AMERICAN MILITARY UNIVERSITY

Challenges to HUMINT Collection Against Terrorism-Related Targets

Despite being essential to effectively combat terrorism and terrorist threats, US HUMINT is not currently configured to adequately address the nation's terrorism-related requirements. There are significant challenges both within the US intelligence community and with the intelligence community's ability to target and penetrate terrorist networks that must be overcome if the nation is to effectively use HUMINT to its full potential in the war on terror.

"We have met the enemy and he is us." Walt Kelly, 1970 Challenges within the US intelligence and national security community The overarching problems challenging US HUMINT collection against terrorist targets are largely of the US' own making. In addition to having few agents with the linguistic and cultural background to blend into environments conducive to collecting intelligence on terrorist targets, the US has implemented a general shift toward intelligence collection through technical means at the expense of HUMINT collection, possibly aggravated by regulations limiting recruitment of potential sources. Also, US collectors' access to terrorist targets for recruiting or penetration is limited due to the US' adherence to Cold War cover methods. According to Lewis, in the early 1970s then-CIA Director William Colby began the shift away from clandestine HUMINT collection in favor of technical intelligence collection in order to prevent disinformation. Lewis asserts the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities--commonly known as the Church Committee--further shifted the US away from HUMINT operations and toward technical intelligence collection. (Lewis 2004) Substantiating Lewis' claim, Frontline's "the Life and Times of Donald Rumsfeld" recounted former US Ambassador to NATO and Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Ellsworth's statement on the Church Committee; that the members "were very

specific about their effort to destroy American intelligence," and that he and Rumsfeld prevented the Committee from dismantling the CIA. (Frontline 2004) US HUMINT further declined in the 1990s. According to Cilluffo, Marks, and Salmoiraghi, senior advisors to then-President Clinton were openly hostile toward HUMINT, and in the mid-1990s shifted US intelligence away from HUMINT toward the "cleaner" technical intelligence collection. This was especially apparent after a 1995 investigation into the CIA's potential complicity in American deaths after it was revealed a paid CIA informant had ordered and supervised the torture and murder of US persons. (Kempster 1995) This prompted the CIA to implement restrictions on source recruiting, specifically against recruiting sources who have committed human rights abuses or serious crimes. CIA spokesman Bill Harlow stated in 2001 these regulations only required CIA field officers to "obtain prior headquarters approval before establishing a relationship with an individual who had committed serious crimes, human rights abuses, or other repugnant acts," and that CIA headquarters had "never turned down a field request to recruit an asset in a terrorist organization." (Zakaria 2001) However, according to Lewis, in 1998 then Chairman of the National Intelligence Council John Gannon admitted US HUMINT had declined, and in June 2000 the National Commission on Terrorism report stated the regulations "inhibited the recruitment of essential, if sometimes unsavory, terrorist informants and forced the United States to rely too heavily on foreign intelligence services." (Los Angeles Times 2000) Cilluffo, Marks, and Salmoiraghi, as well as Whitlock and Butler allege these regulations severely impaired the US intelligence community's ability to collect HUMINT against terrorist targets (Whitlock 2008) (Butler 2009) At the same time, US HUMINT collectors continued to use Cold War-style cover for their intelligence activities, which according to Butler also prevented collectors from being able

to recruit informants and sources essential to combating terrorism. Both Butler and Cilluffo (et al) assert the US intelligence community's use of diplomatic or business cover for clandestine HUMINT collection does not grant collectors access to the groups and circles necessary to identify and obtain information on potential terrorists or terrorist plots. This is aggravated by what Butler terms a "culture of suspicion" among radicals and terrorists, in which anything affiliated with US government or business is viewed as suspect. (Butler 2009) (Cilluffo, Marks and Salmoiraghi 2002) Addressing the first challenge is both easy and extremely difficult: US intelligence needs to refocus on and increase funding for HUMINT operations, and a HUMINT-friendly culture must be fostered among those involved in national security. While this seems simple and straightforward on the surface, it would likely prove difficult in practice. Many within national security circles, and even within the intelligence community, distrust and dislike HUMINT for a variety of reasons: moral opposition to HUMINT as "dirty," claims that HUMINT-derived information is subjective and unreliable, claims that HUMINT operations are too expensive and labor-intensive, to name a few. Funding and focus increases would likely entail decreased focus and funding for another intelligence platform, which would face opposition from that platform's practitioners and supporters. Just as difficult would be revising HUMINT cover operations to enable effective collection against terrorist targets. At the very least, the intelligence community would have to embed HUMINT collectors in locations traditionally off-limits--such as mosques and religious centers--or involved in illegal activities--such as weapons trafficking, document forging, or human trafficking. However, there are already HUMINT cover networks in place and effective for the US' strategic political and military requirements, and there would likely be significant

opposition to building another entire cover network from the ground up only to address terrorism-related intelligence requirements. Additionally, recruiting and vetting enough agents with the linguistic and cultural skills required to provide HUMINT coverage in these new positions would be difficult, and may require HUMINT collection agencies to relax the strict standards for employment--opening up the possibility of increased security breaches.

