America does not need a Director of National Intelligence

An abbreviated version of this op-ed appeared in The Washington Times.

In response to recent complaints by former intelligence officials like James Clapper, John Brennan and others about President Trump’s current effort to reduce the bloat and politicization of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), it’s time to admit something they do not want to discuss: America does not need a director of national intelligence.

Members of Congress who drafted the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) – the law that created the DNI – were convinced that a centralized director of the entire intelligence community could prevent another 9/11 by ensuring that intelligence agencies share vital information with one another, improve intelligence management, and address problems with security clearances.  There also was a belief that the U.S. Intelligence Community had become too large and complex for the CIA Director to run the CIA and sixteen other intelligence entities.

Congress created the ODNI because proponents took advantage of a crisis — the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks — to push through a bad idea that never would have been adopted in normal circumstances. Lawmakers knew the American people were demanding bold action in response to the terrorist attacks and were sold on the idea that creating a DNI represented such bold action and would be a panacea for the intelligence community’s shortcomings. Most did not understand — or ignored — warnings that creating a DNI likely would lead to a huge bureaucracy that would damage, not improve, American intelligence capabilities.

Creating a DNI-like position had been debated in a bipartisan way for more than 20 years before the IRTPA passed. It was never implemented because of a consensus that it would be a bad idea because it would create a wasteful new layer of intelligence bureaucracy.  For the CIA, the notion that the U.S. Intelligence Community was too large for the CIA Director to manage was seen as nothing more than a power grab by other intelligence agencies.   Many asked that if the President can head the huge U.S. government bureaucracy, why can’t the CIA Director head all American intelligence agencies?

Not all members of Congress favored creating the DNI.  A notable exception was former House Intelligence Committee member Ray LaHood (R-Ill) who said when Congress passed the IRTPA in 2004, “I believe creating a national intelligence director is a huge mistake.  . . . it’s another bureaucracy, it’s another layer of government.  It would not have prevented 9/11 and it will not prevent another 9/11.”

Sixteen years later, we know Congressman LaHood was right: The record is clear that creating the DNI has made America less safe.  Centralization of the intelligence community forced a surge in groupthink and risk-averse intelligence analysis. Bureaucratic culture and intellectual integrity fell victim to an enforced politicization and virtue-signaling. Intelligence professionals with different perspectives fell silent, were pushed aside or penalized, or retired early. According to a 2016 Heritage Foundation report, since the creation of the DNI position, intellectual and bureaucratic decay resulted in a series of intelligence failures. Those included failure to predict the Arab Spring, the resurgence of al-Qaeda, the adventurism of Putin, the aggressiveness of China, and a number of terrorist attacks on the U.S., from the Detroit “underwear bomber” to the San Bernardino massacre.

On top of all that, a priority of ODNI officials over the past 10 years has been to force politically correct policies on intelligence professionals, and imposing pop culture issues like climate change and social fads as major functions of America’s spy services.

ODNI spending and personnel have grown like deformities since 2004. “In classic government agency fashion, the ODNI quickly self-bloated, requesting 1,500 highest-salaried Senior Executive Service (SES) billets and becoming a promotions playground for the Intelligence Community,” former assistant FBI director Ken Brock wrote recently in The Hill. “For comparison purposes, the FBI, 20 times larger, has 200 to 300 SES positions with, one could argue, much clearer return on investment.”

As a member of the House Intelligence Community staff, I witnessed the effects of the bloated ODNI bureaucracy.  ODNI frequently sent so many officials to testify to congressional oversight hearings that they crowded one another off the witness table.  ODNI staff often block members of individual intelligence agencies from testifying to Congress. This control operation prevents lawmakers from getting firsthand perspectives from real Intelligence Community experts.

President Trump has been skeptical of the ODNI as a wasteful and out-of-control bureaucracy since the beginning of his presidency.  His concerns grew over the past three years after repeated inept and politicized activity by Intelligence Community officers.  These included DNI Dan Coats’ unclassified congressional testimony last year undermining the president’s diplomacy with North Korea, the discredited and debunked January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, politically driven leaks by intelligence officers to hurt the elected leader of the country, and the so-called CIA whistleblower whose actions sparked the impeachment proceedings against President Trump.  This whistleblower now reportedly works for the ODNI.

President Trump’s recent decisions to name loyalist hardliners Ambassador Richard Grenell as acting DNI and to nominate Congressman John Ratcliffe to be the DNI reflect how serious his concerns are about DNI politicization, bloat, and incompetence.  Ambassador Grenell has hit the ground running to streamline the ODNI by firing several key officials, instituting a hiring freeze, and assessing the size of the staff and how to eliminate duplication of work with other agencies.

Nevertheless, President Trump can take significant steps on his own to reduce the DNI’s mandate and sharply reduce the ODNI bureaucracy.  As many as 2,000 ODNI staff are on detail from other intelligence agencies. They can be sent back to their home agencies immediately.  Many ODNI bureaucracies like the National Counterproliferation Center, the ODNI Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, and the regional and functional mission mangers should be shut down.  The National Intelligence Council and the Presidential Daily Brief should be sent back to the CIA.

Although the president cannot eliminate the National Counterterrorism Center without congressional approval, he could cut back its mandate and send most of its staff to other intelligence agencies.  According to press reports, acting DNI Grenell is looking into doing this.

Similarly, while President Trump cannot eliminate the DNI position on his own, he can drastically limit the DNI’s mandate and start treating the CIA Director as his principal intelligence adviser.

To deal with serious current and future security threats facing our nation, we need a U.S. Intelligence Community that is nimble, innovative, contrarian, tech-savvy, and willing to take risks.  The above steps to cut back – if not eliminate – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its gargantuan bureaucracy will go a long way toward fixing the damage that this huge, ineffective and politicized leviathan has done to our national security.