Bush Now Backs Stronger Spy Czar

President Bush, moving toward embracing a key element of the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendat- ions, said Wednesday that a new national intelligence director should have authority over more than half of the U.S. intelligence community’s estimated $40-billion annual budget.

Until Wednesday, Bush had declined to take a specific position on who would control intelligence spending, a central and controversial question in the larger debate over how sweeping the overhaul of the intelligence community should be.

By offering a plan to give a national intelligence director budget authority over 12 of the nation’s 15 intelligence organizat- ions, Bush appeared to throw the weight of the presidency behind those favoring more rather than less reform.

Important details of a reform blueprint remain unsettled, however, including the critical question of what kind of authority the new national intelligence director would have. A White House fact sheet accompanying Bush’s announcement on budget authority said the new director would “coordinate the activities” of the CIA and the FBI, and would oversee the intelligence activities of the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.

The White House document also indicated that a Cabinet-level council would advise the national intelligence director. Who would sit on the council and what its authority over the director would be were not clear.

The Sept. 11 commission, which investigated the intelligence failures surrounding the 2001 terrorist attacks, recommended that the national director have three deputies who would report to him and manage the CIA, the FBI and the Pentagon’s intelligence operations.

As spelled out so far, Bush does not seem to envision such a clear-cut chain of command.

Some in Congress and the government, including the heads of the FBI and the CIA, argue that the new director should not have “operational” authority over the individual agencies, but instead should coordinate overall activities and set broad policy goals and priorities.

Under Bush’s budget authority plan, there would be significant exceptions to the consolidation. The National Security Agency, which manages most of the huge system for gathering electronic and satellite intelligence, would remain subject to Pentagon budget control.

So would the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, which are also involved in satellite and other forms of technical intelligence.

The exceptions would avoid “the disruption of the war effort that a more far-reaching restructuring could create,” Bush said.

Within the administration, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have spoken out against moving too fast to reorganize the system, arguing that too much change could be disruptive and costly in wartime. Pentagon officials control the bulk of intelligence spending.

Reformers said Bush’s support for giving wide budget authority to a national intelligence director could be critical in a Congress where Republicans hold majorities in the House and Senate.

“We believe that there ought to be a national intelligence director who has full budgetary authority,” Bush said. “It’s important we get our intelligence gathering correct. After all, we’re still at war.”

The president, joined by Vice President Dick Cheney, laid out his vision at a rare bipartisan meeting at the White House that included the congressional leadership and senior members of committees overseeing intelligence. National security advisor Condoleezza Rice briefed the congressional leaders behind closed doors. No details were available.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), who Tuesday proposed legislation with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that closely followed the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendations, praised the president’s proposals.

“The most dangerous thing we can do here ... is create an [intelligence director] with no real authority,” Lieberman said. “I think today the meeting at the White House was a turning point, because the president did explicitly support a strong national intelligence director with authority, full authority ... to receive the appropriations for the full national foreign intelligence programs.”

The White House had previously endorsed the creation of a national intelligence director, Lieberman said, but it was the first time that the president had said the director should have control over budgets -- seen as essential to giving real power to the new position.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said Bush’s plan would ensure that a national intelligence director had “sufficient authority to not be a figurehead and really manage intelligence.”

But Rand Beers, national security advisor to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry, dismissed Bush’s plan as too little, too late.

“If George W. Bush were serious about intelligence reform, he’d stop taking half-measures and wholeheartedly endorse the 9/11 commission recommendations and work for their immediate passage by Congress,” Beers said in a statement from the Kerry campaign.

And even though a rough consensus appeared to be emerging on the creation of a powerful national intelligence director and a new national center for counter-terrorism, it was clear that differences over the scope of reform remain in both houses of Congress.

“Now the issue is: Will the White House engage in developing a consensus bill in the House and Senate and setting an expedited timetable for passing it,” said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), the ranking Democrat on the House Select Intelligence Committee.

“A partisan train wreck is still a possibility,” she said.

The Sept. 11 commission recommended that the national intelligence director work out of the executive office of the president to ensure cooperation. But critics warn it could compromise the director’s independence.

Under the White House plan, the director would be part of the executive branch but would not be located in the executive office or serve in the Cabinet.

The director would be in charge of the budget for the National Foreign Intelligence Program, which represents more than half of the estimated $40-billion annual intelligence budget. He or she would oversee operations of a national counter-terrorism center and all new national intelligence centers.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said the House was determined to produce far-reaching reforms before the scheduled Oct. 1 recess.

DeLay dismissed a bill that would carry out most of the recommendations made by the Sept. 11 commission introduced Wednesday by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and co-sponsored by 100 Democrats.

Pelosi echoed the Kerry campaign, saying the reforms were too long in coming. “We should have had something passed by now,” she said.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, charged by Frist and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), heard testimony Wednesday from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and acting CIA Director John E. McLaughlin on the proposed reforms.

Both men urged that a national intelligence director be given power to run the nation’s sprawling and sometimes overlapping intelligence community. Both took issue with some of the reformers’ recommendations.

Mueller said the FBI did not agree with the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendation that the national intelligence director be directly responsible for operations. Instead, he said, the director should ensure that the “activities and operations” carried out by the various agencies be “appropriate.”

McLaughlin, whom Bush passed over when he nominated Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) to be the next head of the CIA, warned that “speed and agility are the keys to winning in the war on terrorism,” and “speed and agility are not promoted by complicated wiring diagrams, more levels of bureaucracy, dual-hatting or uncertainty about who is in charge.”