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S EC R ET L i o n 5Event: Lt.Gen. Kenneth Minihan, USAF retiredTy pe of Event: InterviewDate: November 5, 2003Special Access Issues: NonePrepared by: Lorry FennerTeam Nu mber: 2Location: Commission's K St. OfficeParticipants non-Commission: Lt.Gen. Kenneth Mini han, USAF Retired.Participants Commission: Col. Lorry Fenner, Gordon Lederman(U) BACKGROUND.(U) General Minihan was interviewed by the JI on 12 September 2002. We reviewed therecord of that interview as w ell as his Senate Governm ental Affairs statement of 19 98 onInformation Infrastructure protection.(U) Gen. M inihan was a career intelligence officer with his time focused on tacticalsupport for fighter pilots in Vietnam to serving as a one-star at Tactical Air Co mm andHeadquarters. He served in Squadron, Group, and Wing Commander positions beforeserving as the Com mand er of the Air Intelligence Agency (the Air Force's CryptologicService E lement). He was the A ir Force's Assistant Chief of S taff for Intelligence(AC SI) and then Director of DIA for 6 mo nths before Secretary of Defense Perry madehim Director of NS A (against his wishes) where he served from 1996 to M ay of 1999.Lt.Gen. Hayden succeeded him. W hile at AIA he responded to pressure to transform A Fintelligence to support tactical operations coming out of DESERT STORM and he startedthe Air Force Information W arfare C enter (AFIW C ).(U) A fter retirement, he m ade a conscious decision to avoid the d efense/intelligencecontractors and moved to the business sector with a private equity fund. And he ischairman of a senior intelligence roundtable. He has no contractual relations with theintelligence commu nity (IC) or with DoD although he consults for some co mpanies thatdo business with them.(U) THE IC 'S TRANSITION AT THE END OF THE COLD WAR .(U) When he started at DIA some thought that this was an organization from the C oldWar w ith massive analytic capacity that was n o longer needed. It was totally misalignedv i s a v i s new and future threats. He knew that a new leader usually had abou t a year to

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make p roposals and then implement the vision. Tw o things he wanted to do, and started,were to create an analytic environment that wou ld "close with the new threats" usingmodern tools like JIVA (Joint Intelligence Virtual Analysis) and to eliminate NOFOR N(to fight in a coalition environment).(Sly Bill Perry and John White told him to go to NSA'Where the problem was the sameas DIA "bu t worse" in terms of transitioning from the _Co ld War. This was com ing fromthe Scientific Advisory Bo ard. For security, NS A w as clinging to the "clipper Chip"because they were drowning in encryption software: They were also clinging tor

9 11 Classified Information and internet collection.(U) THE VISION FOR NSA AND THE C HALLENGE OF M ULTIPLE BOSSES(U) Gen. Minihan knew the w ord "National" does matter in NSA . DIA is, owned by theCJC S, but when you are DIRN SA three people think they own you - SE CD EF, C JCS,and the D C I. You have three totally different constituencies with different needs.However, DoD has the money.

..(5/S.1) First he took the "clipper chip" off the table and moved Information Assurance to aService C omm ercial Structure to"address the new c hallenges (instead of fiOting arearguard action with the chip): He also wanted to move the Agency froma n d go after the internet. He brought CIA in and got a CIA

person as his Deputy D DO. H e also wanted to move from hiring less than 100 personsper year to expanding that. Finally, he believed NSA had m oved to a "technologyghetto" having declined from a 15% R& D investment down to 3% . (Note:GROU NDBREA KER was the project to outsource infrastructure).(U) His vision put him at odds with all 3 bosses and there w as no m oney for an y of it .He also wanted to chan ge his partnerships within and outside the IC and they weremessing with his authorities [NFI].(5/Str Instead of inheriting a modern outfit from ADM. O'Connell, the Agency was inthe 10 t h year of a 3% program d ecline. They h ad given up on mo dernizing and were justtrying to hold their own. The downsizing had a "halo effect" on investments. Moreover,between his rejection of C lipper Chip and go ing after the internet he was already $6-10Bin the hole.(U) His bosses each had their own issues with the vision . Each thought his power wasabsolute.

