Get me an intelligence czar!
Saturday, April 17, 2004 at 1:37AM REFERENCES:
(1) ìAdministration Considers a Post for Intelligence: A Centralized Overseer,î by Douglas Jehl, New York Times, 16 April, p. A1.
The completely unexpected continues to unfold: the Bush White House dusts off a year-old proposal from yet another presidential advisory panel (headed by Brent Scowcroft) that calls for a new super-DCI that would be called the DNI. There, dontcha feel safer already!
The DCI refers to the current position of the Director of Central Intelligence, the post commonly referred to as the director of the CIA. Actually, the DCI is supposed to oversee not just CIA but 15 total departments and agencies across the entire intelligence community. In reality, he oversees the CIA and little else. This unfortunate situation is described in the article as reflecting the legacy of an ìad hoc system created in haste after World War II.î
Actually, the National Security Act of 1947 (yes, two full years following the end of the war) created CIA and a host of other entities as the U.S. radically revamped its national security establishment to meet the new challenges of the new security age. Is the White House planning any radical change to this system? No, just adding another layer of centralizing bureaucracy on top, certain to sort everything out below.
I can see this poor guyís schedule already: 12-hour work days filled wall-to-wall with 15-minute office calls.
In short, I donít see much of an answer here. I have already said what I believe needs to happen to the intelligence community WRT to the emerging bifurcation of DoD into a warfighting-focused Leviathan force and a peace-waging Sys Admin force. The push to centralize the already secretive and distant-from-society (and much of reality) intelligence community strikes me as pretty mindless.
Thanks again, bin Laden!
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