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=20050412-072706-4098r UPI subscribers received this story several hours ago, when it was first published. 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 HQ cash row shows Negroponte's job problems By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor WASHINGTON, April 12 (UPI) -- Tensions over the funding of a headquarters for the nation's new national intelligence director broke into the open Tuesday as senators met to consider the nomination of John Negroponte to the post. Exchanges about the $161 million-dollar facility -- which reflect deeper tensions among lawmakers and policymakers about the control of the intelligence budget -- ruffled the surface of a confirmation hearing that was otherwise remarkable mainly for the complete absence of any substantive commentary by the nominee on how he would exercise the untested and ambiguous powers of the new post. "The position for which I am now nominated is a new position in a new era," said Negroponte, who is leaving his post as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq to become the first ever incumbent in the post created by last year's intelligence-reform act. "That being the case, I am not now prepared to describe in detail exactly how I plan to carry out the job," he told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Tuesday, adding that he needs time to study the issue of his authorities and make recommendations to the president. Negroponte was pressed by one lawmaker irritated at the lack of detail in his responses. "I must say I'm a bit taken back by the vagueness of your answer," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "I'm rather surprised by it because it would seem to me that by now ... you must have some concept of what needs to be done." Others pressed the nominee on how he would exert control over the three main intelligence agencies that remain within the turf-conscious Department of Defense, fretting that the law that created his position had left him authorities that were inadequate to the task. "How do you view your role in solidifying your position?" asked Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. "How will you direct the agencies to do what you want them to do?" Negroponte replied that he had been urged by those advising him "to push the envelope, and use what authorities I believe I have to the utmost." "There are budgetary authorities," he added. "There's some personnel authorities. There are procurement authorities. And there's a whole range of instruments that I think are available or can be developed." "I will seek to make the fullest possible use of these authorities," he concluded. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, pointed out that the Defense Department was seeking to "consolidate (the) power" of Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steven Cambone to make him Negroponte's "main point of contact" in the Pentagon. But Negroponte told the hearing that he would need a direct, individual relationship with the heads of the agencies whose budget he would be drawing up. "I can't see any other way of doing it," he said. DeWine asked him to confirm that he would not "have to clear something with (Cambone) every time you (talk to the agencies)." "That would sound rather impractical to me," replied Negroponte, "and that's not the way I would expect to proceed." The chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, Virginia Republican John Warner -- one of those who fought to limit the powers of the new post -- stressed that some procedures had already been agreed with the Defense Department. "You've established a reporting chain so that you know the activities of those (agencies in the Pentagon), and their functions will be performed in consultation with you. Am I correct on that?" Warner asked somewhat rhetorically. Negroponte confirmed that he had, and that, in Warner's words, he was "working on as seamless as possible a relationship as you can" with defense officials. But despite Warner's sanguinity, the flap over the money for Negroponte's new headquarters showed that his progress might not be such plain sailing. In the $82 billion emergency supplemental appropriations request currently before the Senate, the administration had asked for $250 million for the new chief's office -- including the costs of a facility to house it. But last week, the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee stripped the building's cost out of the supplemental -- leaving just $89 million that aides said was for staff costs and other non-HQ-related expenditures. "I find it distressing that money was cut just as you're ... being confirmed," commented Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., pointed out that the administration had "strongly urged" the Senate to restore the funding. But Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees intelligence spending, told United Press International that allocating the money in the current fiscal year would be premature and left too many unanswered questions, especially since no decision had been made about where the new director would be based. "We took (the $161 million) out to let him work out where he wants to be and how much money he needs," said Stevens. Negroponte said that Stevens had given him an assurance that he would get "whatever funding is required to deal with that issue." But Roberts cautioned that if the money was not in the supplemental there might be delays in starting work on the facility. Officials wanted "to have the money ready to go when (they) make this decision," Roberts told UPI after the hearing. Stevens, for his part, hinted that an effort might be under way to pre-empt Negroponte's ability to make the choice of location himself. "That money should be for his headquarters," he told UPI. "It's for him to decide how to spend it, not someone else." When asked who the "someone else" might be, Stevens responded, "You ask too many questions." The dispute reflects broader tensions between the Intelligence Committee and appropriators that also emerged in some of the banter between bouts of questioning. Reminding Negroponte that the 2006 appropriations cycle was already under way, Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, urged Negroponte to "prepare a budget amendment and forward it to us with alacrity. ... You will be the individual with responsibility for executing the new intelligence budget come October. The sooner it reflects your guidance, the better." But Stevens replied that there was no need for an amended budget because he and his Democratic counterpart on appropriations "will listen to him (Negroponte) and what his needs will be for fiscal year 2006." -- (Please send comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Copyright (c) 2001-2005 United Press International [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. 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