re: US Intelligence Community Strengths and Weaknesses

HUMINT is definitely our biggest weakness, and that's because it relies primarily on people for data. Working sources or simply buying off informants only yields so much because people lie. In Iraq and Afghanistan, this is particularly true. When we talked to those people, we always began with the assumption that everything they said was a lie, and worked from there. It didn't matter if they had been paid, if they had been threatened, or anything else. They'll lie just to do it.

It's very difficult to build from that, and it takes time just to build a reliable framework. HUMINT is clearly useful, but in my experience is really only valuable when corroborated against other forms of intelligence collection.

Intel gained from technology is far superior. While it's true that subjective analysis is introduced, the data doesn't rely on people and isn't politically driven. The methods humans use to communicate today obviously influence this as well.

The problems we see with intelligence are introduced at a higher level than actual intelligence professionals. Politicians with an intelligence background have their masters to serve, and the world goes round...