[New York Times] Five Steps to Better Spying

OLLEGE PARK, Md. — In the debate over America's prewar intelligence failures in Iraq, there are two important questions. First, is there someone the president could fairly blame? And second, does the president have the power to repair whatever problems exist?

In both cases the answer is no. No single government official had the authority to prevent the misjudgments about Iraq's weapons programs. And under the present rules no single official has the authority to set things right.

These problems grow out of a flaw in the National Security Act of 1947, which created the office of director of central intelligence. That law charged the director with coordinating our national intelligence apparatus, which is now a $30-billion-a-year enterprise with 15 semi-autonomous agencies. The law, though, gave the director no real authority to manage many of these disparate entities. In effect, America's spy agencies have been without a chief executive for the last 50 years. Short of the president, there is no one officer in charge.

Consider this: the defense secretary controls 80 percent of the money allocated to national intelligence and manages 7 of the 15 departments and agencies involved in intelligence. By comparison, the intelligence director controls only the Central Intelligence Agency, signs National Intelligence Estimates (the classifed documents that reflect the consensus of intelligence agencies) and advises the president.

Giving the Defense Department control of so much of America's intelligence network may have made sense during the cold war. After all, the primary threat to the United States was a military one, and intelligence on the military capacity of our foes was essential to national security. But now our primary threat comes from terrorism, and the military is only one line of defense against this danger. Our intelligence efforts must be redirected to reflect these realities. This means finally giving the intelligence director greater authority.

• Before 9/11, a commission led by Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first President Bush, suggested that responsibility for the National Security Agency (electronic spying), the National Reconnaissance Office (photographic spying) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (photographic interpretation) be transferred from the defense secretary to the intelligence director. Because the director already controls most of the country's human intelligence activities, this would place all of America's principal spying organizations under one manager. Pentagon concerns about loss of control could be allayed by giving the defense secretary a "presidential trump card," meaning that only the president could overrule a personal request by the secretary of defense for a particular spying mission (redirecting a satellite, for example).

• The director of intelligence should be given the authority to supervise the distribution of all intelligence data, both raw and evaluated. Today individual spy agencies create "compartments" for highly sensitive information; they control access to these compartments in order to protect against leaks that might compromise the safety of agents and other sources of intelligence. This privilege is often abused — sometimes for purely bureaucratic advantage. It helps explain, for example, why the C.I.A. and Federal Bureau of Investigation had difficulty exchanging data about suspected terrorists in the months before 9/11. It is the intelligence director, with the national interest in mind, who should decide who sees what — and when.

• The intelligence director should have the authority to oversee the budgets for all 15 intelligence agencies. Only with a single hand in control can we hope to have a budget that has a unifying theme and covers as many intelligence needs as possible. The defense secretary and others could, of course, submit their dissents alongside the director's proposed budget.

• Control of the new Terrorism Threat Integration Center, which the intelligence director now heads, should be transferred to the secretary of homeland security, giving him responsibility for integrating domestic and foreign intelligence on terrorists. In the name of preserving civil liberties, we want to keep our foreign intelligence agencies out of the domestic arena as much as possible. When it comes to fighting terrorism, though, it is essential that someone be in a position to understand what is happening both here and abroad. It would also make sense, then, to transfer the F.B.I.'s domestic antiterrorism and intelligence operations to the Department of Homeland Security.

• Finally, the C.I.A. needs its own director. The two positions of director of central intelligence and head of the C.I.A. — now by law vested in one person — should be separated. For the person who manages the C.I.A. to also make decisions about other intelligence agencies creates the potential for favoritism and conflict of interest. In addition, this arrangement provides another level of supervision of the C.I.A. An intelligence director who is independent of that agency can monitor its performance more objectively than can one who is also its operating head. What's more, being both director of central intelligence and head of the C.I.A. is too big a job for one person — particularly in the face of a terrorist threat of frightening proportions.

Separating the two jobs would require Congressional approval. But all the other suggested changes can be made by the president — and they can be made now, without waiting months for the recommendations of intelligence commissions like the one President Bush appointed Friday. The reforms won't be easy to put in place, of course. The Pentagon, fearful of losing power, would probably object strongly. If, however, we want to improve the way our spy agencies are managed and fight terrorism more effectively, then we have no choice but to take these steps.

Stansfield Turner, director of central intelligence from 1977 to 1981, teaches at the school of public affairs at the University of Maryland.

The problem with the mainstream media is it doesn't understand what intelligence is, or how it is produced.

Intelligence is a result of analysts fitting together pieces of a puzzle, pieces garnered by collection assets. Analysts try to assemble these pieces into an image; with some expertise they might draw a reasonable conclusion to answer a specific intelligence question.

But what the media doesn't get, and Mr. Turner doesn't reinforce, is that no intelligence organization- CIA, DIA, NSA, what have you- will ever get all the puzzle pieces. Nor does any analyst know beforehand what the assembled puzzle is supposed to look like. Ever put together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing how it was supposed to look before you even started? Analysts work like this every day.

So the question shouldn't be why there is/was an intelligence failure, because I don't believe there was one. To say there was implies that the whole story was right there laying around, and it just took a couple bright CIA guys to pick it all up and say, "AHA! Here are all Saddam's weapons" or some such. The intelligence provided was as good as was then available, period; to suggest otherwise means the intelligence community purposefully withheld material from the President, and I don't buy that for a second.

If there is any failure it is on the part of "leaders", who point fingers at others in hope of defelcting blame from themselves; and the media, which should take the time to educate itself before trying to tell the story to the citizenry.

Absolutely. The Admiral has always been arrogant especially in minimizing his own errors, and there have been many.

When the Admiral got through with CIA the last time, we were years cleaning up his mess and repairing the damage.

Admiral, put out to sea. You're needed there, not here.

Media doesn't get intelligence. It's akin to good journalism, a LOT of HARD WORK.

Primary concern for our problems with terrorism is WE DO NOT HAVE ARAB SPEAKING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS -- and the ones we do have, we don't fully trust. Or that's what the whistle blowers at FBI have been saying.

Clinton also clamped down on our abilities to start up networks around the world, when he disallowed us from hiring unsavory types. I just DO NOT understand why our President does not point this out.

Good Intel is a lot of good footwork and not a lot of James Bond glory. Hard to find dedicated patriots like this nowadays. Easy to find paper pushing bureaucrats, eager for the paycheck from whatever country they can sell our secrets to.

Clinton also clamped down on our abilities to start up networks around the world, when he disallowed us from hiring unsavory types. I just DO NOT understand why our President does not point this out.

You mean Torricelli's bill? I think Kerry voted for it, plus he voted to cut funding for the CIA, then he complained right after 9/11 about the intelligence failures! Getting good info about the bad guys means you have to have unsavory types helping you. It's like taking down the Mafia.

Good point.

And, what Turner is calling for in his fifth suggestion is a cabinet level Secretary of Intelligence, even though he doesn't call it that.

A SOI would just add another layer of confusion and bureaucracy.

At some point the country has to realize that by continuing to increase the size of the Federal Government is the problem and not the solution.

It helps explain, for example, why the C.I.A. and Federal Bureau of Investigation had difficulty exchanging data about suspected terrorists in the months before 9/11.

IIRC, it was against the law (DemonRat passed law) for these two agencies to cooperate and exchange information.

The Patriot Act changed that and Admiral Turner should know that.

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