A "National Inteligence Director" is a bad, bad, iFollow

So, I'm watching Bush give his little speech about the 911 findings, naturally right after a big terror warning, coincednce, of course.

He's calling for creating a new position, I assume Cabinet Level, for someone to coordinate the long term goals and visions of the US intel community. Kerry's in favor of it, the 9-11 commision recomended it, and I think it's a stunningly bad idea.

Firstly, what he's calling for, would leave the DCIA position intact, and the reporting relationship is unclear, but assuming that they are equivilent posts and the DCIA doesn't report to the new guy, there's one big problem with this new position.

We allready have it. It's called the Secratery of Defense.

Creating a new cabinet post, and of course, all of it's attending beurcracy has a real potential to compound an existing problem with the US intel community, one of dilution.

That is, by the time intel gets from an analysts desk to someone who can make a decision from it, it's been filtered through fifteen levels of executives who all make changes to fit their personal or orginzational agendas.

What we really need is something much simpler that makes the process more effective. Eliminate the role of the National Security Advisor completely and instal the DCIA in the central role over all US Intel agencies.

Bam! Problem solved. Instead of having three sources for intel now, the NSA, SecDef and DCIA, you're just going to have four sources.

I understand why Bush is in favor of it. He's in favor of anything that lets him blame his staff's personal failures on the Intel community. He has to do it. Hopefully Congress will realize it's a bad idea, but I highly doubt it. Who's going to vote against it.

Bad all around. I can't wait to see who the first apointee is. Some failed Republican govenor with no experience if Ashcroft or ridge are anything to judge by.

/nod

The 911 report was a classic review of too many layers getting in the way of clear lines of communication.

Dubya's response? Add another layer!

It also moves decision making closer to the Political agenda. In the UK that's what undermined our previously impartial Joint Intelligence Committee. Before Bliar added a dash of 'Political Advisors' here and a 'Press secretary' there it comprised retired defence experts and politicians from all three main political parties.

You'd think folks would learn, but WTF. . . It's election time.

Oberion reminds me of a person who posts on my server MB. I think of the posting style as "Psychotic Haiku".

Yep i was just reading that on CNN and i was like "bad, bad idea.".

Usually when Bush starts using his "propaganda" speak of "We are a nation in danger," -Bush its time to pay attention to what he is doing.

And the raising of the terror alerts coincide with him announcing a new intelligence agency/counter terrorist agency. Now is that luck or what?

Imagine that none of the liberal socialists that frequent this board likes the idea of NID...must be a good idea then.


Varus

Yanari wrote:



So you're saying the sky isn't blue? Just because I label you guys what you are don't take offense.

Varus

Eeek! I agree with Stok. The sky, she falls.

This position is not needed. What needs to be done is doing away with the wall of secrecy between the CIA and FBI.


You'd have to change a few laws to do that. Probbaly have to waive posse comitatus too.

Been pretty well eroded anyway in border patrols, I thought. Friend of mine says when he was in the Army they were assigned to border patrols a couple of times at least.

If I step on a termite I don't take offence.

Now get your slimy goop off the sole of my Nikes

Then, I'm sure she can "fit you in".

No need for much room. I'm hung like a baby kitten. The up side of that is I have to rely on technique

Um. Before the partisanism starts flying around too much, let's all stop and take a breather and note that this is not just a Bush thing. Kerry thinks it's a good idea, as does the 9/11 commission. So, can we please debate it on the issues of the position itself rather then the perception that it's "just another bad idea coming from the Bush administration"?

Having said that, I'm sorta of the same opinion as Smash (yeah shocker, I know). There are absolutely huge problems involved here in terms of connecting intelligence organizations in the first place. We have multiple organizations specifically because each has a narrow area they are allowed to operate in. That was done to provide a balance with the assumption that one huge intelligence power in government could easily become dangerously powerful.

That's issue number one. Now, if we assume they are going to try to keep those groups separate, but still have a common point for information to be assembled as it relates to homeland security (I hate that term btw, but whatever), then you do need another layer. Remember, that the whole push for this was that while 9/11 was going on, we basically had 2 or 3 different groups all working in different directions and not communicating with eachother. SecDef works well, but is really aimed at military intervention and foreign issues. If someone sends military units at us, all our systems will be coordinated just fine. But there's no real connection between that post and groups like the FBI or the FAA (specifically in the 9/11 case).


My concern is simliar to Smash's though. I understand the need for better coordination during a crisis, but if this new post is at a cabinet level, then you'll just create a second parallel path which will add to confusion during a crisis.

If, however, it's created *under* the Secretary of Defense, then it might work. You'd have a group who's mandate was to collect data from various organizations (FBI, CIA, NSA, military, etc), specifically with the goal of maintaining working relationships and communications connections with all those agencies. During a crisis, you'd have a single point for each of those groups to "check in", and a single point for the SecDef and NSA to check in with as well to be able to advise the President.

If it's done that way, it might actually make things cleaner then they are now. But that's assuming interagency rivalries and mistrust don't continue to cause problems (but I suppose they do with any model we use). My biggest fear again comes back to the amount of power that group would have. There would need to be some serious balances and restrictions placed on such a group, since the wealth of information and contacts they'd have would be staggering. The potential for abuse is pretty scary.


Personally, I'm of the opinion that the effectiveness of such an organization would be inversly proportional to the danger of abuse the organization would represent. The more effective it is during a crisis (or at averting one), the more power and access it would have to have, making it very dangerous in terms of privacy issues when there isn't a crisis.


I think it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition. The "people" demanded of their government reasons why we weren't able to piece together the tiny bits of evidence about the 9/11 plot before it hatched, and the answer is that our agencies that collected those bits of evidence are specifically structured to prevent just such an accumulation. Obviously, if your goal is to fix that, then you must put them closer together. But the real question is: Is our safty from a 9/11 style attack more important then our freedom and liberty by *not* having such a collection of intelligence? We obviously built our intelligence agencies specifically the way we did out of an inherent distrust of too much information in one group's hands. I see 9/11 as the "cost" of that decision. While I think a lot of people think that cost was too high today, I'm not sure if we'd take that same view in the long run. And if we did form such a group, would we be able to "unform" it later if we decided it was a bad idea?


And calling it NID would just be funny from an SG1 standpoint... ;)