Because No One Else Can: Inside the Military Intelligence Secret Sausage Factory

“Because No One Else Can” is a textbook. But, some may want to read it as part textbook, part “Playbook,” part history book, part intelligence primer for the uninitiated and part Military Intelligence career memoir. This book is basically divided into three sections; Nicholson Sea Stories, the wisdom of some of the best analysts in the Intelligence Community as imparted in the Epilogue by “The Tribal Elders” and the Annexes; more than sixty Operational Plans, SOPs, Operational Security Templates, Memoranda, Concepts of Operation, Matrices and more. It is a guide for the young analyst or manager but also a “look inside” for those who know little of the Military Intelligence Community and always wanted a tour through the “Secret Sausage Factory” but were forbidden. In Post-9/11 America, everyone has a “need to know.” The author gives his views on how to reduce the military rape problem, his theory on what is behind the “Green-on-Blue” (“Insider”) deadly assaults on allied troops in Afghanistan, the SEAL book controversy, the outing of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame Wilson by a member of the Bush Administration and why Military Intelligence troops facing discharge in the post wars cut-backs could be retained and used in the “three wars” the United States is presently fighting within its own borders. In the Annexes there is a complete Report of Counterintelligence Survey conducted on a military base by a team supervised by the author. In the years leading up to 9/11 it was a nice-to-do, thorough security survey. Today, it should be a must do.” But, it is costly and labor intensive, which begs the questions: “How many are being done and how often? This book explains why today we are all in the intelligence business. The Intelligence Community – military, government and private - has got to be better than it ever has been before. Everybody had better start sharing. Elitism, exaggerated classification, agency pride and personal egos must be set aside. Otherwise, as a nation we may wind up “Secret Squirreling” ourselves out of business. For Intelligence Instructors the E-Book version offers special advantages: • The SOPs, CONOPs, OPLANs, templates and other material in the Annexes can be printed as a hand-outs for students or seminar attendees • The E-Book Kindle can be hooked up to an over-head projector for slide presentations to accompany a lecture • Graphics, such as the detailed line-and-block Intelligence Architecture charts showing how data flows into a major Intel unit and products flow out are readable and clear in every detail for projection or reproduction.

Lieutenant Colonel Jim Nicholson has served active and reserve in the US Marine Corps, US Army National Guard and the US Army Reserve. He did tours of duty as an Intelligence Officer in the Pentagon, Defense Intelligence Agency, US Central Command, US Forces Command, Joint Task Force-Six, Ft. Bliss, TX, two multi-agency counterdrug task forces, Central America, the Middle East and the Mexican Border. He has also worked as a police department intelligence analyst, private investigator, political field organizer and speech writer, investigative reporter, obituary writer, cement finisher, oil rig floor hand, truck dock worker and car salesman. Obviously, the man cannot hold a job.