War is the ultimate intelligence failure. When intelligence fails, the consequence is the Korean War in 1950. The consequence is the Vietnam War in 1965. The consequence is 9/11. The consequence is Iraq today. The long war in which we are now engaged is an intelligence war, and we will win it or lose it by virtue of our intelligence.

A decade ago, the CIA’s problems included dwindling money, haywire technology, dispirited personnel, revolving-door leadership, and a drifting sense of mission. Taken together, they were devastating. In his recent memoir, George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence for seven years under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, described the CIA he inherited in 1997 as a “burning platform”—an oil rig on fire in a stormy sea.

Today, six years after 9/11, money is no object at the CIA. The agency is working hard to fix its information technologies. Gen. Michael V. Hayden is perhaps the most capable director since Robert Gates, now secretary of defense, who led the country’s espionage service more than 14 years ago. And everyone knows what the mission is: to know the enemy, to prevent the next Pearl Harbor, and to provide the president with the information he needs to construct a strategy for the United States—not for tomorrow, but for five years beyond the horizon. These are the same reasons the CIA was created 60 years ago this past summer.

But General Hayden must carry out that mission with the least experienced workforce in the history of the CIA. Half his analysts, and a roughly equal fraction of his clandestine service officers, have been hired since 9/11. As youngsters in their 20s have replaced people in their 40s and 50s, the result has been an abridgment of intelligence. “For every 10 analysts with fewer than four years’...