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Contact: Debbie Morton at Mercyhurst College, 814.824.2552
Former CIA official Lowenthal says Americans hold ‘unrealistic expectations’ of intelligence
Citing recent attempted terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and the resignation of Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence, former CIA official Mark Lowenthal said Americans have unrealistic expectations of what intelligence can and cannot do.
"Intelligence analysis is not a science; it's an art," he said. "With science, there are predictable outcomes on a regular basis. Art is more intuitive, innovative and less precise."
In effect, he said, "You can't fire someone every time we have an attempted attack. Instead we have to look at what lessons we can learn and what we can do to right a wrong."
So far, he added, U.S. intelligence authorities have been "pretty successful" at halting terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
Lowenthal, president & CEO of The Intelligence & Security Academy, LLC, Reston, Va., said he'll share his thoughts on intelligence analysis as "art versus science" at the July 11-13 Dungarvan (Ireland) Conference, a gathering of leading practitioners from the U.S. and Europe seeking to share analytic best practices.
The conference, sponsored by the Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies, Erie, Pa., will bring together intelligence practitioners from across multiple disciplines representing medicine, the law, finance, technology, journalism and the sub-disciplines of national security, law enforcement and business intelligence. The first U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, will deliver the keynote address.
