Intelligensia

This morning I tuned in to the opening testimony of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the 9/11 commision, and so heard them make their case for restructuring our intel organizations under a single National Intelligence Director, at cabinet level, and a National Counter-Terrorism Center within the Executive office of the president. The argument that we need a definitive, legal head of the intelligence community, within the White House, to set intel goals and ensure proper information sharing is a valid one, to my mind. The argument that counter-terrorism needs to be institutionally prioritized also makes sense, in the short term at least.


But I kept wondering to myself: Isn't that what the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to do? More to the point: isn't bringing all intel under that what the Director of Central Intelligence was supposed to do, back in 1947? I seem to recall that having a CIA in the first place was supposed to prevent the pointless rivalry and non-sharing that characterized Army and Navy Intelligence before and after Pearl harbor. Is this new Director really going to make a difference?


Also, why no suggestions for how we gather intel? Wouldn't this be a good time to suggest that we went wrong in the 70's when we cut ourselves off from HUMINT (Human Intelligence) and insisted that ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) would provide all our needs? Then again, if we are doing that, it would need to be done secretly, wouldn't it?