(U) OS D w as doing a Bottom Up R eview and was insensitive to histechnological dilemm a with the Information R evolution. It was "not their problem". Thebest he could do was arrest the decline. He requested "overguidance" and he let it beknow n on the Hill (as he sat next to John Harare) that he was no t in agreement with thePresident's Budget. His request for guidance generated tension with the EOP. The Hillliked it when he asked for overguidance.

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U) CJCS was focused on the warfighter not on national ./ CJCS had nointerest in other customers. From 1996 to 1999 there was a real growth in tactical needsand technical issues came into play as in Bosnia, etc. So CJCS W anted more.(U) The DC I had Com mun ity responsibilit ies. He was not an advocate forinvestment but only for budget. They were torn between software encryption (cost) andwe . But 90% of the time when the DCI says we he meant CIA, which occurredwhen the DC I moved from F Street to Lan gley.

(U) Gen. Minihan a ctually knew his bosses' power was not absolUte but diluted and hehad to try to balance them . He knew that the Secretaryof State should ha ve as muchinfluence as the SEC DEF, and that m any thought that forj ou should be able to doanything; no one should be complaining about getting more mon ey. You did have to getthings out to the CINCs (and visit them) or they would go to the CJCS. Whereas theSECDEF was less invasive l /11 Classified Information fhe SECDEFwould c ut deals with the Deli DIRNSAs O'Connel l and Haydenmet/meet with the SEC DEF every week, but during M inihan's time they only met acouple times a year reflecting receding interest by the SEC DEF. W ith the DCI therewere converging interests across program s. Th e Da thought Ken wan ts more than hisfair share . Minihan knew his one mission with the DCI was to make sure Tenet wasn'tsurprised. He did not get many phone calls . Th e Deputy SECD EF was NSA 's touchpoint, but was too busy. Hamr e wanted to have NSA work for ASD /C3I, Art Money,along with NIM A, DIA, etc. , which Minihan resisted and co nvinced Ham re to resist. TheStaffers, the Hill , the DCI all thought they knew m ore than DIR NSA . He told JohnHarare don't diminish NSA and Hamre said he was not having fun with the budgetissues and wanted to push those to Mon ey. John W hite and Bil l Perry were more activethan Harare an d Bil l Cohen.(U) The staff worked with the CINCs and they would have working groups for Specialsl ike Bosnia. The CINCs wou ld go direct to the CJCS and h e would get calls directly.Minihan tried to help the CINC s, but sometimes he also told them no .WRY Gen. Minihan responded to a request to give an example of when he might playbosses off against each other. He responded that since DoD was the 8001b goril la (aboutmon ey) he would a lways go to Defense first, then he'd go to D CI if he didn 't get the

answer he w anted. He would o nly respond to the Hill if they asked for him. He did ha veto block bosses who wanted him/NS A to do something il legal. He also mention ed in onecase I 11 Classified Information - N S A and CIA bumped into each otherbecause of lack of information sharing and their operation was comp romised.(U) FISA AND INFORMA TION W ARFARE (IW).4SiSir He had no trouble with FISA such as problems from having to go through DoD orDoJ. [This is contrary to Hamre's JI interview Hamre thought that was the only controlhe had over NS A was to threaten to withhold FISA and his GC had to sign them all?].

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-SECRET?Minihan said FISA was a magnificent process, but it took hard work and it had to be doneright. He was not uncom fortable with FBI do ing SIGIN T, but it had to be coordinated.He said DoJ always signed the FISA s. Minihan briefed the Suprem e C ourt and went overeach case including the ones that didn't work out. T hey were very thankful for the' briefing. R on Lee ran the program (GC ) and the NS A lawyers were great. They did fearthe "halo effect" if FBI messed up.

