Trumping Intelligence: Not a “Crown Jewel” – and Yes, They Could Kill You

by Robert David Steele - http://robertdavidsteele.com/

When Vice President Joe Biden identifies the US Intelligence Community (US IC) as “one of the crown jewels of our national defense,” he is wrong. He is either lying to the public for effect, being blackmailed, or genuinely witless. My vote is for a blend of all three.

The fact is that there are two sides to the US IC – the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an independent agency nominally under presidential control but actually founded by Wall Street as a platform for Deep State subversion of the US Government; and everything else, ostensibly under military control but actually out of control. In their relentless pursuit of budget growth, the secret agencies are at least 50% waste (the norm in government) and perhaps more while also being severely dysfunctional – the National Security Agency (NSA) for example, processes less than 1% of what it collects. According to General Tony Zinni, then Commanding General of the US Central Command, he received “at best” 4% of what he needed to know from secret sources and methods, to which my lifetime of publications based on experience would add “and nothing for everyone else.” The US IC is not a crown jewel – it is more like gold dust buried in a cow pie.

Senator Chuck Schumer has said in public what he has probably said in private, that it is “really dumb” to attack the intelligence agencies. Schumer’s statement is a statement of fact from the past – not only has the CIA been a party to the assassination of leaders including our own John F. Kennedy, but it has either been a direct participant or joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in turning a blind eye to the murder of multiple Senators including John Tower and Paul Wellstone as well as investigative journalists such as Gary Webb and so many others. Yes, CIA will kill you with impunity….or sub-contract with any number of other surrogates confident that there is no down side to assassination on behalf of the Deep State.

One can reasonably wonder if Chuck Schumer has been compromised in some way – otherwise we would expect him to be introducing legislation to put a stop to US IC assassinations – including drone assassinations – as well as blackmail of and direct spying on US politicians.
My best guess is that Donald Trump is acutely aware of his vulnerability; that many of his early moves have been actively deceptive toward those who might have killed him early on; and that he can turn on a dime and still be “unshackled” when he feels the time is right.

Our objective is to “settle” the secret world, keep Trump alive, and
make America great again.

We do this with a practical “Truth & Reconciliation” approach combined with zero tolerance for any further misbehavior. Decisive comprehensive intelligence reform will shut down the rogue elements of CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) and their military-industrial allies that wish to harm the President-Elect.
The public needs to be educated – the obvious lies about Russia hacking the election compounded by the obviously fake “dossier” from former MI-5 officer Christopher Steele (no relation) are a huge help in illuminating the obvious. The US IC is a very expensive largely worthless threat to the integrity of the US government, economy, and society.

On his present course, Donald Trump is not showing the needed focus.
Trump’s top three priorities for intelligence should be:

1. Immediately shut down all NSA and CIA spying on and blackmailing
   of US politicians
2. First cleanse and then unleash the FBI against the 500 traitors
   now embedded across the US Government (USG) – many with known ties
   to foreign powers such as Israel or Saudi Arabia.
3. Create his own Open Source Agency completely outside the IC, to
   create decision-support for the entire Cabinet and all Congressional
   jurisdictions – the secret world does not do this now.

Today we have two nominees for intelligence positions from Donald Trump, one good, one bad.

Senator Dan Coates is the perfect candidate for the position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) because of his age, experience, and gravitas. His job is to terminate the Office of the DNI, and ideally, to radically restructure and reduce the size of the dysfunctional secret world.

Senator Coates is disadvantaged by a shallow transition team whose intelligence members appear to lack depth and imagination and perhaps courage as well.
Senator Coats is, in this order: a neo-conservative and Bush family plant into the Trump team (he is also deeply anti-Russian); a leading member of a Christian society that operates in secrecy and uses prayer breakfasts as a litmus test for judging others; and an Indiana bubba who is probably more loyal to Mike Pence than to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump should immediately expand his intelligence transition team and have a heart to heart with Senator Coats about where his loyalties lie. On balance, Senator Coats is a keeper.

Representative Mike Pompeo from the 4th District of Kansas was picked for the wrong reasons – and prior to CIA’s committing treason in trying to overturn the Electoral College with false assertions about Russia hacking the election (my detailed slams on these lies are here and here). A Christian and Tea Party activist, he is 100 per cent on target with his concerns about multiculturalism and he is absolutely not qualified to lead CIA. In his first hearing he managed to become a global laughingstock when he declared the US IC report drafted by CIA, Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections, to be a “sound analytic product.” This sad little man not only does not know the meaning of any of those three words, it is clear he also lacks the brains, balls, and spine to bring order to the CIA.

Donald Trump should immediately withdraw this nomination. Pompeo is the Porter Goss of the Trump Administration – an utter disaster who should follow Mike Rogers into oblivion.

What is to be done?

We need to keep Donald Trump alive; straighten out the US IC, and create jobs for everyone.

