[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL 'Spy Czar' Isn't the Answer LATimes

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-intel21jul21.story

EDITORIAL

'Spy Czar' Isn't the Answer

 July 21, 2004

 The Democrats push for a big new agency to stop terrorism. President Bush
resists for a while, then, as an election looms, embraces it, even though he
knows better. That was the scenario with the creation of the Homeland
Security Department in fall 2002. And here we may be going again, with
proposals to create a new intelligence czar.

 Democrats are champing at the bit, and the independent 9/11 commission is
by all accounts poised to recommend the creation of such a czar when it
releases its final report Thursday. The Bush administration says it's very
open to the idea. But why? Far from improving intelligence, a national
intelligence director would hamper it.

 Massive government reorganization rarely improves anything. The hasty
creation of the Homeland Security Department has been a lesson in confusion
and disarray. First responders ‹ firefighters and police ‹ aren't getting
funds from the department. Port security remains abysmal. Director Tom Ridge
is reduced to issuing vague alerts about even vaguer threats instead of
powerfully coordinating intelligence information.

 Why does anyone in Washington think this model will work any better for the
CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency and the military intelligence
agencies?

 Intelligence-gathering and analysis need less, not more, centralization.
The "groupthink" at the CIA that the Senate Intelligence Committee recently
condemned is the product of inadequate intellectual competition. The agency
needs to form internal groups that compete with each other on intelligence
assessments and to farm out more analyses to contractors like the Rand Corp.
Other agencies should also encourage independent assessments.

 The CIA needs structural reform less than it needs better, stronger
analysis. It's no accident that the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research, which has about one-tenth the number of the CIA's
analysts, offered the most critical examinations of prewar intelligence on
Iraq. Its analysts are older and have extensive university backgrounds as
well as regional expertise. Those analysts predicted that Turkey would not
allow U.S. troops on its territory in order to attack Iraq and, moreover,
that toppling Saddam Hussein would not spread democracy in the Middle East.

 Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ignored the warnings of his own bureau
before he made his embarrassing speech before the U.N. Security Council
about Iraq's supposed numerous programs for weapons of mass destruction.
Bush also knew what he wanted to hear, and former CIA chief George J. Tenet
told it to him.

 The biggest failing has been one of leadership, including that of acting
CIA Director John McLaughlin, who was responsible for much of the Iraq
analysis. Individual analysts need to know that their higher-ups will be
held accountable rather than rewarded for failure.

 A rush to reorganize the whole U.S. intelligence apparatus will impede the
changes that would actually produce more benefit.


If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at
latimes.com/archives.

Article licensing and reprint options




 Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times