POTUS

National Intelligence Director 7/17/04 Staff National Counterterrorism Center 4:14 PM

Hire,Train,Acquire, Equip & Field National Intelligence Centers (agencies support / staff the Nat'l Intel Centers) (conduct "joint" collection and analysis - illustrative) Page 413

¶Deputy NID Deputy NID Deputy NID WMD Int'l Crime China / Foreign Defense Homeland Proliferation & East Asia Intelligence Intelligence Intelligence Narcotics (CIA Dir.) (USD Intelligence) (FBI/Intel Dir.)

¶CIA DIA FBI Middle Russia / Clandestine Services Intel & CT / CI

¶NSA East Eurasia All-Source Analysis DHS / IAIP Open Source NGA Other DHS (e.g.,

¶NRO CBP,TSA, Nat'l Agency (new) Labs, Coast Guard,

¶Other etc.)

¶Unity of Effort in Managing Intelligence

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The National Intelligence Director would set personnel policies to establish standards for education and training and facilitate assignments at the national intelligence centers and across agency lines. The National Intelligence Director also would set information sharing and information technology policies to maximize data sharing, as well as policies to protect the security of information.
Too many agencies now have an opportunity to say no to change.The National Intelligence Director should participate in an NSC executive committee that can resolve differences in priorities among the agencies and bring the major disputes to the president for decision.

¶The National Intelligence Director should be located in the Executive Office of the President. This official, who would be confirmed by the Senate and would testify before Congress, would have a relatively small staff of several hundred people, taking the place of the existing community management offices housed at the CIA.

¶In managing the whole community,the National Intelligence Director is still providing a service function.With the partial exception of his or her responsibilities for overseeing the NCTC, the National Intelligence Director should support the consumers of national intelligence—the president and policymaking advisers such as the secretaries of state, defense, and homeland security and the attorney general.

¶We are wary of too easily equating government management problems with those of the private sector. But we have noticed that some very large private firms rely on a powerful CEO who has significant control over how money is spent and can hire or fire leaders of the major divisions, assisted by a relatively modest staff,while leaving responsibility for execution in the operating divisions.

¶There are disadvantages to separating the position of National Intelligence Director from the job of heading the CIA. For example, the National Intelligence Director will not head a major agency of his or her own and may have a weaker base of support. But we believe that these disadvantages are outweighed by several other considerations:

The National Intelligence Director must be able to directly oversee intelligence collection inside the United States.Yet law and custom has counseled against giving such a plain domestic role to the head of the CIA.
The CIA will be one among several claimants for funds in setting national priorities.The National Intelligence Director should not be both one of the advocates and the judge of them all.
Covert operations tend to be highly tactical, requiring close attention. The National Intelligence Director should rely on the relevant joint

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mission center to oversee these details, helping to coordinate closely with the White House.The CIA will be able to concentrate on building the capabilities to carry out such operations and on providing the personnel who will be directing and executing such operations in the field.

¶• Rebuilding the analytic and human intelligence collection capabili-

ties of the CIA should be a full-time effort, and the director of the CIA should focus on extending its comparative advantages.

¶Recommendation: The CIA Director should emphasize (a) rebuilding the CIA's analytic capabilities; (b) transforming the clandestine service by building its human intelligence capabilities; (c) developing a stronger language program, with high standards and sufficient financial incentives; (d) renewing emphasis on recruiting diversity among operations officers so they can blend more easily in foreign cities; (e) ensuring a seamless relationship between human source collection and signals collection at the operational level; and (f) stressing a better balance between unilateral and liaison operations.

¶The CIA should retain responsibility for the direction and execution of clandestine and covert operations, as assigned by the relevant national intelligence center and authorized by the National Intelligence Director and the president. This would include propaganda, renditions, and nonmilitary disruption. We believe, however, that one important area of responsibility should change.

¶Recommendation: Lead responsibility for directing and executing paramilitary operations, whether clandestine or covert, should shift to the Defense Department.There it should be consolidated with the capabilities for training, direction, and execution of such operations already being developed in the Special Operations Command.

Before 9/11, the CIA did not invest in developing a robust capability to conduct paramilitary operations with U.S. personnel. It relied on proxies instead, organized by CIA operatives without the requisite military training.The results were unsatisfactory.
Whether the price is measured in either money or people, the United States cannot afford to build two separate capabilities for carrying out secret military operations, secretly operating standoff missiles, and secretly training foreign military or paramilitary forces. The United States should concentrate responsibility and necessary legal authorities in one entity.

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The post-9/11 Afghanistan precedent of using joint CIA-military teams for covert and clandestine operations was a good one. We believe this proposal to be consistent with it. Each agency would concentrate on its comparative advantages in building capabilities for joint missions.The operation itself would be planned in common.
The CIA has a reputation for agility in operations.The military has a reputation for being methodical and cumbersome.We do not know if these stereotypes match current reality; they may also be one more symptom of the civil-military misunderstandings we described in chapter 4. It is a problem to be resolved in policy guidance and agency management, not in the creation of redundant, overlapping capabilities and authorities in such sensitive work.The CIA's experts should be integrated into the military's training, exercises, and planning. To quote a CIA official now serving in the field:"One fight, one team."

¶Recommendation: Finally, to combat the secrecy and complexity we have described, the overall amounts of money being appropriated for national intelligence and to its component agencies should no longer be kept secret. Congress should pass a separate appropriations act for intelligence, defending the broad allocation of how these tens of billions of dollars have been assigned among the varieties of intelligence work.

¶The specifics of the intelligence appropriation would remain classified, as they are today. Opponents of declassification argue that America's enemies could learn about intelligence capabilities by tracking the top-line appropriations figure.Yet the top-line figure by itself provides little insight into U.S. intelligence sources and methods. The U.S. government readily provides copious information about spending on its military forces, including military intelligence.The intelligence community should not be subject to that much disclosure. But when even aggregate categorical numbers remain hidden, it is hard to judge priorities and foster accountability.