Intelligence community grapples with ‘daunting challenges’

The U.S. intelligence community is moving forward on implementing reforms but faces "daunting challenges" that will require broad support and a lot of money, the nation's second-ranking intelligence official said Thursday.

Intelligence agencies and their analysts now are required to say how confident they are in their sources when developing national intelligence assessments, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden told members of Congress during a hearing Thursday.

The requirement is one of about three dozen changes made within the U.S. intelligence community in recent weeks in order to avoid botched products, such as the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that erroneously concluded Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which was used by the Bush administration to justify an invasion of the country.

There also is a higher tolerance for doubts to appear within intelligence analyses, said Hayden, the nation's deputy national intelligence director, during the first hearing of the recently created House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight. Although it was a subcommittee hearing, members of the full committee came to ask questions, showing that congressional interest in intelligence reform remains strong.

With terrorist bombings in Britain twice this month and one at a resort in Egypt looming as the backdrop, lawmakers wanted to know what the new DNI office is doing to improve intelligence operations and keep the country safe. Legislators expressed confidence in Hayden and his boss, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, to lead the intelligence community, but said they expect the two to be straightforward with Congress and the public.

"We are at risk of attack," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., ranking member of the full committee.

Harman said the nation is counting on the DNI staff. "Good luck, take your vitamins," she told Hayden.

Hayden said the U.S. intelligence community must become much more like a nonhierarchical network in order to pursue and counter decentralized terrorist networks. He cautioned that there are no guarantees of preventing another attack, but said the overhaul already is showing results.

"We are up and we are functioning," he said.

The DNI has already stepped into the role of being the president's primary intelligence adviser, which includes providing the president's daily briefing, Hayden said. That function previously was carried out by the director of central intelligence. George Tenet held that position when the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate was produced and when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003.

Hayden said the new DNI structure is more agile because Negroponte is empowered by law and presidential directives with authority to make decisions, determine budgets and direct staff. "Frankly, George was constrained," Hayden said, referring to the fact that Tenet had to get consensus across multiple intelligence agencies over which he did not have actual budget or personnel authority.

Congress made major reforms to the intelligence community, including the creation of the DNI, through the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which overwhelmingly passed last December.

But Hayden cautioned Congress against making any more changes for now, saying his office needs time "to stretch our legs" and "let the legislative dust settle." He outlined several accomplishments that have been made within recent weeks, as well as the "daunting challenges" ahead.

For example, the DNI staff is intensely focused on creating a new National Security Service within the FBI, which was ordered by President Bush in June.

Hayden said the as-yet-unannounced new director of the service will report directly to both Negroponte and FBI Director Robert Mueller. Hayden said the new service would be like a window through which the DNI staff can see into the internal operations of the FBI to enable them to determine if other reforms are needed.

"Make no mistake, this is hard. We have never tried to do this as a people," Hayden said. "If we get that right, the other things fall into place."

The DNI office also is grappling with its staffing needs and finding its own office space. Hayden said the DNI staff consists of about 390 employees but will probably grow to anywhere between 500 and 700, not counting those at the National Counterterrorism Center.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said that level of staffing would result in the creation of a new bureaucracy. "I think we ought to be as hard on you all at this new DNI as we possibly can," Rogers said. "I'm really worried about the direction that we are taking."

Hayden said the DNI staff cannot rely exclusively on other intelligence agencies for expertise, and therefore needs experts of its own.

Other challenges Hayden identified include how to make information obtained by the Homeland Security Department more available to intelligence analysts, and how the new national intelligence structure will affect and relate to FBI field offices.

Hayden said the DNI staff is about to submit a budget request to Congress for a "very expensive, very important" classified technical program. The staff also is preparing a report on how Defense base closures might have a negative impact on national intelligence, especially if bases are closed that serve intelligence functions.

Information access also is a critical area of concern, Hayden added. John Russack recently became the program manager for the new Information Sharing Environment, which is responsible for ensuring the access and sharing of terrorism information among federal, state, local and tribal governments and the private sector.

"Another major effort lying ahead is the modernization and upgrade of our overhead architecture, as well as working with the intelligence program managers and the Department of Defense to improve the requirements, system and architectural development process for all of our technical collection systems, and their integration," Hayden testified. "An integral part of this effort involves rationalizing [measurement and signature intelligence] management at a senior, community level. While I cannot, in this open session, discuss in any detail the specifics of this problem -- which is well known to the members -- I can say that its successful resolution will require close congressional support and attention."

Hayden added that the DNI staff is striving to fill other key leadership positions under Russack and have all the staff housed together in permanent spaces by mid-August.