Stovepiping Pre and Post-9/11
Another meaning of stovepiping is "piping" of raw intelligence data directly to decision makers, bypassing established procedures for review by professional intelligence analysts for validity (a process known as vetting), an important concern since the information may have been presented by a dishonest source with ulterior motives, or may be invalid for myriad other reasons. For example, numerous articles and books have subsequently appeared to detail, how conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.
Some believe that one reason that "warning signs" of the terrorists attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 were not acted upon effectively was a long-standing compartmentalization and duplication of intelligence gathering and sharing at the federal, state and local levels. The 9/11 Commission noted, "lines of operational authority run to the expanding executive departments, and they are guarded for understandable reasons: the DCI commands the CIA’s personnel overseas; the Secretary of Defense will not yield to others in conveying commands to military forces; the Justice Department will not give up the responsibility of deciding whether to seek arrest warrants. But the result is that each agency or department needs its own intelligence apparatus to support the performance of its duties."
The Office of Special Plans (OSP), created by the George W. Bush administration, is credited with stovepiping raw intelligence related to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq to high level Bush administration officials. Media analysis and professional analysts from other U.S. government departments subsequently determined that many of these reports originated with dishonest sources or were untrue for other reasons (see e.g. Curveball), and the process of vetting would have prevented their reaching decision makers through normal channels. As one report stated, "The 2003 Iraq prewar intelligence failure was not simply a case of the U.S. intelligence community providing flawed data to policy-makers. It also involved subversion of the competitive intelligence analysis process, where unofficial intelligence boutiques ‘‘stovepiped’’ misleading intelligence assessments directly to policy-makers and undercut intelligence community input that ran counter to the White House’s preconceived preventive war of choice against Iraq." This stovepiping by the OSP had the effect of providing a substantial portion of the untrue allegations that formed the publicly declared justifications for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, such as allegations of collaboration with Al Qaeda and an ongoing program of weapons of mass destruction.
A government-published document which refers to "stove-piping" concerned the attacks in the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. The report, Accountability Review Board for Benghazi to Examine the Facts and Circumstances Surrounding the Attacks of September 11–12, 2012 was promulgated in declassified status. One of the two references to stove-piping states, "...in the months leading up to September 11, 2012, security in Benghazi was not recognized and implemented as a “shared responsibility” in Washington, resulting in stove-piped discussions and decisions on policy and security."
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