Intelligence, does it exist?

This is the second point that a lot of people seem to be focusing on, and since so many armchair warriors seem to be talking about it, I decided to join the fray. If only the authorities listened to armchair warriors, some of them actually have some neat ideas.

After all the attacks, several questions remained purely related to the possibility of pre-empting these attacks:

• How did the intelligence agencies fail to anticipate this brutal assault, especially in the wake of the relatively visible methods used to plan this operation? There was a significant reconnaisance component, weapons, and explosives had to be setup and supplied, and communication networks would have been needed to put all the various pieces into place for this operation.
• If the agencies did not fail in intercepting information about the attacks, did the breakdown occur in disseminating that information, to the various security agencies?
• If that wasnt the problem, was it in the understanding of the information, and how to effectively respond to it?

I think the problem has been a combination of these factors. Our country, even though it aspires to be a superpower, and generally struts it's stuff like it already is one, has a long way to go, before it achieves the integration of security services that most western governments, and countries like Israel have demonstrated over the past decade or so. 

The intelligence mechanism of the country suffers sorely because of the following reasons:

• Being used to suit the personal agendas, and settle the personal vendettas of the powers that be. 
• Being generally underequipped, understaffed, underpaid, and hindered by red tape every step of the way.
• Having no central agency that shares and disseminates information about any intelligence inputs received by assets based inside/ outside the country.
• Lack of human intelligence based in every city in the country. This is an absolutely necessary point, that cannot be overlooked in any future upgrades of the intelligence services.
• Lack of an established quick responder unit to any situations, that comes in and takes over  on the ground, plans intelligence, puts together situation awareness briefs for hostage rescue and assault teams.

It seems likely that in the wake of the massive local intelligence failures, there will be some steps taken to solve these issues, and some of them might actually show results, by securing the homeland a little more than it is now. 

In my opinion, in light of the above mentioned shortcomings, we absolutely need the following upgrades to the intelligence services.

• A centralized agency, that handles all intelligence inputs, internal or external, and classifies them into threat levels, according to the seriousness of the content being intercepted, the time frame in which any plans are being made, and whether this intelligence has some actionable input, like a meeting place, or a particular route being taken by a convoy etc.
• A civilian arm of this intelligence agency, that recruits students/ youth right out of college, and moulds them into being effective assets on the ground, as field agents. The current cadre, at least to my knowledge, has to come from the police or the armed forces, which is one of the reasons for the acute lapses in our intelligence capability.
• A significant identified arm of the intelligence agencies, that is drawn from the minority population, as this might come in handy, in subverting the local support that seems to have been ample in the Mumbai operation.
• A highly mobile, hard-hitting, well equipped combat arm of this domestic intelligence agency, along the lines of the Hostage Rescue Team of the FBI in the US, that specializes in responding quickly to hostage situations, and blunting the effectiveness of terrorist assaults on the homeland, within the first hour of an attack happening.
• A dedicated situational command and control cell of this intelligence agency, that handles only setting up a field communications post for situations like Mumbai on 11/26 in the future. This command and control cell should be able to network with the local authorities, get situational awareness of the area the counter terrorist forces will operate in, and have it ready for the assault forces when they arrive, so that can sanitize the area with as much effectiveness as possible.
• This centralized agency should report directly to the Cabinet committee on security, the National Security Adviser, or the PMO directly, and should be strictly off limits to all other cadre of politicians. 
• This agency should also be required to provide a bi-annual statement of services rendered to the people, under the RTI act.

Given the steps above are implemented, it wouldnt be off-target to expect that any future attacks will have to undergo a lot of planning to deny detection by all of these measures. If an attack occurs, we will be more ready than we ever were, to deny its maximum effects.