Janine Wedel - Unaccountable - How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security

Although the Office of the DNI technically oversees all U.S. intelligence agencies, its budget and control are restricted, and concerns about a lack of DNI power have surfaced since the position’s inception. A stronger ODNI would be a good thing, some argued. During the hearings, Clapper characterized the surge in contractors as “in some ways a testimony to the ingenuity, innovation and capability of our contractor base.” 38While he said this to the Senate committee, it seems to me that his intended message, and the one most likely understood throughout the intelligence world, is that Clapper planned to consolidate power in the DNI and use his influence to grant contracts and decide on intelligence matters, in and out of government.

I am not arguing that McConnell or Clapper or their fellows are bad or unethical people. And they and their allies will no doubt say they are honorable men who can self-police, as was implied with the White House brandishing Clapper’s decades of military service in his defense. I am arguing that the system in which they are playing—indeed which they are helping to create—hardly has the public interest at the forefront.

Indeed, the accountability—and security—void is vast. When information supposedly of and for government is in private hands, the information, and the power that goes with it, is at risk of being used to serve private agendas, with corporate and private players influencing policy to suit those agendas. 39

Budgets are also at risk. There is little evidence that shadow government is a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and some evidence that it is not. Case in point: in 2003, Booz Allen landed a $2 million contract to assist the new Homeland Security department, a tab which had exploded to $30 million a year later, and then to $73 million a year after that. Two of those contracts were “no bid,” that is, no competition involved. 40

Failing to see the problems, or perhaps willfully ignoring them, politicians perpetrate a scam on Americans that only causes the government—the shadow one—to get bigger and bigger and to deplete traditional government of its lifeblood. The mantra of “small government,” like motherhood and apple pie, has fostered flat-out deception. In an ostensible effort to restrict the size of government, caps have been put on how many civil servants government can hire. But regular Joe still wants his tax refund on time, his prescription drugs proven effective and sound, and his homeland safe. To surmount this impossible situation, both Democratic and Republican administrations have turned increasingly to contractors. Because contractors aren’t counted as part of the federal workforce per se, it looks like government is much smaller than it actually is. This is a farce, like the Potemkin village constructed to make the ruler or the foreigner think that things are rosy. Meanwhile, the budget for government goes up and up, and with it the fortunes of the companies that do the government’s work.

Meanwhile, too, contractors, of course, are not subject to the same rules as civil servants; contractor executives, unlike government leaders, are seldom dragged before congressional committees for hostile questioning when their activities come under fire. We have no easily verifiable way to know how they are actually performing. The only undisputed winners are the contractors themselves.

Surely Mike McConnell is one of the winners. At Booz Allen, McConnell was hired to head up the company’s cyber portfolio, which included a “cyber-solutions network” that connected nine facilities. 41Not surprisingly, he has been one of the leading voices warning about emerging cyber-threats, penning a piece about it in the Washington Post in 2010. But little did he imagine that a cyber-attack of a different sort would come from within his own ranks at Booz Allen, from leaker Edward Snowden. 42

After Snowden’s revelations, McConnell’s associate, DNI Clapper, found himself grilled by members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on what Snowden had unleashed. Clapper was asked by Senator Ron Wyden whether “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans” had been collected by the agency. “No, sir,” was Clapper’s response. “Not wittingly.” 43

Senators were astounded by Clapper’s answer, and a half dozen congressmen later accused him of “lying under oath” and called on President Obama to fire him. 44

He didn’t. And the fact that a one-time community organizer (Obama) has ensured the continued power of this Booz Allen set, even the expansion of it, indicates something of the deeply entrenched, unaccountable system that we, the public (and by no means only the American public), are up against. Booz Allen operatives have created a self-perpetuating machine, exerting long-term, strategic control and influence. Their leaders embody the company-state—the height of unaccountability to the public.

SHADOW GENERALS

You might have noticed that the two main players discussed above—James Clapper and Mike McConnell—are military men, a “retired” lieutenant general and a “retired” vice admiral. 45While both are in their seventies, they are quite au courant in the conduct of their post-military professional careers.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower was, of course, prophetic when he warned, more than fifty years ago, about the “grave implications” of what he dubbed the military-industrial complex. But even he might be astounded by how the complex has mushroomed since his farewell speech of January 17, 1961, and the role that many esteemed retired generals and other high-ranking officers now play in it.

The military has held public service over personal achievement as its core value. This value now seems at risk in the highest ranks of the U.S. armed forces. Many top players now appear focused on turning themselves into one-man defense-industry moguls, some of them angling for personal rewards even before official retirement. Of course, they retire at a comparatively young age. Still healthy and productive, many want to use the expertise they have acquired over a lifetime and stay in the game. And now, more than ever, given the ballooning of government contracting, incentives are in place for these people to be lured to the private sector for substantially more money—even when performing essentially the same duties as in the government. This sets up a relatively new and accountability-challenging phenomenon.

Times have clearly changed. Senator Jack Reed—a West Point graduate—said this to Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe: 46

When I was an officer in the 1970s, most general officers went off to some sunny place and retired. . . . Now the definition of success . . . is to move on and become successful in the business world.

But the business world, as Julia Pfaff, who has served in the military and as executive director of the National Military Family Association, and who now works at George Mason University, tells me, “has a very different core value, one which comes in direct conflict with the long held military value of public service over personal gain.” Thus these senior officials “find themselves balancing public service and private-sector profits,” she observes. 47What is the impact? “Many of those who succeed in business feel conflicted. Yet when they fail to question the harm to the public good (while touting their military service) they risk nurturing cynicism to the institution they love. This leads to a decline in loyalty [to the institution] from the inside.” 48This seismic culture shift mirrors the decline in trust in formal institutions from the outside—that is, of the public—as I detailed in Chapter 1.

In contrast to twenty-five or so years ago, when most senior officers retired to “some sunny place,” today most of them no longer predominantly do so. A ground-breaking 2010 study by Bender for the Boston Globe , which amassed a database of 750 retired generals and admirals (which my Mapping Shadow Influence Project has enlarged), looks at the post-retirement careers of these former public servants. Over several decades, these retired senior officers went mostly from actual retirement—that is, they stopped working when they retired from military service—to mostly continued “service.” 49Today, very active “retirements” are commonplace: the retirees pursue a multi-pronged strategy that affords them money and influence. Some act as advisers in military agencies while serving simultaneously as paid consultants to defense and intelligence contractors. Others work as consultants to these contractors or sit on their boards, 50while also sitting on government advisory boards that afford them crucial insider information and access. 51Still others launch start-ups.