Proposal to Abolish CIA Riles Intelligence Leaders

Since the CIA was created in 1947 to spy on America’s Cold War enemies, 38 high-profile government committees, commissions and conclaves have urged deep reforms of the nation’s chief intelligence agency.

Until now, however, no one has recommended simply abolishing the CIA and reassigning all of its spies, analysts, scientists and other experts -- as well as staff from 14 lesser-known intelligence agencies -- to a new National Intelligence Service. Gone would be the CIA and its logo.

No employees at the Central Intelligence Agency or the others would lose their jobs or change desks or assignments if the drastic proposal became law. But the plan by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to radically restructure America’s Hydra-headed intelligence community and to dismantle the CIA has enraged current and former senior CIA officials as few issues have in the past.

On Monday, they denounced the plan in angry news releases and on television, and called reporters to argue that Roberts’ proposal would weaken America, damage national security and lead to disaster. George J. Tenet, who resigned last month after seven years as CIA chief and director of central intelligence, led the charge with a blistering attack.

“Sen. Roberts’ proposal is yet another episode in the mad rush to rearrange wiring diagrams in an attempt to be seen as doing something,” Tenet said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. “It is time for someone to say, ‘Stop!’ ... It is time for someone to slam the brakes on before the politics of the moment drives the security of the American people off a cliff.”

Later in the day, John E. McLaughlin, acting director of central intelligence, urged the 17,000 CIA staffers to be calm in the face of uncertainty.

“Ideas will come and go,” he said in a statement faxed to reporters by the agency. “Some will stick; many will be winnowed out. In that regard, I honestly do not think any of this will lead to the breakup of the CIA.”

Dismantling the CIA “would, in my judgment, be a step backward,” he said.

The White House was less critical, at least in public, as aides studied the proposal.

Aides to Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee, said that Roberts’ proposal was similar to one Kerry had already embraced but that it needed further study and bipartisan support.

President Bush told reporters at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, that he would “take a look at [Roberts’ proposal] and determine whether or not it works or not.”

Bush has proposed appointing a national intelligence director with far less authority than the position would have under Roberts’ proposal.

Reform is needed for better coordination of intelligence collection and analysis, Bush said. “We’re looking at all options, including the budget option, all aimed at making sure that me and future presidents have got the best information possible,” he said.

Roberts announced his plan Sunday in a news release and during an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” then issued it formally Monday as a 139-page bill called the 9/11 National Security Protection Act.

In a briefing for reporters in his office, he said radical reforms were required and that “the intelligence community simply can’t do this on their own.”

“Thirty-eight attempts have failed,” he said. “We cannot afford to fail this time around.”

Roberts said he became convinced that urgent change was needed after studying reports by a congressional panel and the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, eight years of Senate Intelligence Committee hearings and his own committee’s withering critique of America’s flawed intelligence about Iraq’s weapons programs. “I said, ‘Oh my God, how did this happen?’

“If this proposal seems radical to some ... my response would be, ‘What should we do?’ ” Roberts said. “Question: Do you rearrange the deck chairs, or do you do real reform?”

Roberts sought to mollify his critics and soothe ruffled egos by saying he assumed his bill would undergo changes during congressional hearings and would pass only if it had bipartisan support.

He said he regretted that he had not shared the proposal with the White House or with most Democrats on the committee before announcing it Sunday.

“This bill is not written in stone,” he said. “This did not come down from Mt. Intelligence.”

He sought to cast the proposal as one that enshrined the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission report, and said his reforms would make the CIA “more powerful” by dividing the clandestine service, the intelligence analysts and the scientific development wing into constituent parts and joining them with other parts of the intelligence community.

“There is no CIA as an entity left” if the proposal becomes law, he added. “But all the entities will remain” with the same missions and responsibilities.

Under the bill, the president would appoint a national intelligence director who would have Cabinet-level rank but would not be part of the executive office. That person would control the budgets and personnel for all U.S. intelligence services, including agencies now controlled by the Pentagon.

The 15 intelligence agencies would be reconfigured into four areas of focus: collection, analysis, research and development, and military support.

Some Democrats questioned whether the proposal was too extreme, but they did not openly oppose it.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), an Intelligence Committee member, said she had “some real concern” about the proposal. “I am not sure it is in the best interest of either the intelligence community or the national security of our nation to proceed in this direction,” she said.

Breaking up the CIA, she warned, “may well create chaos in the intelligence community.”

A former senior intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the proposal “breaks all the things that are working and doesn’t do anything to fix things that are broken.”

He said the proposal would lead to less cooperation, not more, among intelligence professionals.

A current intelligence official was even harsher. He called the proposal “reckless” and said it deserved “not brickbats, but a wrecking ball.”

“The 9/11 commission asserted in its report that congressional oversight was dysfunctional,” he said. “This demonstrates that is the case.”