WASHINGTON – The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks will recommend a new Cabinet-level post to oversee the nation’s 15 intelligence agencies and control their budgets, say two people familiar with the panel’s final report.
The report to be released Thursday – posted on the Internet and sold in bookstores and through the government printing office – makes the case for a director of national intelligence by detailing intelligence failures by the CIA and the FBI that enabled the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to occur, they say.
Putting in place a Cabinet official for intelligence would be the most drastic step in structuring the intelligence agencies since the CIA was created after World War II.
The CIA director now has loose authority over those agencies. But the commission, in a preliminary report, found that the director did not hold enough power, because the Pentagon controls more than 80 percent of the nation’s intelligence budget. As a result, CIA requests to other agencies are often ignored.
Advocates say the plan for a Cabinet official for intelligence is gaining momentum as the Bush administration faces criticism for going to war with Iraq based on flawed intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The idea of a new intelligence chief is fiercely opposed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has advocated the creation of a director to oversee all facets of the nation’s intelligence.
The Senate committee plans hearings in the coming weeks on changes among the intelligence agencies.
“The president has made it clear that he is open to further reforms,” White House communications director Dan Bartlett said Saturday.
However, acting CIA Director John McLaughlin said in a recent speech that a Cabinet official for intelligence would mean “additional layers of command or bureaucracy.”
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