12/17/2004

“On December 17 [2004], he [President Bush] signed legislation restructuring the nation’s spy agencies, a response to two intelligence breakdowns of epic proportions. …The final bill centralized the sixteen intelligence agencies under a single director of national intelligence, but with billions of dollars and bureaucratic control at stake the measure emerged only after the new position was undercut even before it was filled. [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, whose Pentagon controlled most intelligence resources, was unwilling to surrender them. How could a cabinet secretary run his department, he asked, if he did not control the spending of the agencies within it? ‘The result would be a train wreck,’ he had written in a memo to Bush during the legislative debate, ‘or you and your successors will have to spend a great deal of time acting as a referee, with some risk to U.S. intelligence capabilities.’ [Vice President Dick] Cheney backed him and Bush went along, leaving the new intelligence director without the power to control spending.”

 – Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Pages 369-370