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Publications of the Center for Security Policy
No. 00-D 12
DECISION BRIEF
4 February 2000
Deutch Debacle but the Latest Evidence of Clinton-Gore Team's Reckless
Disregard for Security Fundamentals
(Washington, D.C.): Recent revelations about former Director of Central
Intelligence John Deutch's mishandling of highly classified information suggest
that potentially grave damage could have resulted. Unfortunately, the failure
by the head of the CIA to adhere to the most basic principles of intelligence
is not an isolated incident. Rather, it is symptomatic of the cavalier -- if
not actually contemptuous -- disregard exhibited by the Clinton-Gore
Administration over the past seven years for the most basic fundamentals of
information, physical and personnel security.
The full price that the Nation will ultimately pay for such behavior cannot be
determined with confidence at this juncture. But the Deutch affair, combined
with myriad other examples like those enumerated below, indicate that the cost
may well prove to be very high indeed:
Personnel Insecurity: From the earliest days of the Clinton-Gore
Administration, standard operating procedures for clearing individuals for
access to sensitive information have been flouted. Incredibly, personnel who
could not ordinarily get clearances (e.g., for reasons that have traditionally
been seen as constituting a disqualifying risk of blackmail, such as
potentially embarrassing sexual proclivities,(1) tax problems, drug abuse,
criminal conduct, etc.) were nonetheless given temporary, and in some cases,
permanent, White House passes.(2)
Thanks in part to Vice President Gore's program for "reinventing government" --
whose principal effect has been to portray a radical, unilateral downsizing in
the Nation's national security personnel as evidence of the Administration's
commitment to shrink government -- the number of investigators available to
conduct background checks has declined dramatically. There is now, as a result,
a backlog of over 600,000 cases. Many of these apparently involve government
and contractor personnel who currently enjoy access to classified information.
Physical Insecurity: In the wake of concerns about Chinese and Russian
espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the State Department,
respectively, the Administration's relaxation of guidelines governing "no-
escort" access to these and other highly sensitive facilities has been
subjected to public scrutiny and ridicule. Press reports indicate that,
pursuant to this policy, Russian "diplomats" were actually given the run of the
Defense Intelligence Agency's headquarters in Washington.
While physical access procedures have recently been improved in many -- if not
all -- such government- and contractor-owned sites, the barn door was open for
a long time. What "horses" got out and, for that matter, what "Trojan Horses"
might have gotten in, is a matter about which we can only speculate (and worry)
at present.
The Department of States' Inspector General finds hundreds of "unswept" rooms
and unreturned NSA documents of the highest classifications, saying "The
Department is substantially not in compliance with the DCI's directives
governing the handling of SCI materials." The same report says earlier security
upgrades have still not been adopted even after the expulsion of Russian agent
Gusev for operating the 7th floor bug.
Information Insecurity: The possibility that thousands of pages of highly
classified documents could have been compromised by unauthorized access to Dr.
Deutch's insecure personal computer is profoundly worrisome. This is
particularly true if some of the characterizations of the information contained
in those documents -- notably, the statement by the present CIA Director,
George Tenet, that "enormously sensitive material" was involved -- are correct.
This possible breach by a man who has rendered important service to the
security of his country (not least, his public acknowledgment that the Clinton
policy toward containing Saddam Hussein had been an abject failure -- which
cost him his shot at the job of Secretary of Defense -- and his condemnation of
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as ineffectual and unverifiable), must be
weighed, however, against the Administration's purposeful, comprehensive and
ongoing effort to "share" classified information with dubious foreign
nationals, governments and multinational organizations.
As the Center has repeatedly warned,(3) the Clinton-Gore attitude of noblesse
oblige with respect to such sharing has profound and deleterious implications
for typically perishable U.S. "sources and methods" of collecting intelligence.
Yet a succession of senior Administration officials -- including National
Security Advisors Tony Lake and Sandy Berger, Secretaries of State Warren
Christopher and Madeleine Albright, and senior State Department officials like
Strobe Talbot, Toby Goti and Morton Halperin(4) -- have resisted all calls for
suspending or even curbing this widespread practice. Intelligence employees who
have objected to it have done so at extreme peril to their careers.
Possibly as damaging as the compromise of what may be irreplaceable
intelligence capabilities is the dangerous impression such sharing has
encouraged within the government and elsewhere that the United States no longer
has enemies. Whatever the facts of his particular case, an individual like Wen
Ho Lee certainly could point to plenty of evidence that the Administration
thought the provision of detailed information -- including data bearing on how
the viability of nuclear weapons might be assured without testing them -- to a
potential adversary like China not only represented no threat to U.S. security
interests; it would actually advance them.(5)
The Bottom Line
The above listing is an illustrative -- but hardly exhaustive -- effort to
characterize the problem posed for long-term U.S. intelligence and defense
capabilities by what could charitably be called the Clinton-Gore
Administration's insouciant attitude towards basic security tradecraft.(6) The
ultimate cost of its cumulative mis- and malfeasance in this area may not
become known, if ever, for years to come. Regrettably, it is likely to be a
cost that will be paid in blood and national treasure.
- 30 -
1. The abiding dangers associated with such proclivities from a security point
of view are in evidence in the Deutch affair. Apparently, the computer in which
highly classified material was improperly stored was used to access porn sites
on the Internet. Dr. Deutch has a problem whether it was he whose visits to
those sites might have compromised the contents of his hard drive or, as he is
said to have asserted, it was someone else who had the use of that machine.
2. See the Center's Decision Brief entitled The Clinton Security Clearance Melt-
Down: 'No-Gate' Demonstrates 'It's the People Stupid' (No. 94-D 32, 25 March
1994).
3. See Mission Impossible: Wye Deal Poses Threat to U.S. Intelligence -- As
Well As Israeli Security, American Interests (No. 98-D 178, 30 October 1998);
Clinton's National Insecurity Policies are a Ticking Time-Bomb (No. 96-D 103,
25 October 1996); and Before U.S. Intelligence Can be Reformed, the Clinton
Administration Must Stop Deforming It (No. 96-D 44, 6 May 1996).
4. See The Case Against the Halperin Nomination: Selected Readings From Morton
Halperin's Collected Works (2 August 1993).
5. See The Empire Strikes Back: 'Stanford 5' Help Beijing's Effort to Discredit
the Authoritative Cox Committee Report (No. 99-D 147, 21 December 1999).
6. This list, for example, does not include the related subject of the
politicization of intelligence which has been evident in innumerable instances
of information the Administration did not want to receive being suppressed
within the CIA or at political levels elsewhere in the government. Here again,
intelligence officers who had the temerity to present the unvarnished and
unwelcome facts -- despite resistance from their superiors -- were disciplined
and in some cases discharged.
NOTE: The Center's publications are intended to invigorate and enrich the
debate on foreign policy and defense issues. The views expressed do not
necessarily reflect those of all members of the Center's Board of Advisors.
Top of Page
� 1988-2000, Center for Security Policy
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