Intelligence Politicization Quotes

People in charge of intelligence are political as well.

It’s worth remembering that America has the toughest system of intelligence supervision in the world—way tougher than France, tougher than Germany. No one else has this combination of a court with judges who are not appointed by the government, who are appointed by the Supreme Court. You have congressional scrutiny—and it may well be that Congress is in different hands from the party that holds the White House—plus you have executive power in the White House. And then you have a very strong professional code within the NSA. What we have seen from the Nixon experience was this: when Nixon tried to politicise the CIA, trying to overrule it, trying to politicise the FBI, it ended in disaster. And I think that although the American record over the last 50 years certainly has some black spots, I would far rather live under the American system of intelligence oversight than I would under the French. So I think we should all learn from the American system and try and copy it.

After the heavily politicized 2007 Iran NIE, many of us in Congress found it hard to take some intelligence analysis at face value.

Dissenting analysts passionate about their positions are not unusual in the American intelligence community. Their presence - or even the rejection - of their favored positions is not prima face evidence of politicization.

Politicization led to an intelligence output that obscured understanding of al Qaeda’s sources of strength and support.

In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community’s own work was politicized.

If the intelligence we send forward support the views that the administration has, it is welcome and we are told what a great job it is. And if the intelligence that gos forward don't support the views of the policymakers, it is instantly condemned.

The Russians win when we allow our intelligence community to be politicized, when we allow political opposition research to function as a basis for a warrant to spy on American citizens.