BDR revolt and intelligence

The revolt in the BDR headquarters in Dhaka is an eye-opener. Due to revolt, more than 50 lives have been lost, including civilians. Whatever the causes of the revolt, it is a fact that there has been serious intelligence failure, and, secondly, the death of civilians and subsequent alarm demands a serious debate on the merits of keeping the headquarters of security forces or cantonments inside crowded localities of the nation's capital.
In the US, the forefathers of its independence nearly 230 years ago decided not to allow heavy weapons within the borders of the capital. However, it allowed individual citizens to bear arms for self-protection. In the case of Bangladesh, given its history of coups and counter-coups, it may be necessary to forbid heavy weapons within a 50-mile radius of the capital city of Dhaka.
The BDR revolt, especially killing of innocent civilians and bystanders, once again reminded the Bangladeshi nationals to seriously discuss this issue of relocating both the Dhaka Cantonment and the BDR HQ away from the city limits. If the BDR headquarters had been outside Dhaka, the casualties would have been much less.
That the BDR revolt occurred following the prime minister's trip to the BDR HQ is mind- boggling. If it had happened during her visit, it could have created a greater national crisis. Naturally, serious questions could be raised regarding the efficiency of the Bangladesh intelligence agencies.
According to many, the focus of the intelligence agencies has been basically finding and codifying information regarding civilian opinion leaders and political leadership. The system for secretly recording phone, fax and mobile calls of private citizens has been designed with a view to collecting information about civilian activities. Even their everyday activities and mobility are being watched in the name of the nation's interest.
Nevertheless, the intelligence agencies had failed to provide intelligence information regarding the terrorist bombing attack on a public rally of Sheikh Hasina on August 21, 2004, in which 23 people were killed -- including the wife of President Zillur Rahman -- and over 300 were wounded or maimed for life.
They failed to provide intelligence information regarding grenade attacks on the former finance minister A.M.S. Kibria or on British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury. They also failed to furnish intelligence information regarding bombings in 493 towns and cities of Bangladesh simultaneously.
In fact, the performance record of the intelligence agencies till date is very poor. It gets an F. The recent BDR revolt is a case in point.
Most of the heads of intelligence agencies have been active duty military officials. In contrast, most of the heads of intelligence agencies the world over are non-military personnel.
If anyone investigates the history of the heads of the FBI for the last quarter century, he will be surprised that most of them were lawyers or judges. There have been seven FBI directors in the past 30 years, of which three were acting directors. All four directors were lawyers/judges, and among the acting directors, two were career intelligence officers, and one was an accountant. A similar record would be for the CIA.
This raises a valid question. How well has the nation been served by active-duty military personnel as heads of intelligence agencies that mainly focus their attention on political or civil leaderships?

Abdul Momen is a Professor of Economics and Business in Boston.