Strategic Intelligence News

The National Security Intelligence Service of Kenya, (one of our daily Intelligence Report Customer/Reader= NSIS extra IPS-Operating System = Windows. Computer Screen Color = 32-bit and 24-bit. Computers screen resolution = 1366×768, 1024×768, 1280×800, 911×512. ) is ailing from ‘Intelligence Analysis Failure.’ In less than 6-months, several events have pitted the useful NSIS between a rock and hard place.

Failure to Keep State Secrets

In January 2012, ICC Prosecutor got reprieve since the NSIS unwittingly gave ‘EYES ONLY’ documents to the Waki commission of inquiry to the post-election violence wherein, the ICC prosecutor used this evidence against the Presidency of Kenya, which the NSIS is loyal and reports to.

NSIS Crime is = Casual view of commissions, inability to present sensitive state secrets to consumers leading to misinterpretation, misrepresentation of intelligence/facts, and compromising of NSIS multi-roles as a state agency advising GOK on national security.

NSIS Director Michael Gichangi and NSIS Analysis, and Production Director Justus Osoro provided the situation report besides State House related memo’s, intelligence, which is the basis Uhuru Kenyatta, and Francis Muthaura’s charges were confirmed.

Reference http://allafrica.com/stories/201012201725.html

The director told the commission that its mandate was to gather intel and give it to the govt but had no power to initiate action.

This is wrong and a fallacy (The NSIS, like all other intelligence organizations, is to gather and exploit secret information. It identifies conditions that threaten Kenya’s political, economic, and social stability. It subsequently develops opportunities and strategies to neutralize such threats.)

NSIS Gichangi and Osoro even gave a power-point presentation of NSIS operations before and after the December 27, 2007 General Election, – A Public oral testimony, – A session in-camera on sensitive and classified information.

(This only means, the NSIS top brass is not informed or not qualified in Intelligence Community (IC) Secrecy Protocols. In the Intelligence Community, SECRET, TOP SECRET, and even more highly classified CODEWORD programs are indicated by the obligatory full capitalization of their names at all times.

The buck stops with director in charge of Analysis and Production Justus Osoro and his entire intelligence analysis team. Intelligence analysis is a tradecraft. Tradecraft purposefully implies a mysterious process mastered only by the initiated intelligence analyst and acquired only through the elaborate rituals of professional indoctrination. Intelligence analysis tradecraft also implies that the methods and techniques of analysis are informal, idiosyncratic, unverifiable, and even unexplainable based on ‘good’ objective measure.

National Security Breach

NSIS did not do contingency planning or provide precursor for the ICC confirmation of charges for 2-top government officials; Kenyatta and Muthaura.

National Security is defined as the ability to preserve the nation’s physical integrity and territory; to maintain its economic relations with the rest of the world on reasonable terms; to preserve its nature, institution, and governance from disruption from outside; and to control its borders.

The judiciary wing of the government is in disarray with different departments/wings taking different ethno-political positions including the minister heading the justice docket. His fallout with key players in the GOK is disrupting governance and creating public scrutiny, political discord, and an ethnic effects.

The government was put in forced motion creating imbalances in the management procedures as factions of the coalition became hostile. Several ODM MP’s have come out strongly against Mr Kenyatta and Muthaura. Political overtones must not take ethno-political tones. Be advised that Luo MP’s should not make as if attacking Kikuyu legislators – it is indicative of tribalism. Resignation and appointment of replacements for Kenyatta and Muthaura were rapid deployments with ethno-political ramifications. In such scenarios insubordination, public debate, and ethno-political sentiments are echoed using proxy-quasi passionate appeals to commission discord.

Critical analysis on social media trends, responses, and popular media information shows ethnic tensions rose days preceding the confirmation of charges with a strong bias on Kikuyu and Luo ethno-political exchanges. The tensions are still high and the trickle-down effect is within range. (Kenya media discussions are a panacea for ethno-political problems).

Intelligence Briefing and Reporting

If an analyst’s writing and briefing skills are not well-developed enough to effectively communicate the results of his or her analysis to those who need it, that analyst’s work—no matter how important, timely, or skillfully produced—may be worthless.

When briefing, intelligence officers must conform to the requirements of the intelligence and law enforcement communities. These stylistic requirements are driven by the unique needs of intelligence consumers. Because intelligence consumers needs products that address real problems, focus on future events, begin with analytical conclusions, and contain only necessary information, intelligence products must be constructed in a way that is distinctly different from similar products produced for other intellectual professions.

In the intelligence genre it’s imperative that the language used is as clear, concise, and to-the-point as possible, as carefully crafted language leaves nothing to interpretation and greatly reduces the likelihood that a decision maker will misinterpret the results of analysis and, as a result, make a decision that is contrary to state, local, or national interests. (Waki Commission made decisions contrary to state, local, or national interests = failure by GOK to preserve its nature, institution, and governance from disruption from outside *Agent/ICC and ethno-politiking).

Recommendations for NSIS

The Intelligence Analysis department should learn the Process for Creating Intel/Sensitive Investigation Reports.

Intelligence Community (IC) Secrecy Protocols must be introduced and made a norm to all intelligence analysts. The analysts must possess basic knowledge of intelligence community secrecy protocols to properly mark the classified, sensitive, and unclassified information used in finished intelligence products and briefings.

NSIS should invest on analysts with higher cognitive abilities to help the organization Situation awareness and Contingency planning. Such persons must have ability to recall and recognize patterns in situations. These persons have ability to find solutions, find reasonable course of action. Persons possessing skills such as situation awareness, transfer, good memory, pattern recognition, meta-cognition, automaticity, problem solving, decision making, and most importantly a psycho-analytic capacities coupled by metal flexibility and creativity.