WEBVTT - Anaylists vs. Operations in The Middle East (with David McCloskey) 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.440 I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.840 CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.520 in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.680 And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.840 and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:17.799 our adversaries. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.720 Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:23.520 theories large and small. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.280 Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:33.800 This is mission implausible. Today's guest is David McCluskey. He's 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.760 actually a friend and a former colleague, and he is 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:41.280 now best known for his best selling spy novels Damasca, Station, 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.879 Moscow X and The Seventh Floor, all worth reading. We'll 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:47.040 probably talk about him in the podcast, but he's probably 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.080 even better known nowadays, especially in England, for his well 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:54.000 regarded podcast The Rest Is Classified with British security journalist 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:54.640 Gordon Carrera. 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:55.240 It's good. 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.200 David previously worked at the CIA on issues related to 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.840 the Middle East and worked in embassies abroad, but he 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:02.920 was in the sort of snotty, whimpy side of the agency. 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:05.920 Jully and I who were busy saving the world so 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:10.240 that it could be destroyed later. So sorry about that. 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:15.120 So I can't be friends, you know, Manars and Venus 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.640 can d O and d I people. We'll explore that. 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:18.760 I'm sorry over here, you go. 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.880 I was I was trying to translate all the garbage 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:23.880 you were writing up in the field so the people 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:25.920 making the decisions in DC would know what the hell 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:26.800 you were talking about. 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.400 I have lots of questions, but here's where I'd like 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.319 to start off with. What is it like now to 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:36.119 be making a living off of our exploits? 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.640 I like I like to I like to say John 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.480 that you know, I was certainly not a I was 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.320 certainly not a case officer like you out there saving 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.440 the world regularly day by day. But but you know 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.160 every day. Yeah, what better person to actually be able 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.280 to write down on paper those exploits than an analyst, right? 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.040 I mean, this is this It's just a continuation of 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.280 my sort of prior career right now. Now I get 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.160 to write more fantastical stories and UH and occasionally you know, 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.880 poke fun at you guys, and UH and some of 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.040 my analysts friends as well. So it's not too bad. 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:19.960 It's not too bad. 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.720 Yeah, I have to say as we start that when 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.400 I entered the agency the first couple of tours, I 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.840 was like the agency version of hermaphrodite, sort of a 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.720 I was because I was between I was between the 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:39.919 d I, the intelligence guys, the analysts, guys, intelligence folk, 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.600 the analysts, and the operations officer, tough guys like John 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.440 and both of you, the DI analyst and the do 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.400 O operators. Both of you gave me noggies and swirlies 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:53.160 right and looked good. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:58.200 Point, this is a real besmirching of our reports, officer friends, 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.000 isn't it. It is. It's terrible. 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.760 I all of us deserve a besmirching, So that's not 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:06.959 that's true. I was trying to go on offense til 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:08.760 that my besmirching is a little further down the pike. 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.480 That's true. That's true. Yeah, No, I mean, uh, I 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.280 mean analysts, though I don't think they were analysts, weren't 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.920 the type to be given out like noggi's and swirlies. Jerry, 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.280 and I feel like it was very much a heads down, 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.040 eating lunch at your desk crowd for the most part, right, 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:25.520 That's what I remember. 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.119 Mostly I got like eye rolls and like oh yeah, 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.160 you got oh And then I get use a big 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:32.400 word and I have to go look it up and 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:33.720 realize I've been besmirched. 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.520 But this is an influencing thing. We were talking, We 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.000 were talking about this before we even hit record, that 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.680 what Jerry just did is a classic case officer influencing 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.720 tactic for analysts, which is, when you're sitting down in 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.360 a briefing, they tell you, they the case officers, tell 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:50.280 you how smart you are and how they don't know anything, 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.800 and how they're just desperate for your knowledge, and then 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:54.760 use the analyst. You know, even if you kind of 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.000 know what's happening, you feel good when the briefing starts 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.680 right and it's just a classic I swear that they 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:02.560 taught you that somewhere along the line, because I got 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.400 every case officer I sat down with ever period. 