[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Was American analysis and assessment of ISIS also
handicapped by Mr. Obama's ideological insistence that Islam is in its
entirety a religion of peace? President Obama ultimately came up with a
compromise "patch" to this position in his UNGA address, by adding
"so-called" to his description of the position of radical Islamic clerics -
thus engaging in circular logic: since Islam is in its entirety a religion
of peace (as, he assets, are all religions) anyone adhering to radical Islam
is actually professing a false Islam. ]
The Rise of the Islamic State: The Strategic Surprise
INSS Insight No. 615, October 13, 2014
Ephraim Kam .
http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=7860

SUMMARY: It was only a matter of time before the debate began about who was
responsible for the failed strategic assessment about the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Less than a year ago, few people knew about ISIS and
the risks it represented. Suddenly, within just a few months, ISIS leads the
list of threats of a long line of nations, beginning with the United States,
and is considered a threat so severe that exceptional steps must be taken in
order to confront it. The US intelligence community will likely continue to
find it difficult to confront ISIS. It will presumably learn from its
mistakes and improve its intelligence coverage, but ISIS will remain a tough
nut to crack. It is hard to penetrate an ideologically motivated
organization like ISIS due to the compartmentalization characteristic of
such a sealed outfit. It melts in with the population, making it difficult
to identify operatives, and leaves a very low signature and few discernible
targets.

It was only a matter of time before the debate began about who was
responsible for the failed strategic assessment about the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Less than a year ago, few people knew about ISIS and
the risks it represented. Suddenly, within just a few months, ISIS leads the
list of threats of a long line of nations, beginning with the United States,
and is considered a threat so severe that exceptional steps must be taken in
order to confront it. ISIS’ dramatic rise to success, the threat it
emanates, the shock aroused by its cruelty, and the sense that fighting it
is liable to take a long time have all led to the inevitable accusations,
especially in the United States, about why ISIS’ capabilities were not
properly assessed and who is to blame.

President Obama contributed his share to the debate by placing the blame on
the US intelligence community. Obama claimed that Gen. James Clapper,
Director of National Intelligence, and as such, the most senior figure of
the intelligence community, confirmed that intelligence underestimated the
importance of the developments in Syria, which had created a governing
vacuum attracting jihadists from all over the world, ultimately resulting in
Iraq’s disintegration. The President added that the Iraqi army’s ability to
fight Sunni extremists had been exaggerated.

The US intelligence community did not take this lying down. Current and
veteran senior unidentified figures within the intelligence community
asserted that since the end of 2013 warnings were issued indicating the
rising threat posed by jihadists, but these warnings commanded insufficient
attention from the administration, which believed this was a local,
containable problem. According to intelligence sources, since early 2014,
especially after ISIS assumed control of Fallujah, 40 km west of Baghdad,
growing numbers of warnings pointed to ISIS as an increasingly powerful
force in Iraq’s north and west that was liable to expand its influence over
the country as a whole, with Iraqi forces hard pressed to cope with the
threat. According to these sources, the administration avoided taking any
serious action other than increasing aid to the Iraqi army, because it didn’t
want to be drawn into another war in Iraq. Some say that the administration
was more concerned with the risk to Western nations posed by jihadists’
return to Europe than with the situation in Iraq itself. Some politicians
also claimed that ISIS’ growing strength was not the result of an
intelligence failure but rather a policy failure, specifically, a lack of
understanding of the connection between the situations in Syria and in Iraq
and the failure to take action against jihadists in Syria and prevent their
progress in Iraq.

Absent credible documents and other evidence, the debate cannot be settled
at this time, but the truth is likely to be found somewhere in the middle.
In February 2014, in unclassified testimony before the Senate Armed Forces
Committee, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Director of the Defense Iraqi and Syrian
territory, as in fact occurred in Fallujah, and maintain strongholds in
Syria. But, Flynn said, ISIS’ ability to control the area would depend on
its resources, local support, and the response of the Iraqi security forces
and Syrian opposition groups. Flynn also estimated that most Sunnis
apparently oppose ISIS actions and ideology, but some Sunni tribes are
cooperating with ISIS in response to the Iraqi government’s hostile attitude
toward them.

