Please find below an example of UPI's continuing coverage of intelligence reform and related matters. I hope you find it interesting. You may link to it on the web here:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20050406-110928-3005r 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 Wanted - A new school for spies By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- Among the less-noticed recommendations from the president's commission on intelligence failure last week was the establishment of a national intelligence university -- an administrative umbrella over the training and education institutions run by the 15 U.S. spy agencies. Intelligence reformers say such an institution is essential to help build a culture of cooperation among the oft-sparring agencies and foster higher standards among their staffs. But they also acknowledge that there is a delicate balance to be struck between shared standards on the one hand and centralized training that risks encouraging "groupthink" on the other. Currently, "there is no initial training" for new intelligence personnel "that instills a sense of community and shared mission," finds the final report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Instead each agency trains its own personnel in the skills it thinks they need, to its own standards and in its own institutions. To fill this gap, the commission proposes that the national intelligence university -- which it said "could be built easily and at modest expense on top of existing ... infrastructure" -- should run common training and education programs for employees of all the agencies, and facilitate "the sharing of the community's training resources." "There are schools all over the intelligence community, but -- like the agencies themselves -- they tend to do their own thing, train their own people and not worry enough about what everyone else (in the other agencies) is doing," senior intelligence management official William Nolte told United Press International. "At the moment, if someone says 'I am a mid-level analyst at the (National Security Agency),' that means nothing to anyone who isn't from (that agency) or familiar with its personnel structure," said Nolte, who previously ran education and training for the NSA. One national security official, who was not authorized to speak to the media and so did not want to be named, put it more pungently. "Imagine if you were a pilot in the Air Force, and you're flying a mission and your co-pilot is from the Army and you happen to ask him, 'Where did you get your wings?' And he says 'Wings? What are wings?' Obviously, you wouldn't take off. But when you're working alongside (people from other intelligence agencies), that's exactly what it's like. You have no idea what training they've had." Nolte also draw a contrast with the military, where he says there are much clearer common standards. "A lieutenant in the Navy and a captain in the Army have basically comparable seniority. You know basically what qualifications and skills they have," he said. The nation's intelligence agencies should be moving toward "something closer to that," concluded Nolte. The commission proposed that the university set curriculum standards across the various institutions for all their facilities, and reformers like Nolte say that eventually there should be common qualifications for intelligence analysts. Last year's intelligence reform act established a new director of national intelligence, to run the sprawling collection of agencies called the intelligence community. Although the commission expressed the widespread fear that the responsibilities of the new post outrun its authorities, the report also points out that some of the strongest powers the director has are in personnel. These include the power to set professional standards across the intelligence community, which reformers say could be leveraged into a common initial training program and a shared core curriculum. But there is also concern that such centralization might risk encouraging the very "groupthink" among intelligence analysts that both the commission and previous studies of intelligence failure have identified as such a problem. "The tension between getting better control and retaining or enhancing analytic diversity is ... real," said one senior intelligence official who was not authorized to speak to the media and did not want to be named. The official added it was important to avoid simply replacing "inadequate coordination (with) excessive centralization as our fundamental condition." Nor does the commission provide much assistance in striking this delicate balance, beyond suggesting that "some" training should be undertaken centrally. "We hesitate to prescribe any specific level of centralization for analytic and managerial training," the report reads. The senior intelligence official said that the university should be run more along the British model, where the individual colleges have autonomy. The commission proposes the creation of an assistant director of national intelligence for human resources, to lead the exercise of the new director's personnel authorities, and suggests that this official would also oversee the national intelligence university. The senior intelligence official said that although planning for the university had begun, no real decisions could be made until John Negroponte, tapped by the president for the new intelligence director's post, had been confirmed. In the plan currently being developed, the official said, there would be a head of education and training for the director, who would also head the university. "We won't know for sure where this goes until Negroponte is confirmed and gives his view on how he wants his office structured," the official said. One particular problem the commission identified was the lack of "an adequate management training program" and the report suggests this might be one of the reasons why mid-level management at the nation's intelligence agencies is suffering from declining numbers and poor performance. Nolte envisages a mid-career training institution within the university that would bring together analysts from all the nation's intelligence agencies. "After they finish their training," he said, "one option ... would be that they become 'free agents,' able to return to their 'home' agency or to move on to another." -- (Please send comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Copyright (c) 2001-2005 United Press International ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/FHLuJD/_WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- 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: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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