ambassador's point man on major strategic issues. So there was
initiallythis cultural dichotomy, where you felt that the CIA guys would =
be=20
going to the opera after the meeting, while the FBI guys were going to se=
e
the latest shoot-'em-up movie. However, by the end of the summit -- after=
a
great Italian meal and lots of wine -- there was a good meeting of the
minds. Even today, when we refer to the improved cooperation between the
agencies, we talk about the 'Spirit of Rome.' "
One of the charter members of the Gang of Eight was then-CIA General Coun=
sel
Jeffrey Smith, who had served as general counsel to the Senate Armed
Services Committee when it passed the landmark Goldwater-Nichols defense
reforms of 1986. One of the key lessons of that successful reform effort =
--
largely aimed at overcoming rivalries among the four armed services -- wa=
s
to require those in uniform to serve "joint" tours with the other service=
s.
To attract the best and brightest to those joint tours, Goldwater-Nichols
also made the tours a prerequisite to promotion and thus career enhancers.
In a somewhat less formal fashion, Smith, McGaffin, and other members of =
the
Gang of Eight set out to mirror that success by selecting the CIA and FBI=
's
best people for joint assignments, and then promoting them up the chain o=
f
command to institutionalize a new level of=20
cooperation.
"Having worked on Goldwater-Nichols, I definitely tried to apply those
lessons by finding ways to task our best CIA officials to FBI headquarter=
s
as a 'joint assignment,' and vice versa," said Smith, now a partner in th=
e
Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter. "We also increasingly established
joint FBI-CIA task forces to go after specific targets. That was an
important move, because in their enthusiasm and desire to get results, th=
e
teams learned to work together and break down institutional barriers,
whether they were going after terrorists, international criminal groups,
drug cartels, or foreign intelligence operatives."
One area lent itself naturally to common cause between the FBI and CIA --
international terrorist operations targeting U.S. citizens or interests. =
The
United States has followed a strategy in these cases of bringing
perpetrators to justice before U.S. courts, with the possibility of tough
sentences in U.S. prisons or even the death penalty. That goal requires
close and careful cooperation between the CIA operatives responsible for
surveillance and infiltration of foreign terrorist groups and FBI agents
tasked with making arrests and gathering evidence that can be used in ope=
n
court. Indeed, the=20
synergistic and often-successful efforts of the CIA and FBI in the realm =
of
counterterrorism over the past five years largely laid the foundation and
provided the momentum for the reforms embodied in Counter-Intelligence 21.
The Counterterrorism Model
When FBI agent Dale Watson received a call from Deputy Director Bryant,
asking him to consider taking a job as the deputy director of the CIA's
Counterterrorism Center, he didn't have to think long about his reply:
Thanks, but no thanks.
"I basically told him that I didn't know or like those people, and that I
liked my current job just fine," said Watson, now the assistant director =
in
charge of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division. Given the "out of sight, o=
ut
of mind" nature of the FBI bureaucracy, Watson knew that such assignments
were also infamous for stalling careers. Bryant assured him, however, tha=
t
the rules were changing, and the next time he called Watson about the CIA
job, he wasn't asking, but telling him to take it. "And without a doubt,
that time at the CIA turned into one of the best assignments I ever had,"
Watson said. "While it was a steep learning curve at first, and I
encountered pockets of resistance to my being there, we all began to see =
the
tremendous value to both agencies of that kind of cross-pollination and
transparency in terms of our counterterrorism operations."
Early on, so much internal skepticism greeted the program to swap deputy
directors at the FBI and CIA counterterrorism centers that insiders
informally referred to the swap as the "hostage exchange program." CIA
officials worried that sensitive intelligence would find its way into ope=
n
court proceedings, compromising the agency's sacrosanct "sources and
methods." Closer coordination with the FBI would also undoubtedly attract
the attention of civil libertarians concerned that the CIA was crossing t=
he
red line barring the agency from spying on Americans. For their part, FBI
officials worried that closer cooperation would taint them overseas becau=
se
of the CIA's reputation for cutting legal corners and cloak-and-dagger
shenanigans.
What neither side could deny, however, was the obvious synergy of the
counterterrorism partnership. The FBI gained insight not only into the CI=
A's
vast overseas network, but also into the operations of friendly intellige=
nce
services that often cooperated secretly with the CIA. The CIA gained a
partner who could use sensitive intelligence to head off a planned terror=
ist
attack on U.S. soil, and, most important, bring perpetrators to justice.