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:07.560 I have to get this out, so they get this 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.840 out early. We had a a an analyst, a very 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:15.160 senior analyst woman. She came to Manila and we were 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.360 talking and you know, around the table, and we were 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.000 giving a briefing. And at the time, one of the 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:25.240 terrorist groups, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, was something we 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:31.039 were concerned with. And so the reports officer says, well, well, 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.440 there's no way around this, you know. He says that 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.680 it's called the MILF, And everybody smiles around the table 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.600 except for the analyst, and she's like yeah, and he's 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.200 like the mill and uh, she's like and she's like 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:46.279 smart enough to pick up that's supposed to mean something. 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.320 He says, well, maybe you should look it up later, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.039 but don't use a government computer. 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:57.720 Well it was abbreviated milf in' that's the name. 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.800 Yeah, yeah, the MILF. Yeah. Yeah, we're going down. We're 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:05.080 already sort of launching down a path, and conspiracy theories 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.320 come out of like the CIA, And David, I was 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.119 wondering if you could talk a little bit about maybe 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.640 some of the tribes inside of CIA really briefly, and 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.640 then discuss what the DII the analysts do, and then 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.800 we can sort of talk about conspiracy theories and conspiracies 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.000 both within the agency and who gets blamed for conspiracy 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:28.320 theories and so forth. So why don't you why don't 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:28.960 I kick it over to you? 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:30.880 I'm sure you're well, yeah, I mean, and the most 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.119 important tribe is the analyst, because they're the ones writing 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.280 and stuff that goes goes to the policymakers, right, that's 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.520 what the CIA is there to do. For the most part. 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.680 Occasionally we'll spin up some covered action stuff which usually 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.160 doesn't go that well. But you know, the analysts are 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.120 sort of we're holding the flame. I mean, so the 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:52.120 analysts is certainly one tribe, right, your your case officer 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:53.200 brethren are another. 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:54.920 Relations officers. 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:55.600 Yeah, that's right. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.479 There's there's a whole host of like teers and ness 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.400 in tiers. Yeah, yeah, the support guys. But like even 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:05.320 within like the d O, right, there's a bunch of 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.159 different sort of you know, there's like a sort of hierarchy. 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:12.200 Right, And how do you see the hierarchy? That's that's all. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.440 How do I see it in the operations side? 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:15.680 Yeah? 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.919 Well I was thinking that, Yeah, there's there's reports officers, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:24.840 there's cmos, there's there's sues, right, and I always forgot 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:31.360 what that stood for, essentially, like essentially like an analyst. 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:31.359 In the d O. 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:37.159 Is that right? Okay? There were targeting officers, which I 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.560 guess could be in either the d I or the 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.520 d O, as I recall, you know, interestingly enough, the 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.359 last time I went into Langley up in the newly 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.960 renovated museum. There is a wall that has a list 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:54.719 of every or what seems like every possible job title 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.800 you could have at the CIA, and it is an 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:01.480 entire wall. Have you seen this. It's well, let us in. 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:05.360 There anymore to be clear. 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:07.359 And you still have pictures in me on a horse 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.160 in Afghanistan. Those are all going we didn't go real 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.440 well yeah, yeah, I mean. 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.320 My perception was always the case. Officers believed themselves to 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.880 be the reason the entire place existed, and thus the 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:23.800 most important people there thatived believed, yes, believed themselves to 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.280 be the most important Who I mean, who else there was? 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.040 You know, a variety of techie type roles. There were 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.640 those guys in the green jackets who monitored the uh, 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.520 the contractors who came in who I always like to 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:37.600 include them in any kind of book, if I could 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:39.080 just randomly throw a reference at them. 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:39.440 I don't know. 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:42.080 You've done a good job with your books. You've thrown 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.480 in that you had the hot dog machine, and the hot. 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.880 Dog machine in there, sadly was it was ripped out 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.360 at some point in the past decade, probably for like 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:53.560 code violations. I tried to get a reference to the 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.440 you know, the gift shop in there as much as 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:57.600 I can, and I used I think John, I actually 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.720 took this line from you with permission, of course, because 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.120 at one point in some conversation you said that we 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.280 stopped being a real spy service as soon as the 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.640 gift shop went in. You know, we put that. Put 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:09.600 that in the mouth of. 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.160 The CIA on it the end. 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:13.840 Yeah. 