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Expert Brief: A Smarter Intelligence Policy

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Frank Procida, National Intelligence Fellow

January 5, 2009

Despite vivid reminders in the news of the threat still posed by extremists, most reporting on the President-elect's thinking regarding the role of the Intelligence Community (IC) and his Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has focused on the acceptability of potential nominees to the left wing of the Democratic Party. Save for one specific proposal on the Obama campaign's website--a promise to give the DNI a fixed term similar to that of the chairman of the Federal Reserve--the topic also did not enter the campaign dialogue in a meaningful way. Regardless of whether such a shift is politically feasible, it's most important that the President-elect recognize that he alone, by virtue of his position as the final reader and primary consumer of the IC's analysis, already has the ability to institute the process necessary to get the most out of his intelligence bureaucracy.

In fact, altering the intelligence architecture further is probably a political nonstarter, at least until the next intelligence failure comes along to raise the public's ire. The informed and popular consensus appears to be that the legislation passed in 2004 that incorporated much of the 9/11 commission's recommendations adequately addressed whatever problems existed by creating a more unified community.

But even if the President-elect shares in this complacency regarding the efficacy of the legislation, he would do well by simply setting aside time for regular intelligence briefings, maintaining a degree of skepticism regarding the community's ability to warn and to forecast, and encouraging assessments that challenge his administration's policies. Doing so would ensure he hears an objective voice on the most critical issues facing the country, which would do more good than any fundamental restructuring in guarding against another intelligence-related breakdown.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.