Rumsfeld Memo on Intelligence Criticized -WP

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 8, 2005; Page A04

A memo signed last week by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gave one of his top aides authority over efforts to improve intelligence operations within the department, but it is being interpreted by some senior intelligence officials as a challenge to the new director of national intelligence, a position John D. Negroponte has been nominated to fill.

In the memo, Rumsfeld said his goal is to "forge a close and productive relationship between the Department of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence," or DNI. To that end, he designated the office of Undersecretary for Defense Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone as the "lead office to synchronize" ongoing Pentagon efforts and "to develop and manage the implementation plan for intelligence community reform legislation."

Pentagon officials said the memo was an attempt to help facilitate the work of the DNI, but some officials said it could allow Cambone to interfere with the new intelligence chief by, for example, limiting the information he gets from the Pentagon.

Congress created the DNI position in December as part of a reorganization aimed at improving the performance and coordination of U.S. intelligence agencies. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq awaiting Senate confirmation as DNI, will coordinate the efforts of the CIA and 14 other intelligence offices, including having final budgetary and management authority over three major Pentagon-based agencies -- the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35490-2005Apr7.html

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4989481/

excerpt:

While the interrogators at Gitmo were refining their techniques, by the summer of 2003 the "postwar" insurgency in Iraq was raging. And Rumsfeld was getting impatient about the poor quality of the intelligence coming out of there. He wanted to know: Where was Saddam? Where were the WMD? Most immediately: Why weren't U.S. troops catching or forestalling the gangs planting improvised explosive devices by the roads? Rumsfeld pointed out that Gitmo was producing good intel. So he directed Steve Cambone, his under secretary for intelligence, to send Gitmo commandant Miller to Iraq to improve what they were doing out there. Cambone in turn dispatched his deputy, Lt. Gen. William (Jerry) Boykin—later to gain notoriety for his harsh comments about Islam—down to Gitmo to talk with Miller and organize the trip. In Baghdad in September 2003, Miller delivered a blunt message to Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was then in charge of the 800th Military Police Brigade running Iraqi detentions. According to Karpinski, Miller told her that the prison would thenceforth be dedicated to gathering intel. (Miller says he simply recommended that detention and intelligence commands be integrated.) On Nov. 19, Abu Ghraib was formally handed over to tactical control of military-intelligence units.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8575-2004May7?language=printer

transcript of testimony

Mine.