When the furious mob was about to storm the sultan’s palace, the wazir’s agents spread therumor that wheat was being distributed for nothing at the town gate. The mob forgot the palaceand ran to the gate.
Suddenly the wazir jumped up and started to run. “Where are you going?” the sultan cried, “Youknow that there is no wheat!”
“Who knows?” retorted the wazir, “Maybe there is?”
I was reminded of this story by the recent turn of events in America. After long months ofsheepish silence, since September 11, during which all the US media marched in lockstepbehind the President (much like the Israeli media behind Sharon), critical voices started tobe heard. Where had the intelligence agency been? Could they have known in advance what wasabout to happen? Are they guilty of a monumental failure? Who is responsible? Only theagencies, or the President, too?
Bush did not like it at all. When his people realized that this was going to come to a head, theagencies discovered a horrible new conspiracy: the cruel enemy was planning to exploderadio-active bombs in the US. They even discovered the frightful bomber: a littlestreet-punk of Hispanic origin, who was about, at any moment, to commit this trulysophisticated outrage.
The nation was seized by hysteria, the media and the Congress again stood to attention.Perhaps there was even some truth in the story. As the wazir said: Who knows? Maybe there is?
In the meantime, the failures of the intelligence agencies were put in the freezer again. Butone cannot suppress the fact for long. The US isn’t Israel, the media there are not used togoose-stepping and to licking the posterior of the people in power.
So what did the CIA and the FBI know? If they already had in their possession a multitude ofsuspicious facts, why did they not draw the obvious conclusions? Why did they no warn, takepreventive steps, inform the leadership?
It reminded me of another episode, one that was quite different – and yet astonishinglysimilar.
After the 1973 Yom-Kippur war, the Chief-of-Staff, General David (“Dado”) Elazar, wasrelieved of his office. A Commission of Inquiry declared that he bore the main responsibilityfor the failure to mobilize the reserves and to move the troops to the front in time, a failurethat enabled the Egyptians and Syrians to take the initiative and make significant advancesat the beginning of the war.
Some months later Dado invited me to his home. He was suffering from severe mental stress,convinced that a terrible injustice had been done to him. How could he be held responsible forthe failure, if the army intelligence department (known by its Hebrew acronym, AMAN) hadhidden from him, before the war, all the information that had accumulated in it’s files?
What information? Sitting next to him, I listened with growing amazement when he enumeratedsome of the items that had come to the knowledge of AMAN at the time. For example: that anEgyptian army Mufti (Muslim chaplain) instructed the soldiers of his unit that from the nextmorning the Ramadan fast must be broken. Since the Ramadan fast is one of the five cardinalcommandments of Islam, this by itself should have lit a giant red light in AMAN.
The intelligence department had a lot of such items. An Egyptian submarine at sea was orderedto observe absolute radio silence from a certain hour on. An Egyptian soldier used thewireless to take leave of his brother in another unit with the Muslim blessing reserved forbelievers who are facing death. And so on…
What had happened to all these items of information? Nothing. They were buried in the files.Why? Because the chief of AMAN, Elie Za’ira, was absolutely sure that the Egyptians would notdare to attack the mighty IDF. He believed that their movements were a big bluff, designed toexert pressure on the Israeli government. All the pieces of information received fell intothe black hole of this preconceived idea (called in Hebrew “Conceptsia”, a word that becamefamous at the time.) They were not brought to the knowledge of the Chief-of-Staff, andtherefore did not reach the Minister of Defense, Moshe Dayan, or the Prime Minister, GoldaMeir.
(Only Little Me had warned Golda in a Knesset speech, some months before that, that theEgyptians would attack, even if they were convinced that they would be beaten. Golda’sabsolute refusal to respond to Sadat’s peace signals had caused a complete political freeze.The Egyptian were certain that a military attack, even a failed one, would break the ice.)
The Yom Kippur failure smashed the myth of Israeli invincibility and changed the situation inthe Middle East. But it was not a unique occurrence. Far from it. Much the same thing happened tothe Russians on the eve of the Nazi invasion (“Operation Barbarossa”), when Sovietintelligence had received in time exact details of the impending attack, including date andhour. Nearly the same thing happened to the Americans at Pearl Harbor. The list is long. Why didthis happen to them? Where (as you say in Hebrew) is the dog buried?
I have pondered about our 1973 failure for years. What had caused an intelligent officer likeZa’ira (no pun intended, I don’t think that “army intelligence” is necessarily an oxymoron)to stick to his “conceptsia”, even when before his very eyes the Egyptian offensive wasunfolding? Was it only intellectual arrogance, as some believed?
In Israel, the chief of AMAN has immense power. He is the only person to submit to the politicalleadership the “national situation evaluation”, which to a large extent dictatesgovernment policies. In theory, he is an a-political soldier, and his evaluations aresupposed to be totally “professional”.
But is this really so? In every country and under every regime, the chief of intelligence knowsthat his career depends on the political bosses. Consciously or unconsciously, he adaptshimself to the concepts of the leader – be he a ruthless dictator or a democratic PrimeMinister.
After the Six-Day War Golda and Dayan led a nation intoxicated by victory. They did not dream ofgiving up any of the conquered territories. For this purpose, they spread contempt for theArabs, the feeling that Arabs were vastly inferior, that one could safely ignore them. “Thereis no such thing as a Palestinian people,” Golda pronounced, and Dayan made jokes about theArab armies. The army intelligence chief just adapted himself and turned this into the”Conceptsia”.
Stalin was not ready to admit that his agreement with Hitler was a historic mistake.Therefore, he threatened to send to Siberia any intelligence officer who brought him reportsabout the impending Nazi attack. The Americans made fun of the “little yellow fellows” andFranklin Roosevelt thought that he could provoke them with impunity.
Intelligence people hear their masters’ voices and deliver the goods. Always. Much as thepresent Israeli intelligence chief supplies Sharon with the evaluations proving thatArafat is a villain and also quite irrelevant. These are leaked almost daily to the media.
Before September 11, 2001, the chiefs of the CIA and the FBI knew that the new president had nohead for international affairs, that he wanted to concentrate his capabilities (such as theyare) on domestic matters. Bush did not want to deal with the Middle East and quarrel with themighty Jewish and Fundamentalist-Christian lobbies. So why tell him that in the Middle Eastan immense fury against America was building up, mainly because of its support for the Israelioccupation? That there was a concrete danger that Muslims were about to commit spectacularrevenge actions? (And anyway, what could those miserable Arabs do?)
Therefore, no special importance was attached to the items of information coming in, whichshould have lit a big red light in time. They were not sent up, did not cause the quarrelingagencies to pool information, and, of course, were not brought to the attention of thePresident and his crew in the White House.
Will an inquiry into this failure do any good? I wonder. Because, before the next disastin theUS, Israel or anywhere else, intelligence people will again deliver to their leaders exactlywhat they want to hear – all in the framework of a thoroughly “professional” Conceptsia.