TY - BOOK AU - Jervis,Robert TI - Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War T2 - Cornell Studies in Security Affairs SN - 9780801458859 U1 - 955.05/3 22 PY - 2010///] CY - Ithaca, NY PB - Cornell University Press KW - Intelligence service KW - United States KW - Evaluation KW - Case studies KW - Iraq War, 2003- KW - Military intelligence KW - Weapons of mass destruction KW - Iraq KW - Middle East Studies KW - Political Science & Political History KW - Security Studies KW - POLITICAL SCIENCE / Intelligence & Espionage KW - bisacsh KW - General KW - covert operations KW - covert surveillance KW - cyber security KW - deceptive tactics KW - defense KW - diplomacy KW - espionage techniques KW - espionage KW - foreign policy KW - government KW - homeland security KW - intelligence agencies KW - intelligence analysis KW - intelligence community KW - intelligence gathering KW - intelligence KW - national security KW - political science KW - surveillance N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; 1. Adventures in Intelligence --; 2. Failing to See That the Shah Was in Danger: Introduction, Postmortem, and CIA Comments --; 3. The Iraq WMD Intelligence Failure: What Everyone Knows Is Wrong --; 4. The Politics and Psychology of Intelligence and Intelligence Reform --; Notes --; Index; restricted access N2 - The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the mistaken belief that the regime of the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002. The Iran case is based on a recently declassified report Jervis was commissioned to undertake by CIA thirty years ago and includes memoranda written by CIA officials in response to Jervis's findings. The Iraq case, also grounded in a review of the intelligence community's performance, is based on close readings of both classified and declassified documents, though Jervis's conclusions are entirely supported by evidence that has been declassified. In both cases, Jervis finds not only that intelligence was badly flawed but also that later explanations—analysts were bowing to political pressure and telling the White House what it wanted to hear or were willfully blind—were also incorrect. Proponents of these explanations claimed that initial errors were compounded by groupthink, lack of coordination within the government, and failure to share information. Policy prescriptions, including the recent establishment of a Director of National Intelligence, were supposed to remedy the situation. In Jervis's estimation, neither the explanations nor the prescriptions are adequate. The inferences that intelligence drew were actually quite plausible given the information available. Errors arose, he concludes, from insufficient attention to the ways in which information should be gathered and interpreted, a lack of self-awareness about the factors that led to the judgments, and an organizational culture that failed to probe for weaknesses and explore alternatives. Evaluating the inherent tensions between the methods and aims of intelligence personnel and policymakers from a unique insider's perspective, Jervis forcefully criticizes recent proposals for improving the performance of the intelligence community and discusses ways in which future analysis can be improved UR - https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801458859 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780801458859 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780801458859/original ER -