The year 2004 was a disruptive and frenetic one for the intelligence community. Intelligence officials were linked to the detainee abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq; it became clear that the Central Intelligence Agency's intelligence estimates on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were off the mark; the 9/11 Commission released its report and issued a range of significant recommendations to reform the intelligence community; the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, of which I am a member, released a highly critical report dealing with pre-war intelligence analysis and collection capabilities; the long-serving Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), George Tenet, stepped down and was replaced by former Congressman Porter Goss, which triggered other senior personnel changes at the CIA; and a series of open, often emotional and sometimes contentious hearings was held in Congress, which resulted in the most sweeping intelligence reform since the National Security Act of 1947.
The centerpiece of this legislation is the creation of a new position, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), to lead our intelligence community. The DNI will not head any single agency--as was the case when the 1947 National Security Act created the Central Intelligence Agency and dual-hatted the DCI as head of the CIA and chief intelligence officer for the U.S. government. The 9/11 Commission correctly pointed out that the old structure gave the DCI too many jobs to be able to do them all effectively. Taking away the onerous responsibilities of running an intelligence agency will allow the new DNI to focus on overseeing the broader intelligence community and managing the national intelligence program.
