Michael Tanji is an intelligence community veteran and national security commentator who contributed to The Weekly Standard between 2006 and 2008. His articles focused on U.S. intelligence reform, the intelligence community's structural challenges, and critiques of how intelligence resources were managed and utilized in the post-9/11 era.
THERE IS PERHAPS NO clearer example of why the U.S. intelligence community has such a serious credibility problem than the recently released report on the relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and terrorist groups. Media outlets friendly to the meme that there was no such connection were…
RECENTLY a six-man jihadi cell in New Jersey was arrested while allegedly planning an armed attack on a military base. In California a jury is now deliberating the fate of a naturalized Chinese-American, who the government alleges worked as a spy for China. Per various media reports Russian…
SECRET INTELLIGENCE work is one of the most important tools a government can use to reduce--in Rumsfeldian parlance--"unknown unknowns." Intelligence is a national security decision-making tool, not a ball to be taken out and kicked about when cheap political points need to be scored. Yet now that…
HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE Nancy Pelosi has reportedly said she will create a new panel to examine President Bush's intelligence budget to ensure that taxpayer funds are being spent wisely. This coincides with another intelligence-related item on her to-do list, which is to attempt to make…
IT'S INTERESTING that the New York Times--the apparent arbiter of what is truly secret and what ought to be published--is suddenly so concerned about the possible release of classified material captured in Iraq--material they claim has helped Iran with its own nuclear weapons development program.…
IT TOOK ONLY A FEW MINUTES for media outlets to disseminate headlines about how the recent Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report comparing pre-war intelligence claims against post-war findings was a refutation of the stated reasons for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Focusing on the…
FIVE YEARS AFTER the attacks of September 11, 2001, we face many threats at home and abroad, yet our response has been mostly superficial and expedient. One is left to wonder: Are we serious about winning this fight?
NO ONE KNOWS whether or not an Operation Iranian Freedom is in the cards. A good deal of focus is already being placed on military planning. But it is also worth asking what America is doing to prepare for the trove of documents and other media that a newly liberated Iran could produce.
It is perhaps coincidental, but certainly apropos, that at the start of "Sunshine Week"--an annual promotion of openness and transparency in government--we receive word from Director of National Intelligence Negroponte that documents captured in Iraq will be released to the public for review and…
IT WAS REFRESHING to read that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra still holds out hope that the conventional wisdom about Saddam's WMD programs is wrong. Given the tremendous reservoir of data on such programs that is still largely untapped we should only consider closing the book…
STEPHEN F. HAYES has written extensively in these pages about a large cache of documents and digital media captured in the course of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. As a former intelligence officer who dealt with digital media exploitation and analysis issues at the Defense…