While the successes of the FAO program are many, it has not reached its full potential. All Army attaché billets are coded for FAOs, but there aren't always enough trained FAOs to fill them, and the other military services have not embraced the FAO program as fully as the Army. The landmark Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 greatly improved how the military provides for the security of the United States. New legislation, akin to this, may be required to ensure the viability of a program so vital to promoting and protecting U.S. security interests worldwide.

The U.S. military is often the preferred instrument for dealing with foreign instability of all stripes. The international community correctly views the U.S. military as having unequalled reach, muscle, communications and intelligence. Even when combat power is not a principal factor, such as when the U.S. military supported humanitarian relief efforts for the tsunami victims in South and Southeast Asia, the world looks to our military to bring structure to unstructured situations. Part of the readiness of the military operational force has been--and will continue to be--dependent on the intelligence, analysis, coordination and influence provided by our military attachés posted worldwide.

Another important question that needs to be addressed during the intelligence reform process is: How will the DNI and the military interact with each other? The DNI will inherit an intelligence community made up of 15 separate members, eight of which are in the Defense Department. Collectively, these eight members are huge, with tens of thousands of uniformed military and civilian personnel and multi-billion dollar budgets. It seems highly unlikely that someone outside the military like the DNI could adequately and efficiently manage these vast intelligence capabilities and deal with eight separate Defense Department branches. This is a major issue, and it must be addressed; consolidating the eight Defense Department intelligence branches into one reduces from 15 to eight the number of separate entities in the intelligence community and improves the DNI's ability to coordinate our intelligence efforts.

To solve the problem, Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) and I are reintroducing legislation in the 109th Congress to create a four-star unified combatant command for military intelligence called INTCOM. This command would, for the first time, bring the majority of the intelligence capabilities in the Department of Defense under a single commander, improving the coordination of intelligence within the department and bringing economies of scale to this important function. INTCOM would then be the single point of contact for the DNI in dealing with military intelligence. The INTCOM commander would have the dual responsibility of being the one source for informing the DNI of military intelligence requirements needing support from the entire intelligence community, and of being the one source for assigning military intelligence capabilities to assist in fulfilling the DNI's broader intelligence responsibilities.

One of the U.S. Army's nine Principles of War is "unity of command." When this principle is properly used, there is a common focus on reduction of duplication and wasted efforts, vastly improved coordination and, above all, accountability. The military has already applied this principle very successfully to several functional areas and has created unified combatant commands for Transportation, Joint Forces and Special Operations. The latter was established by legislation in 1986 over the objections of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Admiral William Crowe. There is no objection today, however, by any senior military officers to our Special Operations Command or any other unified command. The fact is, whenever the military has created either a functional or a geographic unified command, we have seen better focus on the mission, better support from the military services and improved capabilities. A unified command for intelligence will have the same benefits.

Moreover, designating an INTCOM commander creates an opportunity to coordinate the Defense Department's intelligence branches. This will immeasurably assist the DNI, whose mandate is to better integrate all the disparate parts that make up the U.S. intelligence community. At the same time, serious consideration should also be given to dual-hatting the INTCOM commander as the deputy DNI. The INTCOM commander, serving as both the secretary of defense's primary intelligence officer and as the deputy DNI, would be an ideal choice to harmonize DNI and Defense Department intelligence requirements and priorities. Furthermore, having the INTCOM commander as the deputy DNI would ensure that this senior military officer is also in a position to serve as the civilian DNI's military advisor.

The sophistication of bringing all U.S. intelligence under the coordination of the DNI requires that someone answer to both the secretary of defense and the DNI. Differences could arise over legitimate intelligence collection priorities. If agreement could not be reached, the president would make the final decision.

The process of intelligence reform is just beginning. There is a lot of important work ahead to make sure we get it right. We have taken an important first step in creating a Director of National Intelligence who is not beholden to the CIA, the Defense Department or any other branch of government. It is a good start, but it is just the first effort in a long process of intelligence reform. If the new intelligence reform legislation does not allow us to "connect the dots", and indeed have more dots to connect, to prevent further attacks on the United States and our interests, then we have failed in our effort to reform the intelligence community.