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A Recruit's Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, from Baghdad to the Pentagon
Presidio Press
February 2008
On Sale: February 12, 2008
256 pages ISBN: 0891419144 EAN: 9780891419143 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
After 9/11, billions of dollars were spent to overhaul
America’s dysfunctional intelligence services, which were
mired in bureaucracy, turf wars, and dated technology. But
in this astonishing new book, A. J. Rossmiller, a former
Defense Intelligence Agency analyst honored for his efforts
here and in Iraq, reveals firsthand evidence that the
intelligence system remains in disrepair. Still Broken is a
blistering account of the ideology and incompetence that
cripple our efforts to confront our enemies and fight our wars. Like many Americans, Rossmiller was moved to action by the
attacks on 9/11. Freshly graduated from Middlebury College,
he went to work for the U.S. government in 2004. But his
enthusiasm slowly turned to disillusion as he began to
fulfill his duties for DIA, the spy arm of the Department of
Defense. There he found the Cold War and 9/11 generations at
odds, the cause of fighting terrorism superseded by the need
to contain a dismally managed war in Iraq, the Bush
administration widely mocked and distrusted, and the
intelligence process crippled from top to bottom. Rather than give up, Rossmiller instead went further,
volunteering to go to Iraq to aid the troops on the ground,
contribute to tactical intelligence, and, he hoped, help
bring about an end to a fatally mismanaged war. For six
months in that besieged country, he worked for the Direct
Action Cell, the “track ’em and whack ’em” unit devoted to
unmasking and targeting insurgents. He learned that, to put
it mildly, the intelligence process bears no resemblance to the
streamlined, well-resourced, and timely operation in a James
Bond or Jason Bourne movie. He also experienced the
disastrous counterterrorism and detainee strategies for
which mass imprisonment–with little interest in guilt or
innocence–is standard operating procedure. Back at the Pentagon as a strategic issues expert in the
Office of Iraq Analysis, Rossmiller saw the administration’s
heavy hand in determining how information is processed. In a
dysfunctional office filled with outsize personalities and
the constant drone of Fox News, he filed reports on the
ever-worsening situation in Iraq. These assessments,
ultimately proven accurate, were consistently rejected as
“too pessimistic” and “off message” and repeatedly changed
to be more in line with delusional White House projections. Written with passion, intensity, and self-deprecating humor,
Still Broken is a riveting and sobering portrait of Bush-era
intelligence failures and manipulations, laid out by someone
who witnessed them up close and personal. It also offers a
sincere, thoughtful prescription for healing the system so
that a new and motivated generation won’t disengage
completely from its government.
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