The Art of the Intelligence Autopsy

Intelligence and National Security

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 1-18

  Wirtz, James J ^a,b  

^a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL   (United States)

^b Defense Security Cooperation Agency   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84893958329     PISSN: 02684527     EISSN: 17439019     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2012.748371     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. James J. Wirtz, 'Responding to Surprise' in NelsonW. Polsby (ed.) Annual Review of Political Science (Palo Alto: Annual Reviews 2006) p.46.
2. Max M. Holland, 'The Politics of Intelligence Post-mortems' in Loch K. Johnson (ed.) Strategic Intelligence, Vol. 2 (Westport, CN: Praeger Security International 2007) pp.199-231.
3. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
4. Robert Jervis, Richard Betts, Melvyn Leffler and James Wirtz, 'Report on CIA Tradecraft, Analysis, and the Iraq WMD NIE', unpublished report, 13 December 2004
5. Several of the findings of this report are reflected in Robert Jervis, 'Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq', The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/1 (2006) pp.3-52.
6. Amy B. Zegart, Spying Blind: The CIA, FBI and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2007).
7. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1976).
8. Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1970).
9. By contrast, when individuals are equipped with cognitive schema that happen to approximate reality and are provided with information that accurately portrays unfolding events, they can appear to be downright prophetic. The estimates offered by John McCone, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in the weeks leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis provides a good illustration of this phenomenon.
10. Peter S. Usowski, 'John McCone and the Cuban Missile Crisis: A Persistent Approach to the Intelligence-Policy Relationship', International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 2/4 (Winter 1998) pp.547-576.
11. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
12. Jervis actually appended portions of Perception and Misperception to the Iran Report, and cites favorably Richards Heuer's early classified work on the impact of cognition on intelligence analysis.
13. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
14. For an unclassified version of Heuer's contribution to analytic tradecraft see Richards Heuer, Jr, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence 1999).
15. Alexander L. George, Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: USIP Press 1993).
16. Joseph S. Nye, Jr, 'Scholars on the Sidelines', Washington Post, 13 April 2009, http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/12/ AR2009041202260html (accessed 22 November 2012).
17. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1962).
18. John Hollister Hedley describes the impact of 'mindset' on analysis somewhat differently: 'Mindset is the tendency to evaluate newly acquired information through an existing hypothesis, rather than using new information to reassess the premises of the hypothesis itself'.
19. John Hollister Hedley, 'The Challenges of Intelligence Analysis' in Loch K. Johnson (ed.) Strategic Intelligence, Vol. 1 (Westport, CN: Praeger Security International 2007) p.133.
20. Report on the US Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 7 July 2004, p.22.
21. For example, in a response to the Iran Report, Robert Bowie noted: 'The report seems to me to be much affected by hindsight despite the express recognition of this danger. The premise that the events which took place were bound to happen underlies much of the discussion. There does not seem to be any element of contingency where events might have taken a different turn had conditions been different or had the Shah or other followed a different course. My perception of the way in which events unfolded was certainly different at the time. I cannot convince myself that the actual course of events was inevitable until rather later than is implied in much of the discussion of the report'.
22. Robert R. Bowie, 'MEMORANDUM Subject: Iran Post Mortem', 20 July 1979, p.1.
23. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
24. Klaus Knorr, 'Memorandum for Dr Bowie, Subject: Earlier Estimates on Iran', 18 July 1979, p.3.
25. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
26. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
27. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
28. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
29. Knorr, 'Memorandum for Dr Bowie', p.6.
30. James J. Wirtz, 'The Intelligence-Policy Nexus' in Loch K. Johnson (ed.) Strategic Intelligence, Vol. 1 (Westport, CN: Praeger Security International 2007) pp.139-150.
31. 'Analysis of NFAC's Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis, Mid-1977-November 1978', declassified as CIA-RDP86B00269R001100110003-4. Hereafter referred to as the Iran Report.
32. Paul R. Pillar, 'Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq' in James P. Pfiffner and Mark Phythian (eds.) Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2008) p.235.
33. John Dumbrell, 'The Neo-conservative Roots of the War in Iraq', in James P. Pfiffner and Mark Phythian (eds.) Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2008) pp.19-39.
34. Scott Lucas, 'Recognising Politicization: The CIA and the Path to the 2003War in Iraq', Intelligence and National Security 26/2-3 (April-June 2011) pp.203-227.
35. Several of the findings of this report are reflected in Robert Jervis, 'Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq', The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/1 (2006) pp.3-52.
36. Gregory D. Koblentz, Living Weapons: Biological Warfare and International Security (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press 2009) pp. 74-105.
37. Several of the findings of this report are reflected in Robert Jervis, 'Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq', The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/1 (2006) pp.3-52.
38. Several of the findings of this report are reflected in Robert Jervis, 'Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq', The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/1 (2006) pp.3-52.
39. Several of the findings of this report are reflected in Robert Jervis, 'Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq', The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/1 (2006) pp.3-52.
40. Several of the findings of this report are reflected in Robert Jervis, 'Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq', The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/1 (2006) pp.3-52.
41. Richards J. Heuer Jr, and Randolph H. Pherson, Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: CQ Press 2011) p.5.
42. Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber, 'Introduction' in Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber (eds.) Transforming US Intelligence (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press 2005) pp. ix-x.