A reader has shared with us a copy of his letter to Rep. Pete Hoekstra. The reader writes from Baghdad:

The intelligence bill just passed on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote by the U.S. Congress sets exactly the right priorities needed to help strengthen our national intelligence capabilities against the threat of Islamic terror. Thank you for your leadership.

I offer these observations as a mid-career intelligence officer with experience in counter-terrorism operations and analysis who has served on the ground in Bosnia, Colombia and since 9/11 in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan. For the last six months I have been working throughout Iraq.

To combat Islamic terror, the US must be able to gain access to [the enyemy's] tight, closed networks for information about their operational plans. Doing so requires a robust human intelligence capability. The next step is to improve our ability to make sense of the information that is collected, which requires well-trained analysts and linguists. Fulfilling these two objectives requires more investment in people, and allows at least a modest trim in acquiring the fanciest satellites and most expensive collection aircraft.

The public may not fully appreciate the significance of putting human intelligence as a priority at the expense of some space and airborne programs, but those programs are measured in billions while the human intelligence programs are measured in millions. As a result, there is significant lobbying pressure on congress from the large defense contractors to continue and expand funding.

In contrast, spending on human intelligence and analysis invests money in the people who are being trained to do it, a process that lacks a natural constituency to lobby congress. Thus, congress must be commended for its resolve to do what is truly in the interest of national security despite the political pressure.

This has not always been the case. Those who wrote the anti-military, anti-CIA budgets of the 1990’s did their best to gut the intelligence community in the name of a feel-good, "let’s all get along" style of national security policy. Now, we know that perspective was most naïve, but there were many signs of that at the time as well. Those budgets were enacted despite Al-Qaeda’s declaration of war followed by numerous acts of war, including killing hundreds of by attacking our embassies and a US Navy ship.

In return, the administration tossed a few cruise missiles at some tents in the Afghan desert, then crowed about how "strong" and "presidential" the president appeared. But the same president who weakened our intelligence capability and allowed an enemy to attack us while gaining strength was not acting alone. He had a U.S. senator on his side.

The Torricelli amendment, named after a New Jersey senator, threatened criminal charges against any U.S. case officer who worked with a foreign agent who was guilty of a serious crime in the past, even if the case officer did not know of the crime. (I digress to note the irony that former Senator Torricelli was subsequently charged with his own misconduct.)

Since many foreign criminal databases are incomplete and unreliable in the countries where Islamic terrorism breeds, it was difficult for the case officer to be certain of a potential agent’s past. Plus, the agents we seek to convince to sell their terrorism-related knowledge are by definition unsavory characters who will betray their cause for money. Considering that Islamic terror groups often require the killing of infidels (that’s us and our children) just to join the club, we are not dealing with Girl Scouts and choir boys. Under that policy up until after 9/11 case officers overseas were afraid to do their jobs for fear of criminal prosecution.

After 9/11, under the leadership of President Bush, we passed the Patriot Act that suspended the Torricelli nonsense and allowed our intelligence officers to do their jobs. Since then, though, the total intelligence budgets have included significant funding for the big-ticket airborne and space programs. These programs play a role in providing what the US needs to protect itself, but human intelligence is the key.

Another ground-breaking provision of the bill allows National Intelligence Director Negroponte a limited power to shift people from one organization to another as determined by the needs of the intelligence community. This allows a degree of flexibility that was previously impossible due to strict budgetary ‘stovepipes’ that enhanced Congress's power at the expense of the community being able to adapt to changing threats.

The bill also gives the new intelligence director a bit of real power with which to try to counteract the bureaucratic warfare and bitter turf battles that continue to plague the various intelligence agencies. The next step will be to expand his power to shift personnel and to spend in order to force the agencies to actually work together to address the threat posed by a constantly evolving enemy.

That is not going to happen anytime soon, but the Congress's action on the intelligence bill is a solid step in the right direction. Please understand that it is no longer necessary to spend more on intelligence. Instead, it is necessary to spend more wisely. It is comforting to be serving in Iraq knowing that you are doing just that. I hope the Senate follows your lead.

Sincerely,
[Name Withheld Upon Request]
Baghdad, Iraq

UPDATE: Another reader dissents from the disparagement of satellitel intelligence:

I have worked with satellite reconnaissance systems throughout my career as an Army Reserve intelligence officer...Satellites can overfly international boundaries without creating an incident. National borders do not extend to space. Spies who cross borders, on the other hand, can be (and frequently have been) shot. Satellites can visit a target as often as physics will allow them to pass overhead. You don't need to recruit them. Human agents, on the other hand, have been known to turn out as liars or fools or double agents, or turn up dead. No terrorist has yet decapitated a satellite. In that sense, technical systems can often last lots longer than human-based ones. Plus, you can use the same satellite to collect data against multiple countries. Can you recruit one network of spies for Afghanistan, and then simply transfer it to Burma, Sudan or the next crisis area that arises on the globe?

Are satellites expensive? Sure they are! Imagine if you tried to build a car that had to run for years, without ever returning to the garage for tuneups or preventive maintenance or gas.

While I don't dispute we need better human intelligence networks, we also mustn't neglect our technical intelligence systems. America's scientists (such as the ones that created CORONA, the world's first photoreconnaissance satellite) and technical intelligence experts (such as the Navy cryptologists who broke the Japanese naval code, making victory at Midway possible) have often given our military the edge it needed to win its battles, in cold wars and hot ones. They need the best tools possible for America to maintain that edge. If we skimp on the satellite and spyplane fleet, we'll regret it. In this field, especially, you get what you pay for.