Why Intelligence Fails. Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War

249 Pages·2010·0.4 MB·English

by  Robert Jervis

Why Intelligence Fails
A volume in the series
Cornell Studies in Security Affairs
edited by Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis, and Stephen M. Walt
A list of titles in this series is available at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
Why
Intelligence
Fails
Lessons from the
Iranian Revolution
and the Iraq War
Robert Jervis
Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2010 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press,
Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2010 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jervis, Robert, 1940–
Why intelligence fails : lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War /
Robert Jervis.
p. cm. — (Cornell studies in security affairs)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8014-4785-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Intelligence service—United States—Evaluation—Case studies. 2. United States.
Central Intelligence Agency—Evaluation—Case studies. 3. Iran—History—
Revolution, 1979. 4. Iraq War, 2003—-Military intelligence—United States—
Evaluation. 5. Weapons of mass destruction—Iraq. I. Title. II. Series: Cornell
studies in security affairs.
JK468.I6J48 2010
955.05'3—dc22 2009030372
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and
materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials
include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled,
totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fi bers. For further
information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Daniel and Joshua
Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory;
even more are false, and most are uncertain.
—Carl von Clausewitz
The main difference between professional scholars or
intelligence offi cers on the one hand, and all other
people on the other hand, is that the former are
supposed to have had more training in the techniques
of guarding against their own intellectual frailties.
—Sherman Kent, chairman of Board of National
Estimates, Central Intelligence Agency, 1952–1967
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Adventures in Intelligence 1
2. Failing to See That the Shah Was in Danger: Introduction,
Postmortem, and CIA Comments 15
Analysis of NFAC’s Performance on Iran’s Domestic
Crisis, Mid-1977–7 November 1978 34
CIA Comments on the Report 109
3. The Iraq WMD Intelligence Failure: What Everyone Knows
Is Wrong 123
4. The Politics and Psychology of Intelligence and
Intelligence Reform 156
Notes 197
Index 229
[vii]

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Richard Betts, Elbridge Colby, Dan Caldwell,
Michael Herman, Deborah Larson, Melvyn Leffl er, Rose McDermott, Paul
Pillar, Marc Trachtenberg, James Wirtz, and several members of the intelli-
gence community for ideas and comments. John Collinge was very helpful
in overseeing the declassifi cation of my Iran report and the memoranda as-
sociated with it. The staff of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and
Peace Studies provided invaluable assistance throughout. An early version
of Chapter 3 appeared as “Reports Politics and Intelligence Failure: The
Case of Iraq,” in Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 1 (2006): 3–52, http://
www.informaworld.com. This book has been cleared by CIA’s Publications
Review Board, but nothing of substance was deleted or would have been
added if I had not had to submit it.
[ix]