Should the CIA be broken up?

[Batgirl]

Top US Republican senator Pat Roberts has proposed a radical overhaul of US intelligence which would create a national intelligence tsar and effectively break up the Central Intelligence Agency.



Senator Roberts, who chairs the Senate Intelligence committee, said he was pushing for a National Security Protection Act to build on the findings of the commission on the 11 September attacks.

Democrats have broadly welcomed the plan, although the party's senators said they had not been consulted. The senator is to outline his ideas to White House officials later on Monday.

What do you think of the senator's proposals? Should the CIA be broken up?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3590210.stm

No.

[Jonas]

Hell Ya!!! They should have been split up 30 years ago!!!

[Brad]

^What he said.

We need a Central Intelligence Agency- but the one we've got is too filled up with inept bureaucrats and politicians.

[USMCRET6391]

in the case of the organization and it's history of SNAFUs....Central Intelligence is an oxymoron

[Paracav]

The CIA is operated by non qualified token appointees, it has made so many blunders that it is vertually useless. No one has any confidence in the organization. Take the people who are qualified and doing their jobs and put them into some other intelligence organization, the rest can go on unemployment where they belong.

RJ

[übergrunt]

CIA needs to be an intelligence agency not a beaucratic clusterfuck. Too many damn idiots and politics running around not enough action.

[Field_Sailor]

The CIA just needs to be used effectively. The new position they are creating: National Intelligence Director, is actually the job of the CIA as defined by congress. National Security Act of 1947, I believe. CIA is the "CLEARINGOUSE" for all intelligence and agencies (i.e... NIMA, DIA, NSA-AIA, INSCOM, CNSG, MCIA, etc...)

[USMCRET6391]

I was the Det Cmdr for the Marine Guards at the Embassies in Rome, Italy and Cairo, Egypt the last three years of my Career and I had ample oportunity to interact with both the Military Liaison Office (DIA) and the CIA in both places. Trust me, the myriad of intelligence agencies that this country has talk to nobody themselves. When it comes to intelligence the CIA knows even less than the others.

[Field_Sailor]

Maybe not, but it is there job to be the "central clearinghouse" for the intelligence community. The DCI is supposed to report to the President for all the agencies. I'm not in the CIA, but I do know that is spelled out as part of the DCI's job in black and white.

[Grimmy]

Personally I think the problem is less the CIA and more the hostile legislation and congressional oversite of the last few decades.

I dont see a single problem we are currently faced with in the land of Sam that cant rationally be laid directly at the feet of that cluster gaggle of white collar criminals in both houses of Congress.

[USMCRET6391]

Originally Posted by Grimmy

Personally I think the problem is less the CIA and more the hostile legislation and congressional oversite of the last few decades.

I agree with this to a point and I also agree with the statements that the CIA is has and has been run by political hacks. That being said, there is still no one central loaction where intel is processed and then given to the proper agency for action. By law the CIA cannot be active in intel gathering and investigation in the United States and by the same law the FBI is prohibited from gathering intel and doing investgations internationally. This created and continues to foster, an atmosphere of territoriality and a situation where the left hand doesnt know what the right hand is doing. If you look at the the intel that was gathered by just those two orgnaizations prior to 9/11 and what was NOT shared there is a strong possibility that, even if it could not have been prevented, there would have been much greater investigation on the principal players involved if there had been one office where the info could have been sent..