CIA and Intelligence Community Mythologies

Previous CIA failures regarding the unanticipated decline and fall of the Soviet Union, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq War demonstrate a $75 billion intelligence enterprise that can provide neither strategic nor tactical warning to policymakers and is reluctant to provide uncomfortable truth to power.

The serious problems that need to be addressed include the important nexus between intelligence and policy - and the need for a CIA that is not beholden to policy or political interests; the militarization of the intelligence community - which must be reversed; the lack of Congressional oversight - which must be corrected, and the decline of operational tradecraft - which must be investigated.

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