US President George W. Bush granted the new national intelligence chief expanded power over the FBI and ordered dozens of other spy agency changes as the White House heeded a presidential commission that condemned the intelligence community for failures in Iraq and elsewhere.
But almost as soon as the details were unveiled, the White House was defending itself against suggestions that the moves were simply adding more bureaucracy without making changes that could have prevented misjudgments like those made on Iraq.
"It's an unfair characterization to say it's simply a restructuring," said Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, who led the 90-day review of the recommendations from the president's commission on weapons of mass destruction (WMD). "It's a fundamental strengthening of our intelligence capabilities."
The White House on Wednesday said it endorsed 70 of the 74 recommendations from the commission, which was led by Republican Judge Laurence Silberman and former Democratic senator Charles Robb and conducted a year-long review of the 15 intelligence agencies. Bush formed the commission under pressure after the top US weapons inspector in Iraq resigned and started a firestorm of controversy over the accuracy of the prewar Iraq intelligence.
In its scathing 600-page report released in March, the commission called the spy community "dead wrong on almost all of its prewar judgments" about Iraq's weapons.
Robb called the White House's acceptance of the commission's proposals "truly extraordinary."
Among the most significant changes the White House offered on Wednesday, the Justice Department will be asked -- with congressional approval -- to consolidate its counterterrorism, espionage and intelligence units under one new assistant attorney general for national security.
The White House also directed the creation of a National Security Service inside the FBI. Bush also sought to strengthen the hand of the new national intelligence director over the FBI, under a directive that gives him expanded budget and management powers over the bureau.
David Heyman, homeland security director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the White House has effectively ended the debate over whether there should be an independent domestic intelligence agency, akin to Britain's MI-5.
Now, "the question is whether the FBI culture ... can go into the spy business, which is about surveillance and taking your time and cultivating a lead," Heyman said. "There is a real difference between police and spies."
The White House will also National Intelligence Director John Negroponte to establish a National Counter Proliferation Center that will coordinate the government's collection and analysis of intelligence on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons -- a task now performed by several agencies.
Negroponte's deputy, General Michael Hayden, said the center would only have 50 to 100 employees, thereby avoiding some insiders' worries of "brain drain" as new offices tap into existing ones.
The recommendations were welcomed by a number of Bush critics. President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, called the changes to Negroponte's authority over the Justice Department and the counterproliferation center "very positive."
RSS