U.S. Intelligence Assessment Regarding Syria’s use of Chemical Weapons: An Analysis

On August 21, 2013, the Syrian government, under the direction of President Bashar al-Assad, unleashed a deadly chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of the greater Damascus area. A post operations assessment by the government of the United States concluded that 1,429 people had been killed, of which 426 were children. An enormous amount of incriminating data from all types of sources was analyzed and disseminated by United States intelligence agencies following the attacks on the Damascus suburbs, and as such one can infer that an equally massive undertaking, involving cross and interagency cooperation, was executed. Of the many government agencies, private contractors and sub-contractors involved in intelligence collection and distribution for the federal government of the United States, at least nine of the seventeen major members of the intelligence community can be reasonably thought to have participated in the operations that led to the public denouncement of what was likely the Syrian governments use of chemical weapons.

Intelligence Agencies Involved

In order to determine what agencies might have been involved in the intelligence cycle regarding the chemical weapons attacks in Syria, we first have to determine the types of intelligence that were collected. What follows is a partial quote of Secretary of State John Kerry’s official remarks on the crisis (Statement on Syria, 2013):

“So, what do we really know that we can talk about? Well, we know that the Assad regime has the largest chemical weapons program in the entire Middle East. We know that the regime has used those weapons multiple times this year and has used them on a smaller scale, but still it has used them against its own people, including not very far from where last Wednesday’s attack happened. We know that the regime was specifically determined to rid the Damascus suburbs of the opposition, and it was frustrated that it hadn’t succeeded in doing so. We know that for three days before the attack the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons personnel were on the ground in the area making preparations. And we know that the Syrian regime elements were told to prepare for the attack by putting on gas masks and taking precautions associated with chemical weapons. We know that these were specific instructions. We know where the rockets were launched from and at what time. We know where they landed and when. We know rockets came only from regime-controlled areas and went only to opposition-controlled or contested neighborhoods. And we know, as does the world, that just 90 minutes later all hell broke loose in the social media. With our own eyes we have seen the thousands of reports from 11 separate sites in the Damascus suburbs. All of them show and report victims with breathing difficulties, people twitching with spasms, coughing, rapid heartbeats, foaming at the mouth, unconsciousness and death. And we know it was ordinary Syrian citizens who reported all of these horrors. And just as important, we know what the doctors and the nurses who treated them didn’t report – not a scratch, not a shrapnel wound, not a cut, not a gunshot wound. We saw rows of dead lined up in burial shrouds, the white linen unstained by a single drop of blood. Instead of being tucked safely in their beds at home, we saw rows of children lying side by side sprawled on a hospital floor, all of them dead from Assad’s gas and surrounded by parents and grandparents who had suffered the same fate.”

According to Secretary Kerry’s remarks, we can discern the types of intelligence collected, and how. The U.S. likely discovered Syria’s vast chemical weapons stockpiles claimed to be the “largest in the middle east,” from both signals and geospatial intelligence. The claims of knowing that the regime’s forces were told to prepare, in addition to how to prepare, is also indicative of signals intelligence. The knowledge of how many rockets had been fired, from where and what time was likely geospatial intelligence. The medical reports from Syrian hospitals may have been a combination of human and signals intelligence. The surveillance of military personnel performing preparations for three days at the time of the attacks was likely human intelligence, as was the reported bloodless deaths of Syrian civilians without any cuts, scratches or scrapes. These atrocities spurred the Syrian refugee crisis as well.

