Marty Peterson

I recently went to see a speech and Q&A session by Marty Peterson, deputy executive director of the CIA. Some notes:

He was defensive about the record of the CIA, and obviously felt that they had come under a number of unjustified attacks. (The word “defensive” has a negative connotation that I don’t mean to convey here.) He specifically cited Kenneth Pollack’s article in the January Atlantic Monthly as a fair critique, and said that he wished that all discussions could be held on that level. He was obviously frustrated with the search for the “silver bullet”, such as firing George Tenet, that would make everything OK.

He was also defensive about the CIA record regarding missing WMDs in Iraq. In his recounting, the CIA underestimated Saddam’s missile programs, which were more advanced than anyone realized; they overestimated his biological and chemical weapons programs, which he described as “more capabilities than functioning programs”; and they were approximately right regarding his nuclear weapons programs, which hadn’t restarted. In response to a question, he said that he doubted that Saddam had smuggled out WMDs to other countries before the war.

He made the point that the CIA wasn’t involved in the policy decision to invade Iraq, without expressing an opinion about whether it was the right decison. In general, I felt that he was making a good-faith effort to be non-partisan.

There were a number of criticisms of the CIA that he felt ignored the realities of intelligence, or the constraints under which they worked. He engaged in a lengthy, if somewhat predictable, discussion of the inherent difficulty and uncertainty involved in intelligence work. (“Only in the movies do secret agents sneak in and steal the plans. In real life, there are no plans to steal.”) He felt that excessive peace dividend cuts in the 90s had starved the CIA of resources. (Interestingly, he said that the underfunding reversed in 1998.) He also said that it takes him a year to hire an agent, and six or seven years to train and season him or her to the point that they can be trusted to try to recruit a foreign intelligence source. So the hiring boom that’s currently underway won’t pay off for years to come.

He resented being asked to answer for policies that the CIA didn’t create, and being judged for past actions based on the standards of the day. At one point, he said that he only asked for two things- sufficient resources to do his job, and a clear set of rules that he could expect to be judged by. “In thirty years, I’ve never had either of those.”

He’s not a fan of the proposed reorganization of the nation’s intelligence services. He mentioned a point when another higher-up at the CIA (I don’t remember who) was discussing the issue with Congress. The CIA guy asked, if there was another catastrophe, who would be held accountable? None of the Congressmen could answer the question. (A cynic might ask who was being held accountable for September 11th, but I suppose that that’s why the reorganization is necessary.)

A detailed discussion of his preferences in intelligence reform was probably not in the cards, as he wasn’t even allowed to say how many employees the CIA has. As general principles, he favored (a) short lines of communication and (b) taking our time to think about things. He clearly was concerned that intelligence reform was being rushed to fit an election-year schedule.

He voiced his approval for the Patriot Act several times. He said several times that it was a very important law and that it made his job easier. Specifically, he praised the ability to share information with the FBI and local law enforcement. He cited a case where CIA agents seized a number of computers from a terrorist cell abroad. He said that the hard drives would be investigated, and there might be leads that pointed back into the United States. Before the Patriot Act, he said, there was nothing more that they could do with that information. Now, he can relay it to FBI and law enforcement agents, they can check it out, and sometimes return useful information about foreign targets. In response to a question, however, he acknowledged that privacy issues were legitimate concerns (“I don’t want anyone looking at my library books, either.”) He said that balancing privacy with investigative powers was a policy decision he couldn’t make.

He’s very concerned about China and Taiwan. He says that China is investing heavily in their military, and that we can tell that they’re doing drills that show that they’re learning how to use their new hardware. He thinks that the end result of this activity is likely to be a crisis over Taiwan. He mentioned a converstation with the former Prime Minister of Singapore, who said that China and Taiwan, not North Korea, was the East Asian security issue that he was most worried about.

Speaking for himself, Peterson listed the danger spots that had him most worried. They were North Korea (he says that he believes that they have at least one nuclear weapon), Pakistan (he praised Musharraf’s participation in the war on terror, but is concerned that he might be assassinated) and Saudi Arabia (he’s concerned about a coup there, too.)

This speech was sponsored by the Houston World Affairs Council. Upcoming speakers include Lech Walesa and Hernando de Soto. My fellow Houstonians might want to look into this organization.