|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
White House to Move Forward on Intelligence Reform By Mike Nartker WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush today announced plans to implement two key intelligence reform proposals put forth last month by the Sept. 11 commission — the creation of a national intelligence director and the development of a national counterterrorism center (see GSN, July 30). Calling the commission’s recommendations “thoughtful and valuable,” Bush said he would ask Congress to create a national intelligence director who would serve as “the president’s principal intelligence adviser” and who would coordinate domestic and foreign intelligence operations. The new director, who would be separate from the head of the CIA, would also have the authority to coordinate budgets and set intelligence priorities among the various agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, Bush said. He said creating the position would require a “substantial revision” to the 1947 National Security Act, which established the CIA as the “primary civilian intelligence-gathering organization in the government.” Bush also said that he would move forward on the creation of a national counterterrorism center, which would build on the existing Terrorist Threat Integration Center and serve as a “knowledge bank” for terrorism-related information. The new center, according to Bush, would coordinate and monitor the counterterrorism efforts of all relevant agencies and be responsible for preparing the daily terrorism threat report for the president and senior officials. The director of the new center will report to the CIA director until a national intelligence director is in place, Bush said. Contrary to the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendation, Bush said he did not support making the national director of intelligence a Cabinet-level position. “I think it ought to be a stand-alone group to better coordinate, particularly between foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence matters. I think it’s going to be one of the most useful aspects of the national intelligence director,” Bush said. Some senior Bush administration officials, most notably acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, have argued that creating a national intelligence director would add needless layers of bureaucracy. Bush said today, though, that he supported the proposal because “it was the right thing to do.” “The best decision-making process is one where people have different opinions and they bring them to me in a forthright way, and then I make the decision about what I think is best,” Bush said. Bush also said that within “the coming days,” he would issue a series of directives to implement other recommendations put forth by the Sept. 11 commission, such as improved intelligence sharing among various agencies, the creation of a dedicated work force within the FBI to analyze domestic terrorism-related intelligence and improved human intelligence and analytic capabilities within the CIA. In addition, Bush said that he has asked a presidential commission established in February to examine WMD-related intelligence to consider whether a center similar to the national counterterrorism center should be created to analyze proliferation-related intelligence. “All these reforms have a single goal. We will ensure that the people in government responsible for defending America and countering terrorism have the best possible information to make the best decisions,” Bush said during a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, flanked by senior officials including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Bush’s announcement today followed a review of the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendations by a Cabinet-level task force. In addition, while most of Congress is currently in recess, relevant committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate are scheduled to hold hearings this month on the commission’s intelligence reform recommendations with the aim of producing legislation by the end of the year. During the first such hearing, held Friday by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers expressed support for the commission’s recommendations. In his remarks, Bush emphasized the need to move forward on another recommendation put forth by the Sept. 11 commission — improved congressional oversight of intelligence and homeland security efforts. He said that there were now “too many committees with overlapping jurisdiction” to provide effective oversight. “I mean, it seems like it’s one thing to testify and for there to be oversight; it’s another thing to make sure that the people who are engaged in protecting America don't spend all their time testifying. And so there’s going to be some important reforms. We look forward to working with Congress on the reforms,” Bush said. Democrats, including presidential candidate Senator John Kerry (Mass.), have chided Bush for moving too slowly on intelligence reform. The president should call the full Congress back from its summer recess to begin work immediately, Kerry said today. “The time to act is now, not later,” he said, according to the Associated Press. Kerry also argued that the intelligence director should work from within the White House. “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,” he said. “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” (Deb Riechmann, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Aug. 2).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
