As proposed by the commission, the national intelligence director would not head a major agency. Rather, the appointee would have a "relatively small staff of several hundred people, taking the place of the existing community management offices housed at the CIA," according to the commission's report.President Bush and Congress endorsed the national intelligence director proposal, and the office was created in April 2005. However, rather than having a staff of several hundred, the national intelligence director has ballooned into an agency with 1,500 employees. They are housed in a new building next to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in McLean, Va.
While a small segment of those employees work for the NCTC, which is vital, the rest of the agency has done virtually nothing to enhance the intelligence effort.
That point was symbolized when Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. admitted in a December 2010 interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that he was unaware of the arrests of 12 terrorists in London. It had been all over the news for most of the day.
The embarrassing lapse spotlighted the folly of creating a bureaucracy on top of operational agencies already on the alert for terror threats.
In my book "The Secrets of the FBI," Arthur M. "Art" Cummings II, who headed FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations, offered a candid assessment. He said the ODNI often gets in the way and produces little of value to the bureau.
Most of the time, the national intelligence director's office asks for special reports from the CIA and other agencies. What becomes of them is unclear. Indeed, a report by the national intelligence director's former inspector general, Edward Maguire, said a majority of national intelligence employees his staff interviewed were themselves unable to articulate a clear understanding of the office's role.