COLUMN | The Dysfunctional National Intelligence System

It is time to be honest and seek to have good and timely intelligence. The state of our national security, particularly public security, can no longer tolerate ignorance about what is happening or where we are headed.

I asked Google what an unstructured system is called, and the answer was a dysfunctional system. That is exactly what we have in Chile: a dysfunctional national intelligence system that, therefore, does not operate correctly or according to its design.

It may sound harsh to say it is a dysfunctional system, but that is what it is. It is a system that is no more than the sum of its components, but where, additionally, the components do not necessarily act in a coordinated and related manner, despite being legally obligated to do so; they do not operate under a common direction that tells them what to do and coordinates efforts, even though there is one that supposedly should do so; and finally, it lacks a structure and relationships that function, making its organization and operation difficult.

Our dysfunctional national intelligence system is composed of the National Intelligence Agency (ANI), the Defense Intelligence Directorate, the intelligence directorates of each of the Armed Forces and police, as well as the Gendarmerie. The ANI is legally responsible for coordinating the functioning and operation of this national system through an intelligence committee.

According to Law 19.974 of 2004, which created the national intelligence system and the ANI: “The State’s intelligence system is the set of intelligence agencies, independent from one another, functionally coordinated, that direct and execute specific intelligence and counterintelligence activities, to advise the President of the Republic and the various higher levels of State leadership, with the aim of protecting national sovereignty and preserving constitutional order, and that also formulate useful intelligence assessments for achieving national objectives. The agencies that make up the System, without prejudice to their dependence and duties to their respective higher commands, must relate to each other through the exchange of information and mutual cooperation established by this law and the legal framework.”

So far, everything is fantastic with the law; it sounds logical and well-structured, with one caveat: what is said should happen does not occur in practice, and on the other hand, the staffing of the ANI is set at fewer than 100 officials, who originally came from its predecessor and are not necessarily specialists in intelligence.

Why is the issue of quantity and specialization important? Because a system must not only be well-defined and structured but also have sufficient and appropriate resources to perform its work correctly and produce the expected results. For example, the equivalent of the ANI in Argentina is 15 times larger, and in Spain, it is 50 times larger.

It is hard to understand the fascination some have for solving national intelligence problems through a new intelligence law, as if we could legally compel better coordination or that the existence of new committees and coordinating authorities would lead to better functioning or resolve the problems that the system has so far been unable to address or eliminate for it to operate correctly.

Our dysfunctional system lacks four very simple things: an office with real authority over the system; common objectives and purposes that compel the system to function as a non-dysfunctional entity; absence of dependency relationships and connections of the components with the central authority; and finally, the necessary resources to operate effectively, achieving results.

The above does not require a law; a presidential decree would suffice. Obviously, if you ask the Legislative Power, it will recommend a new law to correct the previous one, but in the case of the national intelligence system, the issue does not need a new law, except regarding modifying the staffing levels, which obviously with 100 is not what we need.

The United States went through a situation of ineffectiveness in its intelligence system at the beginning of this millennium. Despite having multiple intelligence agencies, they were unable to anticipate the event known as 9/11, which led to the creation in 2004 of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which seeks to ensure that the sum of the 18 agencies dedicated to the issue functions as a system, which is the American equivalent of our ANI, coincidentally created in the same year as the DNI.

Recently, they have announced actions to make their DNI more effective and, on the other hand, more efficient in terms of resource use. After a little over 20 years, they have concluded that the DNI has not achieved the expected results, but for it to be effective, it will not necessarily go through its two legislative chambers. They will work on it from a process engineering perspective. They will see what needs to be done for the system to function well.

The main problem they have in the United States, or that we have, lies in the fact that each component of the intelligence system wants to maintain its independence. In our case and that of the Americans, those related to defense or police institutions want to maintain their relationship with their parent institutions, unwilling to cede their freedom for the benefit of the system as a whole. This makes the work of the DNI in the USA, or of the ANI in Chile, very complex.

Other countries resolve this by providing very large staffing to their central intelligence and counterintelligence organizations, which is an effective but not efficient solution, as they duplicate the work done by the Armed Forces, police, and prison organizations.

Chile is clearly not in a position to finance solutions that are both effective and inefficient, so we must reduce the independence of the components, seeking to have a national agency that, apart from having a staffing of more than 100 qualified individuals in the field, for coordination and effectiveness only needs to relate to one that oversees intelligence and counterintelligence in the defense realm, another in police matters, and one related to prisons and what occurs within them. It is time to make the system simpler and more functional.

Surely many will not like the above, but what does it matter: it is time to be honest and seek to have good and timely intelligence. The state of our national security, particularly public security, can no longer tolerate ignorance about what is happening or where we are headed.