What does 'politicizing intelligence' mean? Using intel, or more often, partial intel, to produce an effect in line with White House policies rather than giving a full picture of a particular situation.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Politicization - the shading of analysis to fit prevailing policy or politics - is the harshest criticism one can make of an intelligence organization. It strikes beyond questions of competence to the fundamental ethic of the enterprise, which is, or should be, truth telling.
By definition, intelligence deals with the unclear, the unknown, the deliberately hidden. What the enemies of the United States hope to deny we work to reveal.
It's necessary to understand what real intelligence work is. It will never cease. It's absolutely essential that we have it. At its best, it is simply the left arm of healthy governmental curiosity. It brings to a strong government what it needs to know. It's the collection of information, a journalistic job, if you will, but done in secret.
Presidents get to decide how their intelligence is served up to them, and it's the job of intelligence to adjust.
Intelligence is the ability to take in information from the world and to find patterns in that information that allow you to organize your perceptions and understand the external world.
My experience is the White House is not a very good place to coordinate intelligence, much less to integrate it.
I think all governments engage in intelligence gathering vis-a-vis other governments.
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
The intelligence community, for the most part, has no accountability at all; to the Congress, to us the American people, and so they feel that they above the law.
You want to keep intelligence separate from policy.