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http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060206-100136-55 46r If you have any comments or questions about this piece, need any more information about UPI products and services, or want to stop receiving these alerts, please get in touch. Thank you, Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 202 898 8081 Replacement of boss spells delay for information sharing project By SHAUN WATERMAN UPI Homeland and National Security Editor WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- The sudden replacement of the Bush administration official charged with creating the government-wide information sharing infrastructure needed to connect the dots and help stop future terror attacks has highlighted the lack of progress on the issue. John Russack, who had been at work for less than a year, leaves amid concerns that the creation of the so-called Information Sharing Environment, or ISE, for which he is responsible has been stalled by turf struggles and bureaucratic inertia. The ISE is one of the reforms proposed following the failure of any of the 15 U.S intelligence agencies, or the nation's hundreds of police forces, to interdict the Sept. 11 terror plot -- despite the fact that some of the perpetrators were known to be members of al-Qaida and all of them lived openly in the United States. The federal government's inability to "connect the dots" -- to get information about suspected international terrorists and the people connected with them into the hands of local policemen and DMV clerks -- is one of the most complex policy problems thrown up by the Sept. 11 attacks. Reformers envisaged the ISE as an open ended system of databases intended to ensure that information about potential terrorist threats was filtered down to the front lines of local law enforcement and that intelligence about that threat collected on those front lines -- and at ports of entry, or on battlefields overseas -- was gathered up and made available as widely as possible. The ISE was written into law in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, but some say the effort has mired in inter-departmental politics and is floundering without the leadership it needs. Private sector sources told United Press International that the procurement process Russack had launched for an early phase of the ISE -- a so-called Request for Information on Electronic Directory Services -- had made little progress as yet. Russack's departure was noted in a press statement Jan. 26 from Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who is his party's assistant leader in the Senate. Calling the news a "troubling set back" for the administration's information sharing plans, Durbin said, "It appears that our best efforts to implement a 21st century technology for information sharing are still far behind. Today's announcement tells us that the plans for moving forward may be delayed or jeopardized." But Russack's boss, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, told senators last week that the information sharing infrastructure was "better than it was previously." "I think that the dots are being connected. Can more be done? Yes, to be sure. But we're working on it," he told Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas Thursday. "We also have now got a senatorially confirmed chief information officer," he added, as well as an "information sharing executive, and those officials are working together." Questioned about Russack's departure by Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., Negroponte said a replacement had been identified and would "eventually" be brought on board, once the "clearances and just the processes that we have to go through" were complete. One intelligence official said later that Russack would remain in the post until the new appointee was able to take up their duties. Negroponte said replacing Russack would bring about a change of pace, not policy. "I would expect that -- and I would hope that progress on this front will accelerate," once the new official was in place, he told Feinstein. Criticism from Durbin and other Democrats is echoed by some intelligence officials and intelligence contractors familiar with Russack's efforts. They say there is a lot of room to go faster. "They are a long, long way from any kind of solution," said one intelligence veteran who is now a private sector contractor in the field. The contractor, along with a former senior congressional staffer who still follows the issue and three serving intelligence officials all spoke to United Press International on condition of anonymity. There was broad agreement that Russack had been in a difficult, perhaps altogether untenable, situation more or less from the outset. The key issue was the decision in June 2005 to place the program manager, as the post was called, in the office of the new director of national intelligence, rather than in the executive office of the president, where congress had sited it in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. As a result, Russack's supporters believe, he lacked the authority he needed to get the job done, because many of the federal agencies he needed to work with -- let alone the hundreds of state, local and tribal governments -- were not among the 15 U.S. spy agencies managed by the director of national intelligence. Russack himself told a recent off-the-record roundtable at a Washington-based think tank that he believed his office was in the wrong place and that he lacked necessary authorities, according to several people present. Russack's office was "scaled down from what congress intended," said the former senior hill staffer, adding that nevertheless, "John threw himself into this job. No one could have worked harder to make it work." Given the limits on his authorities and resources, the staffer said, Russack's post was inevitably "a situation of bureaucratic tension." The contractor was blunter. "He never stopped complaining ... about not having enough resources or authorities." One intelligence official, a community management veteran, said that Russack had felt undermined from the beginning. "John showed up frustrated. I don't think he ever felt he had enough authority in the law, they way (the administration) interpreted it; or enough support from the White House." The former staffer agreed that the administration failed Russack. "He didn't get the support he needed from the White House among others." "He was trying to impose new and higher standards of information sharing across all these agencies... He was bound to upset some rice bowls." Last year, lawmakers and outside experts from the bi-partisan Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age argued that the administration should make Russack the chairman of the White House committee that coordinated inter-agency policy on the information sharing question, and where disputes between agencies on the issue are resolved. "Because his responsibilities extend beyond the (15 agencies making up the U.S.) Intelligence Community, the program manager should have enhanced authority within the executive office of the president," wrote Zoe Baird and Jim Barksdale, co-chairs of the task force, which recommended the creation of the Information Sharing Environment. In their letter to President Bush, Baird and Barksdale say they "remain concerned... that risk aversion and bureaucratic resistance to change continue to hamper" the implementation of the ISE. In their reply, national security advisor Stephen Hadley and homeland security advisor Fran Townsend said there were no plans to make Russack the chair of the Information Sharing Policy Coordinating Committee at the White House. The committee, "like other (policy coordinating committees) is a White House-based forum that neutrally addresses policy issue and disputes." They said the program manager was "expected to raise issues and advocate positions before" the committee. In December, the White House issued guidelines to cabinet members and other agency heads about the ISE. The former staffer said the guidelines "restricted (Russack's authority) to the intelligence agencies. It made (the Information Sharing Environment) an Intelligence Community issue, not a government-wide one." These limits gave the non-intelligence agencies, including heavy-hitting cabinet departments like the Dept of Justice and Defense, "a lot more authority to proceed under their own guidance" in implementing the ISE, he said. Although critics and supporters agree that Russack was placed in a difficult position, they differ as to how he dealt with it. "People saw him as china-breaker," said the former hill staffer. "It was an untenable situation, but many people are placed in such positions every day," said the contractor. Other officials also disputed that Russack had lacked the authorities he needed to do his job. "A fair read," said an intelligence official familiar with the progress of the ISE initiative "is there's just a tremendous amount of work to be done." Working out the policy and technology required to link databases and communications across the many levels of government was "a significant undertaking," said the official. "He knew that when he got here," the official said of Russack. Several of the observers agreed that the lack of an overall strategy had hampered the program manager's work. "They didn't have a plan," said the contractor. "They wanted a holistic, all-encompassing solution, but they didn't have a design for the system." A third intelligence official familiar with the issue echoed this complaint about the absence of first principles. "There was a lot of discussion and debate about how to do this," the official said. "But it happened in a vacuum. There were no decisions taken about baseline definitions -- who is responsible for what." Without this "basic piece," the official said, progress was impossible. In January, just three weeks late, Russack submitted to Congress what turned out to be his swansong -- the long-awaited implementation plan for the ISE. In the event, though, he was only able to submit an "interim" document. "Detailed answers can only be provided after significant coordination between the (program manager) and all departments and agencies, as it is the departments and agencies that ultimately are responsible for implementing the ISE," wrote Russack. (c) Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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