WP/Pincus/Milbank: Proposal Draws on Advice of 9/11 Panel (Intel. Dir.)

[kskiska]

President Outlines More Budget Powers For Intelligence Chief

President Bush yesterday proposed giving a new national intelligence director broad powers to plan intelligence agencies' spending priorities and clandestine activities, making a concession to lawmakers moving to implement the more sweeping proposals of the Sept. 11 commission.

The legislation Bush proposed would give the director control over more than two-thirds of the overall intelligence budget, which is estimated at $40 billion a year for the nation's 15 intelligence agencies. The White House said the proposed changes would help solve the lack of coordination between intelligence agencies implicated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

(snip)

Bush's plan would not place the intelligence chief in the office of the president, and would give the chief full authority over only the 70 percent of the intelligence budget that is not related solely to military operations. The White House would leave intelligence gathering organizations such as the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office under the Pentagon's authority.

The White House would limit the director's budgetary control to the National Foreign Intelligence Program -- the official name for all foreign intelligence not related to tactical military operations. The White House said its plan would avoid "the disruption of the war effort that a more far-reaching restructuring could create."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5295-2004Sep8.html

[Ouabache]

1. Silly me, I always thought the President was supposed to do this job !!

The President has the Justice Department, Treasury Department, Defense Department, the CIA, the FBI, the NSC, the Secret Service, the Immigration Service, and the US Marshalls to name a few, ALL UNDER HIM. I always thought it was the president's JOB to pull that all together and plan for it. Silly me.

Maybe we just need a president SMART enough, like John Kerry, to do the JOB the president is supposed to DO !!

I think Kerry should campaign on it.