The Ministry of Intelligence…A Strategic Necessity
“ The problem is we don’t know, what we don’t know?”
*Socrates*
Many countries have identified some weaknesses in the work of their intelligence services, especially those countries that have diagnosed the failures of their intelligence services after they were exposed to major security incidents that greatly affected their internal stability and negatively affected their interests and the foundations of their national security.
The tasks of intelligence work are represented by three main points: collecting and analyzing information, protecting government secrets and responding to hostile intelligence services (counter-espionage), and seeking to protect the interests of the country in foreign lands through the use of propaganda, political activities, economic turmoil and paramilitary operations. Intelligence is based on three main factors: collection, analysis and dissemination.
Intelligence is one of the elements of the national diplomatic, economic, military and information power, in the light of which countries can set their strategies and policies in a way that ensures the achievement of their goals in stability, security and well-being of their people.
Some countries, especially those that have multiple intelligence services, are witnessing a great overlap in the workplace, and the pursuit by these agencies to be the closest to the head of the executive authority, as well as competition between them to achieve credit and show ability and superiority over other services — which usually It is a negative competition that prevents obtaining the information completely, especially if some of the parties or parts of this information are shared by more than one service — in addition to the existence of a state of mutual distrust between the services and the final recipient, which constitutes a great danger and causes many failures that can be avoided if there are an umbrella that brings together all these services and working to disengage and coordinate between them.
The failure of the multiple intelligence services due to the intertwining of tasks and poor coordination leads to the depletion of their capabilities during the intelligence operations for everything, as studies indicate that major events occurred on several occasions that indicated a clear failure in the management and performance of the intelligence services as a result of the lack of coordination and interlacing of tasks, such as the events of the eleventh of September and the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as the October 1973 war.
Therefore, countries should learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of other countries, especially by policy makers and decision makers in newly democratic countries, by studying the mistakes of others, which will be a key to avoiding the repetition of these mistakes that may exhaust the state, undermine its political system and threaten its security.
Policymakers demand good intelligence because they need it, but they usually don’t like what they might get. As policy makers tend to the intelligence work that brings them out with outputs that support their policies, while their policies must be based on what the intelligence services put in their hands of information, analyzes and sometimes proposals according to what they have reached to meet the challenges. So, it becomes clear to us the main reason why some agencies seek to be close to the head of the executive authority, as it is the highest authority and one of the most important centers for policy-making and decision-making. Especially those that put their efforts and the professional information and analyzes obtained away from the policies of gratification and favoritism — and it is also not reasonable for the head of the executive authority to see lengthy reports by the various intelligence services, so there must be a brief report that put a summary of the findings of all the intelligence services in the hands of the Chief of the Executive Authority at the operational and strategic levels, provided that this does not exceed three pages, after passing through a coordination, analysis, evaluation and output body that organizes the findings of all the intelligence services and put proposals for solutions in the hands of the first decision maker, This agency is the “Ministry of Intelligence”. Some may think that having a Ministry of Intelligence means paying additional amounts of money and a huge budget, until my answer to that is that a number of civil and military personnel and employees could be assigned to work in this ministry, provided that it is headed by a professional figure with practical experience and Academy in intelligence work and foreign relations, while providing an appropriate and simple budget from the security and defense budget to carry out the tasks and duties.
Politically, the Intelligence Ministry may face obstacles represented by the fears of some political parties that this ministry will be a tool in the hands of the authority or the ruling party to strike opponents, and my answer will be this time — that despite the non-executive role of the Ministry of Intelligence, which will be a coordination, analysis and evaluation body and the output regulates the intelligence work only, and does not intersect with the tasks of other intelligence services, each of which will carry out its secret and public duties in accordance with the laws, instructions and legislation in force — they will be subject to oversight and accountability by the legislative authority “ the Parliament”.
The presence of the Ministry of Intelligence is a strategic necessity, especially in the field of strategic intelligence that provides the information necessary to formulate policies and plans at the national and international levels, which is imposed by the circumstances and complexities of the internal, international and regional scene, which other countries have felt its importance with different labels as in the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the British Intelligence Organization (JIO), the Presidency of General Intelligence in Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, among others. Therefore, the presence of this ministry will support the interests of the state in general, enhance coordination frameworks between the various intelligence services, and establish joint cooperation with friendly countries to confront risks and threats.
