The January 6 Insurrection: Why Intel is NOT to Blame
During his Senate testimony on February 23, former Capitol police chief Steven Sund declared that the events of January 6 were the result of “a clear lack of accurate and complete intelligence...not poor planning by the Capitol Police.”
Sund and the other law enforcement leaders who testified claimed that the warning from the FBI’s Norfolk office on January 5 did not make it to their desks. But I wonder if any intelligence assessment has ever crossed Sund’s desk. Certainly he has never received an intelligence product that could be considered accurate and complete. Intelligence is never accurate or complete! That’s not the standard –because it’s a ridiculous one.
The bar for judging the value of intelligence is whether it’s actionable. Did we know where extremists would gather? When? Why? You bet. That’s the best intel gets.
If intelligence analysts were judged by how accurate they were, they would have little incentive to put pen to paper. When tasked with predicting events in a highly complex, uncertain and dynamic world, only the most closed-minded and rigid analysts would ever think they could be right. (And they won’t be.)
And if you wanted analysis that was complete, then analysts would have to hold onto whatever limited and fragmented information they might have, knowing that it’s not yet enough to share with a policymaker looking for the full picture. That would be an intelligence failure.
It is true that our intelligence apparatus needs to adjust its priorities based on the growing threat of domestic extremism. It’s why President Biden ordered the Director of National Intelligence to conduct a “comprehensive threat assessment” on domestic terrorism on his second day in office.
But to be fair, the intelligence community was already acknowledging and adapting to the changing threat landscape, despite the Trump administration’s best efforts to downplay the threat from groups that supported Trump. FBI Director Christopher Wray and Acting DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli warned the Senate back in September that white supremacists, anarchists and militia-style groups posed the biggest threat to the homeland.
That warning was certainly not complete or accurate, and probably not even actionable enough. But let’s not forget why it was so hard for anyone to boldly proclaim that the mob that was descending on DC was a violent, existential threat to our democracy. It’s because it was brought there by our very own President.
They were waving American flags and looked like our neighbors. We didn’t want to think they were a threat because they are us.
The attempt to undo the legitimate functioning of our democracy was the result of a lot of failures. There were communication failures, political failures, and organizational failures. Blaming it on intelligence is convenient, but incomplete. It’s on all of us. The sooner we accept our own share of responsibility, the sooner we can reclaim and restore our democracy.
UPDATE: Assistant Chief Yogananda D. Pittman was designated as Acting Chief of Police on January 8, 2021, by Capitol Police Board Order 21.04.
Want to stay up to date on topics like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn. We also offer Alternative Analysis Techniques (AATs) a unique toolkit initially developed and deployed by the U.S. military and intelligence communities. AATs have helped leaders in the public and private sector alike mitigate organizational and cognitive biases while allowing you to anticipate challenges, navigate complexities, and think more strategically. Schedule a time to learn more from our team HERE.