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Spy Chief Searching for Cuts Across Entire US Intelligence Community
[Defense One] Trump's new intelligence chief, Dan Coats, says he’s already moving on GOP lawmakers’ request to streamline all 17 agencies, including his own ODNI.In one breath, President Donald Trump’s new director of national intelligence told lawmakers that threats to the United States are growing in size and complexity -- and in the next, that he is looking for cuts across the entire U.S. intelligence community. Director Dan Coats told a Senate panel Thursday that he is looking to "streamline" the 17 federal agencies that comprise the IC. "As part of the administration’s goal of an effective and efficient government, we have already begun a review of the entire intelligence community, to include the office of the DNI," Coats testified to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In any other year, declaring one’s intention to hunt for taxpayer savings would be a stock statement by an agency head telling Congress what members always like to hear. But Coats spoke two days after Trump fired James Comey over what many senators believe was the FBI director’s investigation of potential links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. It also comes after months of disparagement by candidate and now President Trump of the U.S. intelligence community’s work on everything from the ISIS War to Russian influence, including frequent allegations that they were working against him and his White House bid. So Coats’ revelation quickly drew a flurry of online reactions from Trump critics. Trump aides, and a lot of good reporting, long have pointed to a coming review of the entire U.S. intelligence community, but particularly of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. For one, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was a Trump confidante and first national security advisor, had advocated a major re-design of intelligence processes as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His ideas were rejected and, famously, for many reasons he was not promoted into the loftiest ranks of U.S. military officers. (In recent months, many intelligence leaders have praised the Obama administration’s recent reorganizations, which aimed to modernize the CIA by adding a digital directorate and to help America’s spy agencies diversify their workforce.) Emphasis added. Posted by: Besoeker 2017-05-14 |
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