"I help run America's spy service, but if I believe my job is finished af=
ter
I've collected that intelligence, I should be fired," a senior CIA offici=
al
said. "In working with the FBI, we found ways to ensure that the
intelligence we gathered was used by those who need it most. And what's m=
ade
the cooperation so successful is the FBI's ability to set up 'chains of
custody' and other means to make sure they gather needed evidence in a wa=
y
that doesn't put our sources at risk. So we've put most of those concerns=
to
rest. That's not to say the relationship is perfect. We still disagree
sometimes,=20
but now when we disagree we just get on the phone with one another and wo=
rk
it through."
The proof of that cooperation, according to officials, is the fingerprint=
s
of both the FBI and CIA on a number of high-profilecounterterrorism cases=
in
recent years. In one of the most sensational examples, FBI and CIA agents=
in
1997 tracked down Mir Aimal Kansi, the gunman who killed two CIA employee=
s
in a 1993 attack outside the main gate of the CIA's headquarters in
Virginia, and snatched him during a daring raid in Pakistan. In the
foot-stomping celebration at Langley following the operation, CIA officia=
ls
noted approvingly that some of the loudest cheers came from the FBI agent=
s=20
involved.
CIA-FBI cooperation was also critical to the successful apprehension and
prosecution of those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; in =
the
1993 apprehension of Omar Ali Rezaq for the hijacking of an Egypt Air fli=
ght
in which 58 people died; in the 1998 arrest of Mohammed Rashid for the 19=
82
bombing of a Pan Am flight; and in the 1996 apprehension of Tsutomu
Shirosaki for a rocket attack against the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta,
Indonesia.
"The Shirosaki case was a pretty typical international fugitive case," sa=
id
the FBI's Watson. "We had an old indictment and arrest warrant on him, an=
d
the CIA developed information that he was in 'X' country. After we made s=
ure
that the case was good and witnesses still in place, the CIA worked with =
the
host country and facilitated us going over and picking him up. If our
efforts were still fragmented, and we hadn't learned to coordinate with t=
he
CIA, we would never have been able to get that guy back to the United
States."
Watson also credits close FBI-CIA collaboration in the investigation into
the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. This joint eff=
ort
quickly traced the attacks back to the terrorist network of bin Laden.
Within 21 days of the bombings, the first suspects were behind bars. Sinc=
e
July 1998, FBI-CIA counterterrorism operations have apprehended and
prosecuted more than two dozen suspected terrorists, more than half of wh=
om
are associates of bin Laden's organization.
Bin Laden's complicity is also suspected in the Y2K terrorist operation,
which was thwarted by what FBI and CIA officials consider perhaps the mos=
t
successful pre-emptive counterterrorism operation to date. First alerted =
to
the planned attacks last September, both agencies cooperated with foreign
intelligence and police services to disrupt terrorist cells in eight
countries, with arrests made in the United States, Jordan, Pakistan, and
Canada.
"I can guarantee you that the millennium operation was an example where t=
he
cooperative counterterrorism system now in place was directly responsible
for saving hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of American lives," sai=
d a
senior CIA counterterrorism expert. "Several tons of explosives were
confiscated, as were well-designed plans with specific targets identified=
to
kill the maximum number of Americans in as bloody and high-profile fashio=
n
as possible for the sake of the CNN cameras. This was an operation design=
ed
to shock the United States away from its geopolitical goals in the Middle
East."
Not everyone is sanguine, however, about the new spirit of cooperation
between law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Although CIA agents ar=
e
still barred from spying on Americans and engaging in domestic intelligen=
ce
gathering, some watchdog groups are concerned about the blurring of
traditional barriers between FBI and CIA operations. Some of those firewa=
lls
were put in place in the mid-1970s after a congressional investigation
headed by former Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, found that the CIA had
illegally spied on political dissidents in the United States.
"I don't think you can point to any terrible scandal that has resulted fr=
om
the closer cooperation between the FBI and CIA, but the once clear divisi=
on
of labor between them is beginning to blur in the realms of
counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and counternarcotics," said John
Pike, a defense analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, an
independent watchdog group in Washington. "That raises some yellow flags.
The two agencies work under very different sets of principles. Essentiall=
y,
the FBI is constrained by constitutional protections and dedicated to
gathering evidence and enforcing the law. The CIA specializes in stealing
secrets, skirting the law, and not getting caught. If they're going to
cooperate more, someone needs to pay very careful attention that those
distinctions in how they operate don't get blurred as well."
But architects of the CI-21 initiative are not likely to retreat now.
