Why did George Tenets "slam dunk" comment become so controversial?
Answer 1.a. The comment “slam dunk” became so controversial because the comment from George Tenets to George Bush meant that Iraq and Saddam Hussain are in possession of weapons of mass destruction. It is believed by most of the people that this comment led George Bush to declare war against Iraq and attack them. This was mentioned by many officials in their interviews and statements (Willing).
Answer 1.b. “Slam Dunk” was a comment used by the CIA director George Tenets when George Bush asked him about the weapons of mass destruction possession by Iraq. This comment became the biggest controversy at that time because it was misunderstood. Tenets meant that if America can know about the possession of weapons by Iraq, it will be a great move just like a slam dunk in basketball but it was taken otherwise.
Answer 1.c. In the year 2002, George Tenets commented in response to a question by George Bush regarding the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussain. For three years or so, people talked about it and debated that what did this comment really mean. Because this was associated with a very big event of America attacking Iraq, this became a very big controversy at that time (Lowry).
Answer 1.d. George Bush needed some excuse to save his face related to the killings and war in Iraq. He used George Tenet’s comment “slam dunk” related to the weapons of mass destruction presence in Iraq as that excuse and told the public that he was assured by Tenet that Iraq should be attacked. Thus this comment became very controversial (Jeffery).
Answer 1.e. The comment became controversial because media played the role of creating a hype regarding this and associating it to the bug event of war in Iraq. As soon as some official mentioned the comment “slam duck” and that it was used in a meeting in 202 before the war started, they joined this comment to the war and even proclaimed that this was the reason for the war.
Do you agree with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that "centralization" would be a mistake for U.S. Intelligence? Why or why not?
Answer 2.a. Yes, I agree with Donald Rumsfeld. Actually the intelligence is like a research team. If everybody is put together they will all be homogenized in their thinking and ideas and there will be no more ideas out of the box. This will make the intelligence less effective.
Answer 2.b. No, I don’t agree with Donald Rumsfeld. Centralization is the most effective way to make one person responsible and a decision maker. In this case, the intelligence will be centralized with one director who will then collaborate with everybody else and there will be streamlined investigations and decision making.
Answer 2.c. Yes, I completely agree with Donald Rumsfeld that centralization would be a mistake. If the teams are scattered in terms of management, they will be working independently from each other using different sources and different technology. This will bring out multiple perspectives to look at the same thing. By centralizing, this innovation would be killed.
Answer 2.d. No, I don’t agree with Donald Rumsfeld. If we look at the operational aspect of centralization of intelligence with one diretor as the chief, we are talking about removing all the challenges of miscommunication, using the same information in different ways and thus reducing errors and efforts, no control with decentralized intelligence teams etc. Centralization will make the US intelligence more effective and efficient.
Answer 2.e. Yes I agree with Donald Rumsfeld. He’s a business and politics veteran and with the experience of secretary of defense, he knew in and out of the system. I simply back his idea due to his experience and knowledge. As he saw that it is better if there is no centralization and teams are working better that way, I agree.
Why did Admiral Stansfield Turner believe that the new Office of DNI is largely a "figurehead" position?
Answer 3.a. After Turner tool the role as DCI, he was surprised to see how much dependency the Intelligence has on committees. The DCI were merely a very high status role however the decision making power wasn’t independently granted and there was no backup from the president as promised during the interview while hiring Turner (Garthoff).
Answer 3.b. After joining as DCI, Turner felt unwelcomed personally and on the professional front he couldn’t understand how the senior members were working. He found it completely unorganized and distributed in silos. He wanted to make a lot of changes by removing many roles and integrating and centralizing however after trying for the same, he was didn’t succeed as he didn’t get that level of authority (Garthoff).
Answer 3.c. It is also possible that because he started to remove the roles and let a few senior personal go, the others might have felt the same threat and conspired against him. They might have made a strong group and worked with the congress to make sure Turner is not successful in whatever he was planning to do and thus the congressmen were also not supporting Turner. This was he felt that he has no authority and control and this is just a figurehead position (Garthoff).
Answer 3.d. Based on what I read about the whole journey of Turner, this is quite possible that as Turner came from Navy where he couldn’t make it to the top position and pulled out to join the intelligence, and he didn’t find it exactly the way navy works, he found himself less authoritative even though that was not completely true (Garthoff).
Answer 3.e. When Turner removed at least 20% of the intelligence force who did not have a clear goal or aim and proposed to focus more on high tech intelligence, he was completely opposed and was told that no matter how high tech the intelligence become the real work is low tech and on the ground. This might be a trigger in Turner’s mind thinking of his post and role as just a figurehead (Garthoff).
What could be done to strengthen the Office of the DNI along the lines Admiral Turner would prefer?
Answer 4.a. As Turner preferred, if the staffing could have been made in the form of “three vice presidents” where analytics, collection department and resource management are three pillars of the agency and a leader heading each of these units will report into Turner, this would have made the structure of the intelligence very clear with ownership assignment and a clear vision and goals for everybody (Garthoff).
Answer 4.b. If the CDI was more engaging in the community, it would definitely be more successful and strong. Turner even though wanted the same but he couldn’t do it. According to him, if there was a stronger relationship, it would have been an “evolution” and in years to come. However it was also important not to force any authority while collaborating with community (Garthoff).
Answer 4.c. It would have better really better if some of Turner’s ideas like czar, a president of analytics, and assistant DCI were implemented when Turner was the DCI rather than a decade later. As it was his vision, these practices would have impacted the strengthening of the office a lot more than it impacted later on. It also took the surfacing of the challenges for over ten years which could be avoided (Garthoff).
Answer 4.d. There was a lack of clarity of responsibilities and goals of a lot of teams and functions which had a bad effect on the office overall. It was a reason for wastage of resources and energy. As Turner started to cut a few positions and started to invest more on analytics which was his prime focus, this function could have been used as the back bone of the intelligence. If this was implemented at that point in time, with the advent of technology in the next few decades, it would have been a lot stronger that it is today (Garthoff).
Answer 4.e. One of the major concerns which make the intelligence less effective and weak is the lack of confidence to completely be legal while carrying out any missions. This was a concern raised by Turner and if his idea of building confidence by his strategy was implemented, then the decision making would have not been shared by other executives and congress who don’t have that much internal insight as the agency itself. This sometimes led to weakening of intelligence due to conflicts (Garthoff).
Works Cited
Garthoff, Douglas F. “Directors of Central Intelligence as Leaders of the US Intelligence community”. March. 2007. Potomac books publication.
Jeffrey, Goldberg. "Woodward vs. Tenet: The New Intelligence War". Web. May. 2007.The New Yorker. April. 2016.
Lowry, Rich. “At the Center of the Storm is a classic self-serving tell-all.” National Review.
Willing, Richard. “Tenet: Bush administration twisted 'slam dunk' quote.” Web. April. 2007. USA Today. April 2016.
