George W. Bush violates the laws of bureaucratic politics

The Associated Press’ Deb Reichmann reports that President Bush has embraced two key recommendations from the 9-11 Commission — the creation of a national intelligence czar and counterterrorism center. Here’s a link to the White House transcript of Bush’s remarks and answers to questions. The most startling change from the 9-11 Commission’s recommendations was the decision not to place the NID inside the White House. On this point, Bush said:

I don’t think that the office ought to be in the White House, however. I think it ought to be a stand-alone group, to better coordinate, particularly between foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence matters. I think it’s going to be one of the most useful aspects of the National Intelligence Director.

Later on in the Q&A, he compares the structure he’s proposing to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I’ll admit to being gobsmacked — not because Karl Rove might be reading my blog, but because the Bush administration had an opportunity to centralize policy authority and passed. Their proposed reform might be even better, because it provides one layer of bureaucratic protection from the overt political manipulation of intelligence. However, for a White House — any White House — to decline placing an important bureaucracy inside the Executive Office of the President is unusual. UPDATE: Kevin Drum offers a slightly darker interpretation for Bush’s decision:

Here’s my guess: Bush felt pressured to accept the commission’s recommendations, but Don Rumsfeld was not happy about the idea of his intelligence apparatus being under someone else’s thumb. The answer they came up with was twofold: accept the idea of a national intelligence director, thus showing that they take the commission’s recommendations seriously, but weaken its powers by housing it in its own building. Why? Because it’s a truism of DC power politics that anyone who works directly out of the White House has more influence than someone who doesn’t. The Pentagon probably feels that it can handle another high-level bureaucrat, but isn’t so sure it can handle one who actually works directly in the White House and talks to the president and his aides on a regular basis. Needless to day, Bush is spinning this as a way of keeping the new intelligence director independent, but I think the real story is the Pentagon’s desire to keep the director’s oversight as weak as possible. Keeping him out of the White House is the best way to do that.

This is certainly possible — one reporter said at the press conference that, “some of your [Bush’s] own advisors oppose creation of a National Intelligence Director.” That said, bear in mind that even if true, Rumsfeld still lost a fair amount of authority. The President did outline the division of labor in this answer:

I think that the new National Intelligence Director ought to be able to coordinate budgets…. the National Intelligence Director will work with the respective agencies to set priorities. But let me make it also very clear that when it comes to operations, the chain of command will be intact.

If the proposed NID has significant decision-making authority of resource allocation among the myriad intelligence agencies, that’s a pretty significant transfer of power.