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“Still Broken: A Recruit’s Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, From Baghdad to the Pentagon.”
A.J. Rossmiller
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–Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Problem from Hell
“A. J. Rossmiller is a truth-teller, a rarity today, and the title of his book–Still Broken–is the succinct truth about the U.S. intelligence apparatus. That apparatus is not only failing, but it is failing catastrophically. To understand part of the reason why, read Mr. Rossmiller’s book.”
–Lawrence Wilkerson, Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary, and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
“A. J. Rossmiller has emerged as one of the most insightful and sophisticated foreign-policy commentators in our country. He combines a passionate patriotism and irreplaceable real-life experience with the U.S. military in documenting the profound corruption and ineptitude driving our Iraq policy. Rossmiller served his country nobly during the war, and does so again with this important and moving new book.”
–Glenn Greenwald, author of How Would a Patriot Act?
From Congressional Politic's Jeff Stein, their National Security Editor:
Anyone who’s spent time in uniform will recognize the stories that A.J. Rossmiller tells in “Still Broken: A Recruit’s Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, From Baghdad to the Pentagon.”
Like the Army field hospital so authentically portrayed in M*A*S*H, Rossmiller’s memoir of two years as a Defense Intelligence Agency Iraq analyst is darkly funny, with its own versions of Hawkeye, B.J., Colonel Potter, and of course, Frank Burns.
Unfortunately, it’s all too true. And frightening, from the viewpoint of national security.
In M*A*S*H, the good guys usually win.
But at the DIA, in Rossmiller’s telling, victories were rare. The intelligence analysts’ carefully researched and sourced reports on Iraq were usually at odds with the rosy pronouncements of Bush administration hawks, and regularly quashed or re-written. No matter how often their forecasts proved to be accurate, or how little evidence their bosses marshalled to contradict them, the analysts were constantly browbeat and berated for being “too negative.”
...Intelligence officials constantly berated and insulted the analysts’ sober reports on the growing chaos of Baghdad, the hopelessly splintered Iraqi government and the fighting among Sunnis and Shiites that had spun into a civil war.
The J-2, or top intelligence officer on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, fell back on rank to intimidate them into changing, or completely repudiating, their reports.
From Publishers Weekly:
"Graduating from college with a degree in Middle East studies, Rossmiller joined the Defense Department's Intelligence Agency in 2004 and soon volunteered to join a DIA unit in Iraq. He vividly recounts his six-month tour—the physical misery of the environment and the frustrations of feeling his work rarely made a difference. Good intelligence, he explains, begins with people on the spot (in this case usually Iraqis), who take risks but supply information that is often fragmented, out-of-date and even self-serving or false. Analysts, such as the author, tease out useful data and deliver it quickly to fighting men. Hobbled by clueless superiors and their turf wars, as well as ignorance of Iraqi culture, DIA units, including Rossmiller's, witnessed American forces repeatedly acting on poor or outdated intelligence. They killed and arrested plenty of genuine insurgents but also killed, arrested and infuriated many innocent Iraqis, which crippled their efforts. Back in Washington, Rossmiller discovered the agency under pressure to provide good news for the Bush administration. Superiors regularly rejected his analyses of Iraqi politics as “too pessimistic.” If repeated rewrites lacked an upbeat conclusion, superiors inserted one. That his predictions turned out to be correct made no difference. This intense, partisan arm-twisting devastated morale, resulting in an exodus of agency experts, including the author. Rossmiller gives a lively insider's view of the petty and not-so-petty politics that affect the intelligence our leaders receive in their efforts to pacify Iraq; it is not a pretty picture."
From the publisher:
Back at the Pentagon as a strategic issues expert in the Office of Iraq Analysis, Rossmiller saw the administration’s heavy hand in determining how information is processed. In a dysfunctional office filled with outsize personalities and the constant drone of Fox News, he filed reports on the ever-worsening situation in Iraq. These assessments, ultimately proven accurate, were consistently rejected as “too pessimistic” and “off message” and repeatedly changed to be more in line with delusional White House projections.
Written with passion, intensity, and self-deprecating humor, Still Broken is a riveting and sobering portrait of Bush-era intelligence failures and manipulations, laid out by someone who witnessed them up close and personal. It also offers a sincere, thoughtful prescription for healing the system so that a new and motivated generation won’t disengage completely from its government.
About the Author:
A. J. Rossmiller, a fellow at the National Security Network, served with the Defense Intelligence Agency for nearly two years. For his work in Iraq, he was awarded the Joint Civilian Service Achievement Award and the DIA Expeditionary Medal for valorous and meritorious service. He is a contributing editor at Americablog.com, and his writing has been featured or cited in a wide variety of news and commentary outlets. Rossmiller is currently an adviser and consultant for various nonprofit and foreign policy and defense organizations, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project. He is a regular commentator on the Alhurra television network, a U.S. government-run channel that broadcasts in Arabic to the Middle East.
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