Revolution in the Intelligence Agencies
Aman, ISA and Mossad have recently undergone a series of significant
organizational changes. What stands behind these major shifts?
Amir Rapaport 19/4/2014
http://www.israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=2872

Revolution in the Intelligence Agencies The IDF Military Intelligence
Directorate (Aman), Mossad and ISA have recently undergone far-reaching
changes. The most significant changes were introduced in the IDF Military
Intelligence Directorate, where almost 1,000 officers changed positions and
the organizational structure has been revolutionized.

This massive wave of changes is the result of the process known as the Arab
Spring and of a dramatic technological revolution.

“Today’s intelligence systematically misses the most significant historic
developments,” says a senior intelligence officer with respect to those
major changes. “In the era of the Internet and the social networks, events
take place at a mind-boggling pace. Processes that once took years are now
being concluded within days and even hours. However, beyond the regional
instability, the really fateful change, as far as the intelligence agencies
are concerned, has been a technological one. In the past, the primary
intelligence effort was SigInt (Signals Intelligence, based on the spotting
of electronic signals and monitoring of radio communication networks and
telephone lines). Today, no one uses telephones or radio transceivers
anymore. The enemy has evolved into an entity that is usually amorphous,
with no definite chain of command, and each independent intelligence
objective keeps a number of different cellular telephones which it uses to
send written messages through E-Mail, the social networks and WhatsApp, or
uses the Internet-based Skype network that offers basic encryption
capabilities. The entire concept and all of the resources should be revised
in order to keep on collecting SigInt in this day and age, and that is only
one example of the change.

“Generally, the intelligence community must adapt itself and provide
real-time information about Jihad organizations and arms transfers, but also
about enemy targets in caves and in urban areas – so that the information
may be handed over promptly and the targets may be ‘treated’ by
precision-guided munitions. The intelligence systems developed in order to
track and monitor any object within spaces that can be as large as dozens of
square kilometers are sometimes inconceivable. As a result of all this,
today’s intelligence is radically different even compared to the methods of
the last decade.”

One of the most significant changes made in the IDF Military Intelligence
Directorate has been the appointment of a new commander to the special
operations layout.

The new commander, A, had advanced through the ranks of Intelligence Unit
504, a specialist HumInt unit. He was placed in charge of a series of
elements which had thus far been subordinated directly to the Head of the
IDF Military Intelligence Directorate. This position did not exist before
and involves command of a substantial number of well-known and less
well-known units (the best known special units of the IDF Military
Intelligence Directorate are Sayeret Matkal and the technological R&D unit,
regarded as a sort of special operations laboratory, much like the workshop
headed by the “Q” character in the James Bond movies).

The new position augments the position of Head of the Operational Employment
Department, manned by a Brigadier-General, which came into effect about four
years ago. The Head of the Operational Employment Department serves as the
director of operations (G3) of the entire Intelligence Directorate.

Other officers at Brig. Gen. rank serving in the IDF Military Intelligence
Directorate include the commander of the prestigious 8200 SigInt & cyber
unit and the IDF Chief Intelligence Officer, Brig. Gen. Eli Ben-Moshe. The
standing orders prescribe that the IDF Chief Intelligence Officer serve as
the Directorate’s chief of staff in addition to his role as Chief Corps
Officer, in charge of the build-up of the force throughout the
Directorate/Corps.

Another recent change involves the fact that the IDF Military Intelligence
Directorate has significantly reduced a specific technological element
within the 9900 VisInt unit (the unit in charge of collecting visual
intelligence from surveillance satellites and other visual sensors). Instead
of that unit, a new technological unit has been established under command of
the IDF Chief Intelligence Officer’s HQ. The new unit is charged with
providing a standard technological infrastructure to all the various
intelligence elements, notably the SigInt unit, the VisInt unit, the special
operations units and the HumInt elements (Human Intelligence units that
employ human assets - agents).

At the same time, an additional colonel’s position was created for an
officer who would serve as the Intelligence Directorate’s director of
information systems, and hundreds of new positions were created for the IDF’s
fastest-growing activity – cyber warfare, whose offensive operations are the
responsibility of Unit 8200 (while the defensive operations are the
responsibility of the IDF C4I Directorate’s Lotem unit).