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.640 But David, so there's there's the analysts and the operator, 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.679 so the two core tribes. But there's another split, another 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.280 schism inside of the agency. And I want to know 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.000 which side you fall on. Were you dunkin Donuts or 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.600 were you Starbucks? There's two places to get coffee. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.560 That's right, That's right. You know what I I migrated 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:33.839 over the course of my career. I began as a 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:35.280 dunkin Donuts. 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.719 Man, made more money, went to Starbucks. 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.080 Yeah, exactly. And then once I made gs ten I started, 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.760 I went to Starbucks. It was Duncan to start, and 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.040 then it became Starbucks. Although I heard a rumor, I 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.280 wasn't there. A director at some point wanted to like 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.040 rip out the coffee stands, right, I don't know which one. 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.040 Our friends Rob Danberg wanted to do that. 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.800 He oh, Okay, yeah, yeah, get rid of them. But yeah, no, 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.840 I'm I became a Starbucks man as it went on, 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:04.720 and there were plenty of my analyst friends who probably 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.520 spent good portions of their days kind of like just 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:12.480 milling around the Starbucks writer having various like ostensible work 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.959 chats in the cafeteria or at the Starbucks that were 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:16.880 that were not. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.079 That's why he wanted to rip them out, because. 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.160 Yeah, exactly exactly the strength. 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.480 Let's talk about you for a second. I mean, really, 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.880 you have become quite popular both for your books, which 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.920 are high praise, but also this podcast, which is newer. 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.719 So which do you like better nowadays? The writing or 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:34.559 the podcasting. 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.720 Oh that's hard. I mean I enjoy both of them. 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.480 I think the writing is the central thing that that 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.920 I don't know, I will never I will never stop writing, 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:44.800 and I hope the podcast never stops. But kind of 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.080 the central piece of all of it's the books. But 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.240 Gordon and I having a ton of fun on the podcast, 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.959 and I see it as very like symbiotic with the 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.760 writing because it's an opportunity to go into spy stories 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.320 that I know some thing about and then actually go 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:03.920 deep and do the research to come up with kind of, 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:06.800 you know, the arc for a tour or four six 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.319 part series and and learn a whole bunch of stuff 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.480 that I don't I didn't otherwise know, and then frankly, 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.280 you know, try to find ways to work some of 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.480 that material into books if I can. And so kind 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:22.400 of going into real stuff and finding interesting characters or 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.800 situations is really fruitful. So I think the two things 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:26.480 really work well. 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:28.920 Again, fiction and John's war stories are pretty much the 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:29.280 same thing. 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.160 Yeah, yeah, there I was. It does be an igor. 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:35.520 Let's take a break. We'll be right back. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.480 So I want to I'm gonna endeavor to say something 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:54.000 good about. 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.520 Analysts, okay, And I know it's gonna be hard for you. 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.000 And it's and I'm going I want to get down 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.600 this rabbit hole. And this gets into conspiracies and conspiracy theories. 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.800 So one of the bigger ones is IRAQ w WEMD 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.680 and it's something that I have an indirect insight into, 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.360 and I imagine also you indirect through hearsay and so forth. 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.360 But my sense was it is billed as and on 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.760 permission to swear, because this is a big one. This 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:23.319 is like a huge agency fuck up. And I think 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.120 I'm not going to shy away from that, but I 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.400 think the real for me, in any case, the real 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:34.520 conspiracy here is that the Bush administration basically had decided 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:39.040 to go to war, and they built their own with 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.840 Doug Fife, they built their own intelligence service in the 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.760 Pentagon for a little while for two years to basically 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:48.160 prove that case and to throw out any evidence that 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.400 didn't support it. And then of course they went down 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.439 the road of Saddam and al Qaeda were very close, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.320 which was completely untrue. And then they said that, you know, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.920 they hooked into a whole host of scammers that claimed 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.240 that Saddam had this you know, curveball and all the 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:08.719 rest of this. And my understanding is that the analysts 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.240 who wouldn't go along with this were systematically weeded out, 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.600 you know, sort of pushed off to the side or 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.160 demoted or asked to move off, and that the analyst 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.960 at the end said, the evidence that we have indicates 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.480 that they likely do. There was sort of probability, I 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.440 don't know as high, medium, low, and the White I 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.880 said that's not good enough. And George Tennant, who I 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.360 think highly uncaved is my understanding, and he said, look, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.319 it's it's yes or no. There's no maybe's here. We're 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.160 going to war. Say yes or no, and you'd better 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.920 be friggin yes, right, And so they did they said yes. 