Yom Kippur War Intelligence Failure

By Bob Budahl

Source Link

The Yom Kippur War intelligence failures were broad and to the highest level of government and military within Israel. They misperceived themselves as being free and safe of attack from the Arabs, at least in the near and current future. The Israelis were confidant an attack would only occur along the perimeters in which they themselves perceived the Arabs may attack, which they believed to be in the distant future. Israel felt that such an attack was bound to fail and thus preventing the Arabs from initiating an attack. Israel had let down their guard and therefore were surprised by the timing of the attack, the method of attack and also the place of the attack. Few military parallels are found as great as the strategic surprise Egypt and Syria enjoyed on October 6, 1973.

Information divulged years later is that King Hussein of Jordan made a visit September 25, 1973 to Israel and met with the Prime Minister and gave his assessment that Egypt and Syria were about to attack Israel. Warning was not heeded as the attack took place October 6, 1973. And importantly Jordan itself had been involved in former wars itself with Israel so their motivation for informing them of an impending attack was suspicious from the Israelis’ view. Skeptics argue that Hussein disavowed giving warning to Israel during this visit. Hussein had hoped that the warning would influence the Israeli Prime Minister to make changes and progress with the Arabs and avoid a costly war. Israel’s intelligence officer dismissed Hussein’s claim and believed that the Arabs were too weak to attack. Also believed by the Israelis is that the Arabs would not fight a war they knew they would lose. This may be a key point as to misperception as the Arab’s initially in the war obtained their objectives and possibly in their view set the course right from the “1967 War” in which they lost territory. Egypt’s Sadat even made a trip to Saudi Arabia before the war and made a plea that if the United States resupplied Israel during the war for Saudi Arabia to emplace an oil embargo on the United States to exert influence. The CIA passed a report on September 30th to the Israelis which was sourced to King Hussein which elaborated on what he had previously told the Prime Minister. By September Syria had received Soviet SAM’s and other equipment and were ready for war. The Soviets removed dependents of advisors and diplomats from Egypt and Syria October 5th.Israel suffered 2,656 dead and 7,250 wounded in the battle.

The Israeli armed forces were reliant on reservists which made up a large portion of Israel’s armed forces. In order to prove successful time was needed in times of attack to mobilize and move them from civilian life and emplace these personnel into a war-time theater of operation. As such, Israel put much effort into developing their intelligence services into the elite force for which much trust was given by the country to provide the warning it needs to prepare for war.With the failure of fore-warning to Israelis’ the Arab’s controlled the early moves in the war and brought initial success which they desired and in effect changed the balance of power within the Middle East away from Israel’s advantage.

Egypt and Syria’s attack on October 6, 1973 occurred at 14:00 hours which caught the IDF off guard and Israel’s military and political leaders did not understand a war was about to break out until 18:00, which was too late. The Commission investigating the intelligence failure indicated three reasons for the mistake. The first reason involved two assumptions in which Egypt would conduct air strikes deep into Israel against its air force before starting a war and the other assumption was Syria would not go full-scale war unless Egypt was in action against the Israelis already. The 2ndreasonwas a major mistake as Military Intelligence had guaranteed that they would be able to provide adequate advance warning of any attack and they did not do so. The 3rd reason is the intelligence services basically dismissed the adversaries’ forces buildups as either defensive or an exercise. Prime Minister Gold Meir and the Defense Minister Moshe Dayan concluded full mobilization was not necessary early on and they only placed the standing army on full alert.

To lend support to Israelis’ perception that attack was not probable at least not in the near future there is evidence and facts that the Arab’s did successfully employ deception methods on Israel as well as on the United States. The Arabs had been open to Dr. Kissinger’s peace negotiation in September 1973 and even planted items in a Lebanese newspaper about neglect and deterioration of equipment from the Soviet Union within the Suez Canal area. A very good synopsis which perhaps lends Israeli a sympathetic path is that estimating intentions are one of the most difficult and yet crucial element within intelligence. One may use hard evidence. If the evidence is incomplete it is more difficult to determine intention. Technology has advanced greatly in later years which makes a surprise attack much more difficult to achieve with the presence of advanced IMINT and SIGINT.

Is the current state of counterintelligence in the Intelligence Community adequate?

In regard to whether the state of counterintelligence within the Intelligence Community is adequate today one can best assume counterintelligence is a forever changing, evolving, assessment and reactive process of making sure our capabilities are up to date with the current world intelligence threat that exists in the world today. I do believe that counterintelligence is adequate as of today but that does not mean we do not need to improve. Much can be derived as to pre-9/11 or post-9/11 scenario. The intelligence officials and decision makers have to make sure that the IC is able to function strategically and operationally. Post 9/11 there exists “old” and “new” threats but clearly now we are primarily and immediately faced with “new” threats such as prevention of individual or small group acts rather than State actors. And because of this emphasis is placed upon utilizing human sources or spies, and interrogations of suspects or informants. The “old” threats still require IC collection, analysis and operations regarding State actors and these services are still intact and operating fully. The intelligence community may involve two ways in which it adapts to its external demands and when a perceived intelligence failure occurs then it reinvents itself to deal effectively. Or it may change proactively because of anticipating or observing environment changes.

There still exist threats from State actors in regard to our intelligence community and national decision makers and counterintelligence needs to be vigilant to deter, detect, exploit, neutralize and disrupt these attacks on an ongoing basis. National Security information as well as the US companies’ proprietary information will be targeted for collection. Some industries that may experience activity directed against them include the defense, finance, energy, dual-use technology, etc. Insider threats will continue to be a closely surveilled item of interest of the counterintelligence agencies. And Russia is believed to remain a threat through cyber operations meant to influence or convey misleading information to encourage public opinion towards Russia’s best interests. Elections have been targeted and efforts are believed to continue. Increased and vigilant counter-cyber terrorism programs need to be fully conducted and expanded to the utmost ability the United States can exhibit and emplace.

Transnational criminal groups as well as terrorists are learning and utilizing advanced intelligence capabilities in technical, physical and cyber means. And “insider threats”, which is the oldest form of spying still exist in today’s world.