In defence of the intelligence services

The committees of inquiry into American and British intelligence failures may have left the West less secure, argues Efraim Halevy, an ex-chief of Mossad

Jul 29th 2004|jerusalem

WHEN commissions of inquiry investigate intelligence failures of extraordinary magnitude, their conclusions inevitably have an overwhelming influence on the conduct of intelligence chiefs and their political masters for generations to come. Whatever the practical steps taken by the powers-that-be to implement this or that recommendation of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the September 11th commission, and the British committee headed by Lord Butler, the language and rhetoric of these documents are destined to have an enormous impact on the manner in which world leaders, both in intelligence and in politics, will perform in times of crisis and war. Several assumptions and concepts, implicit or explicit in the reports, warrant close study.

This article appeared in the By Invitation section of the print edition under the headline “In defence of the intelligence services”