| Show A4 The Salt Lake Tribune NATIONWORLD Sunday December 28 1997 CIA Struggles With Job of Predicting Global Conflicts infrared satellites and ground-base- d radars of actual ICBM launches said retired Air Force Gen Chuck Horner who headed the NORAD North American defense command in the early THK ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON The warning came Dec 19 1979 in a top secret alert- the Soviet Union was - preparing for "multibattalion combat operations in Afghanistan CIA satellites had spied convoys of fuel trucks along narrow roads leading to the Afghan border But the spy agency said the Soviet force appeared limited in scale and that an incursion might not be imminent Nine days later the Soviets attacked abruptly ending efforts at reaching US Soviet detente The ability to provide ' stratemore than mingic warning utes or hours before an attack was a major preoccupation of the CIA during the Cold War according to newly declassified intelligence documents It remains one today with new threats arising in such flash points as the Persian Gulf Somalia and Bosnia "This has been an issue that has been worked extensively by the intelligence community to try and focus on a help the policy-make- r problem" said former CIA Director Robert Gates "It's to say You'd better pay attention to this one because theres a chance it might blow up in your face The Associated Press examined the formerly top secret National 1990s In an August 1978 top secret report CIA analysts said their ability to predict a Soviet chemical attack on Western Europe also was low Easier to foresee the agency said would be a conventional Soviet invasion because of the prep- Spy satellites arations that would have to be undertaken Depending on the size of the Soviet force the CIA said in November 1978 that it had high conf- listening devices idence" it would detect war preparations almost immediately and could provide three to 12 days advance warning Even so the warning would be uncertain: "We are unlikely to be able to foretell when the enemy will attack where he will attack or whether he will attack at Clandestine human sources MWIOOKFOR ! 1 Conspicuous troop movements all Complicating this was the CIAs conclusion that the most likely war scenario involved an East-Wecrisis escalating to the point of conflict The CIA said it would have a hard time differentiating whether the preparations were defensive or offensive in nature It was a recurring problem the CIA cited the same concerns in 1954 Soviet behavior in a period of st heightened political tension would not necessarily give specific warning of a Soviet intention to attack the agency said at the time These reports point to what intelligence experts view as the uni- versal challenge of strategic warning The best warnings require not just data but an insight into the mind of an enemy an elusive goal in the case of "rogue adversaries such as Saddam The warning process is plagued with uncertainty from beginning to end former warning intelligence expert Cynthia Grabo wrote in a monograph The CIA was created after the US government failed to act on indicators pointing to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor Other attacks that were not detected in advance or if detected were not considered likely by policy-makeinclude the North Korean invasion of South Korea Chinese intervention in Korea the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia the Tet offensive and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait Within the CIA Afghanistan emerged as a key episode because it provided a rare instance in which the intelligence community could grade its own powers of prediction Retired Adm Stansfield Turner who headed the CIA at the time rated the CIA's performance as sterling With our photographic satel rs lite capability nobodys going to line up 1 10000 people to invade a country without our knowing it Turner said The CIA itself while saying it may have been too cautious in predicting the size of the Soviet invasion concluded that no key policy-makshould have been surprised Reporting on Afghanistan might have been better the agency said had not the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis in the fall of 1979 intervened That episode caught the CIA and the Carter administration by complete surprise Just over a decade later US spy satellites showed a force of more than 100000 massing near a this time the border of border Kuwait But most top administration advisers considered the move a bluff and doubted up to the last minute that Iraq would invade The CIA had anticipated this problem in a 1966 report "A warning judgment which is not believed by responsible policy officials the agency wrote is as ineffective as no warning at all A Major mobilization vs? y r J Intelligence Estimates dating l LflD from the 1940s to the 1980s Through much of the Cold War the CIA presented a coldly realistic picture of its ability to predict aggression Despite aerial recon- Massing ol troops along a border Fine Jewelry Clearance Dispatch of senior leaders to a troop garrison Lowest Prices of 1997! Unusual activity at missile sites naissance moles behind the Iron Curtain and a host of other assets the message was that war might come without warning and that any warning at all would likely be uncertain and hedged "The chances of providing warning of an 1CBM attack designed to achieve maximum surprise would be virtually nil the CIA wrote in a 1966 estimate "Intelligence could almost certainly give no firm warning of an intention to attack Intelligence is not likely to give warning of probable Soviet intent to attack until a few hours before the attack if at all A source high in the Soviet government might help if only the CIA had one the intelligence agency said five years earlier Aiionati'd Such an intelligence coup was judged to be highly unlikely Though the technology of spying has improved markedly since then the number of potential enemies has increased In 1990 in the Persian Gulf US spy satellites saw Iraqi forces massing on the Kuwaiti border but policy-maker- s discounted the possibility of invasion after Arab allies said Saddam Hussein was bluffing Intelligence officials say it is particularly difficult to predict a missile attack whether by Soviet ICBM or Iraqi Scud My warning was going to be physical evidence derived from NEW4YEARS Find the greatest savings now through Saturday on our entire $16000000 inventory X REUPHOLStER' BJS3H diamonds All 0 All 14k and 18k gold jewelry -- MASTERCRAETi iORlftvv owvwtr s SERVING: PARK CITY TOOELE AND OGDEN cultured pearl strands and jewelry All Brilliant Deduction! 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