John O. Brennan

ohn O. Brennan, a 23-year veteran of the CIA and a Middle East expert, has not had an easy time since March 2003, when he was appointed director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center.

Brennan, a former chief of staff to CIA Director George Tenet, has held a number of senior analyst positions at the agency, including assignments in the Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis. Brennan directed analysis at the CIA's Counterterrorist Center during the first Gulf War and was the White House daily intelligence briefer in 1994 and 1995.

As director of the new threat center, Brennan oversees a staff of more than 100 intelligence analysts. The center collects and analyzes intelligence from the FBI, the CIA, and the State, Justice and Defense departments. It provides "one-stop shopping in the U.S. government for the terrorism threat," Brennan told U.S. News & World Report in September 2003. A federal official noted that the center, despite some overlap, is the sole provider of the terrorist matrix, which outlines threats and is delivered daily to the president.

But the center has been bogged down in controversy and bureaucratic snags since President Bush announced its creation in his 2003 State of the Union address. Members of Congress have said that the center duplicates other intelligence efforts. Also, because the center is based at CIA headquarters and reports directly to Tenet, civil-liberties groups are worried that the CIA is moving into domestic spying. Brennan and others have strongly denied the charge. Opponents also say that the division of responsibility among the agencies whose analysts comprise the TTIC-the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (formerly the National Imagery and Mapping Agency), and the Defense, Homeland Security, State, and Justice departments-is unclear.

And because the center doesn't report to an agency or a Cabinet secretary, lawmakers fear that it lacks accountability. "There is an unclear division of responsibility and, therefore, no basis of accountability," said Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, at a July 2003 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Committee on Homeland Security. A CIA official says that Turner's assessment is wrong and that Brennan answers to Tenet, who, as the overall head of intelligence for the entire country, is ultimately accountable. Brennan, 48, told lawmakers that he already has seen the "force-multiplier effect of having officers from different government agencies and departments working together. . . . No single agency has the authority or capability to deal with the terrorist threat."

A New Jersey native, Brennan received his bachelor's degree from Fordham University in New York, and a master's in government from the University of Texas (Austin).