Indeed, the new counterintelligence plan seeks to enlist
Pentagonintelligence officials. "The intent behind CI-21 is to bring the
defense and national security community into the same kind of
theoreticalconstruct that we developed for the FBI and CIA in
counterterrorism," McGaffin said. "We wanted to expand that interagency
cross-pollination and commonality of purpose into the broader realm of
counterintelligence."
A Counterintelligence Czar
On a flight back to Washington after a cyberwarfare conference in Texas i=
n
1998, the FBI's Bryant had a lengthy discussion with then-Deputy Defense
Secretary John Hamre about "Moonlight Maze" -- the most pervasive
cyberassault ever on the U.S. national computer network. During that
electronic invasion -- ultimately traced to Moscow -- intruders
systematically raided hundreds of essential but unclassified computer
systems used by the Pentagon, NASA, the Energy Department, and several
universities. "It was as if the Russians were coming into the Pentagon ev=
ery
night and measuring the curtains in all the offices, and we did not know =
why
or if anything of importance was taken," said a knowledgeable intelligenc=
e
source.
Largely as a result of the discussions, Bryant and Hamre began organizing
twice-monthly meetings of senior officials from the DefenseDepartment, FB=
I,
CIA, and the National Security Council, essentially expanding the "Gang o=
f
Eight" to include the leaders of other agencies responsible for U.S.
national security. Although the initial meetings focused on the issue of
cyberattacks, the participants soon realized that their respective agenci=
es
were facing a host of new and unconventional threats for which they were
unprepared and poorly organized to counter. Those meetings and the
interagency concerns they uncovered launched the Counter-Intelligence 21
initiative.
"Moonlight Maze did help convince me that we needed a new structure that
would allow the national security community to coordinate and work togeth=
er
better, because I was confronted by a problem that I lacked the legal
authority to fix on my own," said Hamre, now the president of the Center =
for
Strategic and International Studies, an independent think tank in
Washington. The Defense Department is barred from conducting surveillance=
or
investigations of civilians inside U.S. borders, he said, while the law
enforcement community lacks many of the tools to investigate outside the
United States. "These borders of responsibility are deeply embedded in
American government, yet they are increasingly irrelevant in a more
globalized, interconnected world," Hamre said. "Essentially,
Counter-Intelligence 21 is an effort to bridge those internal divides in
government in a way that protects Americans from the bad guys while still
ensuring their constitutional rights. That's why I made signing off on CI=
-21
literally my last act as deputy director of Defense."
It's not yet clear whether the CI-21 reforms will work. Unless the new
counterintelligence czar has the full backing of the heads of the CIA, FB=
I,
and the Defense Department and real influence on budgetary decisions, he =
or
she may fall short on bureaucratic clout. Proponents fear the reforms mig=
ht
yet get watered down as Clinton Administration officials prepare to leave
office. Nor is it clear whether CI-21 will be considered an adequate answ=
er
to congressional concerns, or whether it will conflict with the lawmakers=
'
idea of a domestic counterterrorism czar. "I fully support CI-21, but the=
re
are a lot of czars and czarinas running around Washington, and that runs =
the
risk of future fights over bureaucratic fiefdoms," said Smith, a former C=
IA
general counsel. "Over time, I suspect we'll see an emerging pattern of
czars or viceroys coordinating their interagency activities whenever thes=
e
missions intersect."
The new counterintelligence executive will ultimately be judged by his or
her ability to anticipate and limit new threats to U.S. national security=
. A
counterintelligence czar might have predicted that China would target the
nuclear secrets contained at the national weapons laboratories, if he
understood that China had aspirations for a nuclear, blue-water navy, yet
was unwilling to risk international isolation by violating the Comprehens=
ive
Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. Or he might have argued successfully that Russia=
n
spy Stanislav Gusev be used to disseminate disinformation or learn the
Russians' true intentions, instead of being arrested quickly and expelled.
Or a counterintelligence czar, aware that the Middle East peace process=20
was entering a critical stage and that terrorist groups opposed to it mig=
ht
be looking to derail a U.S.-brokered deal, might have anticipated the Y2K
operation even earlier.
"The general premise behind CI-21 is to try to determine what are America=
's
true equities, and then to extend this interagency cooperation in a
systematic way to try to better protect those assets and deter acts of
espionage that target them," said the CIA's Tenet. "We can no longer affo=
rd
to focus our counterintelligence efforts only after an incident has spark=
ed
a full criminal case, because at that point it's too late. The damage has
been done."
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