A Critical Lesson not yet Learned in America: Intelligence Ethics Matter

Abstract

Introduction

Intelligence ethics matter because mistakes here can result in loss of thousands of innocent lives, and in worst cases to destruction of whole governments and their peoples. The Cold War swung as much on moral factors as political, economic or military, but bureaucracies learn slowly. Deep history shows that political hubris can bring any empire down.

When mistakes have such large potential consequences, accuracy is critical. The modern world must deal with diffuse terrorist and “failed state” threats, and complex, non-military threats to civilization like global warming, international crime and rogue financial entities that can ruin entire economies. Accuracy in complex problems requires close cooperation among intelligence systems, both national security and law enforcement focused. Close cooperation requires trust. When one intelligence entity in a cooperative system becomes immoral, corrupt or unreliable in protecting methods and sources, cooperation declines, accuracy declines, and somewhere down the line innocent people may suffer or even die.

Many examples could be considered, but a particularly relevant case is what happened before the United States of America attacked Iraq on 19 March, 2003. The causus belli alleged were aggressive weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in Iraq, with a secondary concern that Saddam Hussein was helping Al Qaeda. After many over 100,000 Iraqis were killed, the country laid waste, occupied and thoroughly searched, no WMDs were found. And Hussein had been hostile to Al Qaeda, not a friend. In the short space available, we will consider this case in detail.

Some have called this an “intelligence failure,” but most call it a policy failure blamed on intelligence agencies. Either way, the cost to the USA has been huge. Thousands of billions of dollars were wasted attacking Iraq, and thousands of US and allied troops were killed or gravely wounded. The costs to Iraq were relatively much larger. I will focus on how these costs reflect failures of ethics at the level of intelligence professionals who knew that bad things were being done for false reasons, but remained silent. That was the biggest ethical lapse for many of them. But do not forget the policy people who actually ordered this unjustified carnage, or the citizens like me who let them do it. In America we sacrificed a modest reputation of respect for rule of law, for due process, for human rights and for many other things like honest cooperation with allies as we rationalized these mortal sins that killed so many innocent others.

Cold War contests helped set the stage for this illegal and immoral war so we will comment on that also. But we begin with some specific lies that led to the deaths of perhaps a million people if all casualties were properly counted.