If Kerry's smart

[newsguyatl]

(and i think he is) he will come out today and say that when HE is president, he'll incorporate intelligence gathering into ONE agency and make the HEAD/DIRECTOR of that, a cabinet level position.

i hope he'll also point out the fact that tenet is being made the fall guy here for this administration's never-ending ineptitude -- connecting the dots with chalabi info. and wilson leak (not to mention faulty "intelligence" leading up to war.

and finally i hope he'll ask/suggest, "who's next?"


this is a golden opportunity to point out the countless "intelligence failures" of this administration.

[DoBotherMe]

1. That IS his position

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/100days/fp_facts.html
Reform Domestic Intelligence: As President, John Kerry will begin to fix this problem immediately by making the Director of the CIA the true Director of National Intelligence with real control of national intelligence personnel and budgets. John Kerry will also undertake and complete a national intelligence review immediately.

[newsguyatl]

2. ok, excellent.

well, err, i hope he'll really STRESS that today ;-)

[Don_G]

3. I Don't Know

I think the FBI should remain domestic and separate from the CIA's responsibility for everywhere else.

I can see Kerry combining disparate agencies under both agencies with oversight on the inter-agency communications though.

That simplifies things and cuts down on the waste. He'll need to do that anyway to make up for Dimbo's massive deficit.

[troublemaker]

4. Competition is good

When you have a situation like WMD where the State Dept intelligence shop was the closest to the mark there's always a feeling that if everything was combined everyone would have gotten it right.

I actuality, though, since State's view was a minority view the likelier outcome is not that everyone would have gotten it right but that State's lines of analysis wouldn't have been investigated by anyone.

Redundancy reduces risk. What are the effects of the head of one of our 18 or so intel operations being a political hack, religious nut or simply a clod? Bad. What are the effects of the head of a unified office of intelligence being a corrupt clod? Utter disaster.

It's never a good idea to centralize power on the assumption that good capable people will hold the reigns.

[jpgray]

6. Not really--FBI and CIA are known to jealously hide info from each other

:(

[PATRICK]

5. Another gift from Bush

All the recent Presidents wanted to put this house in order and couldn't do it. Now with the CIA in open, but justifiable revolt against the crimes of Bushco, the way is paved for that kind of benign reorganization. In the wrong hands it would NOT be benign so for the sake of future administrations it has to be done right by the right people.

Kerry has to start doing what Bush has done all along. Look at these disasters as an opportunity for reform, not a scarred beast in need of band-aids.