Thomas Fingar

Thomas Fingar
Chairman, National Intelligence Council
Deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Previous job: Assistant secretary of State for intelligence and research
Reports to: Director of national intelligence

Thomas Fingar, like a number of members of John Negroponte's inner circle, hails from the State Department. He led the department's intelligence unit, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which raised some of the strongest objections to the determination by the CIA and others that Iraq was trying to build nuclear weapons rather than enhancing its conventional arsenal. The twist of fate in Fingar's new job will not be lost on intelligence observers.

Fingar will have a dual, and potentially influential, role. As head of the council, he will help combine into one document many agencies' analyses on specific problems. In the past, alternative assessments, or dissents, from the consensus have been downplayed or relegated to footnotes. Under the new regime, however, managers are said to be encouraging multiple points of view, even if they argue against each other. As a deputy director under Negroponte, Fingar also will assist the director in his attempts to foster competitive analysis among the agencies.

At State, Fingar served in the INR as principal deputy assistant secretary from 2001 to 2003, and deputy assistant secretary for analysis for six years prior to that. He also was the director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific, and the chief of the China division in the late 1980s. He began his intelligence career in 1970 as the senior German linguist with the 7th Army in Heidelberg. He's a career member of the Senior Executive Service.

In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February, Fingar said terrorism was equal to weapons proliferation as a security threat. To counter those "twin scourges" requires "more than just the effective collection of hard-to-obtain intelligence," he said. "At a minimum, it also requires deep understanding of the motivations and objectives of those who resort to terrorism. . . . It also takes sophisticated analysis of all-source information, informed judgments about what we do not know, and detailed knowledge of other countries, cultures, political systems, and the underlying causes of discontent and radicalization. . . . Without broad and deep expertise and information that goes far beyond what we can or should collect through clandestine means, we will not be able to judge accurately the information we collect, and will ultimately be reduced to reliance on lucky guesses and chance discoveries."