Bush Creating National Security Service Within FBI

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Bush Creating National Security Service Within FBI
David Utter

The President has accepted and will implement many of the Robb-Silberman WMD Report recommendations on intelligence reform.

After a 90-day review of the Robb-Silberman report by the National Security Council's adviser on homeland security, President George W. Bush has accepted virtually all of the Report's recommendations. ([url=\"http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050629-2.html\"][u]list[/u][/url])

One recommendation calls for several changes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In addition to pulling all of the Bureau's intelligence capabilities under the auspices of the Director of National Intelligence, the Report makes this suggestion:

(T)he counterterrorism and counterintelligence resources of the Bureau
would become a single National Security Service inside the FBI.



The Report also goes on to say the new Service would still be subject to oversight by the Attorney General and to current legal rules. Privacy advocates with a sense of history may see the recent passage of the REAL ID act along with the formation of the National Security Service as a frightening prospect.

The need for intelligence reform was spelled out in exacting detail in the 618 page [url=\"http://www.wmd.gov/report/wmd_report.pdf\"][u]report (pdf)[/u][/url]. It cites significant failures of intelligence throughout the spy community. But the most compelling finding was that the community just didn't know enough about Iraq to make a recommendation beyond the information it already possessed: Iraq had WMDs.

That was the recommendation compelling the Bush administration to move forward with action against Iraq. And as the Robb-Silberman report has found, the assessment by the intelligence agencies was wrong.

[url=\"http://www.securitypronews.com\"]source: securitypronews[/url]