In 2010 you co-authored an article “Fixing Intel;” what was wrong with intel when you wrote that article?

 

Flynn: In 2009 I was on my third assignment in Afghanistan and we were in the process of implementing the new strategy that was going to be very population centric. When I looked at the intelligence system, as the Chief Intelligence Officer for the Iternational Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. Forces Afghanistan at the time, I realized that for us to be successful we had to refocus on the right aspects of the environment. What we were focused on was to a large degree - I would say 95percent - the enemy networks (e.g. Taliban, the Haqqani Network, etc.) We had tremendous fidelity on those because we had been studying them for years. What we quickly realized was that we had no knowledge, no real understanding of the various tribal elements within Afghanistan. We had to understand the cultures that existed, the dynamics of the type of government that we were trying to support and the population centers that we were actually operating within.