Handbook of intelligence studies / edited by

INTRODUCTION
together, analysts estimated with a high degree of confidence that the factory was manufacturing
chemical weapons. This intelligence led the Clinton administration to attack the
facility with cruise missiles. In response, the Sudanese government denounced the United
States and claimed that it had gone to war against an aspirin factory. The CIA stuck with its
original assessment, but did acknowledge that detective work of this kind is difficult and
imprecise. “The turning of a few valves can mean the difference between a pharmaceutical
company and a chemical or biological plant,” said the agency’s leading proliferation specialist. 7
The failure of the CIA to anticipate the Indian nuclear test in 1998 is also instructive.
America’s intelligence agencies were well aware that the Indians intended to accelerate their
nuclear program. After all, this is what top-level party officials had been saying publicly
throughout the Indian election season. Even the average tourist wandering around India in the
spring of that year, listening to the local media, would have concluded that a resumption of
the program was likely. What surprised the intelligence agencies was how fast the test had
taken place. It was “a good kick in the ass for us,” admits a senior CIA official. 8 In part the
miscalculation was a result of what a CIA inquiry into the matter, led by retired Admiral David
Jeremiah, referred to as “mirror imaging.” Agency analysts assumed that Indian politicians were
just like their American counterparts: both made a good many campaign promises, few of
which were ever kept. To win votes for boldness, Indian politicians in the victorious party (the
BJP) had promised a nuclear test; now that the election hoopla was over, surely they would back
away from this rash position. Such was the thinking at the CIA.
Further clouding accurate analysis by CIA analysts were successful efforts by officials in India
to evade America’s spy satellites. The Indians knew exactly when the satellite cameras would
be passing over the nuclear testing facility near Pokharan in the Rajasthan Desert and, in
synchrony with these flights (every three days), scientists camouflaged their preparations.
Ironically, US officials had explicitly informed the Indian government about the timing of
US satellite coverage for South Asia, in hopes of impressing upon them the futility of trying to
conceal test activity. Even without this unintended assistance, though, the Indians could have
figured out the cycles for themselves, for even amateur astronomers can track the orbits of spy
satellites.
Moreover, the Indians had become adroit at deception, both technical and political. On the
technical side, the ground cables normally moved into place for a nuclear test were nowhere to
be seen in US satellite photographs of the site. The Indians had devised less visible ignition
techniques. The Indians also stepped up activities at their far-removed missile testing site in an
attempt to draw the attention of spy cameras away from the nuclear testing site. On the political
side, Indian officials expanded their coordinated deception operation by misleading American
and other international diplomats about the impending nuclear test, offering assurances that it
was simply not going to happen.
Finally, a dearth of reliable intelligence agents (“assets”) contributed to the CIA’s blindness.
During the Cold War, spending on techint far outdistanced spending on old-fashioned
espionage, known as human intelligence or “humint.” A strong tendency exists among those
who make budget decisions for national security to focus on warheads, throw weights, missile
velocities, and the specifications of fancy spy satellites – things that can be measured. Humint, in
contrast, relies on the subtle recruitment of foreign agents, whose names and locations must be
kept highly secret and are not the subject of budget hearings. Yet, Ephraim Kam has emphasized
the importance of humint. An adversary’s most important secrets, he notes, “often exist in the
mind of one man alone.. . or else they are shared by only a few top officials.” 9 This kind of
information may be accessible only to an intelligence officer who has recruited someone inside
the enemy camp.
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