J,SiSiNinihan hired more lawyers during downsizing to work IW issues. His lawyerswere conservative and wanted new laws in this arena. In the early 1990s Minihan hadcreated the Info W arfare C enter for the AF to respond to the new technologyenvironment. Gen. M inihan felt the IC needed a new analytic process rather than newlaws. The problem was the lawyers didn't know the technology. Minihan wanted to goafter a person whether that person used a phone or email, rather than simply going after aphone number. He taught his lawyers the technology and then they got it. He started theInformation Operations Technology Center (IOTC) at NSA also. He wanted to fosterComputer Network Attack (CNA). By the same token, he wanted to transform theInformation Assurance Directorate (with ISSP money). No one was interested really buthe got Hamre and CJCS to buy the ELIGIBLE RECEIVER exercise allowing him toattack the DoD information infrastructure. When NSA was successful, the leadershipfinally understood and thought about money for defense (IAD) and offense (I0 (CNA)).The lawyers insisted that they obey the law.which they did. They did not cheat on thedomestic side, as an enemy would, and they still crashed the system quickly. Once thelawyers understood the technology and followed the scenario they got it. They realizedthen that they didn't need new laws even for offense.(U) Gen. Minihan said he never once ran into a problem with the laws in trying to do hisob.(U) MID-LEVEL MANAGEMENT, TERRORISM AND TRANSFORMATION ATNSA.(U) Gen. Minihan illustrated the difference in how the workforce sees its seniormanagement by saying, at DIA they called him our Director while at NSA they saidthis Director meaning NSA people can wait out Directors and their ideas until a new

one comes. Minihan said he got on TV (NSA closed circuit) and went down to theloading docks based on a recommendation from the IBM C EO . He said you had tosurprise the mid-level managers. When h e tried to implement change, m any wouldrespond to him by saying, "great idea boss, but we have no mon ey". At the time, theDepartment of State was happy with what they were getting and Defense wanted near-real-time intelligence support.(U) For one part of transformation, Minihan founded the Unified C ryptologicArchitecture Office (UC AO) for integration and co mm on standards which were resistedby some.

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9 11 Classified Information SECRET (U) Minihan also recounted how he created a model u s ing terrorism for using "how we'dlike to be . He asked' to re-roll money ($500M - B) to go against avision "terrorism is hurting us and we're not postUred properly they are living in ourseams"(see below). He stood up a C T shop and m oved people there. The w orkers werehappy, the mid-level managers said there was no m oney, and the NS A seniors were not

smart enough to get where he wanted NS A to / go and implem ent needed changes.(Si-STYGen. Minihan clarified that NSA was reacting to the threat as they saw it evolving,not from direction from above. M iniharc/said N SA understood the terrorists were usingthe internet and wireless. While he was director, NSA found UBL SATCOMcommunications and was in the early/stages of understanding technologies the terrorists`were using, against which NS A only had a rudim entary system.( en. Minihan explained inore about the terrorists "living in the seam s." AsDIR NS A, he started to change" the old A (Soviet), B (PRC ) and G (R est of World) Grouppower structure and nut the,6ounterterrorism effort in W Group in T ransnational Issues,t, inder / tnterviewed 6 November). Previously, NSA was organizedgeographically and the terrorists were transnational; NS A w as interceptinj andas non-state actors, terrorist comm unications could primarily be found'NS A w as organized to respond to its customer base, but there wasnot a real. customer em anding C T strategic intelligence.(U) In Minihan's view things were changing in the late 1980s and early 1990s but evenhe was slow to see it. After WT C 93 he thought nothing had disrupted his job in nationalsecurity and that the bom bing was a crime p roblem. How ever, his father, a WW II vet,said "we've been attacked". NSA had no focus on W TC 93 except to help the FBI w henthey asked for it. Gen. Minihan has som e charts that show how we m oved from viewingterrorism as a crime to viewing it as an attack [Can we get this briefing?).(U) Minihan spoke of how the bom bing of Khobar T owers in 1996 had an effect on himpersonally. His son's room was where the bomb exploded at Khobar, but he was out.Terrorism d id affect Minihan's portfolio then with attacks on the military at Khobar andon the US S C ole and on civilians at the East African emb assies.(U) THE DCI'S 1998 DECLARATION OF WAR(U) Gen. Minihan said he got the DCI's memo and NSA was onboard. No one said"what will this cost us?". Minihan tried to re-roll NSA's money and asked foroverguidance. His customer base was happy with the intelligence they were getting, sohe couldn't stop doing anything in order to m ove resources and he got no new mon eyfrom the DCI. CIA got some extra money. He got some money (-SIB) from Congressbut it was "taxed" by DC I, CMS , and DoD so he took home about $4-500M. Since itwas m ore than what he had b efore, he didn't complain.(U) Gen. M inihan said the rest of that story is that the NS A program went over well onthe Hill. Speaker G ingrich thought it had some traction and scheduled 3 meetings.

