911: Do We Need a Director of National Intelligence?
11th September 2016
I would say No, but that’s me.
Saying yes might invite some critical questions, starting with, well, “why?” Why should that position, and the office it heads, be funded and maintained? There’s no critical intelligence capability — at least not in public view — that would be lost; the four operational centers (National Counterterrorism Center, National Counterproliferation Center, National Intelligence Centers, and Joint Intelligence Community Council) could easily be transferred. And that might be a good idea.
No essential function or process would disappear; planning, budgets, and operations could evolve or devolve to other offices. Eliminating the DNI might increase efficiency, removing an entire layer of bureaucratic overhead and recovering for productive activity a good portion of the innumerable hours now spent in meetings and coordination and duplicative review and oversight.
In other words, it’s just another layer of bureaucracy that allows the government to appear to be doing something while spending more money.