Most Intelligence Office Employees Don’t Understand Their Mission

Friday, April 03, 2009

Among the many problems plaguing America’s intelligence operation is the fact that a majority of those working for the nation’s top spy agency don’t have a clear understanding of their mission, according to a highly critical report released Wednesday. But at least they can interact with counterparts in other spy agencies through their own social networking version of MySpace, called “A-Space,” designed to allow better communication among all US intelligence offices, reported the inspector general for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

 
Unfortunately, the pluses of A-Space are being overshadowed by numerous problems that continue to plague US spying efforts. The inspector general said that not only do those working for the DNI not know what their end purpose is, but they are part of a bloated bureaucracy that is fiscally mismanaged and spends too much time fighting turf wars with those in the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Many of these problems were called out by the Sept. 11 commission in its 2005 report, demonstrating that the DNI—established to clean up and improve intelligence gathering—is making many of the same mistakes that allowed hijackers to carry out their attacks in 2001.
 
Also, there continues to be debate over how the DNI should spend their time between the duties of advising the president and overseeing all American intelligence agencies. Edward Maguire, the DNI’s inspector general, told Congress that limits might have to be placed on the number of days the DNI briefs the president.
 
Meanwhile, the federal government continues to throw more money at the poorly-performing intelligence community. The budgets of the nation’s spy agencies have ballooned since Sept. 11—to more than $45 billion a year. The inspector general’s report also criticized the DNI office for poor financial management, saying agencies were “struggling to achieve auditable financial statements.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Report Faults U.S. Spy Agencies (by Mark Mazzetti, New York Times)
Critical Intelligence Community Management Challenges (Inspector General, Office of the Director of National Intelligence) (PDF)

Comments

John Q. 15 years ago
You talk about A-Space as if it is some sort of magic. The reality is that it is a product of exactly the worse things so accurately described in these reports.

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