Rivalries, staffing problems threaten U.S. intelligence agencies

[hang a left]

Rivalries, staffing problems threaten U.S. intelligence agencies

RAW STORY
Published: February 27, 2006



A year after a sweeping government reorganization began, the agencies charged with protecting the United States against terrorist attacks remain troubled by high-level turnover, overlapping responsibilities and bureaucratic rivalry, according to former and current officials, the New York Times reports in Tuesday editions, RAW STORY has learned. Excerpts:


Progress has been made, most of the officials say, toward one critical goal: the sharing of terrorist threat information from all agencies at the National Counterterrorism Center. But many argue that the biggest restructuring of spy agencies in half a century has bloated the bureaucracy, adding boxes to the government organization chart without producing clearly defined roles.

John O. Brennan, who served as the interim director of the center until July, said the Bush administration is "still struggling" with the redesign.
Advertisement

"I still don't see an overarching framework that assigns roles and responsibilities to each agency in counterterrorism," said Brennan, who spent 23 years at the CIA. He was replaced as head of the National Counterterrorism Center by John Scott Redd, a retired vice admiral selected by President Bush in June.

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Rivalries_staffing_problems_threaten_U.S._intelligence_0227.html

[libodem]

1. The whole system has run amuck

There were good reasons why the CIA and the FBI were sole and separate entities. Frank Church was no fool. Just my 2 cents.

[megatherium]

2. I can imagine the damage to morale at the NSA.

This is an agency with tremendous pride, a very high tech organization with hundreds of PhDs in mathematics. Their mission has always been to find intelligence from outside our borders (signals intelligence and cryptoanalysis); people in the NSA are certainly aware of and wary of the enormous potential for harm to our country that our electronic spying capability could cause if it were used domestically. And now we learn that the NSA has been used to spy on Americans. I will bet anything that the rank-and-file NSA employee was not involved in this domestic spying, and didn't know about it until the rest of use knew. And I will bet they are furious about this, no less than we are.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Why don't we just slash their budgets

and buy every American, a solar panel and a hybrid car?

We'd all be better off and it would be good for the environment too.