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American Morning

Committee Works On Proposal to Shift Power from Pentagon to CIA

Aired November 08, 2001 - 09:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A proposal to shake up U.S. intelligence gathering could mean more power for the CIA, but less for the Pentagon. It would be the largest overhaul of the intelligence community in decades. Our National Security Correspondent David Ensor joins us from Washington with details on all this. David, good morning.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Miles. As you know, in Washington money is power, budget authority is power. There have been proposals in the past to put these very important Pentagon intelligence agencies directly under the control, and the budget authority, of the CIA director but they have never come to pass.

This time, however, a blue ribbon commission chaired by Brent Scocroft, who was the National Security Adviser of President Bush's father is once again recommending that these very important agencies with very large budget authority, be put directly under CIA Director George Tenet's authority. That he would have the decision-making powers to how that money would be spent.

This will be controversial, because right now those agencies are under the Pentagon budget, and that's where many people in the Pentagon would like to see them stay, so there will be some debate, no doubt. But it's the -- design to streamline the intelligence making, the intelligence gathering procedures in the United States, and hopefully make September 11th-type incidents less likely. Miles.

O'BRIEN: Just to be clear here, though, David, this is a proposal that has been in the works prior to September 11th. I suppose the events of September 11th, and the fact that it's Brent Scocroft, would give it a lot more momentum.

ENSOR: Well, that's right, and Ben -- Brent Scocroft is highly respected in Washington, and particularly will probably have President Bush's ear on this subject, so this time it could come to pass.

What people may not realize, is that the -- although the U.S. intelligence community has budget of somewhere in the area of $30 billion, the exact number is classified, only about three and a half billion of that is actually the CIA budget. The National Security Agency which does signals intelligence, eavesdropping and so on, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency which analyzes spy satellite photography and makes maps, and of course, the NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office, which puts spy satellites in air and maintains them. Those are the biggest sort of elephants of the intelligence community. They have huge budgets and huge capabilities.

The idea being that if the Director of Central Intelligence is responsible for how well they do, he ought to be responsible for how they spend their money as well. Miles.

O'BRIEN: Implicit in all this is that there's a problem, and the problem is a lack of communication and coordination between all these disparate agencies. Would combining them under the CIA umbrella solve it?

ENSOR: Hard to say. It's certainly the feeling at the CIA is that it would lead to a more streamlined decision-making process, and money being spent in the right sorts of ways. I must admit, right now it is a little complicated. For example, the National Security Agency director, a General, an Air Force general, has sort of two bosses. He reports both to the Pentagon chief, to Mr. Rumsfeld, and to George Tenet over at the CIA, it's a little complicated.

Under this plan, it become simpler, although much of the work that NSA does is done for the Pentagon. So, there would still kind of mixed picture, but more authority for the CIA director. Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. It's kind of difficult for us to see it from the outside, isn't it. But David Ensor is our person doing the best he can on that. We appreciate it very much. Thanks for being with us this morning.

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