US spy agencies not meeting goal of intelligence overhaul, says internal report

Washington, Apr.2 (ANI): A withering internal report made public on Wednesday has criticized the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for bureaucratic bloat, financial mismanagement and a failure to end the turf battles among America's spy agencies that led to disastrous intelligence failures in recent years.

The report, by the inspector general, was the most detailed account to date of problems that bedevil America's intelligence agencies more than four years after Congress and President George W. Bush created the director's office to overcome weaknesses exposed by the Sept. 11 attacks, reports the New York Post.It criticized as excessive the amount of time that successive intelligence chiefs have spent briefing the White House and Congress compared with the relatively little time they have devoted to managing a byzantine intelligence apparatus.The report was completed in November, before the Obama administration took office. But like his two predecessors in the post, Dennis C. Blair, the new intelligence chief, spends several days a week at the White House delivering the morning intelligence briefing to the president.

While written in dense bureaucratic language, the report made clear that many of the goals of the intelligence overhaul in 2005 are far from being realized.

The report concludes that there has been insufficient progress on streamlining intelligence analysis and force collaboration among the Central Intelligence Agency and its 15 counterparts.

Lawmakers say the report has exposed the flaws in the legislation. Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, said Blair was putting in place "numerous changes to improve and streamline communications" among American intelligence agencies. (ANI)