Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein would have had a much stronger article if he hadn;t tried to make an unfavorable comparison between the CIA's approach to collection and analysis, and that of journalists. Truth is, both do a pretty questionable overall job, and it's pretty much for the same reasons. But this bit from "Obama Faces Gaping Holes in U.S. Intelligence" was interesting, and may be eye-opening to some:
bq.. "So," I asked a former intelligence agency head over seafood this week, "if I'm President Obama, and I call Leon Panetta into the Oval office and ask him to tell me how Hamas leaders are holding up under the Israeli assault, will he be able to tell me?"
The former official shook his head, nearly blushing.
No. "That's not the kind of information" they focus on.
"Well, what do they focus on?" I asked."
p. Good question. You'd think that sort of thing might be very relevant. The Israelis, who are coordinating their military activities with Shin Bet (FBI equivalent) and enjoying much better success as a result, certainly do. Improved use of armor also helps, and upgrading their approach to the information war helps even more. Hope people in the USA are learning from both of those intel/information steps forward.
This bit on an attempt to use open source methods and approaches in the CIA was also very interesting:
bq. "After much resistance, CIA and DNI finally did set up an Open Source Center with analysts, some of whom don't even have security clearances, working from unclassified material. And they've proved to be very good, some experts say, giving the spy agency a fresh view on developments ranging from Iran to North Korea. The final verdict is far from in, but one well informed former official said that on at least one subject he was familiar with, the regular CIA analysts "couldn't hold a candle" to the Open Source Center's product."
Anyone who had read Dan Darling's material here at Winds, before he started to do those sorts of things as a job for various employers, would not be surprised by that outcome. At all.