In other words, at least four months before ISIS’ major breakthrough in Iraq
and its capture of Mosul in June 2014, the DIA did warn that ISIS would try
to seize control of more Iraqi areas. Nonetheless, the assessment also
seemed to show that the DIA did not foresee the collapse of the Iraqi army
or the speed with which ISIS would sweep through Iraq, and may not have
properly understood the connection between ISIS strongholds in Syria and
Iraq, which helped ISIS succeed in Iraq.

Beyond finger-pointing, several reasons can be cited for the flawed
assessment. First, intelligence gathering was severely hampered. While US
forces were on Iraqi soil, starting in 2003, US intelligence agencies built
an outstanding intelligence structure, based mostly on SIGINT, visual
intelligence, and a large network of HUMINT. Once the US left Iraqi soil at
the end of 2011, many of these capabilities were lost. The Iraqi government
did not sign an agreement with the United States that would have allowed US
forces to maintain a physical army presence in Iraq, helpful also in terms
of intelligence gathering. Consequently, the intelligence community had no
way of providing credible, detailed information about ISIS’ planned attacks,
targets, and timing. Even after ISIS’ successes, when the severity of the
threat posed by the organization was clear, the intelligence community found
it difficult to provide high quality intelligence about the organization’s
manpower, military and financial capabilities, leadership, and planned
targets for attack.

Second, a significant portion of ISIS’ success stemmed from the Iraqi
security forces’ weakness and lack of determination, qualities not
sufficiently appreciated in time. The common assessment was that the Iraqi
security forces couldn’t defend Iraq against an external hostile army but
could be relied on to confront internal threats, including armed militias.
At the basis of this expectation lay the assumption that the size of the
Iraqi forces – some 650,000 military and police personnel – and the serious
efforts made by the United States in constructing them over some six years
would be enough to maintain internal security. It is unclear whether the
intelligence community or any other party in the United States was placed in
charge of reviewing the effectiveness of these forces’ performance; in any
case, the United States seems not to have had a clear idea how they would
function when push came to shove.

Finally, assessing developments in Iraq and ISIS successes was by definition
extremely difficult. Intelligence researchers and decision makers try to use
their country’s and region’s history and personal experience as touchstones
for assessing new phenomena. But in the case of ISIS, history does not help.
There is no precedent, at least in the Middle East, of a relatively small
terrorist organization seizing control of vast tracts of land while quickly
crushing a military force built and trained to confront it. And history can
be misleading. When US forces left Iraq in 2011, al-Qaeda in Iraq was in
dire straits thanks to the serious damage wrought by the coalition since
2007; one might assume this would be the fate also of its successor.
Moreover, despite the difficult internal situations of both Iraq and Syria
and their territorial contiguity, the two nations had been separate entities
for decades, and it was hard to predict the relationship that would form
among jihadist organizations operating in both, a relationship that played a
key role in moving ISIS forces from one to the other while in effect
obliterating the shared border.

Information is likewise not always useful. Even had there not been a loss of
intelligence sources in Iraq, it would have been difficult to arrive at a
correct assessment on ISIS’ rapid success. In such cases there is no hard
evidence that could predict what was likely to happen. At best, the
intelligence community may have attained high quality intelligence on ISIS’
intentions, but that would hardly have been enough to determine the extent
and speed with which the organization realized its goals, if at all, because
these depended on the capabilities and determination of its enemies,
material resources on hand, and backing from potential supporters.

The US intelligence community will likely continue to find it difficult to
confront ISIS. It will presumably learn from its mistakes and improve its
intelligence coverage, but ISIS will remain a tough nut to crack. It is hard
to penetrate an ideologically motivated organization like ISIS because of
the compartmentalization characteristic of such a sealed outfit. It melts in
with the population, making it difficult to identify operatives, and leaves
a very low signature and few discernible targets. Moreover, the US
intelligence community is concerned that the revelations by Edward Snowden,
the former NSA agent, disclosed some of the agency’s eavesdropping abilities
and therefore terrorist organizations such as ISIS are more on guard than
ever against intelligence penetration.