Established protocols on relationship between the armed forces and intelligence agencies should not be tinkered with, unless approved after careful deliberation.
Lt.Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane, Vice-Chief of Army Staff and the Chief of the Army Staff designate, gladdened the hearts of intelligence operatives on December 21, by saying that the Indian armed forces owed their success to the contributions made by intelligence agencies.
바카라I dare say that none of our military operations would have been successful had it not been for the support we got from various intelligence agencies including the Research & Analysis Wing,바카라 the General said while speaking in Pune during the release of a new book 바카라R.N.Kao-Gentleman Spymaster바카라 by veteran journalist Nitin Gokhale on the founder of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), our external intelligence agency.
But it was not always so. Intelligence agencies were blamed for the 1999 Kargil attack. 바카라The Kargil Review Committee바카라 had also concluded that no agency or individual 바카라was able to clearly assess before the event the possibility of a large- scale Pakistani military intrusion across the Kargil heights바카라.
This writer had contested this conclusion at that time and said that it was not strictly a failure by individual agencies but the lack of intelligence 바카라coordination and arbitration바카라 by the National Security Council (NSC), which had met only on June 8, 1999, a month after the incursion was noticed.
This is because intelligence agencies collect information on parallel tracks on a 바카라need to know바카라 basis in bits and pieces, not revealing the full picture, especially when the trends are short term like border skirmishes. On several occasions agencies produce incomplete or even conflicting reports.
For example, when I was in service, there was a dispute between RAW and military intelligence on the number of Chinese divisions in Tibet. Such issues can be settled only by an empowered 바카라arbiter바카라 who can access even unprocessed intelligence from different agencies and also to insist on feedback to bridge the gaps to complete the picture.
Strategic intelligence becomes 바카라actionable바카라 only after an alchemic process of collation, analysis, dissemination, arbitration, policy adjudication and decision making. That was why we had set up a highly powered NSC on 19 November 1998 as a full time think tank, intelligence arbitrator, policy adjudicator, decision maker and performance monitor.
The NSC should have started the process of coordination and arbitration by wider investigation when the initial driblets of Kargil incursion were received from May 3, 1999. Instead, it left it to individual agencies to operate on parallel tracks with none to 바카라Stitch the seams바카라 to evolve a holistic picture.
Such institutional failures have happened even in Western countries with older NSC systems. While the 1990-91 바카라Desert Storm바카라 against Saddam Hussain operated with text book precision, the March 2003 Iraq War to effect 바카라regime change바카라 went into convulsions while facing insurgency after Saddam바카라s ouster, leading to severe acrimony between different organs of the US government, including intelligence agencies.
In 1990 the CIA was able to issue alerts weeks before Saddam launched attack on Kuwait on 2 August. The Agency repeated this warning on 1 August too. After CENTCOM established its headquarters in Saudi Arabia, CIA deployed JILE (Joint Intelligence Liaison Element) teams as conduits for providing intelligence information to the deployed US forces.
Three maps of 바카라Orbat바카라 were supplied in October 1990 along with 바카라key strengths and weaknesses바카라 of Iraq ground forces, the locations of 바카라Scud바카라 missiles and Chemical & Biological weapons. 바카라Streaming Intelligence바카라 was supplied on the mine fields and location of 바카라silkworm바카라 anti-ship missiles.
It was the reverse in 2003. Former CIA Chief Robert Gates had to be recalled by President George W Bush to take over as Defense Secretary in December 2006 after severe controversies had rocked the Pentagon when Donald Rumsfeld was the Chief. His mammoth memoir 바카라Duty바카라 (2014) gives details how he had to undo many of the damages caused earlier.
What he does not mention was the colossal harm done to the established NSC system by Rumsfeld바카라s illegal spy agency 바카라Office of Special Plans바카라 (OSP) which had undercut CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to influence White House decisions. Not too long ago we too had a similar experience.
The morale of the story is clear: Established protocols on relationship between the armed forces and intelligence agencies should not be tinkered with, unless approved after careful deliberation.
(The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat. Views expressed are personal)