McConnell et le processus de privatisation du renseignement US

Le remplacement de John Negroponte par Mike McConnell à la tête de la coordination des 16 agences de renseignement US, comme National Intelligence Director (NID), semble surtout être un pas important de plus dans la voie de la privatisation du renseignement aux USA. C’est l’analyse du journaliste Tim Shorrock, collaborateur de Harpers, de The Nation et de Mother Jones. Spécialiste des questions de renseignement et, surtout, de ce phénomène de privatisation, il estime que plus de 50% des $45 milliards du budget national du renseignement aux USA vont d’ores et déjà à des contractants privés. Le principal d’entre eux est Booz Allen ; McConnell était l’un des directeurs de Booz Allen avant de devenir NID.

Shorrock est interviewé le 12 janvier par Democracy Now ! Il explique en détails ce que signifie la nomination de McConnell. Cet ancien amiral (les officiers de la Navy, comme l’amiral Pointdexter également, jouent un rôle important dans ce processus) va accélérer le processus de privatisation, qui permet au pouvoir politique de réduire de plus en plus l’objectivation et l’indépendance de l’analyse du renseignement, donc de répondre à sa déformation politique selon les besoins du pouvoir («If you’re a [private] contractor, you do what the government says»). Il est manifeste qu’il faut placer ce mouvement de privatisation du renseignement US, commencé avec William Casey (directeur de la CIA sous Reagan) dans le mouvement plus général de re-privatisation des USA lancé en 1971 avec le “Manifeste powell”.

Ci-dessous, quelques extraits de l’interview.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about Mike McConnell and Booz Allen.

TIM SHORROCK: Well, it was interesting that Juan mentioned that he is into — talks about integration of intelligence services, because that’s exactly what Booz Allen does. Booz Allen is one of about, you know, ten large corporations that play a very major role in American intelligence. Every time you hear about intelligence watching North Korea or tapping al-Qaeda phones, something like that, you can bet that corporations like these are very heavily involved. And Booz Allen is one of the largest of these contractors. I estimate that about 50% of our $45 billion intelligence budget goes to private sector contractors like Booz Allen.

And Booz Allen Hamilton plays a very integral role in intelligence. It has a very close relationship, as you mentioned, with the National Security Agency. They advise them on their systems integration and things like this. They help bring intelligence together with other intelligence agencies.

And I think this particular appointment is sort of an acknowledgment of how much — of the role that contractors play, but it's also very dangerous to have somebody from the private sector who’s basically been a Yes man to the intelligence agencies all this — you know, for the last ten years. If you’re a contractor, you do what the government says. So, I mean, where is our oversight? We basically don’t have any oversight of intelligence. And I think this is a very bad direction to be going in.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, some of the programs that they’ve been involved with with the federal government have not worked out well, right? There’s some called Trailblazer and Groundbreaker. Could you talk about those?

TIM SHORROCK: Right. Well, the NSA, the National Security Agency, is really sort of the lead agency in terms of outsourcing, and this began long before 9/11. It began in the late _ you know, 1998, 1999, when they realized they were getting very behind the commercial world in technology. And so, you know, basically, the NSA has been leading this.

Trailblazer was a very large program that they contracted to a company called Science Applications International Corporation, SAIC. And their job was basically to, as you said before, data mining. They wanted to get all the intelligence they get from the phone intercepts, satellites, and get it into a form that their analysts can read and understand and analyze. And that’s what SAIC has been doing.

The project has cost about $4 billion, and it basically hasn't worked at all. There are all kinds of problems with it. And this is an example of the kind of — you know, they give contractors control over huge programs, and then they subcontract. But it's just not done very well. I mean, the government has done a very bad job of managing these programs, and, you know, Booz Allen has been involved in some of the most badly managed of these programs.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And McConnell, not only has he been involved in contracting, but isn’t he the chairman of the alliance of contractors that do business…

TIM SHORROCK: Yeah. Over the last year, he became the chairman of this organization, the INSA, which represents the largest NSA and CIA contractors. So he’s very involved in all levels of the contracting world, in terms of promoting the contractors and in terms of, you know, talking… pushing their interests in the government, within Congress. And so, you know, a guy like this running our intelligence services, as I said before, really is a serious problem.

Mis en ligne le 14 janvier 2007 à 11H46