Remember the Soviet Union?

In the past few days there have been a number of comments criticizing our intelligence community for not predicting the events in Tunisia and Egypt.

The criticism is unfair. As Yogi Berra once said, "it's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future."

More to the point, we have excellent technical means to collect some kinds of intelligence, but we lack a mind reading capability. Even if we had a machine to read minds, it would be of doubtful use against people who have not yet decided what to do.

There is also a fundamental, unresolved conflict between the intelligence community and decision makers. The conflict: who gets to evaluate the intelligence?

The arrangement: policymakers get to evaluate intelligence. They are the consumers. They get to tell intelligence professionals what to look for (collection requirements). The professionals are producers. Because there is so much raw information, professionals have a role in selecting and editing what they present to decision-makers, but evaluation is in the final analysis done by those responsible for plans and policy.

This became a problem in December, 1941, when the Navy's Director of Plans and Policy, RADM Richmond Kelly Turner, overruled the Director of Naval Intelligence over what information to provide to the Fleet Commander at Pearl Harbor, RADM Husband E. Kimmel.

After the attack, Kimmel was fired and Turner was promoted.

The world isn't always fair.

Since then, the list of "intelligence failures" is a long one. One of the largest was the failure to anticipate the demise of the Soviet Union.

No heads rolled.