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Barbara McNamara (DDO) and Minihan went to the HPSCI and got the $1.5B supplemental which was then taxed. The fact that Minihan was also re-rolling NSA'smoney got the Hill's attention. For instance, he used intelligence (CCP) money for the

IOTC and they yelled foul. He told them, this is our responsibility." [NH ] NS A did notneed Congressional approved for re-rolling under a certain threshold, but politically hadto obtain Congressional acquiescence.(U) COM M UN ITY M ANAGEM ENT(U) Gen. Minihan thought the Community Management Staff operated better when theywere located on F Street, when we meant the IC rather than the CIA. He said whenthere were IC debates, the debate occurred in the open. NSA made their argument andthey won some and lost some. Now since the DCI resides with the CIA, there is more ofa natural tendency to be with that outfit . Gen. Minihan believes that the DCI shouldtrust DIRNSA to keep track of his program, but that the DCI is now more invasive withthe apportionment of resources. He also believes that there is not an open debate; finaldecisions are just being made in the DCI's office when the CIA presents their case.When NSA lost under these conditions (when the debates were not open and fair), hewould try to get one of his other two bosses to fight the decision. He said CIA has anormal organizational impulse to put the DCI in the middle . He believes it is a

problem to have the corporate staff embedded in one of the business units of the IC.( U ) W O R K I N G T O G E T H E R W I T H T H E C I A (S, en. Minihan believed that two major changes were needed in his partnerships.He thought the foreign partners needed to be realigned rather than being considered 1 s t ,2d and 3d party. The stable relationships of the Cold War are no longer as useful. So hetook on Strategic Relations in his own portfolio as DIRNSA. The second was to applythe same transformation to relations with CIA, particularly since it belonged in one of theafter the internet infrastructure together

Gen. Minihan thought they needed to be able to goer (IOC and IOTC).

major areas of emphasis

(U) Gen. MinihanThought the seniors in the IC should have a C APS TON E-like coursetogether like thernilitary so they would become closer/network and know more abouteach others' buSiness. He said he told John Gordon (ADCl/S&P), I'll start it, and youtake credit for it. Gen. Minihan also said he hired a CIA operations officer as his AsstDeputy Director of Operations. His DDO, Rich Taylor said, I'll never be able to go ontrips now: So Gen. Minihan said he told Taylor, Didn't I tell you, you're leavingtomorrow for a 3 week trip to nip that kind of thinking in the bud. Unfortunately thisarrangement wasn't renewed. [We did not get to ask why or by whom?].cs/strOn information sharing, Gen. Minihan said NSA'

'was fine with sharing.- He said C IA always suspected there wasmore they weren't being given.' 11 Classified InformationGen. Minihan said he didn't have regular access to it, but he wasn't worried, when he

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needed it "it got fixed". He w as always comfortable with CL AN SIG ev en though theNS A seniors were not.) In reference to the "NO FOR N" classification caveat, Gen. Minihan said he voted toeliminate the caveat as Director of DIA an d as R NS A (he signed the staffing proposal

each time)1 11 Classified Information inihan said the IC needs a newclassification mo del now. NS A is global and they need to get rid of the NO FOR N caveatin order to function properly. The rubric of protecting "Sources and methods" shou ldgive way to protecting "accesses" since people already know w e do HUM INT andSIGIN T/S atellite collection; it is the access information that should be withheld. WhileDIR NS A, he instituted "write to release" dissemination of SIGIN T reports and hebelieves expanding this type of dissemination would help sharing with Law enforcementas well as foreign partner1 In reference to NOFOR N, 1W and the IOTC got out in frontA coalition of 10 20 countries were working military -to -military without the NOF RN caveat.