"Set a thief to catch a thief." French proverb Challenges in targeting terrorists In addition to the problems faced within the US intelligence community, HUMINT collection against terrorism targets is challenged by the nature of the targets. The terrorist groups against which the US needs to collect do not follow the Soviet model for which our intelligence collection was designed, and the US has been slow to change its collection practices to account for the new targets. Additionally, US intelligence targets either senior terrorist leaders or individual terrorist cells, both of which are difficult to penetrate and will yield only minor intelligence benefits. Butler labels modern terrorism as global decentralized terrorism (GDT), and makes a number of assertions as to the nature of modern terrorist groups. According to Butler, they tend to be highly decentralized; in fact, many terrorist groups are inspired by larger organizations such as al-Qaeda without having any actual ties to the organization, and are often embedded in Western society--potentially even born and raised in a Western nation--and therefore difficult to identify. This is problematic for US intelligence collection developed to confront highly centralized and foreign-directed Soviet-style targets. Additionally, these groups tend to be highly compartmentalized, so sources recruited or embedded in these small groups will only

have access to a limited amount of information. Even more, smaller, localized terrorist groups and plots are both self-generating and self-sustaining, (Butler 2009) and therefore US intelligence may not note discussion about or communication between local plotters and external terrorist leadership--either in establishing and directing an attack, or in seeking permission, logistics, funds, or organizational assistance in conducting an attack. Compounding this, while global terrorists largely share a common ideology there is no single intent or goal among terrorist groups and cells, precluding intelligence collection against terrorists' strategic aims or targets. Further increasing the difficulty in conducting HUMINT collection against terrorist targets is that terrorist leadership and those who intend to conduct terrorist attacks are almost exclusively ideologically motivated. According to Whitlock, this ideological commitment has generally precluded successful use of the US intelligence collection tactic of using money to entice information or gain cooperation--largely successful against the US' previous Soviet-style targets. (Whitlock 2008) Even more, Butler asserts this ideological commitment provides strong motivation not to spy, precluding nearly any quid-pro-quo exchange for information. Beyond these problems are separate issues with intelligence collection against either organizational terrorist leadership or terrorist operatives preparing an attack. Cilluffo, Marks, and Salmoiraghi claim US intelligence needs HUMINT collection assets within terrorist decision making chains with access to terrorist plans and intentions. (Cilluffo, Marks and Salmoiraghi 2002) However, according to Whitlock, access to senior organizational leaders is based largely on personal or tribal loyalty. Additionally, most individuals who join terrorist groups are given specific assignments, and rarely come in contact with organizational leadership. Even worse, according to Whitlock, individuals who join terrorist organizations will often be called on to commit serious crimes or acts of terrorism--from which intelligence agents and recruited sources

are forbidden--and attempting to avoid such assignments will raise suspicion and may result in the agent or source's death. Those that do gain access must undergo extensive, in-depth vetting procedures, and must be recommended by those whose loyalty is effectively unquestioned. Even if intelligence collectors gained access to organizational leaders, the decentralized and compartmentalized nature of modern terrorism means leaders may not be aware of, let alone have actionable intelligence on individual emergent or active terrorist plots, and intelligence operations against organizational leaders will likely have little or no effect on such plots. (Butler 2009) For separate reasons, terrorist groups actively plotting, organizing, or preparing terrorist attacks are also difficult collection targets. Smaller terrorist cells have greater loyalty to each other, so recruiting sources from within a cell is difficult or impossible. Additionally, identifying such a cell only once a plot is underway largely precludes inserting an operative into the group. If intelligence agencies do gain a collection asset inside a group or cell preparing an attack, each cell's operational solitude and compartmentalization would largely preclude gaining intelligence on the plot's full details, and would give little to no information on any other plots that may be in the planning, preparation, or execution phases. According to Butler, the most viable option to address the problems inherent with HUMINT collection against terrorist leadership or operational cells and groups is to refocus HUMINT collection toward access agents--individuals located in key nodes for terrorist recruitment, radicalization, and logistics--who are neither terrorist leaders nor part of terrorist plans and preparations, but able to identify and report suspicious activity for further, narrowly focused intelligence development. Butler states this practice has already been conducted, but was discouraged and almost completely discarded its use due to the practice of recruiting access

agents with little or no actual access to intelligence targets. However, revitalizing the use of access agents--with attendant safeguards and oversight to prevent a repeat of the practice's previous problems--would allow HUMINT collectors to gain information from individuals already embedded and with unquestioned, sometimes unique access to potential terrorists, without necessarily requiring HUMINT collection agencies to build entire cover and support networks for their own agents. None of the obstacles to effective HUMINT collection and operations against terrorismrelated targets are insurmountable, but all will require the US intelligence and national security communities revise many fundamental procedures and practices. Given the nature of the modern threat to the US' security, however, such changes are becoming increasingly necessary; postponing or foregoing such revision places the nation at risk each day, and makes another terrorist success against the US all but inevitable.

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