WASHINGTON — The unexpected fall of Ramadi to the Islamic State this month is the latest sign of a basic intelligence problem: The U.S. doesn’t know enough about its jihadist adversaries to combat them effectively.
This intelligence deficit afflicts the military, the CIA and other agencies. The problem has been several decades in the making, and it won’t be fixed easily. The solutions — recruiting more spies and embedding Special Operations forces– will bring greater risks.
A vivid example of the knowledge gap came in an interview with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which was broadcast this week by PBS’ “Frontline.” Correspondent Martin Smith asked him if the U.S. had plans for the loss of Mosul last June.
David Ignatius“Well, no, there were not,” Dempsey answered. “There were several things that surprised us about [the Islamic State], the degree to which they were able to form their own coalition both inside of Syria and inside of northwestern Iraq, the military capability they exhibited, the collapse of the Iraqi security forces. Yeah, in those initial days, there were a few surprises.”
Lessons learned? It doesn’t seem so: Nearly a year later, the U.S. was blindsided again by the collapse of Ramadi. What’s wrong?