Finally, A Step In The Right Direction!

[Bronco_Beerslug]

This one, Bush is getting right. Consolidation of intelligence is a must!!

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Bush Backs Authority for Intel Director
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The White House unveiled plans Wednesday to give a new national intelligence director strong budgetary authority over much of the nation's intelligence community, a key provision in the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations.


President Bush (news - web sites) intends to give the intelligence director full budget authority over the National Foreign Intelligence Program and "the management tools" to oversee the intelligence community and integrate foreign and domestic intelligence, the White House said in a statement.

The administration's plan comes as the Senate prepares to start crafting its own legislation to address criticisms from the 9/11 commission that the nation's 15 different intelligence agencies did not work together properly to stop the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington.

Bush revealed his plans in a White House meeting with congressional leaders from both parties. Leaders were then briefed by Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), the national security adviser.

The administration's plan would give the national intelligence director "sufficient authority to not be a figurehead and really manage intelligence," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record) of Connecticut, ranking Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (news - web sites) — which is writing the legislation the Senate will consider — also called the Bush recommendations "a very significant step."

Most members of the Senate seem to be behind creating a national intelligence director to oversee nonmilitary intelligence, and many have echoed the 9/11 commission's call for that person to have the ability to hire and fire leaders of the intelligence agencies and to control the money Congress provides those agencies.

The White House had not previously openly endorsed that aspect of the commission's recommendations.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20040908/ap_on_go_co/congress_intelligence

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Wonder how long it will take this new intelligence director to repair those networks the AWOL misadministration has destroyed for political payback?

This guy has his work cut out for him--particularly when you consider that effective intel requires cooperation w/ other countries and the Alkie in Chief has pissed off and alienated almost all of them.

[Rock Chalk]

Wonder how long it will take this new intelligence director to repair those networks the AWOL misadministration has destroyed for political payback?

Childish remarks aside, I think it will take a while for this director to get things organized. Foreign affairs aside, the logistics of centralizing the intelligence agencies so that better inter-agency communication and information is passed in a SECURE manner will take a decade or more. I dont know what "repairs" you are referring to with foreign intelligence agencies, probably just more smack.


This guy has his work cut out for him--particularly when you consider that effective intel requires cooperation w/ other countries and the Alkie in Chief has pissed off and alienated almost all of them.

Look dude, France and them disagreed with us, big freaking deal. They are not going to withold intelligence on terrorists because of it. The only countries that will are countries that would have withheld the information regardless of who was in office or what events happened.

[patteeu]

There are reasons why intelligence wasn't consolidated before. Part of it is that individual departments wanted to retain control over their own domains (empire building) but part of it was so that the President would get different takes from his various advisors. This will give the director of consolidated intelligence a lot more power to interpret all the various intelligence takes and present a single view to the President. This isn't necessarily a good thing. It has pros and cons. Hopefully it will work out. But 20 or 30 years from now, I wouldn't be surprised if something happens and a commission suggests breaking it apart again to prevent group think or something along those lines.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

. This will give the director of consolidated intelligence a lot more power to interpret all the various intelligence takes and present a single view to the President. This isn't necessarily a good thing. It has pros and cons. Hopefully it will work out. .
It will create responsibility, liability and culpability. It will create ONE gathering point for all the different agencies, something that had it been in place might have prevented 9-11

[Crushaholic]

The intelligence department needed revamping because we aren't fighting the Russians anymore. 9/11, as tragic as it was, has a silver lining in that it woke us up to problems in the department.

[watermock]

hmmm.

Now we have 6 intelligence agencies.

CIA, FBI, Homland Security, NSA, whatever they call this one..., and the MIB.

[patteeu]

It will create responsibility, liability and culpability. It will create ONE gathering point for all the different agencies, something that had it been in place might have prevented 9-11

Like I said, there are pros and cons to the change. You point out some pros. By creating a single gathering point for all different agencies, you are also creating a potential problem because there is a single point of failure. If the director of intelligence (whatever his title ends up being) fails then there is no redundancy to compete with his assessment. Before, if the CIA came up with one assessment and Defense Intelligence had another one, they had to compete for Presidential mindshare (i.e. the Defense Secretary and the DCI would have to make their cases to the President). If the changes are made, the competition will occur at a lower level of the hierarchy and the Whitehouse will only get the assessment of the new director.

I'm not arguing against the change, I'm just pointing out that it isn't the panacea that some might think.

[Rock Chalk]

There is another con in that security becomes much more difficult to maintain. Inter-communication, as tight as it may be, still leaves doors for information to be leaked from. They have leaks in each agency and now tying them all together may prove to be a disasterous move...if they do not appropriately take security measures within to prevent such occurances.

[watermock]

I swear to god I could put 15 people together out of this damn board and put something more concrete.

Oh well, hand me the shaker honey....

[watermock]

Noone wants to hear what mock thinks. So mock has to speak in the wilderness.

Here it is. You don't create more agencies. You reform the agencies that exist. Transformation means weakness.

If Mock is President?

First thing I do is find out where Al Sadr is. I don't care if he is in a mosque, I don't care if he is taking a crap in a porta pottie. I blow a square mile into a crater.

If Falujia is a problem? Guess what mock does?

Do you think Eiesenhower cared if there were Churches in Hanover?

I level the crap.

Now that I have your ****ing attention, we can talk terms.

I am sick of these little rats.

You don't think people died before?

People died because that was how you won wars.

It's time for some major escallation against these Islamic whores.

Call me crazy, but they are ready, they think, for an offensive. It's time to just wipe them out now.

Of course, it wont happen.

But Islam is a peacefull religion remember?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Childish remarks aside...

What's "childish" is the boy king's arrogant, unilateral, go-it-alone foreign policy and his supporters' inability to understand that effective intel requires cooperation with those countries the frat boy has alientated and pissed off.

[watermock]

Childish remarks aside...

What's "childish" is the boy king's arrogant, unilateral, go-it-alone foreign policy and his supporters' inability to understand that effective intel requires cooperation with those countries the frat boy has alientated and pissed off.

First it was not arrogant, it became clear that the food or terrorism fiasco had been so corrupt that it needed to end. Saddam was sending carte blance to suicide bombers, almost 5 billion had been grafted thru Syria and Turkey and France and Russia.

Your an idiot. What Chidlish Boy's ignorant go it alone foreign policy is the inability to understand intel

FROM WHOM?

It's pretty funny when an idiot like LABF thinks that the USA relies on offworld intelligence.

Was it not the fact that we relied too much on foreign intelligence the fault number one?

Just in case you don't know, on the ground intelligence has been ramped up 500 percent from the Clinton administration.

You don't even know what homeland security means. Every time it say Islamic terrorism on this thread a buzzer goes off.

[watermock]

You fools don't even know what homeland security even means.