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Why would America need more spies? As it is, America has dozens of espionage agencies and hundreds of thousands of spies. Officially, America has 16 intelligence agencies, but there are likely many others that are secret or unacknowledged.The issue is not quantity, but rather quality and for what purpose? If spies merely report what their minders want to hear, as has often been the case with the Bush/Cheney White House, it is "garbage in, garbage out". The annual budget for U.S. "intelligence" is said to be $60 billion, but there is no guarantee that it actually includes everything, so the total spent on U.S. espionage is anyone's guess.

Adding new agents could be the equivalent of throwing money away. Sure, the information that is gathered by our spies must be made sense of. Often the context is indispensable in being able to accomplish what America wants. However, simply gathering more information does not mean that it is correctly interpreted. If America's leadership refuses to accept reality, there is precious little that can be done to insist that it be recognized and internalized. As seen by the current ideologues in the White House, if American leaders refuse to be open to the actual facts, regardless of why, then the intelligence can be subverted in favor of preconceived notions. If the conclusions are decided in advance of the gathering of information, then nothing done with the intelligence will matter. The numbers of spies or analysts become irrelevant to those who have pre-set conclusions.

More spies would not likely inform or protect our country. They would likely be told what their findings would be by the users of "intelligence", as was the case with Iraq and President George W. Bush. He knew what he wanted to do and he would let nothing keep him from conquest. The problem was that Dabuya's set views were not informed by the intelligence, rather he set about ordering the spies to find or create the evidence to support his truth. He was not burdened with having to deal with actual facts, rather he fabricated them.

Spies could be hired and fired, but how would that improve our national security? Developing new undercover techniques might result in new intelligence, but how that would affect us? It wouldn't have any impact, unless we were open to being impacted. When our leaders start with the proposition that they already know all that is really important to know, then any intelligence is wasted on the executive branch. That indicates the importance of the intelligence agencies reporting peaceful co-existence as a viable strategy.

Because of differences in interpretation and impact, US intelligence agencies should be made independent of its users, particularly of the chief executive and his minions. As long as ulterior motives are permitted to influence interpretations of intelligence, it is biased. The intelligence is compromised whenever the intelligence users are allowed to shape it, by craftily indicating what they expect and desire that it reveal. No number of spies or analysts can make intelligence more valid or useful, when the work begins with conclusions already known. Instead of more spies, tighter guidelines are needed on what is permitted from its users to influence the intelligence could dramatically and profoundly affect its integrity. Until that issue is addressed conclusively, no number of spies will stop the users from "cooking the books" and making the intelligence sound the way they want it to sound.

Learn more about this author, Robert C. Sage.
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