Open intelligence reform thread

Feel free to comment here on Senator Pat Roberts’ proposed plan for intelligence reform. As I’ve said before, I’m leery of the pushes towards centralization made in the 9/11 Commission report, and Roberts’ proposal goes further in some ways. On the other hand, I really do like the idea of splitting up the analytic and clandestine components of the CIA, an I really like the idea of rotating intelligence officers through different agencies. My opinion don’t count for much on this, however. On the other hand, Amy Zegart’s opinion does count for a great deal — intelligence reform is what she studies. So check out what Zegart said last night on Aaron Brown’s NewsNight:

It’s one of the boldest proposals for reform that we’ve seen in the 57 years of the intelligence community…. I think one of the critical differences between Senator Roberts’ proposal and the 9/11 Commission is the 9/11 Commission essentially said, “Look at the pieces we have here. How can we make these work better?” Senator Roberts’ proposal actually takes out that blank sheet of paper and says, “How could we actually redesign the entire intelligence system to work better?” …. I think there are three major differences that make it better than, for example, the 9/11 Commission proposal. The first is that the national intelligence director has even more power in Senator Roberts’ proposal than in the 9/11 Commission. Now, bear in mind that the details of this proposal of Senator Roberts’ proposal are not widely known but my understanding is the national intelligence director would have hiring and firing power that goes far deeper in agencies that now reside in the Pentagon, like the National Security Agency. The second change is, as you mentioned, dismantling the CIA, separating in particular the clandestine side of the CIA from the analytic side of the CIA. But there’s a third change. And I think it is harder to see and equally important. And that’s Senator Roberts’ proposal tries to get at cultural changes inside the community. The 9/11 Commission identified critical cultural pathologies in our intelligence system, but really put off proposals for solving them and put them in the hands of the national intelligence director. Senator Roberts’ proposal actually goes much farther than that. For example, you’ll notice the language refers to a national intelligence service. Dismantling the CIA is part of creating that one-team approach. And there are also requirements in this proposal to, for example, require the rotation of intelligence officials to different agencies outside their own, which is crucial for getting them to trust and understand each other and share information better.

UPDATE: I think it’s safe to say that Fred Kaplan doesn’t like the proposal.