An intelligence vacuum in Washington By Ritt Goldstein
"The President's Intelligence Advisory Board and Intelligence Oversight Board
(PIAB) provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of
intelligence collection, counter-intelligence, and other intelligence
activities. The PIAB, through its Intelligence Oversight Board, also advises
the President on the legality of foreign intelligence activities." - White
House website.
The United States' Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and other relevant
intelligence executives are required by executive order to report regularly to
the board, which was recently confirmed as existing without any members. When
reached by Asia Times
Online for comment, PIAB counsel Homer Pointer reluctantly confirmed the
board's condition.
Notably, a committee of the PIAB is the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB),
drawn from the PIAB's members. Such a body might prove useful to staff,
especially given the reported alleged revelations by Central Intelligence
Agency director Leon Panetta that the agency misled Congress on "significant
actions" from 2001 until this June.
The IOB was formed in 1976 by president Gerald Ford, its creation spurred by
earlier revelations of abuses within US intelligence agencies, with these
including activities such as assassinations and domestic spying. The
intelligence agency problems had surfaced during hearings by the "United States
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to
Intelligence Activities", more commonly called the "Church Committee", after
its chairman, Senator Frank Church.
A number of US intelligence reforms followed in the wake of the Church
Committee's scathing reports. It's regrettable how quickly such lessons appear
forgotten.
The PIAB was created in its present form by executive order during February
2008, with its latest incarnation following in the aftermath of the George W
Bush administration's widely publicized intelligence failures.
The idea of the original board began with president Dwight Eisenhower, the
PIAB's predecessor being launched in 1956. President John F Kennedy later named
it the "President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board", and Bush's 2008 order
dropped the word "Foreign" from the board's name, PFIAB becoming PIAB, among
other changes.
Published speculation has suggested the name change resulted from an added
"domestic" focus by the intelligence community (what was once termed "domestic
spying" by the Church Committee), but some view the most serious change was in
the IOB's role, something particularly significant given Panetta's alleged
revelations.
According to a March 2008 Washington Post article, "Steven Aftergood, the
director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American
Scientists, an advocacy group, said the move appears to dilute the independent
board's investigatory powers in favor of a member of the president's
administration." The article quotes Aftergood as adding: "It makes the new
board subordinate to the [national intelligence director] in a way that the old
board was not subordinate to the director of central intelligence."
The stated rationale for the PIAB's recent re-creation was to provide America's
executive branch with "access to accurate, insightful, objective, and timely
information concerning the capabilities, intentions, and activities of foreign
powers", the current state of world affairs highlighting some of the problems
its vacancies pose, such as headlines of Congress being misled.
Neither the White House nor National Security Council media spokespeople chose
to comment when contacted.
Mel Goodman, a senior fellow with the Center for International Policy (a
Washington-area think-tank) and adjunct professor of international relations
with Johns Hopkins University, took a dim view on the board's vacancies. "I
interpret this as President [Barack] Obama knowing an insufficient amount about
the intelligence community, and not caring as much as he should about the
intelligence community, and not wanting a bothersome group below bringing him
information that he doesn't want to hear about the intelligence community," he
observed to Asia Times Online. But others see this as merely "government as
usual".
"New administrations are notoriously slow to fill out all the positions," noted
Charles Knight, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives of The
Commonwealth Institute, another think-tank located in Boston's Cambridge area.
In all fairness to the Obama administration, the vital responsibility of
intelligence agency oversight that the IOB is tasked to pursue was widely
believed derailed when Bush created the new PIAB in 2008. At the time, the
Boston Globe headlined, "President weakens espionage oversight", immediately
adding, "Board created by Ford loses most of its power."
The consensus of opinion was that the new PIAB effectively concentrated power
in the hands of both the president and the DNI. The Bush administration
rationale for this change was that the new design would boost the power of the
DNI over the 16 intelligence agencies under him. And while the allegations of
CIA misleading Congress for eight years remain allegations, the plethora of
troubling intelligence agency activities which have already come to light speak
volumes regarding a pressing need for effective oversight.
Notably, the PIAB "was stacked with businessmen and women during the Bush
administration", according to Iraq Oil Report, and indeed one might speculate
that the current administration's delays may be due to the imperatives of
finding the right people, and the right board configurations, to act
effectively. However, if this is the case, it's unfortunate that it has not
been communicated.
This January, former DNI J Michael McConnell was named in media reports as
tapped by then president-elect Obama for board service. McConnell had returned
to his former employer, the consulting firm of Booz Allen, following the end of
his stint with the Bush administration. On January 27, a Booz Allen press
release noted that "President Obama has asked McConnell to continue to serve by
accepting a position on his President Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB)", with
The Wall Street Journal reporting that same day that McConnell would "work as a
member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board under President Barack
Obama".
Later, in mid-March, Iraq Oil Report addressed the issue of the board's
staffing, noting that an unnamed "Obama official" had stated that it would not
be a question of months, but "maybe a matter of weeks" until the PIAB was
staffed. But at present, the board remains vacant, existing as little more than
an empty shell, the only certainty before us being the myriad intelligence
problems America faces.
Ritt Goldstein is an investigative political journalist whose work has
appeared widely, including in the US's Christian Science Monitor, Spain's El
Mundo, Austria's Wiener Zeitung and Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, as well
as with other significant members of the global media.
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