Thomas Fingar | Sam Adams Awards | Oxford Union

Thomas Fingar gives his address after recieving the Sam Adams Award at the Oxford Union Society.

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Thomas Fingar will be recognised for the role he played with the National Intelligence Estimate which helped prevent the Bush/Cheney administration from launching war against Iran in 2008.

The 2007 Iran nuclear capabilities and intelligence estimate was unusual in several respects.

The impact was unusual people who feared military action against Iran's nuclear programs claimed the estimate prevented a war. He highlights that the decision to go to war is decided by policy makers and not intelligence analysts.

Another unusual aspect of this judgement was that The Whitehouse ordered the immediate declassification of the intelligence report on Iran's nuclear program. US diplomatic decisions around the world have been based on these intelligence reports so the fact that decisions are based on these reports the Whitehouse felt obligated to release them. The last unusual thing was the immediate reaction of those who did not like the findings of the estimates that Iran had halted its nuclear program in response to international scrutiny and pressure. Diplomacy had been effective and they did not like that. None of the immediate critics had read the document -- 120 pages, they read a 2 and a half page summery

Input from the intelligence community is just one stream among many but it differs from all the rest in that they operate with presumed objectivity, they access to information not available to others and knowledge of what policy makers think about a given issue.

Intelligence Agency = Its primary function is to provide information and insight key to the requirements of the National Security enterprise

At 14:40 Thomas Fingar begins to talk about the Iraq WMD estimate.

He says that none of the policy makers had read the estimate and that the decision to go to war was made before it was published. Statements were made by officials before the key issues had be challenge by intelligence.

He highlights that one of the main things learnt during the Iraq WMD case is that it's important to identify and disseminate the existence of analytic differences as early as possible.

One of the hardest tasks for any analysts is to dislodge an erroneous judgement after it has been planted in the head of a decision maker. If an official is mislead its extremely hard to get them to take back that judgement if they have already spoken out about it.

With the lessons learnt and the stringent processes put in place after the Iraq war Thomas states that the intelligence agency has come a long was since 2005.

Filmed on Wednesday 23rd January 2013

ABOUT THOMAS FINGAR:

Charles Thomas Fingar is a professor at Stanford University. In 1986 Fingar left Stanford to join the State Department. In 2005, he moved to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and concurrently served as the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council until December 2008. In January 2009, he rejoined Stanford University as a Payne Distinguished Lecturer in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

ABOUT THE OXFORD UNION SOCIETY:

The Union is the world's most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. It has been established for 189 years, aiming to promote debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.