You’re an Iraqi soldier under Saddam. A plain grunt. You get some rudimentary training, a well-used rifle, barely serviceable uniform and in the face of the world’s most powerful military are abandoned by your superiors in a desperate attempt to save their own skins. You’re taken prisoner, quickly debriefed and just as quickly demobilized. A…

In grad school it was driven into our heads that your average juror was only going to have the equivalent of an eight-grade education and we had to consider that heavily when preparing testimony. Clever but simple analogies worked well because they were things almost anyone could “get.” What to make then of the mental…

Update: Really, really last chance . . . Before the sentence comes down hit the GroupIntel forums and help predict the fallout from the Moussaoui trial. Sign up if you are not already a member (use an alias if you like, we don’t spam or sell or otherwise abuse your trust). Help prove that none…

Former DDI Gannon provides testimony to Congress about domestic intel issues. An important recommendation: […] if the FBI is to remain the agency of choice in developing a domestic intelligence capability, it will need much stronger and clearer direction and much closer oversight from the Executive and Legislative branches on the much bigger and faster…

I learned of NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller’s WSJ letter on the radio this afternoon. Not to sound like a broken record, but I am left (almost) speechless that this is what passes for an argument on national security issues. Mr. Keller laments that anyone would call the actions of his kind political. I’ll leave…

I, ah . . . heh heh, yeah . . . I don’t know what to say about this. Reads like yellow rag, but as many former colleagues like to say: “I don’t believe in coincidences.” Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but if a quarter of it is true, we’re in a world…

A very good report in USN&WR on how not to improve domestic intelligence. I will not quote extensively here because it deserves your full attention. The gist is that we’re pouring money down a black hole for dubious results. Not that this is news when homeland security funds is concerned, but the fact that it…

As if on cue, the WaPo addresses the validity (or not) of the polygraph: The CIA, the FBI and other federal agencies are using polygraph machines more than ever to screen applicants and hunt for lawbreakers, even as scientists have become more certain that the equipment is ineffective in accurately detecting when people are lying.…

(Note: An earlier version of this post ran back in February and it seems appropriate to re-run in light of recent events. I’ve fattened it up in a few places and retooled it lightly. A bad idea? Not really. Impractical? Possibly. A meaningful exercise? Most certainly.) That senior members of our intelligence community (IC) play…

Able Danger blog points out an interesting development.