WASHINGTON, Aug 11 (AFP) - The Pentagon on Wednesday warned against oversimplifying the US intelligence community's command structure by appointing a "czar" to oversee the work of 15 different agencies.
US President George W. Bush last week announced plans to heed a recommendation by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States calling for the creation of a national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center, with oversight authority over 15 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
Several Defense Department officials, who testified in Congress on the recommendations of the commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks, questioned whether the proposed measures would "create new problems more difficult to overcome than the ones we intend to fix," as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone put it.
Meanwhile, General Raymond Odierno, commander of an infantry division deployed in Iraq from March 2003 to March 2004, stressed the importance of ensuring that reforms would not keep commanders on the ground from getting vital intelligence.
If the report's recommendations are approved, Pentagon officials will "salute smartly and make it happen," Cambone said. But they will pursue discussions to plan "how we are going to work that relationship between the Department of Defense and the supply of intelligence essential to its Title X responsibility in a way that the commander on the front line can be assured that when he picks up the phone and says he needs it, it will be there."
"We worked that relationship in the current structure over the course of some 40 years or more. We would have to reset those relationships in a way that ensures the same outcome," he said.
"It's all about access to data and the commander on the ground having that ability to prioritize and go up his chain of command and feel confident that his priorities will be met in terms of having the data available necessary to execute precision targets," Odierno said.
"The one thing we learned in Iraq was you don't have much time," he added. "Targets are fleeting. You have hours. And so you have to have immediate access to that information."