By Larry Johnson, Sonar 21, 1/4/22
Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism
I have confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency is relying solely on Ukraine for the intelligence on Russian and Ukrainian casualties. In other words, if Ukraine tells its DIA liaison officer that Ukraine killed 400 Russians in its latest HIMARS strike then that is what DIA tells the U.S. General commanding EUCOM. This is more than troubling. This is dangerous.
There are six basic types of intelligence that a good analyst should consult in preparing an assessment:
1) Intelligence from foreigners recruited to spy for the United States,
2) Intelligence produced by foreign governments that is passed to the United States,
3) Reports produced by U.S. Government organizations, e.g. State Department cables sent from US embassies and Defense Attache reports based on information the attache collected in a particular country,
4) Electronic intercepts, which includes communications collected and analyzed by the National Security Agency,
5) Imagery from satellites and air craft (including drones)
6) Open source, e.g. press, media, and social media
What DIA and CIA ought to be doing is to scour all source intelligence to come up with an accurate report on the casualty rate for Ukraine and Russia. For example, surely the United States has intercepted communications between Russian military commands discussing killed and wounded. Ditto with respect to Ukraine.
Here is what we know with certainty from open source reports.
“Russia is firing a staggering 20,000 artillery rounds per day, a senior U.S. defense official estimated, while Ukraine is firing from 4,000 to 7,000 rounds daily.
“The Ukrainians are quickly burning through their stockpiles of artillery rounds and other ammunition, including for their air defense systems, officials said.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russia-ukraine-war-ammo-rcna56210
Those rounds translate into casualties on both sides. Put simply, Ukraine is suffering at least four times the number of killed and wounded than Russia.
U.S. journalists are a lazy lot and are regurgitating to the public the official line presented to them by the White House, the Department of Defense and the Department of State. The same applies to most of Europe. But once in a while, a reporter stumbles on to the truth. Maria Senovilla, who writes for the Spanish magazine Atalayer, committed an act of journalism:
“What is happening in the battle of Bakhmut? The news we are receiving is of the death of very many people.
“Yes, we have to look to the Donbas because Bakhmut is precisely the blackest point of the war in Ukraine. This week, both the Institute for the Study of War, which is a prestigious American think tank, and other international thin tanks, have agreed that up to 400 Ukrainian soldiers a day are being killed and wounded in Bakhmut.
“And beyond the number, which is just a figure, I have been able to talk in recent days with different military sources, both official and combatants who have been there, and what they say makes one’s hair stand on end. The city is for the moment under Ukrainian control, but the Russian troops have stationed their artillery close enough to fire there, but far enough away so as not to expose their troops too much. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army, as it has to defend the terrain, has a lot of infantry, light units, paramilitary units that can do little against the bombs. This combat front has become today a real human meat grinder. That’s how crude I can say it.
“Right now it is one of the most, if not the most, worrying point for Zelenski’s armed forces. Our listeners are probably wondering what is the importance of Bakhmut to take such a commitment to defend the position with such a very high cost of living. Bakhmut is not an iconic city like Severodonetsk was, where one of the great battles of this war also took place. Bakhmut is not that kind of iconic city. However, it is a communications hub that is key to the supply lines of Ukrainian troops in Donetsk province, and it is also the buffer that contains the advance of Kremlin troops towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. If the Russian Army were to take these two cities, it would gain almost total control of the Donetsk province and, therefore, of the entire Donbas, something that Putin could already sell as a great victory. So you can imagine the effort that the Kremlin is putting right now in taking Bakhmut and what it is costing the Ukrainians to defend it.”
I understand why politicians will lie about a failing policy. But it is inexcusable for intelligence professionals to enable that lying. The best antidote is factual, objective analysis. Especially analysis based on multiple sources. Politicians need a Dutch Uncle who will tell them uncomfortable truths. That is not happening. One of these days the reality of the carnage Ukraine is suffering will become impossible to cover up and the Kabuki theater of looking for a scapegoat will kick off in Washington. Guess what? It will be called an intelligence failure. The politicians will be frantic to escape any blame for the debacle of “losing Ukraine” and the intelligence community will be the culprit. In this case, the intelligence community will have earned its culpability. They are cowards who refuse to stand up and tell the truth.
This is an accurate assessment of the result, but I would question whether the author fully understands the process that leads to this result. Leaders, be they military or civilian, are not fed raw intelligence; they are fed a summary. The individual analysts may be telling the truth to their superiors, but if those superiors decide, for whatever political or career-based reason, to include in the summary only the information and conclusions that leadership wants to hear, you wind up with useless mierda.
Is the author of this article perhaps old enough to remember Vietnam? Does he know how and why the Tet offensive came as such a nasty surprise? In that case as well, the individual analysts saw what was happening, but the intelligence summary passed to Westmoreland, (may he burn in hell), was what he and LBJ wanted to hear.
from his own Site – he appears to be old enough, at least to know of the things you mention.
“About Larry C. Johnson
Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right.
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(Your critique reminds me of Noam Chomsky´s cautious comment on the Wiki-Cable Leaks. He argued that leaks from US embassies do not automatically embody any wise assessment. They often are rather the source of false judgments and bad policy-making. In the case of Israel e.g. merely out of arrogance US embassy officials would not bother to go to the Palestinian camps to look for themselves, but instead relied on second-hand information by “trusted” agents and informants. So, long story, the cables often were – “mierda” – for the very reason that they came from the embassy. I believe back then he mentioned surprise about the 2nd Intifada among Washingtonites as an example for lack of sound intelligence from diplomatic personnel. My admittedly very limited experience with diplomats would confirm this critical view.)