As consistent followers of the daily political news cycle, we all know that most politicians are a distant stranger to the phrase, "I was wrong." There is little convenience in taking responsibility when you can just divert blame onto other people and continue Washington's traditionally divisive game of "gotcha!" In guessing that you are probably tired of this continuing trend, let me spare you a few minutes from your daily supply of power politics and entertain you with a matter that many political minds, including myself, were wrong about -- and that is the position of the National Intelligence Director.
Two years ago, during my political science studies at the University of Washington, I argued with just about everyone I could, both progressives and conservatives, about the importance of creating a cabinet level position that oversees all intelligence with the goal of increasing dialogue between federal agencies in effort to prevent the next terrorist attack. For obvious reasons, pretty much no one would object to the idea of increasing chatter between agencies for the sake of national security. But what myself and other advocates of such a new position did not realize were the implications of such a decision. Putting it simply, we rushed to judgment. The President rushed to judgment. Congress rushed to judgment. Even more personally, I rushed to judgment in breaking ranks with other progressive bloggers and writing strongly in support of the President's measure.
I failed to realize the significance of allowing one person, the National Intelligence Director, to have complete power over all the intelligence agencies. This country's largest problem today, as we learned during hurricane Katrina, is not bureaucracy, it is micromanaging ideologues that serve their own interests rather than the long-term betterment of the American people. When you lessen the number of groups bargaining the President, you get a government built around people's passions, not checks and balances. Five minds should always better than one, not the other way around. This cabinet position resulted in the latter.
In this situation, the National Intelligence Director can order every intelligence agency around. But what happens if that National Intelligence Director is being corrupted by outside interests? Who will be there to keep him in check? The President? Other agencies should. But now with all this centralized power, no one can.
The recent news about the departure of CIA Director Porter Goss shows just how the CIA agency is being dismantled from the very top by the National Intelligence Director, the very cabinet level position that was supposed to make things better for national security. But instead of making things better, that National Intelligence Director is purging the CIA and every other intelligence agency of any possible dissent -- or in other words, purging the government of anyone that will stand in the way of any recommendation the National Intelligence Director has for the President. In a nutshell, the National Intelligence Director position is becoming almost as powerful as the President himself. This all has happened over the course of a two-year period.
What tit all comes down to is the realization that the President, Congress and bloggers like myself were completely wrong about the National Intelligence Director position. To correct the problem, I would favor an alternative.
For national security reasons, we all agree about the importance of different intelligence agencies being able to coordinate with one another. The CIA, FBI and NSA ought to share intelligence regularly. The best way to ensure that is not by centralizing power around one authoritative Intelligence Director, but instead to empower the existing agencies. So I suggest the following:
- Create a wing inside each of the intelligence agencies with the specific task of communicating directly with one another.
- Create an investigative office inside the Legislative Branch, somewhat comparable to The Congressional Budget Office, that keeps tabs on both the use of funding and the coordination between agencies, and reports monthly to both the House and Senate Committees on Intelligence.
The whole point of creating an investigative wing within the Legislative Branch that monitors these agencies is that it would act as a much-needed check on the Executive Branch during a time of war. Empowering existing intelligence agencies by forcing them to act efficiently and aggressively, as opposed to redirecting their power towards one individual that can report to the President whatever he so chooses, will get our intelligence agencies on the same page during this important post-9/11 era.
I know that only the President has the power to dissolve the cabinet position of the National Intelligence Director -- and I know it will not happen under the Bush Administration. But on a personal note, this is just an alternative. It is an alternative to a rush to judgment that happened during 2004, a politicized election year. When it comes to increasing or decreasing the power of certain branches or agencies within the federal government, we need to proceed with caution next time.
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