Meeting in soundproofed, secure rooms at the US Capitol, lawmakers this week are probing the failure of the CIA and FBI to put together crucial facts – and foil the 9/11 attacks.

A geyser of reported leaks in recent weeks gives the impression of key government agencies being unwilling or unable to share and analyze crucial information to protect US citizens from terrorism.

At the heart of this unfolding drama lies a central question: What reforms would effectively get intelligence and law-enforcement organizations to work together for the public good?

It's a quandary that has vexed American leaders back, at least, to Harry Truman, who created the CIA partly out of frustration that the government didn't fuse available data and foresee the strike on Pearl Harbor.

Today, there is a range of views about how to proceed.

Some say a so-far-reluctant President Bush must crack the whip on the bureaucracy. Others say only another terrorist incident – and the popular ire that would result – could do the job.

"The fact that nine months have gone by since the attack and we're just now getting people in government to turn over evidence [of failures] shows the depth and breadth of the problem," says former Sen. Gary Hart (D) of Colorado, who co-chaired a recent anti-terrorism commission.

One school of thought among reformers focuses on the bureaucratic architecture. The CIA's small counterterrorism center is one of the few spots where cooperation is fostered between many agencies. Its staff has reportedly doubled to about 1,000 since 9/11– still only a minuscule part of the overall intelligence apparatus. A broader "national fusion center" proposed by Rep. Curt Weldon (R) of Pennsylvania would begin expand the collaboration concept.

Another trouble with the bureaucracy's design, critics say, is the weakness of the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). The DCI heads the CIA – and is nominally in charge of all other intelligence agencies. But the Defense Department controls the budgets of three key agencies: the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the National Security Agency. This convoluted arrangement arguably hampers fusion.

Another school of thought eyes reform of various processes – not rearranging an organization chart. First, all the agencies need computer systems that can talk to each other. Under the current "stovepipe" approach "it's very hard to find your counterpart at other agencies," says James Harris, a former top CIA official.

If interagency chats were possible, it could create "the intelligence equivalent of Internet message boards" that encourage free-wheeling discussions, he says. The danger, however, is that such discussions would compromise secret data.

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