Keeping Donald Trump alive is more about legitimizing his presidency than it is about whether he and the US IC get along. He is both an accidental and a fringe president. There is only one path to his achieving greater legitimacy, with the added advantage of his becoming completely independent of the Republican Party: an Electoral Reform Act of 2017.

Creating jobs for everyone is not what most people think about when they think about the US IC – that is because they have all fallen prey to the false narrative. Intelligence is not about spies and secrecy – intelligence is about decision-support for the Cabinet, for all levels of government, and for the Congressional oversight committees – it is what makes evidence-based governance in the public interest possible and affordable.

I have published my Philosophy of Intelligence separately and will not
belabor it here.

After withdrawing the nomination of Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump should nominate an intelligence professional as Deputy Director of the CIA, to serve as Acting Director until such time as Senator Coats completes the elimination of the Office of the DNI and becomes instead the restored Director of Classified (vice Central) Intelligence, which would occur after the varied reforms are implemented and no later than 2018.

Donald Trump should designate a Director of a new Open Source Agency (OSA) – to be an administrative element of the Executive Office of the President (EOP) whose leaders need not be confirmed by the Senate, and establish with Senator Coats and the incoming Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a plan for transforming the US IC from its current state – a very expensive cesspool that spies on US citizens and US politicians more than it does on anyone else – into an engine for national prosperity and global peace.

My seven points take off from Mike Flynn’s Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan which remains a superb starting point but does not go far enough.

1. Create an Open Source Agency (OSA) as the primary source of
   decision-support – we still need spies and secrecy, but only for the
   5% that we absolutely need to know that is not knowable via open
   source and methods.
2. Unshackle the FBI; go after the 500 traitors in government that
   are now “off limits” – this includes the elite bi-partisan
   pedophilia network, the Zionist dual citizens with top secret
   clearances across the government; the Opus Dei as well as the
   Freemasons burrowed in everywhere; and a few other hostile networks
   we know exist but have not been allowed to dismantle.
3. Create a National Analysis Center populated by mature adults who
   actually know something – people hired at mid-career after proving
   via citation analytics and multinational recognition that they are
   the top experts in their domain using open sources, and hence
   qualified to make the most of secret sources in context.
4. Cut the National Geospatial Agency (NGA) in half –the surviving
   classified quarter becomes the National Processing Agency (NPA), the
   unclassified quarter gets folded into the US Geological Survey
   (USGS).
5. Terminate the NSA after first transferring the 20% that is
   legitimate to CIA, where it becomes a new Directorate of Signals
   Intelligence (DS). Terminate the National Reconnaissance Office
   (NRO), after first transferring the 20% that is still needed to CIA,
   where it becomes a new Directorate of Imagery Intelligence (DM).
6. Retire the majority of the Clandestine Service people; terminal
   all Covert Actions, and start over with Non-Official Cover (NOC)
   officers hired at mid-career based on being in place, with existing
   language, subject matter, and access qualifications.
7. Establish the first real Deputy Director for Management in OMB,
   and place the DCI, OSA, FBI, National Intelligence Council (NIC),
   and Collection Requirements and Evaluation Staff (CRES) under that
   person. Henceforth, intelligence (decision-support) will be
   properly managed as a management support function. It will also be
   taken away from the military and placed under direct presidential
   control.

More information on these seven steps can be found at Fixing Intelligence II: Seven Precepts (PORTAL). They are intended to be a starting point for discussion, not a prescription to be followed to the letter.

Such radical change cannot take place without both explanation to the public, and the advice and consent of the Congress. One major reason to pass the Electoral Reform Act of 2017 is to free Members from their financial dependency on special interest; one major reason to focus early on counterintelligence is to eliminate the spying on and blackmailing of Members by the US IC. It is also helpful to approach such radical corrections in the spirit of being job and revenue neutral from state to state and district to district – we must think in terms of the true economic and social cost to any given community of any given reform action.

In summary, what we have right now is a US IC that is corrupt and dysfunctional and by no stretch of the imagination worth what we pay for it. In the two nominees now extant, we have one that could be excellent and another that is so bad he should be terminated immediately. Of continuing concern to me are the shallowness of Trump’s intelligence team and his lack of a grand strategy, an approach to a balanced budget, and an appreciation for just how valuable the US IC could be if it were properly led.

Intelligence – decision-support – is the best possible catalyst for
making America Great Again.

I worry that because of the terrible mismanagement and misbehavior that Mike Hayden, Jim Clapper, and John Brennan have provided in the past, Donald Trump may not see that the US IC should be saved rather than marginalized, managed rather than scorned.

The truth at any cost lowers all other costs. Intelligence with integrity is worth fighting for.

Robert David Steele is a former Clandestine Operations Officer (C/O) for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who served three back to back tours overseas and three Washington tours, with responsibilities ranging from anti-terrorism, counter-insurgency and  counterintelligence to managing advanced information technology pilot projects and futures planning for signals and imagery intelligence satellites. He went on to create the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity and establish the modern discipline of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). He has published extensively on the need to redirect intelligence from spies and secrecy promoting war and waste, to open sources and methods enabling peace and prosperity.