Intelligence agencies must work together in terrorism battle

U.S. intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq failed because policy makers did not know how little information the government actually had, said a former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and U-M provost.

Intelligence officials succeeded in understanding Libya's WMDs, however, because government agencies cooperated with each other in that investigation, said Charles Vest, who delivered the Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture Oct. 12 in the Michigan Union Ballroom.

Vest discussed "Improving the U.S. Intelligence Community—Lessons from Iraq, Libya, and Elsewhere," highlighting his experience on the Robb-Silberman Commission on Intelligence and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

President Bush appointed the commission in February 2004 to examine the capabilities of the U.S. intelligence community and to collect information about the activities of foreign powers and their potential use of WMDs.

The commission, which presented a 600-page report March 31, indicated in a letter to the president that the intelligence community was wrong in all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's possession of WMDs.

"While the intelligence services of many other nations also thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, in the end it was the United States that put its credibility on the line, making this one of the most public—and most damaging—intelligence failures in recent American history," the commission wrote.

The report contained 74 recommendations, including giving the director of national intelligence the power—and backing—to match his responsibilities, and bringing the FBI fully into the intelligence community

To combat 21st century terrorist threats, members of the intelligence community must integrate and share information with one another, the president and senior policy makers, Vest said.

"Intelligence reports to policy makers should always be framed to state what we know and how we know it, what we don't know, and what we think and why we think it," said Vest, who currently is the Towsley Policymaker in Residence at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Vest served as dean of the College of Engineering from 1986-89, and provost and vice president for academic affairs from January 1989-August 1990. He retired as MIT president in 2004 after 14 years in the post.

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