Bush panel rips U.S. intelligence abilities

Some of the recommendations
Among other things, the report:

• Recommends forming a new intelligence center to focus on weapons proliferation.
• Chastises intelligence agencies for their continued failure to share information, despite numerous reforms aimed at improving coordination.
• Stresses the need for ongoing training for analysts and operatives and new procedures for considering dissenting intelligence analysis.
• Calls on intelligence agencies to take concrete steps to ensure information from their sources is valid — a move prompted in part by 'Curve Ball'.
• Proposes updating the FBI’s computers and creating a new national security division within the Justice Department.

Bush formed the commission — led by Republican Laurence Silberman, a retired federal appeals court judge, and Democrat Charles Robb, a former senator from Virginia — as it became clear that U.S. weapons inspectors were not going to find stockpiles of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Little known about adversaries
The unclassified version of the report does not go into significant detail on the intelligence community’s abilities in Iran and North Korea because commissioners did not want to tip the U.S. hand to its leading adversaries. Those details are included in the classified version.

“The bad news is that we still know disturbingly little about the weapons programs and even less about the intentions of many of our most dangerous adversaries,” the report said.

The commission did not name any country, but appeared to be talking about nations such as North Korea and Iran.

“Our review has convinced us that the best hope for preventing future failures is dramatic change,” the report said. “We need an intelligence community that is truly integrated, far more imaginative and willing to run risks, open to a new generation of Americans and receptive to new technologies.”

In an implicit swipe at the Bush administration, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the report did not review how federal policy-makers used the intelligence they were given.

“I believe it is essential that we hold both the intelligence agencies and senior policy-makers accountable for their actions,” Reid said.

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