Roberts Rules

Wall Street Journal ^ | August 25, 2004 | Editorial

[OESY]

...Mr. Roberts... would dismantle the CIA into three separate agencies responsible for operations, analysis and technology. He then would bring them, and the intelligence agencies now in the Pentagon, under the control of the new national intelligence director. All of that and presumably keep fighting al Qaeda at the same time.

We'll want to learn more, but our first reaction is to be skeptical of any plan that takes well-run intelligence assets away from the Defense Department, especially with troops currently fighting around the world....

We'd give Mr. Roberts more credit if his 139 pages of reform proposals addressed the problems caused by Congressional micromanagement. As the 9/11 report points out, but too few seem to have noticed, "Congressional oversight for intelligence -- and counterterrorism -- is dysfunctional." Senator Roberts's committee is partly responsible for this mess, so we'd like to know how it is going to heal itself.

But at least Mr. Roberts has exposed how little agreement there yet is in Washington about intelligence reform. The 9/11 report gave the illusion of consensus because of its unanimous recommendations. John Kerry quickly piled on, without much reflection and for his own political purposes, and the White House has played politics itself in trying to look like it is in favor of ideas that it really opposes. (So far Donald Rumsfeld is one of the few people who's been willing to suggest that everyone take some time to think.)

The... proposal... was agreed to mainly so the members could say they agreed on something. So they fell back on the safe and familiar Washington remedy of creating a new bureaucracy to fix the old one....

The larger point here is that there's no need to rush to any quick political fix....