Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11

The central premise of this remarkable book is that the intelligence failures that are associated with 9/11 and the failure of intelligence reform are both symptomatic of profound internal organizational flaws in CIA and the FBI (and by extension the other National Intelligence principals NSA, NGA, and DIA). The sub-premise is that both agencies were unable to adapt to the realities of a Post-Cold War world. This is a controversial premise because the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) generally denies that 9/11 was an intelligence failure and claims to have implemented major reforms. Zegart makes a persuasive argument that her premise is correct. Social scientist that she is, Zegart constructs a model to guide her analysis of both institutions. This model is based on what she identifies as three organizational characteristics common to both CIA and the FBI: structural fragmentation; dysfunctional cultural norms; and perverse incentive systems. She applies this model to both the institutions failure to adapt to 21st Century challenges and their failure to provide warning of the dreadful attacks of 9/11. Indeed Zegart notes that based on this model the intelligence record of both agencies wasn't very good during the Cold War either.In the course of developing her case Zegart provides the reader with a number of really useful concepts such as "change is not adaptation" and "rational boundaries." Although somewhat outside of the parameters of her model, Zegart also makes clear that the Defense Department and its allies in the congress also has contributed a good deal to failure of intelligence reform. Like her earlier book "Flawed by Design" Zegart has provided another perceptive and discouraging analysis of the U.S. national Security system.So is this an accurate and fair book? Well Zegart is a very careful scholar who has done an excellent job documenting her findings. She also appears to have maintained her objectivity and adherence to scientific standards of proof in the course of her analysis.And, for what it is worth, to this reviewer she seems to have correctly diagnosed a good part of what ails the U.S. Intelligence System.

This book is a good source for institutional challenge that the United States Intelligence Community faed with before and after 9/11 attacks. It is mainly based on the allegation that, if the opportunities had been seen and necessary measures had been taken, the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented. But, who knows? This book opens an institutional window to this multi-dimensional issue. On the other hand, it is very good at describing the obstacles created by bureaucracy.

While this book is educational it's a tough read. Very theoretic and as with most American national security books there's a slant bias towards "the American way of doing things". While the book provides a very theoretic yet educational stand point, it's quite light on the intricacies of how the National security environment actually works. It's focused on inefficiencies, yet taking an approach that glorify the Western approach to security as being the right way, discounting how interconnected the web might be. Decent read, I'd borrow this from a library instead.

Organizational change management is, at best, a quixotic struggle and, at worst, a hoax. Zegart explains why, in a dry, but well-documented, history of the FBI and CIA after 9/11.

It is a good book and easy to read and gives a good perspective between some of the issues dealing with the CIA and FBI that allowed the 9-11 attacks to take place.

Hopefully Dr. Zegart will be at the National Book Festival in DC on Saturday, September 29, 2007, so we can start a career-long conversation on her work . . . but in case she isn't . . . Here's one complaint, from a mostly satisfied reader:It has proven very difficult for the political science community to understand the organization theory community. Graham Allison tried in 1971, by contrasting the rational actor hyper-rational "Model I" (this porridge is too cold, Papa Bear), with the counterrational complex organizational processes "Model II" (this porridge is too hot, Mama Bear), before retreating to the safety of "pulling-and-hauling" of the political scientists in the bureaucratic politics "Model III" (this porridge is just right, Baby Bear). Even with Philip Zelikow's help in the 1999 second edition, the complex organizational processes chapter didn't progress very far.Meanwhile, though, in business schools around the world, Model II has been off to the races: Herbert Simon, James March, and Karl Weick lead a revolution that has gone so far into the science fiction future that Dr. Zegart's colleague at UCLA, Bill McKelvey, has become the Yoda of complexity theory in complex organizations. (Amy, Bill; Bill, Amy -- geez, why didn't you guys talk before this?) Dr. Zegart recognizes that businesses are under pressure to be high-performing systems, or they die; she recognizes that political systems are not under the same pressures; but she does not then draw the obvious conclusion that organization theorists in business schools know more about organization theory than political scientists in schools of government will ever be able to capture.I remember spending a long afternoon at a UC-Riverside classroom in summer of 2004 transcribing Dr. Zegart's testimony to the 9/11 Commission -- it was elegant, simple, but 15 years behind U.S. business schools' understanding of organization theories.In Dr. Zegart's defense, though, she is pulling a very heavy load in trying to get her political science brothers and sisters to invest more energy in organization theory and organization research. She feels that she is -- as she titles Chapter 2 of her book -- in "No Man's Land." Note to Dr. Zegart -- you are alone in No Man's Land because you assume that all knowledge about the U.S. national security community resides in political science journals.Here's where the battle line might be drawn in the Project for National Security [Management] Reform: Do we call the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs the "national security adviser" (e.g. Kissinger, Brzezinski, Rice) or the "national security manager" (e.g. Bundy, Scowcroft, Powell)? If we see the APNSA position as a mere stepping-stone to the way-cooler Thomas-Jefferson-like Secretary of State position, then the political scientists get to continue to "own" the topic of intelligence. If we see the APNSA position as the alter ego of the President who is able to knock the heads of SecDef and SecState together to force them to create complex solutions to complex problems, then the political scientists must yield the topic of intelligence to a larger group of academics and practitioners -- that might include business school professors in the Simon-March-Weick tradition.So, despite my wish that the book had been coauthored with a solid organization theorist (Bill Starbuck would have been perfect), I think Dr. Zegart's book will hold a solid position in my doctoral seminars on high reliability organizations for years to come: Cuban Missile Crisis, Three Mile Island Nuclear Incident, Tenerife Air Disaster, Mann Gulch Forest Fire, Bhopal Chemical Accident, Challenger Explosion, Black Hawk Shootdown over Iraq in 1994, Columbia Disintegration, West Nile Virus, and now -- in place of honor today -- "Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11."Hopefully Dr. Zegart has already started writing her third book -- with much more input from her organization theorist friends this time -- on the intelligence community's inability to influence the national security decision-making apparatus to make a better decision about what to do with Iraq in 2003.