Bush signs intelligence orders

President Bush yesterday signed executive orders to expand the power of the CIA director and to create a new National Counterterrorism Center that will enhance information sharing among intelligence agencies.

Following through on his pledge to swiftly enact recommendations made by the bipartisan September 11 commission, the president temporarily granted to the CIA director many of the functions of a commission-proposed national intelligence director, who would oversee all 15 of the nation’s intelligence agencies.

“We’re now reforming our intelligence service so we can get better intelligence and share the intelligence better to disrupt terrorist plots,” the president said in a Miami speech late yesterday. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“But I just want to warn you: Reform isn’t easy in Washington. There’s a lot of entrenched interests up there. A lot of people say, they like the status quo. It’s not enough to advocate reform. You’ve got to be able to get the job done.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president’s action grants only interim authority for the director of central intelligence.

“Until the national intelligence director is created by Congress, we want to make sure that we have an interim structure in place to oversee some of these steps that we are taking,” he said.

The move will give the CIA director temporary authority over budgetary issues at the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, a senior administration official said yesterday.

Mr. Bush signed another executive order yesterday to create a new National Counterterrorism Center (NCC) tasked with enhancing information sharing among intelligence agencies.

That order says the center will “serve as the primary organization in the United States government for analyzing and integrating all intelligence possessed or acquired by the United States government pertaining to terrorism and counterterrorism.”

The CIA director — whom the order designates as the president’s principal adviser on intelligence matters — will appoint the NCC director, with the approval of the president, and oversee the new agency.

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential candidate, immediately criticized the president’s actions. He said the White House has come to the table on changes to national security “dragging and kicking” each time.

“Now they say they’re willing to embrace a director of national intelligence, but they’re not really willing to embrace it because they won’t give him budget authority,” he said.

Vice-presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina said the president “is finally acknowledging that we have failed to enact the intelligence reform needed to keep our country safe.”

“Expanding the powers of the existing director of central intelligence is a far cry from creating a true national intelligence director with real control over personnel and budgets,” he said.

Both are wrong, according to a senior White House official, who said the CIA director would have authority to set national intelligence priorities over the objections of Cabinet-level officials such as the defense secretary and would have new powers to decide the U.S. intelligence community’s $40 billion annual budget.

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