It should be noted that while all other IDF units face severe budget cuts
and massive layoffs (since the beginning of 2014, 1,000 regular
servicepersons left the IDF, and the total number of regulars to be laid off
is expected to reach 2,500 by the end of the year), the IDF Military
Intelligence Directorate is the only element enjoying additional budgets and
establishment expansions. In fact, the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate
is at the top of the scale of priorities of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon
and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz – even ahead of the IAF.

But are these changes and establishment expansions justified even in view of
the organizational upheaval and occupational instability they are causing?

A senior IDF intelligence officer said in response to this question that the
recent revolution is the outcome of a comprehensive program consolidated by
the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate over the last few years. The Head
of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, has
been leading this program.

The comprehensive program, designated “Ma’ase Aman” (A Work of Art, in
Hebrew) has recently reached its implementation stage. The program had been
developed at a series of workshops attended by hundreds of IDF and
Intelligence Directorate officers and endorsed, naturally, by the IDF
General Staff.

The objective of the program was to adapt the IDF Military Intelligence
Directorate to the dramatic changes that had taken place in the intelligence
world, and in addition to the recent changes outlined above, it included
revisions that were introduced last year, such as the establishment of a new
desk known as “The Regional Desk” at the IDF Intelligence Analysis Division.
The new desk deals with phenomena that had not existed in the past, like the
process of Islamization and the massive presence of Jihad combatants in the
region. The IDF Military Intelligence Directorate also led a comprehensive
program known as IBW (Intelligence Based Warfare), whose objective was to
deliver tactical intelligence all the way down to the tactical echelon,
namely – the platoon engaged in combat on the ground.

However, the crown jewel of the changes included in the “Ma’ase Aman”
process was a program designated “Network Intelligence”, in the context of
which all of the elements of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate,
which were almost totally isolated from one another, should communicate.
Later on, the same would be applied to all branches of the IDF in the
context of a program endorsed by the Chief of Staff and designated
“Networked IDF”.

So, instead of the previous breakdown into different intelligence
activities, where each field of activity had developed its own systems, an
“infrastructure layer” and an “application layer” were established
throughout the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, so that all of the
elements within the Directorate may communicate with one another on the
basis of the same database and through a standard network and the same
computer application.

Mossad & ISA

Substantial organizational changes have taken place within the other
intelligence agencies of the State of Israel, ISA (Israel Security Agency)
and Mossad.

At ISA, the most important, most significant change was concluded last year
and included a substantial reinforcement of the cyber activities in the
context of a cyber-SigInt division. ISA had recruited extensively for its
cyber activities, and is currently regarded as one of the leading agencies
in this field – as it is the agency in charge of securing all national
infrastructure and utility systems.

The Mossad has also adapted itself to the era of cyber warfare. The world
media attributed numerous cyber warfare operations to this agency, including
the attack against the Iranian nuclear reactors using the Stuxnet computer
virus.

The Mossad has undergone an organizational upheaval in recent years.
Pursuant to the retirement of former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, not less than
three division heads left the organization as well, including the heads of
two of the primary divisions, Tevel and Caesarea. The transition of Yossi
Cohen, formerly the deputy chief of Mossad, to the position of Chairman of
the National Security Council in late 2013 also generated serious
shockwaves.

Cohen was regarded within the agency as a natural-born operative. His
replacement, N, came from the technical division and his recent appointment
as deputy chief has not gone down very well.

Above all, the agency is currently coping with yet another structural change
led by Mossad chief Tamir Pardo. In the context of this change, the agency’s
staff is being reinforced and responsibilities that were once the exclusive
domain of the operational divisions are being assigned to it. This change,
too, is not going down without internal opposition – and that’s putting it
mildly.

Within the Mossad there is a general sense of cutbacks after the years under
Meir Dagan, during which the agency had grown substantially. Pardo is not
interested in expanding the agency.

Does that mean that the agency will become less productive with regard to
its intelligence and operational yields, or that it will become stagnant? It
is too early to tell.

One thing is certain, though: the relations between Israel’s three
intelligence agencies – the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, ISA and
Mossad – are the best ever. In the past there were times when the heads of
these agencies were actually hostile to each other, but that is not the case
at present, possibly under the influence of the era of infinite information,
where the different organizations have no choice but to cooperate in order
to elicit significant snippets of information from the countless texts and
signals running through the web.