The White House is considering giving to the new director of national intelligence and his staff the task of preparing the daily, highly classified intelligence material presented to President Bush each morning, a task now handled by the CIA, according to present and former senior administration officials and sources on Capitol Hill.
Called the President's Daily Brief, or PDB, the approximately 20-page, loose-leaf collection of short, often page-long, intelligence items is central to Bush's national security meeting. If presented in the future by the director of national intelligence (DNI) -- a position created in legislation Bush is scheduled to sign today -- it would reinforce that individual's position as the nation's premier intelligence official, according to those who support the idea.
 
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Currently, the PDB is presented by the CIA director and an agency briefer after being put together at CIA headquarters by a small team of senior analysts who work through the night with the latest intelligence collected from electronic intercepts, satellite imagery and spies. Analytic pieces written by CIA specialists are also included, covering current world crises, upcoming issues, visiting leaders and areas that the president plans to visit.
Giving those responsibilities to the DNI could be discussed publicly as early as today, when Bush is set to sign the intelligence reform bill creating the DNI as the president's principal adviser on intelligence matters and as overseer of the 15 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community.
The PDB is now given to Bush six days a week by CIA Director Porter J. Goss or his deputy, and one of two CIA briefers who accompany him to the Oval Office meeting. Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice often also attend, sources said.
Congressional and administration sources said that Goss has not achieved the personal rapport with Bush enjoyed by former CIA director George J. Tenet, which they said is a factor in the White House's consideration of assigning the morning briefing to the DNI.
The PDB became an issue in the Sept. 11 commission's investigation. The panel reported that the Aug. 6, 2001, briefing included an item titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." An examination of how that item was handled led some commissioners to question whether allowing the CIA to present the PDB each morning gave the agency an inside track to the president, to the detriment of other agencies that collect intelligence.
Washington lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste, a commission member, said yesterday that he supports giving the PDB responsibility to the DNI because it would make the briefing an "all-source intelligence product and not just CIA's."
The White House is carefully seeking a person with national security expertise to fill the DNI position, a senior official said yesterday, along with the three other top presidentially filled positions created in the legislation and which require Senate confirmation. Meanwhile, within the intelligence agencies, officials are studying just what powers those new officials will exercise and how they will fit in with current practices.
The legislation would require within a year a report from the DNI on the transition to the new system. Under the bill, the DNI would have budgetary authority over most of the approximately $40 billion spent on U.S. intelligence, but the new chief would share control over some key Pentagon intelligence collection agencies with the defense secretary. How that relationship will work in practice is not yet entirely clear.
It is also not clear what the relationship will be between the DNI and Goss and his agency. Under the bill, the CIA would continue to run clandestine operations abroad and train and manage the primary intelligence analytical force in this country. As CIA director, Goss would "report" to the DNI under the legislation, but would not be under that person's control or direction.
Today's scheduled signing will mark the end of a whirlwind legislative effort that began when the Sept. 11 commission released its recommendations on July 22. Bush said at the time that the White House would study the proposals, and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) initially said hearings would be scheduled for next year.
The administration was cool at first to moving immediately on legislation, some sources said, in part because Bush's own commission researching intelligence issues is not due to report until February. The president, however, quickly implemented two major commission proposals by executive order, enhancing the powers of the CIA director and establishing a national counterterrorism center (NCTC).
Political pressure to legislate intensified in the summer when Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic presidential candidate, endorsed the Sept. 11 commission proposals and Democratic House and Senate members called for action, supported by the active lobbying by some families of Sept. 11 victims and the commission leaders.
Quickly scheduled hearings continued through the summer and fall, with separate bills approved by the House and the Senate before the Nov. 2 election.
Before the Thanksgiving recess, however, negotiations between House and Senate conferees broke down over the objections raised by two senior House Republican committee chairmen. Lawmakers -- including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and a chief proponent of the legislation -- said they thought the measure was almost dead and needed Bush's direct intervention to succeed. Thereafter, the White House began to play a more active role in lobbying for the measure and a legislative deal was reached.
