Greater Pentagon spy role denied

The White House announced several structural changes to the US intelligence community Wednesday, after a 90-day review led by the National Security Council's homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend.

The Bush administration will follow 70 of the 74 recommendations put forth in March in a 600-page report by a nine-member commission led by Republican Judge Laurence Silberman and former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb.

A fact sheet describing the White House's acceptance of most of the recommendations said that it will study further three, and not implement one classified recommendation.

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Among the 70 changes the White House will embrace, The Associated Press highlights the following:

-- Altering the structure at the FBI to consolidate its intelligence-gathering and analysis operations.

-- At the Justice Department, creating a national security division and consolidating its counterterrorism, espionage and intelligence units.

-- Putting CIA Director Porter Goss in charge of all human intelligence, or traditional spy work done by government operatives.

-- Implementing new procedures for dissenting intelligence analysis to be allowed to float up to senior officials.

-- Giving the intelligence director a staff of "mission managers" who will develop strategies for specific intelligence areas. As an example, the commission said the director could have a mission manager focused on a specific country, such as China.

"The White House has decided to establish an office to manage and coordinate all US human intelligence collection overseas, whether carried out by the CIA, the Pentagon or the FBI," reports The Washington Post.

As anti-terrorism efforts have required more spying abroad, there have been clashes among CIA, FBI and Pentagon clandestine operatives, a situation that the president's commission said in its report "heighten[s] the risk that intelligence operations will be insufficiently coordinated. ...

CIA Director Porter J. Goss and his agency, whose role diminished within the intelligence community with the arrival of John D. Negroponte as [Director of National Intelligence], would solidify control of overseas spying under the new system.

A separate Times report calls the decision a " victory for the CIA."

The agency has been struggling to retain its authority in the power structure headed by John Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, especially as the Pentagon has pressed for a greater role in intelligence operations.

The Sept. 11 commission recommended that the agency's special paramilitary unit be transferred to the Pentagon, but the White House decided in November to maintain that capacity at the C.I.A., while also moving to strengthen the Pentagon's paramilitary capacities.

The commission's recommendation, the government officials said, was based on a conclusion that military forces were often better trained and equipped than the C.I.A. to carry out missions that might be a part of a covert action. But the officials said they believed that the White House had concluded it would be preferable to leave covert action in the hands of the agency, to maintain a sharp legal and operational distinction between its paramilitary operations and those carried out by the military.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director Porter Goss signed a letter transmitted to the White House within the last week saying they opposed the recommendation, reports The Associated Press.

Paramilitary operations include training pro-US rebels, destabilizing governments and organizations through violence, and directly attacking enemy targets. Such operations are overseen sometimes by the CIA and sometimes by military special operators such as the Green Berets. Which is used depends on how much secrecy, firepower and people are needed for the operation; they also often work together.

AP points out that the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks concluded that having two organizations with paramilitary capabilities within the government was redundant. "Whether the price is measured in either money or people, the United States cannot afford to build two separate capabilities for carrying out secret military operations, secretly operating standoff missiles and secretly training foreign military or paramilitary forces," the commission's report said.

Meanwhile, the alleged kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan by CIA operatives continues to make headlines. Italian prosecutors said they want to extradite 13 CIA officials accused of nabbing the cleric and transporting him to Egypt where he reportedly was tortured. They've also asked Interpol to help track down the Americans.

A Houston Chronicle editorial asserts that the Italian judge's decision to issue warrant for the CIA operatives "should serve notice that the abductions, known as renditions, are extralegal, wrong and, in the case of a Muslim cleric abducted in Milan, harmful to the global effort to combat terrorism."

Would President Bush tolerate the abduction of a US resident by agents from Italy or any other country, with no due process or protection under the law? The CIA's renditions are no less intolerable in the eyes of the United States' most important allies.

As the Bush administration embarks on a campaign to improve the United States' image in the world, ending secret abductions, detentions and transport to countries with ruthless regimes should be at the top of the list.

Also...
• Saudis publish new militant list ( BBC)
• Milan mystery: Did Italy have role in kidnapping case? ( The New York Times)
• CIA blunder on Al Jazeera 'terror messages' ( The Guardian)

• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Matthew Clark.