Another Bush Intelligence Failure
By Robert Parry - April 6, 2009 -
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/040609.htmlAdd to the list of President George W. Bush’s failures his inability to straighten out what he regarded as one of the top national security needs, a more effective U.S. intelligence community.
Despite upping the U.S. intelligence budget to $45 billion from about $30 billion – and signing legislation in 2005 meant to end “turf” battles – Bush left behind an intelligence community suffering from poor communications among agencies and a flawed management structure, according to an inspector general’s report finished in November and released last week.
Instead of creating a streamlined and efficient intelligence community, the changes that Bush oversaw appear simply to have added a new layer of bureaucracy – the Director of National Intelligence – on top of the earlier system whose shortcomings contributed to intelligence failures around the 9/11 attacks and the bogus assessments on Iraq’s WMD stockpiles.
The findings of the DNI’s inspector general also undercut former Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertions that the Bush administration made great strides in keeping the country safe ....