The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture Book

I borrowed this from my boss when he mentioned it in one of our weekly meetings.

Although you must read this with a grain of salt, as it is unauthorized by the CIA, I also believe there are some underlying truths here.

It chronicles the career of one CIA case officer working to find human intelligence sources and along the way points out the many frustrations a deep cover CIA agent may face when confronted by a bloated bureaucracy.

The author says he tried to get the CIA to authorize it by having them do the usual review for confidential and classified information. When he got the book back, there was barely anything left, although he keeps most details vague and foggy. I can see why most of it would be redacted, as it doesn't paint the CIA in a very flattering light.

If even a portion of the culture he portrays in his book is true, there are serious problems within this government agency. I can see where kernels of truth are possible--it's easy to believe that sections of government use funds inappropriately and that reports to Congress are "fluffed" and exaggerated to seem more/less important than they are.

I'd be interested to see what the author thinks about Obama's presidency and the recent death of Osama bin Laden and his theories on how the CIA had a hand (or didn't) in his capture and killing.

At times I did have to roll my eyes a bit as the author is rarely portrayed in a negative light. Always he's the one who outsmarts the bureaucracy, who counsels his peers on ways to "make it work" overseas and he's one of the only ones prepared to rebel against the bureaucracy in order to serve his country. His constant and pointed remarks that the people the Agency hires are "good people, it's just that they do not have qualified leadership" seem to be put in place at times simply to keep attention off the fact that he is constantly plumping himself up.

If the Agency does a good job of hiring well-qualified, intelligent, agressive, skilled, experienced and cooperative people, why does the leadership fail over and over? Surely he can't be the only man in the Agency who rails at the bureaucracy and wishes for changes. And he often praises the FBI for it's better accountability and transparency, which he credits to the fact that the FBI is appraised on how many criminals it catches and therefore has responsibility built-in. But I wonder how he can know that the FBI isn't plagued just as much with bureaucratic snarls as the CIA is--after all, it's another government agency. Otherwise he does a fairly good job of citing sources (although I admittedly didn't do any checking up on the sources other than to note what they were in the back of the book).

I've dealt with some bureaucracies in my own limited experience here on Earth and I sympathized with his frustration. There have been times working for a company with an established bureaucracy that I've felt the same kinds of frustration and run into the same types of bureaucratic roadblocks and short-sightedness in thinking.

I do like that he his reasons for writing the book are to make the case for serious reform at the CIA and not having it be an outright praise-fest for himself. That, and he lists a concise reasons for reform and ideas on how to do so in the end of the book.

Someone who complains about the way things are but has no solutions or ideas to offer up on how to change the system for the better is just a whiner, and overall Jones comes across as someone who does truly want the CIA to serve the country as best it can, by providing accurate and timely intelligence to our leaders.