One of the major agencies responsible for intelligence collection following the chemical weapons attacks in Syria was likely the Central Intelligence Agency. As the preeminent intelligence service in the United States, as well as the most funded (About CIA, 2013), it is very likely that any relevant information collected prior to the attacks had to have gone through the CIA. Additionally, as the largest human source intelligence outfit in the United States intelligence community, the CIA was likely involved in the interviews of international and Syrian medical personnel, as well as any contact with eyewitnesses to the attack. Another of the major agencies to be involved in the intelligence operations regarding the Syrian chemical weapons attacks would be the National Security Agency. As the second most funded agency and the central hub of all things regarding signals intelligence, it is likely that most of the intercepted communications between top Syrian officials, which implicated the regime of Bashar al-Assad as the source of the deadly attack, were in fact obtained in the course of NSA operations. Central to United States geospatial intelligence operations around the world, both the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office were likely involved in the collection and dissemination of aerial and satellite images, which telegraphed the movements of Syrian troops and supplies in preparation for the attacks in Damascus. The NGA is responsible for the generation of maps-based intelligence, including satellite and aerial imagery, while the NRO is responsible for designing, building and operating the network of United States communications and spy satellites. Furthermore, the satellite detections cited by the United States as evidence of the Syrian government’s guilt, showing rocket attacks dispersing from regime-controlled territory and striking areas where the attacks are reported to have occurred, were also very likely supplied by the NGA and NRO. The Defense Intelligence Agency, as the combat support agency for the Department of Defense and the agency responsible for providing assessments of foreign military capabilities and intentions to military commanders and policy makers (About DIA, 2013), was likely involved in both the initial human intelligence collection operations and the post-attack analysis and dissemination of human, signals and open source intelligence. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research within the Department of State provides the Department and the Secretary of State with all-source intelligence regarding foreign developments. It is likely that, while any initial intelligence operations did not originate in the Department of State, the vast majority, if not all of the intelligence available, made its way to the desk of the Secretary of State as a complete picture of the situation in Syria. The final agency of the United States intelligence community involved in the operations regarding the Syrian chemical weapons attacks is the Office of Naval Intelligence. As the primary response of the United States to the revelations concerning chemical weapons depots and stockpiles in Syria was to send warships, it is highly likely that the Office of Naval Intelligence, in addition to the commanders of said warships, were briefed on any existing information regarding Syria’s military capabilities, weapons systems or any possible obstacles to their mission, which was to serve as a military deterrent to further use of chemical weapons.

The Intelligence Cycle

The conceptual model of the intelligence cycle is generally broken up into 6 different stages, those of direction, collection, processing, analysis, dissemination and feedback (CIA, “The Intelligence Cycle,” 2013). The direction in any intelligence operation involves a commander or officer of an intelligence agency identifying the requirements needed to fulfill given objectives. In response to the direction, the collection step requires the creation of an intelligence collection plan, which consists of identifying the requirements for the operation, assessing the resources available, determining the obstacles to achieving specific objectives, prioritizing the objectives that are most critical, dividing the tasks among the operators and evaluating progress as the plan progresses and updating objectives as needed. The next stage of the cycle is processing, when the collected intelligence is reviewed for the purpose of translating foreign materials, ascertaining the relevance and reliability of the information and/or the collation of raw intelligence for preparation of the next stage, Analysis. Intelligence analysis is the step that establishes the significance of a piece of intelligence, comparing it to disparate sources of intelligence in order to identify any collateral information or patterns. These comparisons often result in additional information and allow the intelligence analyst to paint a more complete picture when all is said and done. The collected and analyzed intelligence is then packaged for the fifth stage of the cycle, dissemination. The intelligence is usually given in the form of a report. The form the report takes (whether it is an annual report, or a briefing intended for the President), the level of urgency as established by the intelligence agencies and the security clearances of individuals are all factors that influence whom the intelligence is given to. The final step in the cycle is feedback. Once the packaged intelligence is reviewed by the individual(s) involved in the decision-making process, they will give feedback to the intelligence agency(s) involved in that particular cycle, where revised requirements and objectives are generally issued.

