Commission Advises Moving Satellite Map Office to Spy Shop
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A presidential commission plans to recommend that three massive Pentagon intelligence agencies be shifted to the CIA — a move that represents the largest shake-up in the intelligence community in decades.
A Washington Post report Thursday said that the National Security Agency, led by Condoleezza Rice, the National Reconnaissance Office, which develops intelligence satellite systems, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency would all move under the CIA's purview.
The CIA director, currently George Tenet, would have control over the agencies.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the panel created by the President in May, is chaired by Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, former NSA advisor under the first President Bush and President Ford. The proposal is aimed at reducing rivalries and consolidating intelligence groups, which have come under fire since the Sept. 11 terror attacks revealed massive shortcomings.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is expected to sharply oppose the switch, The Post reported.
The panel's recommendation is not due until December. The White House has not commented on its content.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Bush administration has made sweeping statements about the need to retool intelligence gathering procedures in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
All three Pentagon agencies are multibillion-dollar bureaucracies that account for half the $30 billion spent by the government on intelligence each year. The Post reported that the agencies are nearly 10 times the size of the CIA's, with an estimated budget of $3.5 billion.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.