Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy

Whether from satellites or spies, weapon caches or phone records, intelligence is valuable to governments for the information and power it affords policy makers. With the constant need for background, context, and warning as well as an assessment of risks, benefits, and likely outcomes, the intelligence community plays a pivotal role in policy formation. As an intelligence veteran of 30 years, having worked both inside and outside of government, Mark M. Lowenthal details how the intelligence community's history, structure, processes, and functions affect policy decisions in consequential ways. He expertly shows how the intelligence process serves a continually changing agenda given post-9/11 needs and concerns. Moreover, he analyzes how the war on terrorism impacts collection, analysis, and counterintelligence, as well as ethical and moral standards.

Given all of the hearings, briefings, and reports focused on the reorganization and reform of the intelligence community, the third edition of Intelligence represents a major revision. Lowenthal has updated each and every chapter with new material and analysis, including:

• the strategies, influence, and goals of the congressional Joint Inquiry and 9/11 Commission and their recommendations for restructuring the intelligence community
• assessment of the new office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the political pressures that led to its creation
• the bureaucratic maneuvering and power struggles that led to passage of the National Intelligence Security Reform Act of 2004
• the issues surrounding the claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and the subsequent "WMD commissions" appointed by the U.S., Britain, and Australia to investigate this massive intelligence failure
• more integration and comparative analysis of the similarities and differences of intelligence services in Britain, China, France, Israel, and Russia
• a new list of acronyms for handy reference

Mark M. Lowenthal has thirty years of experience as an intelligence official in the executive and legislative branches of government and in the private sector. He retired from government service in 2005 after serving for three years as the assistant director of central intelligence for analysis and production and vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council for Evaluation. Dr. Lowenthal is the president and CEO of the Intelligence & Security Academy, LLC, a national security education, training and consulting firm. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University.