Bush implements intelligence reforms
Executive orders are in place before the Republican National Convention.
President Bush signed
executive orders putting into service parts of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations on overhauling United States intelligence operations, reports
The Associated Press. The orders take effect immediately.The president grants
more power to the director of central intelligence, designating him to fill much of the role envisioned for a future national intelligence director, according to senior government officials who have been briefed on the plan," reports
The New York Times. The CIA director's new authority goes into effect just prior to the Republican National Convention being held in New York next week. But the move is just an interim measure. The 9/11 Commission's call for a new, more powerful national intelligence chief requires Congressional legislation.
The proposed changes target intelligence shortcomings in
three areas, reports
The Associated Press,
• Create the position of a national intelligence director and strengthen the powers of the office of this intelligence chief. • Improve the exchange of information among intelligence agencies. • Form a national counterterrorism center, putting that office under the new intelligence director and giving the director the power to appoint who will run the center. Perhaps the most sweeping recommendation in the bipartisan panel's
567-page report has been the call for the creation of a counterterrorism center, which the commission "envisions as a
joint operational planning and intelligence center staffed by personnel from all the spy agencies, and a national intelligence czar", reports
AP. The commission's call for a new, more powerful national intelligence chief would require Congressional legislation. All told, the Commission outlined
more than 40 recommendations over how to reform the intelligence community, reports
Newsday.
Relevant congressional committees have been working through the August recess to draft legislation to implement some of the changes. Even with the president's actions, Congress is expected to continue its work on legislation to overhaul US intelligence. Two senators working on such legislation, Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) said [on Thursday] that a new intelligence chief should have significant power over the budget. The powers given to that chief - both over policy and the purse - has been an area of significant debate. Collins and Lieberman want to present the full Senate with an
intelligence bill by the end of September. Lieberman said the goal was to win passage before Congress leaves for the November elections. Both Lieberman and Collins were briefed on Thursday in a closed hearing by senior officials from the Pentagon, CIA and FBI. Collins stated "My support for providing significant budget authority for the new national intelligence director has been strengthened." Lieberman concurred, saying "A strong case was made that if you are going to create a national intelligence director, it can't be a phony, it can't be cosmetic. It's got to be real and the way to make it real in this town is with budget authority." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
has expressed concerns about the budgetary authority that would accompany the position of intelligence director. He said:
We do need to make significant adjustments in how we collect, communicate and dispense information.,....: We have to be careful about it. ... You don't want, in the middle of the war, to go tearing up the pea patch." The
New York Times reports that "the extent of any
new budget authority to be given to the director of central intelligence as part of the executive order, were still being debated within the administration." It is understood that Rumsfeld was reluctant to limit the budgetary power currently wielded by the Pentagon, which controls an estimated 85 percent of the country's $40 billion intelligence budget, reports the
Times. Homeland security is, notably, a top issue of the presidential campaign with both Bush and Kerry vying over their national security credentials. Bush said he did not think the national intelligence director should be a member of the president's Cabinet. "I will hire the person and I can fire the person. ... I don't think that the office should be in the White House, however, I think it should be a stand-alone group to better coordinate [intelligence]" reports
AP. Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry disagrees. He supports the panel's recommendation that the director be in the White House as a member of the Cabinet. He told
AP:
You give greater power and leverage to the person who is the national director if they are seen as speaking directly for the president within the White House... You also coordinate more effectively with the other agencies that you need to coordinate in order to summon the greatest possible response to protect Americans.
Also...
•
Commentary: 9/11 commission report generally fair and balanced (
Daily Times)
•
First Nigerian troops to leave soon for Sudan's Darfur (
Agence France Presse)
•
Darfur rebels say power deal first, disarming later (
Reuters)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Jim Bencivenga
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