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 News from Around the Americas | October 2005 
Bush Gives CIA Oversight of all US Espionage Operations
 AFP
| | The CIA symbol is shown on the floor of its headquarters in Langley, Virginia. |
President George W. Bush has approved the creation of a National Clandestine Service within the Central Intelligence Agency to coordinate all US espionage operations, the government said Thursday.
The move reaffirms CIA leadership in US espionage at a time when agency morale is reported to be low, buffeted by intelligence failures and reforms that have stripped it of its preeminent position as overseer of the US intelligence community.
CIA director Porter Goss in a statement called it "a grant of trust and an expression of confidence in the CIA."
"This is a big deal for the CIA," said a senior intelligence official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. "It's really a recognition of their longstanding expertise in the world of humint."
But officials said the action also reflects the growth in importance of human intelligence gathering, termed "humint" in the intelligence community, by the Defense Department and the FBI.
"For many years the CIA ... was the clandestine capability of the US government in large measure," a second senior intelligence official said. "When you look at the last 10 years there is a broader clandestine capability in the US government today."
The National Clandestine Service will coordinate those operations and work out conflicts when they overlap, the officials said.
It also will set common standards across the intelligence community for procedures and policies and in the training of officers for clandestine work.
CIA director Porter Goss, who proposed the restructuring, has been designated as the manager of the NCS. He named the CIA's current deputy director of operations, who has not been identified by name because he remains undercover, as its first director.
The NCS will have two deputy directors, one of whom will deal with issues of the intelligence community as a while, and another who will conduct the CIA's clandestine operations, the officials said.
It also will have a "covert action executive" who will deal with paramilitary operations and the like, the officials said.
"This is the first chance to redraw some of these boundaries," the second official said.
"I can tell you from personal experience, that when we put these capabilities together, whether its CIA and FBI, or CIA and DoD, or all three together to work a problem, a really hard problem, the results are magical," the official said.
It was unclear how much clout the new organization will have over clandestine operations outside the CIA, however, or what authority it would really have to work out conflicts between operations launched by different agencies.
The NCS will have no power to order or direct clandestine operations by other agencies, according to the officials. The separate agencies will still task their own clandestine services, and they are supposed to work out turf battles among themselves.
Looming over it all is the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence led by Ambassador John Negroponte, which has assumed from the CIA the role of overseer of the entire US intelligence community.
The CIA and Negroponte's office jointly announced the creation of the NCR.
"I'm not saying there's not friction going back and forth," said the first official.
"There's always questions about, 'Okay, does this migrate up to the DNI, or does this stay with CIA.' Depending on where your order sits, you get different answers sometimes."
But the official said combining CIA and Defense Department efforts in paramilitary operations has paid off in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The CIA has the authorities to do certain actions but they have little capability. SOF (special operations forces) has great capability but little authority.
"So the marriage between those two is what's really important. It makes them that much more effective," the official said.
"On the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan it's a tremendous working relationship. You can't tell who's who in the zoo when you're there." |
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