Officials: Real intelligence reform could take 10 years

[The Straight Story]

Officials: Real intelligence reform could take 10 years

By Chris Strohm
[e-mail]
It will take years--possibly a decade--before the restructured national intelligence community functions at an acceptable level, current and former government officials said Monday.

In the meantime, John Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, will have to vigorously fight attempts to limit his power and resist getting sucked into counterproductive turf battles as he manages reform across the nation's 15 intelligence agencies, the officials said.

"You've got an established order with a bureaucratic way of doing things. There are going to be winners and losers and the losers are not going to go quietly into the night," said former Navy secretary John Lehman, who served as a Republican member of the 9/11 commission. "They're going to use their resources, and their congressional friends on the Hill and their committee staffers who also want to hold on to turf."

Lehman said that under Negroponte's leadership, within two years the intelligence community could be effectively sharing information and setting priorities. But implementing better processes, especially with regard to information technology, will probably take a decade or more, he said.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0605/061305c1.htm