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3 US espionage enters the
'un-Rumsfeld' era By Tim
Shorrock
that the transfer of
authority over the national agencies to the DNI
would weaken the power of the Pentagon to wage
war. In effect, Hunter fought a rear-guard action
on behalf of Rumsfeld and Cheney, who could not
openly oppose legislation that their
commander-in-chief supported.
According to
Washington Post political reporter David Broder,
many Republicans were comfortable opposing Bush
because they believed the legislation "had not
originated with Bush but was in
effect forced on him by the
commission". Hunter's maneuvers stopped the
intelligence bill dead in its tracks.
After weeks of delay, Cheney stepped in to
negotiate a provision that met the demands of the
pro-military lawmakers that guaranteed direct
access to intelligence for military commanders.
Afterwards, Hunter - who is now a Republican
candidate for president - explained how the
provision would work. In a wartime scenario, he
told reporters, "It's important for the combatant
commanders and their subordinates, whether it's a
platoon leader in Fallujah or a Special Forces
team leader, to be able to access that information
very quickly." That intelligence, he pointed out,
included satellite surveillance. The die was cast:
henceforth, the NSA, the NGA and the NRO would
remain under the Pentagon's control.
Consolidation continues After
winning the battle for control over the NSA, NGA
and NRO, Rumsfeld and Cambone set to work
institutionalizing that control within the
Department of Defense. Even before the ink was dry
on the reform legislation, Rumsfeld was
circulating a directive instructing regional
military commanders to create a plan for an
expanded Pentagon role in military intelligence.
In December 2004, US Army Lieutenant
General William G Boykin, the controversial
general chosen by Cambone as his deputy, proposed
a major expansion of human intelligence gathering
within the Pentagon, "both within the military
services and the [DIA], including more missions
aimed at acquiring specific information sought by
policy makers". Boykin also wanted military
planners to work "more closely with the
intelligence analysts" tracking terrorists and
insurgency cells. "We've got to recognize intel as
a war-fighting component," he said.
By
2005, special forces units under control of the
Pentagon were routinely entering countries like
Somalia and Iran to launch covert military
operations. The NSA, NGA and NRO were enlisted to
play key roles in Rumsfeld's "transformation" of
the military through network-centric warfare: NSA
signals and NGA imagery intelligence are now
cornerstones of this 21st-century military
doctrine.
Military power in intelligence
was also concentrated at home. In 2002, deputy
secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz created the
Counterintelligence Field Activity office,
ostensibly to provide security at US military
bases. By 2004, however, it was spending millions
of dollars each year to monitor the activities of
American citizens, including thousands of people
who were simply exercising their rights to protest
US foreign policy.
Over the next two
years, Rumsfeld and Cambone took aggressive moves
to diminish the DNI's power. They made it harder
to transfer defense intelligence officers into
joint "fusion" centers run by the ODNI and the
Department of Homeland Security. And when
officials under their command took contrary
positions, they took action.
Rumsfeld was
especially angered when the NGA director, retired
Air Force General James Clapper, told a Senate
panel that his agency wouldn't be harmed if it was
put under DNI control. Rumsfeld called him to the
Pentagon and told him he was out of line. A few
months later, Rumsfeld let it be known that
Clapper would not be reappointed when his term at
the NGA expired in June 2005.
End of
the Rumsfeld era The appointment of Gates
brought the Rumsfeld dream of Pentagon control
over intelligence to an end. Almost immediately
after Rumsfeld's firing, key officials who led the
Rumsfeld drive to dominate intelligence, including
the neo-conservative hawk Cambone and the
controversial Boykin, were quickly shown the door
and replaced.
In a direct slap at
Rumsfeld, Gates brought Clapper back into the
Pentagon as under secretary of defense for
intelligence, replacing the neo-con Cambone. Since
then, Clapper has moved to dismantle some of
Rumsfeld's pet programs, including the infamous
TALON database created to spy on American
citizens.
In an important step last
spring, Gates and McConnell jointly agreed that
Clapper and future under secretaries for
intelligence will also report to the ODNI as the
deputy for military intelligence. And McConnell,
through his many appearances before Congress, is
indisputably the top US official for intelligence.
His release this week of a National Intelligence
Estimate concluding that Iran had stopped its
nuclear program in 2003 underscored his agency's
independence from the Pentagon.
But
bureaucratic maneuvers can only go so far in
ending the Pentagon's direction of intelligence.
Only a change in law, taking the NSA, NGA and NRO
out of the department's hands and putting them
under the direct control of the ODNI and the White
House, will ensure that these agencies are under
true civilian control.
Carrying out the
original mandate of the 9-11 Commission will give
future presidents greater control over those
agencies and allow them to be used for broad
national goals - including the protection of human
rights and monitoring the environment - that will
never be the top concerns of the military.
Putting those assets under White House
control won't prevent future leaders from misusing
them, as Bush and Cheney misused the NSA to spy on
Americans. But it will provide a framework that
could make intelligence collection a function of
national leaders concerned with all aspects of
national security, not just the tactical needs of
the military.
FPIF contributor Tim
Shorrock has been writing about US foreign
policy and national security for many years. His
book on the outsourcing of US intelligence will be
published in May 2008 by Simon & Schuster. He
can be reached at timshorrock@gmail.com.
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