Panel Proposes Cabinet-Level Chief to Oversee Spy Agencies

The ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said they favor creating a new Cabinet-level position with authority over the nation’s spy agencies, stripping that control away from the CIA director.

The proposal--almost certain to face major resistance from Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld--has emerged as one of the major recommendations lawmakers are likely to make at the culmination of their investigation into the intelligence failures surrounding Sept. 11. A final report from lawmakers is due early next year.

“I believe that we need a chairman of the board, a CEO, of the entire intelligence community,” said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the intelligence panel’s vice-chairman, on Friday.

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the intelligence committee, also endorsed the idea, designed to end an often-criticized arrangement in which the CIA director has little leverage over other agencies.

The CIA director is technically in charge of coordinating the efforts of all 13 of the nation’s spy agencies. But 85% of the U.S. intelligence budget is controlled by the Pentagon and the Secretary of Defense. As a result, lawmakers say, the CIA director struggles to set agendas and control allocation of resources across the community.

Much of the structure of these agencies will be affected by homeland security legislation pending before Congress.

The idea to split the director’s position has gathered new momentum in recent weeks amid disclosures in congressional hearings that numerous corners of the intelligence community failed to heed, or sometimes even hear, warnings from CIA Director George J. Tenet about the Al Qaeda threat.

In 1998, for example, Tenet issued a memo declaring “war” on Al Qaeda and ordering that no expense be spared in the intelligence community in the pursuit of the terrorist group and its founder, Osama bin Laden.

But congressional investigators found little evidence that the memo prompted a significant mobilization. A preliminary report issued last week said that in 2000, the CIA had just five analysts in its counterterrorism center tracking Al Qaeda. The CIA later said the actual number was nine.

Moreover, FBI agents interviewed by investigators said they weren’t even aware of Tenet’s declaration, prompting lawmakers to wonder whether Tenet had failed to follow up or whether the community was too fragmented. For years, blue-ribbon commissions have recommended strengthening the director’s hand by giving him broader control over intelligence purse strings. But the proposals have always foundered, often because of opposition from the Pentagon, which stands to lose control over billions of dollars of its budget.

Shelby and Graham acknowledged that the idea will have an uphill climb. The recommendation is likely to “stir up a lot of hornets,” Graham said in a television interview Wednesday. “There will be people who currently have that power who will feel threatened and resist.”

Indeed, Rumsfeld has already moved to consolidate authority over intelligence matters in the Pentagon. At his urging, the Senate recently passed a bill creating a new position--the undersecretary of defense for intelligence--that would oversee vast swaths of the spy community, including the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. The House has yet to vote on the proposal, a Pentagon official said.

Many intelligence insiders say Rumsfeld’s move would erode Tenet’s position because many of his coordination responsibilities would probably be absorbed by the new Pentagon undersecretary.

“It is essentially a demotion” for the CIA director, said a former senior CIA official who asked not to be identified.

Officials at the Pentagon and CIA declined to comment.

The proposal to split the director into two positions also faces practical hurdles. CIA directors wield influence in Washington largely because of power and access that stems from their position atop the CIA itself.

CIA directors control the operations of overseas spies and are responsible for briefing the president on information collected by every other spy agency.

A new Cabinet-level intelligence director wouldn’t necessarily perform those functions and could get lost in the burgeoning bureaucratic trellis of homeland security, domestic law enforcement and intelligence in the White House.

If that happens, “he becomes like the drug czar,” said the former CIA official, referring to a position often dismissed as a figurehead.