It was well earned, Gregory’s colleagues told him, and it rang true to him. As you read, put yourself in Gregory’s shoes, and consider his perspective on the risks he takes for a country that seems increasingly unable to govern itself.įrom his new top floor office in the embassy, just down the hall from the ambassador, Gregory was enjoying the stunning mountain view that accompanied his recent promotion to the senior ranks of the foreign ministry, even if it meant working on a weekend. security posture and strategic decision-making, and even make our partners question America’s seriousness and capabilities as a superpower. Political antics on both sides of the aisle can hurt the U.S. government may have forfeited hundreds of important intelligence reports. By a conservative estimate, dozens of clandestine partners will have missed important meetings with their case officers during a three-day window, and the U.S. It is not back to business as usual with a slight delay. When the government re-opens, it is not just a few days that have been lost. The immediate and significant reduction in employees on the job means that we will assume greater risk and our ability to support emerging intelligence requirements will be curtailed.” Dianne Feinstein, then-Chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, put it bluntly : “Our shutdown is the biggest gift we could possibly give our enemies.” A spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence asserted, “The Intelligence Community’s ability to identify threats and provide information for a broad set of national security decisions will be diminished for the duration. intelligence community furloughed 72 percent of its civilian employees. With the federal government briefly shutting down Friday morning for the second time in as many months, it’s worth considering the national security risks of closing the doors.ĭuring the 2013 government shutdown, the U.S. national security are furloughed, including most CIA operations officers at home and abroad, along with the rest of civilian employees in the intelligence community and colleagues in the State Department, the Department of Defense, and across the government. But other federal employees crucial to U.S. Political leaders go out of their way to emphasize that the military will remain on duty. The following story is a fictitious depiction of a plausible scenario that is meant to illustrate the real damage done to critical intelligence collection when the U.S.
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