Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
January 20, 2007
Pg. 8
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer
The "complex and demanding" process of restructuring the U.S. intelligence community is still "a work in progress" after 22 months of effort, John D. Negroponte said yesterday in a farewell address wrapping up his tenure as the first director of national intelligence.
Negroponte, who is leaving to become deputy secretary of state, spoke in the lobby of the modernistic Defense Intelligence Analysis Center at Bolling Air Force Base before 400 senior intelligence community officials and a portion of the 1,700 employees that make up the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
He said one success was the way various organizations worked together during the 2006 Lebanon-Israel crisis to determine which agency was best positioned to gather certain types of intelligence and share it with others, reducing duplication of effort. That same "lift and shift" of intelligence is continuing in the ongoing Darfur crisis and with regard to Somalia, he said.
Another innovation he cited: the support an intelligence community science and technology team is giving to the group run by retired U.S. Army Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs that is coming up with new solutions to defeat the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that are the most deadly killers of American troops in Iraq.
Additional integration of analysts and collectors is among the challenges still facing the community, particularly when it comes to so-called hard targets such as North Korea and Iran, he said.
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who was the first principal deputy national intelligence director before taking over the agency, praised the job Negroponte has done and said the former ambassador is returning to "his first calling" as a diplomat.
Hayden also used his time to praise how the restructuring has helped him focus solely on CIA problems without worrying about dividing his time with concerns about the rest of the community, as previous CIA directors had done when they had broader responsibilities. In a change from his prepared text, and in the spirit of collegiality, Haydon dropped a description of the CIA serving "in a leading role" in the intelligence community and just said the agency was serving "in our role" in the community.
January 20, 2007
Pg. 8
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer
The "complex and demanding" process of restructuring the U.S. intelligence community is still "a work in progress" after 22 months of effort, John D. Negroponte said yesterday in a farewell address wrapping up his tenure as the first director of national intelligence.
Negroponte, who is leaving to become deputy secretary of state, spoke in the lobby of the modernistic Defense Intelligence Analysis Center at Bolling Air Force Base before 400 senior intelligence community officials and a portion of the 1,700 employees that make up the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
He said one success was the way various organizations worked together during the 2006 Lebanon-Israel crisis to determine which agency was best positioned to gather certain types of intelligence and share it with others, reducing duplication of effort. That same "lift and shift" of intelligence is continuing in the ongoing Darfur crisis and with regard to Somalia, he said.
Another innovation he cited: the support an intelligence community science and technology team is giving to the group run by retired U.S. Army Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs that is coming up with new solutions to defeat the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that are the most deadly killers of American troops in Iraq.
Additional integration of analysts and collectors is among the challenges still facing the community, particularly when it comes to so-called hard targets such as North Korea and Iran, he said.
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who was the first principal deputy national intelligence director before taking over the agency, praised the job Negroponte has done and said the former ambassador is returning to "his first calling" as a diplomat.
Hayden also used his time to praise how the restructuring has helped him focus solely on CIA problems without worrying about dividing his time with concerns about the rest of the community, as previous CIA directors had done when they had broader responsibilities. In a change from his prepared text, and in the spirit of collegiality, Haydon dropped a description of the CIA serving "in a leading role" in the intelligence community and just said the agency was serving "in our role" in the community.