Thursday, June 11, 2009

Cat-fight In The Intelligence World

President Obama brought some true heavyweights into his national security team....Clinton at State, Gates at Defense, Panetta at CIA, Blair at DNI, and Jones at NSC. Each of them is a power center in his or her own right, and that is as it should be.

David Ignatius lays out a dust-up in progress now between Panetta and Blair, over who will appoint the CIA Station Chiefs around the world. I've never been a fan of the Director of National Intelligence (Blair) position...the goal of bringing the intelligence agencies under unified management was a good one...but the role of DNI ought never be severed from the role of Director of the CIA.

This issue strikes me as a manhood issue more than anything else. Ignatius is right, this is Panetta's call.

2 comments:

  1. The reason they have a Director of Central Intelligence is to run the company.

    Blair's job is to coordinate among CIA,NSA, DIA etal.

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  2. "Ishmael Jones" over at the NRO has a slightly different take...

    http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmY4ODcwZTk2MjkyNDkyOGUxNTNhNjZlYjE4NDc5MzU=

    ReplyDelete