The Progression of U.S. Intelligence on Syria

The intelligence agencies involved in the cycles pertaining to the chemical weapons attacks that took place in the Damascus suburbs all fit into a particular portion of the intelligence cycle. The direction of the operations was most likely handed down by senior government officials, either the directorate of the CIA or the Secretary of State himself. Following the requirements given by these officials, field operatives of both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency were likely dispatched to Syria in an effort to link up with any rebels, Syrian military personnel or survivors of the attacks who might know of what happened, and how. At the same time, the National Security Agency was likely directed to begin signals surveillance of the Syrian military, which they had probably already been doing for a couple of years up to that point, as Bashar al-Assad’s reign and the Arab Spring of 2011 had been particularly volatile. This signals surveillance would be crucial in intercepting communications that could possibly implicate the Syrian government in the attacks, or, at the very least, give the United States an idea of who may have been behind them. Concurrent with orders given to the NSA, CIA and DIA, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office were likely directed to begin or further their satellite and aerial surveillance and geographical imaging of Syrian weapons depots, in order to divulge whether or not the Syrian government had indeed moved troops and weapons from certain areas to near where the attacks had taken place.

These five intelligence agencies (CIA, DIA, NSA, NGA, NRO) were likely to have been the predominant agencies at the forefront of intelligence collection on the Syrian chemical weapons attacks. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency would be the primary collectors of human intelligence, sending operatives into the field with requirements on the order of interviewing any potential survivors, Syrian military personnel, Free Syrian Army rebels or medical personnel at local hospitals, in addition to the collection of human tissue exposed to the chemical weapons for further lab analysis. The Defense Intelligence Agency would also play a part in lending support to the signals intelligence collection efforts of the National Security Agency, which would be the lead agency in collecting electronic intelligence regarding the attacks. The National Security Agency, meanwhile, would be attempting to infiltrate Syrian government and military networks, attempting to siphon off any information regarding personnel and supply movements in the general area of the attacks, in addition to infiltrating their email, mobile and satellite communications. The National Reconnaissance Office would be in charge of operating the network of satellites relaying photographic and signals surveillance to the appropriate agencies for processing and analysis, as the NRO does not seem to have a budgeted analysis department (The Black Budget, 2013). The satellite communications interceptions would ultimately be sent to the National Security Agency, while the satellite photography and other images would be sent to the primary processor of geospatial intelligence, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. In addition to the intelligence sources each of these agencies specialize, it is likely that most, if not all of them were liberal in their use and reference of open source intelligence. After the agencies had conducted their own intra-agency processing, they would likely share information with the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which would conduct an analysis on all of the available intelligence, in an effort to come up with a more complete picture of what had happened. They would then prepare and package the intelligence for dissemination to top military and political officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry. Once distributed, this information would be used to create battle plans and tactics should the United States military need to step in and halt the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government by force, most notably for the United States Navy, whose Office of Naval Intelligence was likely the final stop for any and all case sensitive intelligence, in order to make certain that the commanders of the warships being sent to Syria were as prepared as humanly possible. Additionally, the information in its watered-down form, such as the intelligence assessment referenced for this assignment, can be unclassified and used to brief the press and the public on the situation as it develops.

The collection, analysis and dissemination of information within the broader United States intelligence community are almost always a joint effort between agencies. The brutal and systematic slaughter of Syrian civilians in the Damascus suburbs, following the chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, was no different. By utilizing human, signals and geospatial intelligence sources, the myriad of government agencies involved were able to discern the locations of the attacks, those responsible and the locations of further chemical weapons stockpiles, all in a matter of days, using the tried and true methods practiced by the greater intelligence community and an adherence to the intelligence cycle.

Works Cited

"About DIA." Defense Intelligence Agency. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <http://www.dia.mil/about/.

"About NGA ." National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <https://www1.nga.mil/About/Pages/default.aspx.

"Bureau of Intelligence and Research." U.S. Department of State. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://www.state.gov/s/inr/.

"Central Intelligence Agency." About CIA -. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <https://www.cia.gov/about-cia.

"Central Intelligence Agency." The Intelligence Cycle . N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. <https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/6-12th-grade/who-we-are-what-we-do/the-intelligence-cycle.html.

"Statement on Syria." U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, 30 Aug. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/08/213668.htm.

"The Black Budget." The Washington Post. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/.