Between Franks and Butler: British intelligence lessons from the Gulf War

Kettle, Louise

Abstract

Lessons for the intelligence community were publicly identified in a 1983 report by Lord Franks and 2004 report by Lord Butler. However, little is known of the lessons learned during the twenty years between the two. This article draws upon two newly released, previously classified, documents which examine British intelligence lessons from the 1990-1991 Gulf War. It provides a previously untold account of the crisis, exclusively from a British intelligence perspective, and presents new evidence that intersects across many intelligence debates. This article also challenges whether identified lessons remained learned and begins to question the wider learning process within the intelligence community.

Citation

Kettle, L. (2016). Between Franks and Butler: British intelligence lessons from the Gulf War. Intelligence and National Security, 31(2), 201-223. https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2014.978549

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Nov 19, 2014
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Feb 15, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 15, 2016
• Journal: Intelligence and National Security
• Print ISSN: 0268-4527
• Electronic ISSN: 1743-9019
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 201-223
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2014.978549
• Keywords: Franks; Butler; Intelligence; history; lessons; learning; Gulf War
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/978464
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2014.978549
• Related Public URLs: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fint20/current
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Intelligence and National Security on 19/11/2014, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02684527.2014.978549