Key Lawmakers Seek Shake-Up of Spy Agencies

The chairmen of Congress’ intelligence committees unveiled a plan Wednesday for a sweeping reorganization of the nation’s spy agencies that would strip the CIA of some of its duties and give overall responsibility for intelligence-gathering to a new director of national intelligence.

The blueprint would involve by far the biggest change in government intelligence since the CIA was created after World War II.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David L. Boren and his House counterpart, Rep. Dave McCurdy, both Oklahoma Democrats, said a drastic shake-up is necessary to eliminate wasteful overlap among the many agencies collecting intelligence and to take advantage of changes in the post-Cold War world.

“I am hoping this will stimulate . . . bolder action,” Boren said in a press conference. “Nibbling around the edges, putting a Band-Aid on here or there is not what is needed . . . . We are entering a bold new world.”

Anticipating a lukewarm response from the Bush Administration, Boren said the legislation is meant to be only a “starting point” for debate on the future shape that the intelligence community should take in the aftermath of the Cold War.

But suggesting that lawmakers are not satisfied with the extent of the organizational changes now being contemplated by the CIA and the White House, Boren said he hopes that the plan--in the form of legislation drafted with McCurdy--will prod the CIA to think “more boldly” as it conducts its own reviews of the changes that will be needed to redefine its mission and reshape its priorities.

“The world has changed and the intelligence community must change with it,” McCurdy said.

The Boren-McCurdy plan, announced after several months of study, would reorganize the U.S. intelligence network into three broad directorates under the supervision of an “intelligence czar” who would have broader and somewhat more powerful responsibilities than Robert M. Gates, the current director of central intelligence.

A National Intelligence Center would become the main new entity. Divided into two directorates, it would be responsible for all the intelligence collection and analysis now performed by the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence-gathering and assessment agencies scattered throughout the government.

The CIA then would be split in two. The analysis and assessment functions now performed by its intelligence directorate would be shifted to the analysis directorate of the new National Intelligence Center. The branch of the CIA now responsible for covert operations and other clandestine activities abroad would, in effect, become the new CIA.

McCurdy and Boren said their plan would give the new intelligence director, who presumably would be Gates, greater control over the management of all the agencies in the intelligence community. “He is going to be a czar with teeth . . . a czar with muscle. He is going to be the director,” McCurdy said.

Boren said centralizing more than a dozen different spy agencies under one roof would streamline the intelligence network, eliminate duplication and enable the intelligence community to do more with less during a time of declining budget resources.

“We can no longer afford separate military and civilian empires that are costly and duplicative,” Boren said. “By pooling the resources, we will--even with a shrinking budget--be able to maintain the quality of the product.”

The nation’s overall intelligence budget this year is estimated to be $30 billion, although the precise amount is classified. McCurdy and Boren agreed that next year the budget will have to be cut substantially.

Although there is also broad agreement in Congress that the budget cuts, in percentage terms, should not be as steep as they are likely to be for defense, many congressional analysts predict cuts in the intelligence budget of as much as 25% over the next five years.

Reaction to the sweeping plan was muted. A statement released by the CIA noted that Gates had made the reorganization of the intelligence community a top priority after his confirmation as director last November and that “a number of restructuring initiatives” already are under consideration.

Without commenting on any of the specifics in the Boren-McCurdy plan, it said Gates “looks forward to continuing a dialogue with the congressional oversight committees on these and other issues.”

There was no immediate reaction from the White House, and several former CIA officials said they preferred not to comment until they had seen the plan.

But one former CIA director, William E. Colby, said that he remains skeptical of attempts to reform the intelligence community by “moving boxes around on organizational charts.”

The initial reaction from Republicans also was cautious. Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking minority member, had been asked by McCurdy to co-sponsor the legislation but declined. And the Republican vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Frank H. Murkowski of Alaska, indicated that he also had reservations about the idea of creating an intelligence “czar.”