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.760 And so the agency, through a conspiracy, has been stuck 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.120 with this has been pinned to us as a one 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.600 of our great failures. And I think it's you know, 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:54.719 the analysts are sort of at the center of this, 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.360 the pressures on them. So I'm wondering from where you sat, 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.160 from what you heard, you weren't involved in this. It's 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.800 your sense of pressure on analysts. And this goes today 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:07.080 with this administration to all sorts of things like you know, 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.480 where COVID came from and so forth. So I wonder 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:11.120 wonder if you could go into that. 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.720 Yeah, that's my understanding as well. The rock WMD story 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.559 is that it's a it is in some sense a 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:22.680 story about analytic failure, because at the time there wasn't 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.400 I actually don't think that there were embedded across the DII. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:31.040 There weren't sort of the the confidence statements and all 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:32.800 these kind of other and frankly, a lot of the 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.440 clarity around how good or bad or fragmentary or otherwise 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.560 the sourcing was like those were not as consistently embedded 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:45.000 in the assessments, and so it was easier in some ways, 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:50.079 I think, to sort of handwave maybe or for consumers 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.040 of the intel to take away different stories from what 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:57.040 they were reading. And a lot of the changes made, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.760 like just as I was joining, were to try to 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:04.080 like systematize the way that we communicated INTEL assessments and 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:06.280 to be very clear about what we knew and what 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:07.959 we didn't know and things like that. 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:08.360 You know. 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.840 The art of the story you told on Rock WMD, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.240 I think is a that's a particularly egregious example of 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.960 the politics kind of dipping in and dictating or really 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:25.520 influencing what the CIA puts down on paper. I think 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:31.000 the politicization of analysis, though it's rarely that easy. I 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.080 think to sort of go back and say that's exactly 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:34.960 what happened, I think a Rock WMD, because I mean 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.720 my understanding is that sometimes like there were NSC or 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.720 Pentagon or White House officials who would literally I mean 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.000 it came out to Langley on multiple occasions to like 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.720 basically sit with the analysts right and right and like 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:49.880 so I mean that's a lot of pressure right, and 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.040 to your point, like, if the decision has already been 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.600 made to do this, to go to war, I guess 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.160 becomes more of a political question for you know, the 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.280 director for the seventh floor to figure out how do 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.680 you not lose the trust of the White House, right 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.560 if they've already made the decision. But but yeah, I 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.600 mean the politicization pressure and sort of I guess the 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:15.280 risk is real and it is really I think hard 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.520 to it's not It shouldn't be hard for the line 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.520 analysts to navigate because they're the ones that are looking 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.680 at the stuff, and ideally they're being backed up the 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.440 chain by people who have an interest in like maybe corny, 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.640 but like, yeah, speaking the truth regardless of what the 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:35.720 politics are. But there's really many different ways that the 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.800 analysis can get politicized at different parts of the chain. 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.600 A lot of different people are touching it, and frankly, 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:47.200 stuff can get politicized by what's not written or what's 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:49.960 not reported into the White House or what doesn't get 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:56.840 read in the PDB. So brief yeah, yeah, so you know, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.960 it's a really and it's really subtle, I think, because frankly, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.920 the politicization could start with you know, someone who's editing 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.480 one of those pdbs just kind of softening some stuff 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.200 a little bit, or saying, is this really a moderate 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.840 confidence judgment? This seems more like a low confidence judgment 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.240 to me based on this definition, And that's more art 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.480 than science. And if something's a low confidence judgment, then 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.080 maybe it's you know, maybe it's not worth actually briefing 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.720 to the president period. And so it never makes, you know, 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.560 it never makes it into any kind of higher level 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.120 conversation down in the oval. So there's lots of different ways. 