Intelligence Studies Thesis

AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

Charles Town, West Virginia

PROPOSAL FOR THESIS PAPER

MASTER OF ARTS IN INTELLIGENCE STUDIES

AMERICAN MILITARY UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF SECURITY AND GLOBAL STUDIES

Michael J Smith 2016

I propose to the Thesis/Research Paper Professor and to the Department a study of the following topic to be conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Intelligence Studies: How can the Intelligence Community better determine the faults in intelligence received from human intelligence collections, in order to prevent further misinformation leading to flawed

Invading Iraq in response to the determination of the continued Weapons of Mass Destruction programs in 2003 resulting from intelligence received by human intelligence sources. The specific cause that led to the initial determination to invade was the belief that Iraq maintained a Weapons of Mass Destruction programs and that it had links to Terror groups. The Iraq war had resulted in thousands dead and a resulting in an unstable nation. Inquiries post-invasion revealed critical flaws within the intelligence collected. Much of the information provided to the Central Intelligence Agency along with the National Security Council from Human Intelligence proved to be incorrect. Because of the flawed intelligence received by the United States Intelligence Community, the invasion of Iraq was a major intelligence failure of the 21st Century. How was the intelligence that was received by the United States Intelligence Community vulnerable to misinformation from human derived collection sources and what led to these shortcomings within the data being missed by the Analysts in the Intelligence Community?

This thesis will examine how the intelligence failure over the assessment of the Iraqi Weapon of Mass Destruction program had become unclear from misinformation through human sources. Determining the flaws that had occurred from the poorly analyzed data

Significance of Paper

The intent of this thesis is to determine where the intelligence community had deficiencies to judge the misinformation concerning the Iraqi Weapon of Mass Destruction programs from human intelligence collections.

Data Analysis

The bulk of the data that is being collected will be analyzed from various peer-reviewed journals, in conjunction with reports from government agencies that had conducted investigations on the intelligence community’s findings post-invasion. Various media images that detail the declassified reports from the National Security Council will also be included. Together with the case studies from sources that had been involved during the initial collection process in conjunction with additional articles, the data will be reviewed using alternative competitive hypothesis, devil’s advocate, and outside of the box thinking, along with quality of information