(Lt. Gen.) Clapper to face grilling in DNI hearing

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Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper is expected to explain how he would streamline the massive flow of information from the intelligence community's 16 agencies.


Clapper to face grilling in DNI hearing
By Kimberly Dozier - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jul 20, 2010 8:59:31 EDT

WASHINGTON — Tough questions and blunt answers are likely Tuesday when retired Air Force Gen. James T. Clapper goes before the Senate Intelligence Committee seeking confirmation as the next director of national intelligence.

Clapper is expected to explain how he would streamline the massive flow of information from the intelligence community's 16 agencies. He has already answered more than 80 questions from the Intelligence Committee, providing some 90 pages in responses that will be posted to the committee's website at the start of the hearing.

Congress created the DNI post in 2004 because of a perceived lack of coordination that preceded the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But critics from the White House to the intelligence community say the intelligence chief's role is ill-defined because lawmakers did not want to give the director the authority to override decisions made by the agencies under his or her purview. They contend that has reduced the DNI's role to what some call "the cajoler in chief," whose real authority rests on the ability to persuade others to listen to his or her recommendations.

President Barack Obama nominated Clapper more than six weeks ago after he pressed retired Adm. Dennis Blair to step down. During Blair's tumultuous 16-month tenure, he clashed with CIA director Leon Panetta over questions of overlapping authority. Blair was also seen as out of step with the inner national security sanctum led by White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan, who had to preside over the Blair-Panetta wrangles.

Clapper has been praised by both Brennan and Panetta as someone they respect and work with regularly in his current role as the Pentagon's top intelligence official. Described as detail-oriented, Clapper is seen as less likely to pick turf battles with agency heads.