(U) THE DCI'S AND BUDGET(U) Gen. M inihan said that while budget execution authority is with the DoD , Defensedoesn't understand the IC anymore. DoD only knows what they don't want. Minihanargued that rather than D efense getting stronger, there has actually been a diminution ofDoD authority and its portfolio. The S EC DE F in M inihan's time (Perry) understood the"national" intelligence portfolio, but this declined over time and he as DIR NS A had tofight from being put under ASD/C3I. At that earlier time, SECDEF wasn't just aconsumer bu t was also the "custodian" who was responsible for what the IC should bedoing. Now G en. Minihan believes no one is the custodian and the IC do es dumb thingswith its money. If NSA needed money and DoD refused, he would ask the DCI.(U) REORGANIZATION?(U) Gen. M inihan did not agree with John D eutch' ideas for reorganization, but said weshould approach any recommendations for change in "consumable bites". We don't needto reorganize but we need to "get the charters right." The Charters are from the R eaganera while that geopolitical situation doesn't exist anymore and because of m assivetechnology changes the IC is misaligned. Reorganization consumes too mu ch energy.The real issue is "what do you want these people (each agency) to do." The issue is notbudget execution but rather who has responsibility. The D C I needs to be.in charge sinceSE C DE F is not "custodian" anymore. Gen. Minihan does not think the DC I should sit atLangley, and the DC I should not be the head of CIA. Gen. Minihan cited the examplethat in some deb ates the vote was 8-3 in favor of a position NS A w as supporting but CIAopposed. If CIA was one of the three in opposition the lesser side won. Gen. Minihanproposes that the IC needs a vision of "where we're going" not "what's wrong." Whetherit's under a D C I or DN I we need decisions and all the business units need to be co-equalin debates. Right now there is no strategic vision from the DO. The person in charge ofthe IC needs to be de jeure

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(U) Gen. Minihan's vision is that we had a great organization (IC) during the Cold Warand its legacy of success is at risk. The IC needs to transform from a passive to an activeposture to aggressively hunt dow n the adversary in the intelligence space. We havefarmers when we need hunters. His vision is about systems and processes, and collectionmanagement is both. During the Cold W ar we w ere regionally focused and looked attrends; now w e have to be global and look for anomalies. And once we have theintelligence/information we have to be able to do som ething.(U) Gen. Minihan thinks the IC's analytical model should be like Gen Clapper's newimagery m odel. Instead of taking a picture of what has happened; we need to bu ild atemplate on w hich to base action. Now our collection is aligned to show us a picturerather than prompting action.(U) Gen. Minihan believes oversight is a function of charters. He does not think anyonecan/should run the day-to-day operations of NSA except DIRNSA. DIRNSA should begiven an appropriate charter, and with theElthe DCI should trust him to run thatbusiness unit of the IC. If he does not,-run it properly then the DCI should fire him. .(U) Gen. Minihan believes NSA has dumbed-down its people and NSA lives in a technoghetto now. Gen. Minihan said it is hard to develop NSA's personnel in moderntechnology and context. He mentioned that the IBM CEO told him, I don't hire NSApeople anymore ; they ,used to be cutting edge. IBM is hiring NSA's IAD people but notSID. Gen. Minihan.thinks that DIRNSA doesn't have sufficient personnel authorities; hewished he'd had the DCI authorities. Things he could do under D I nuthnri 'es hecouldn't do under DoDI 11 Classified Information(U) Finally, Gen. Minihan said that the IC we built in the 1960s and 1970s gave us ou rsuccess in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s; but we are having trouble now (and will in thefuture) because of neglect in the 1990s.

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