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:34.120 I mean, frankly, i'd be curious for your guys thoughts 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.720 on this, And you know, on the collection side, I'd 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.840 imagine there's plenty of ways that someone on the seventh 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.960 floor in the DdO shop could say on these three 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.200 or four topics, I want to see the stuff before 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:52.240 it gets descemnded. And you could decide, for any reason, 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.560 you kind of cook up maybe we don't descend this 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.200 kind of thing, and because it's gonna set off fireworks downtown, 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:01.600 and maybe I make up some stuff about how the 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.000 sourcing's bogus or whatever in order to justify it. So 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.359 there's a lot of different ways you could play around 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.240 with it. I think throughout the chain, right, I. 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.160 Think it's important to discuss what descend means, right. People 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.760 that may not realize this. So people like John and I, 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.080 we would collect the information from a source what it 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.800 just putatively get a human source. He gives us the information. 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:26.960 We don't like hand it to the president. We actually 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.359 hand it to a reports office or a CMO and 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.200 they take the information, decide how it's written up. Then 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:38.240 it goes to headquarters where they look at it again, 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.040 and then they descem it to whomever needs it, whoever 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.920 is in need to know, so to the analysts. And 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.400 there's always a danger that if that raw disseminated report 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.720 goes directly to the White House and it's wrong, or 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.320 if it's lanted, then you've got other problems. But so 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:57.560 that's the way it should go. But there's lots of 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.600 places to slip TwixT the it fixed the spoon in 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.080 the lip, right I mean, and not always to influence it. 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:06.560 But yeah, if you go to go back to the 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.639 WMD a rock WND problem, A lot of people have 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.160 gone back after the analysts for making a bad call there, 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.359 but frankly there was no good collection then either. So 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:19.560 it was a real intelligence failure. We had no good sources. Really, 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:22.080 we had a White House that decided they needed to 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:24.399 go to war, and we had no Americans living in 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.920 the country. We had no good sources, and the analysts 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.720 were being pressured to come up with an analytic judgment, 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.800 and I think they tried to use what would be logical. Well, 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.439 he had WMD before and he tried to hide it, 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.639 so we must be doing so again. And so it 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:40.360 was a real problem. And I think we've seen even 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:42.280 more recently. You talked about it in one of your 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:48.240 podcasts recently about the twenty twenty two invasion of Ukraine. 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:49.040 It seems in that. 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.600 Case we actually had good collection. We had some sort 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:55.119 of source or sources. They were telling us that Putin 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.600 was about to invade. But some of the analysis clearly 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.800 was wrong because we had information Putin was going to invade. 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.760 But then were the decision was what's going to happen next? 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.760 And essentially our analysts in some fashion must have told 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:09.879 the White House, well, Ukraine's gonna lose quickly, and so 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.159 you better get Lenski out of there, and that's not 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:12.840 what happened. 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:13.600 Someone had to. 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.400 Make a decision on how were the Ukrainians willing to fight, 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:20.080 and we obviously did not have good intelligence on that either. 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.960 And David, so you were involved a lot with Syria 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:25.640 that's reflected in your book. You were there for Prog 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:31.720 Prog Spring, Christ dates me for the Arab Spring. Spring 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:38.600 springs and people tend to think, in conspiratorial thinking that 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:43.760 the agency is omnipotent when things surprise us. So like 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.760 the Arab Spring, people tend to think that the agency 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.560 is involved in prophesying that we've got You guys have 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:51.880 a crystal ball. So I was wondering if you could 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.040 give us your senses an analyst of what we could 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:56.480 know about the Arab Spring. Right, a fruit seller gets 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.199 slapped in the world falls apart and then whether and 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.280 then more recent is like when a sad fell, like 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.040 everybody was like holy shit, I mean nobody predicted it. 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:07.919 So I just wondering if you could give folks a 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.480 sense of like how you guys are just as much 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.480 at sea as the rest of us, right, and it's 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.560 not a conspiracy to hide or that we've got all 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.040 this information. Yea, this information, we have all this power 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:19.320 that people assume we have. 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.320 I think that The way I would maybe frame it is, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:28.680 I think making a call on the eruption of mass 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:33.400 sort of popular uprising in the Middle East is a mystery. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.480 It is a sort of mass psychological phenomenon that is 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:42.800 inherently unpredictable and actually nobody is capable of predicting it. 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:48.840 Whereas does Saddam possess chemical, biological weapons whatever is a secret, 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.639