Some Lawmakers Doubt DNI Has Taken Intelligence Reins

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 2, 2006

John D. Negroponte is to give a Capitol Hill briefing this morning on threats at home and abroad, as lawmakers express varying degrees of concern about whether he has moved quickly enough to establish his leadership as the nation's first director of national intelligence.

Several members of Congress who played major roles in creating Negroponte's job said that -- while it is still too early to draw final judgments -- they worry that he has started too slowly in working to lead and coordinate the government's 15 intelligence agencies. They are particularly focused on whether, in his first 10 months, Negroponte has been able to exert effective control over the Pentagon, which under Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is playing a growing role in gathering and analyzing intelligence.

Others also question whether Negroponte's agency, once envisioned as a relatively lean operation, is becoming another bureaucratic layer that will make agile responses to threats more difficult.

"We wanted lots of change fast and may be a little disappointed, but we may not have been realistic," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who said it will be a function of time before Negroponte gets his organization in place and begins to have an impact. "But where he was pushed to make decisions, we are pleased with the steps taken," Hoekstra added.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he sees cause for concern.

"I knew there was some settling time needed and he has hired good people," Rockefeller said. "But I am disappointed that he failed on his first test in wresting control of national intelligence programs from the Pentagon . . . and you only get one or two such shots to show your independence and after that you are just part of the administration."

Rockefeller said classification prevents him from describing the Pentagon issue he calls a "first test." But it has been widely reported that Rockefeller and others pressed Negroponte to direct money away from a multibillion-dollar intelligence satellite program, a Pentagon-operated program whose usefulness has been challenged on Capitol Hill.

The director of national intelligence was created by Congress in an overhaul of the intelligence bureaucracy aimed at preventing the failures that preceded the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The new director replaced the director of central intelligence as the nation's top intelligence official and was given responsibility for setting budgets and coordinating the work of the CIA and intelligence agencies at the Pentagon and elsewhere.

Senators are likely to ask about that transition at today's annual hearing of the intelligence committee, officials said. Negroponte will appear with FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, CIA Director Porter J. Goss, and officials of the departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security to discuss security threats. The House intelligence panel plans a companion hearing.

Rep. William M. "Mac" Thornberry (R-Tex.), chairman of the oversight subcommittee of the House panel, called Negroponte's first months a mixed bag.

"The bottom line is there has been good progress in some respects, but in others it has been too slow, with him not pushing far or fast enough," he said.

Negroponte would not be interviewed, but in September he talked about his progress in a speech at Bolling Air Force Base.

He said the first task he set for himself, after reading the 271-page statute that set up his job, was to "identify good people to help . . . carry out the mission." But he cautioned that change would not come quickly: "How are we doing? Well, we're up and running. I think we're starting to have an impact. But it's going to take time. I don't think we should be impatient."

One major concern expressed by several House and Senate intelligence panelists is that, while Negroponte has been putting his team together, Rumsfeld has been expanding intelligence activities.

Pentagon agencies perform almost all of the nation's satellite imagery and electronic intelligence collection and spend 85 percent of the roughly $44 billion intelligence community budget. But most of that money and collection is under Negroponte's authority.

Congressional specialists point to a Nov. 23, 2005, Rumsfeld directive interpreted by some officials as a challenge to Negroponte's authority. It outlined responsibilities for Rumsfeld's undersecretary for intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone.

For example, the law gave the intelligence director authority to transfer and assign up to 100 Pentagon personnel for duties in other agencies. Rumsfeld's directive said that Cambone's "concurrence" would be needed before any transfers.

The directive also said that when it comes to "authority, direction and control" over Pentagon agencies, such as the National Security Agency, Cambone exercises authority "in consultation with the DNI," not apparently at the director's behest.

"These ambiguities need to be straightened out by Negroponte," one senior legislator said.

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House panel, called Negroponte, a former U.S. envoy to the United Nations and to Iraq, a "smart diplomat" who "needs to stop being an ambassador."

"Congress rejected the model of a passive DNI; we gave him budget authority and a charge to change the culture and reinvent our intelligence capabilities," Harman said.

Hoekstra said the Pentagon "is doing what they need to do in intelligence . . . identifying what combatant commanders may need for the future and building an organization to get them there."

Negroponte, he added, "needs to do the same thing . . . put in place what intelligence is required to meet the needs of his customers and define what he needs to get there."