Bush backs 'intelligence czar' with control over budgets
President embraces key recommendation of 9/11 commission that he had previously stopped short of endorsing.
President Bush on Wednesday called for a national intelligence director "who has full budgetary authority," embracing a recommendation of the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that the new "intelligence czar" control the budgets of the intelligence agencies.
Bush spoke before a White House meeting with a bipartisan group of senior lawmakers, where he presented a proposal for creating a national intelligence director.
According to a White House summary, the "NID" would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Although part of the executive branch, the NID would not be a member of the Cabinet and would not be within the White House.
The NID also would have a major role in personnel matters, since he would have to give his "concurrence" to appointments by agency chiefs of any individual who "heads an organization or element within the intelligence community," according to the White House document.
Among those at the meeting were Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Senate Commerce Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.; Governmental Affairs ranking member Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and various bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence, Appropriations and Armed Services committees.
Granting full budgetary powers to the NID has already been endorsed by Bush's opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. When Bush first announced his support for the position on Aug. 2, he said the NID should "coordinate budgets."
At a briefing afterward, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card indicated that this stopped short of absolute control over the various intelligence budgets. In a statement, Kerry national security adviser Rand Beers accused Bush of "taking half measures" and unnecessarily delaying intelligence changes for three years.
In Cincinnati on Wednesday, Kerry accused Bush of not giving weapons inspectors enough time before starting the Iraq war, failing to assemble enough allies, and not planning well for the aftermath. Kerry repeatedly decried what he said was the expenditure of $200 billion for Iraq, indicating the price tag would have been less if more allies contributed funds.