Leadership styles and decision making in a crisis - sub-text to CIA report

The Senate Intelligence report on torture by the CIA after 9/11 published this week, has an important sub-text which to date has not really been covered by the media.  George Tenet, Director of the CIA (1997-2004) as the report highlighted, allowed "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", by CIA operatives and contractors during his time at the CIA.  However the FBI, under Robert Mueller, who took over the FBI, just two weeks before 9/11 refused to countenance torture, in spite of coming under great pressure from the White House to allow it.

                                         

                                           
                              George Tenet, CIA Director, receives Presidential Media of Freedom, 2004.

It is not often that we can see two leaders of major organisations facing the same decision in the same timescale and the reputational damage incurred (and in the case of the FBI avoided) by a decision taken many years before in the heat of the moment.

I, only became aware of this a few weeks ago, buying a remaindered book in the local bookshop in Greenwich, titled The Black Banners, the inside story of 9/11 and the war against Al-Queda.  Turns out to be a fascinating book written by one of the leading FBI interrogators of the time, called Ali Soufan, an Arabic speaking operative with great insight of Al-Queda.  He highlighted the very different approaches of the FBI and the CIA and the fact that the CIA as an intelligence gathering operation, never had a tradition of formal interrogation for criminal justice - in stark contrast to the FBI.   As a result, the CIA after 9/11, instead of drawing on the FBI's expertise, took its own path under great pressure from the White House to produce instant results, with heavy consequences for the USA and the CIA.  The hiring of outside contractors to undertake the torture is an element of the report which is particularly shocking.

Ali Soufan's role in the early interrogations of Al-Queda operatives using traditional techniques; witnessing early CIA torture; alerting FBI senior management to CIA behaviour and later evidence to Congressional committees has made him a powerful and credible witness in the US and globally.  He has gone on to found a commercial security intelligence service.

His story provides a demonstration also, of the behaviour, that a manager in the front line, under great pressure, may have to resolve drawing on expertise and personal ethics.  Not often, do such decisions come back many years later, with brickbats or laurels, but certainly they have this week for the CIA, the FBI and Ali Soufan.

UK Treasury shows its skill at media framing although politicisation of government announcement raises questions

The Conservatives must be delighted by the coverage which the announcement by the UK Treasury has received for its decision to repurchase £218M of bonds issued in the 1920s by Winston Churchill and related primarily to Britain refinancing First World War costs.  The story has received good coverage not only the financial media where such a story would normally be covered but across mainstream media as well, even international media - I think I saw it in Le Figaro.

Bond repurchases do not normally gain much attention but the Treasury press announcement is a master class in media framing:

• 2014 is a 100 years since the start of the First World War and the UK is just about to commemorate those who died at Remembrance Sunday so timing was excellent.
• Exceptional public interest in the display of poppies at the Tower of London has highlighted that the First World War has a strong hold on the imagination of the British people further enhancing impact of story.

Picture: Daily Telegraph. 

• A new biography written by Boris Johnston on Winston Churchill has just come out and Winston Churchill was Chancellor when the bonds were first issued. Links with Churchill are key requirement for any Conservative future leader.
• The Treasury has managed to link the story back into much earlier British history including the South Sea Bubble (18th century) which it claims the bonds, when first issued were also clearing up.  This aspect of the story seems a bit far fetched however the overall message which the Treasury clearly wanted to emphasise is that Britain pays its debts.  This is always a good message to remind international capital particularly as UK bonds are no longer AAA with all credit rating agencies.  Certainly the announcement has been well received going by comments from bond analysts. 

Apart from the media framing by the Treasury, the rather clunky message by the Chancellor in the announcement, even stronger in his tweet “We’ll redeem £218m of 4% Consols, including debts incurred because of South Sea Bubble. Another financial crisis we’re clearing up after ...” shows that a UK election is not far away and political point scoring in a government announcement even from such a powerful department as the Treasury is now standard.  (What would former No.10 press secretaries Harold Evans and Henry James have said - having worked with them, I am sure they would not have approved.)       

Building identity for United Kingdom

One of the results of the Scottish referendum is it has made us think what does it mean to be part of the United Kingdom or related terms such as Great Britain.   The UK as a concept and as a narrative is something which many of us have been re-learning in recent weeks.   In fact, the concept of the UK made up of differing nationalities such as Scottish, Welsh, English is not straightforward and so the referendum, particularly the thought that the UK might be broken up has made us reflect on the concept. One person who has helped us think through the concept and the benefits which it brings, is Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister and Chancellor and still a Scottish MP in Westminster.   His speech the day before voting in Glasgow is magnificent; in its rhetoric, its persuasive content, its narrative and for helping us realise the benefits of the Union and the dangers of nationalism.  As well as being available on Youtube, transcripts of the speech are on both the Independent and the Mirror.