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| Dark side to US intelligence reform |
| 2004-12-03 |
| While the media focus attention on congressional turf battles associated with intelligence reform, US President George W Bush is taking steps - largely under the public's radar screen - to create his own hidden "army" of covert spies. Before getting into what the White House is doing, it's necessary to examine what Congress is doing and not doing about intelligence reform as a result of the collapse of the House-Senate conference attempting to bridge differences between the bills passed by each chamber. Ostensibly, the core problem is the line of tasking authority for three "national" agencies currently within the Defense Department: the National Security Agency (communications and electronic intercepting and analysis), the National Reconnaissance Office (designs, builds and operates signals and imagery satellites), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (formerly the National Imagery and Mapping Agency). Because of advanced communications electronics, these "combat support" organizations are able to transmit to tactical commanders (division and below) near-real-time information (eg, images and locational data on friendly and enemy forces, terrain, or groups of fleeing refugees) that could influence decisions and outcomes. The real barriers, however, lie elsewhere. The principal impasse concerns turf in both the executive and legislative branches. In the former, under the Senate plan, the three "national" combat support agencies would fall under the new national intelligence director for budget formulation and execution and for determining work priorities in responding to the intelligence collection requirements of intelligence users from the president down to tactical commanders. Shifting these three agencies from the Defense Department is not a new idea; the "Scowcroft" commission recommended in November 2001 moving them under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director in his capacity as director of central intelligence. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 A very important distiction needs to be made between the outcomes of intelligence gathering. For example, the CIA gathers intelligence to inform political leaders, then acts at a low level on their commands. An individual agent may receive direct command from the White House. The military, however, gathers intelligence to support pre-existing commands, and to optimize its effectiveness in carrying out those commands. To put this another way, the CIA acts and reacts; the military plans then executes. The distiction here is only subtle until you examine it, then it becomes obvious why the two modes of operation should be separate. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-12-03 1:43:43 PM |