Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Some Signs of Intelligence

In the aftermath of 9/11 (and before, actually), much has been made of the reality that the US Dept of Defence (the SecDef) controls most of the intelligence spending.  This may (just may, no certainty that this will happen) change with $$ being shifted to the Director of National Intelligence.  This may not lead to perfect outcomes, but if you want the Director of National Intelligence to have significant power (which was the idea behind the creation of the job), then you need to give that person some significant budgetary control.  I just wanted to highlight this potentially significant change.  It will then depend on who is appointed DNI and their priorities down the road, but his/her job is intelligence only, whereas the SecDef has many other areas calling for his/her attention.

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