U.S. Response:  Bush Calls For Intelligence Integration Center

U.S. President George W. Bush last night said he would create an intelligence integration center, which would combine various U.S. intelligence-gathering units into a single entity (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2002).

“Tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, the CIA, the Homeland Security [Department], and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location,” Bush said in his annual State of the Union address (see GSN, Jan. 30, 2002).

“Our government must have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens,” he added.

CIA Director George Tenet will head the new center, which gives the CIA unprecedented full responsibility over the collection and analysis of terrorism threat information, according to the New York Times.  The center’s creation will probably not need legislative action, officials said (David Johnston, New York Times, Jan. 29).

The new center will analyze foreign and domestic intelligence and will take over the preparation of the integrated threat matrix — a threat report presented daily to Bush and other senior national security officials, according to the Washington Post.

The center will also be responsible for setting requirements, assigning collection operations and briefing federal, state and local authorities of pertinent information, the Post reported.

“This will be the first time in our history that all of these elements come together,” a senior administration official said.

Bush has told aides he wants the center to be created “right away,” and an interagency task force has been created to facilitate that task, the official said (Pincus/Allen, Washington Post, Jan. 29).

The center is needed because of the historical difficulty in getting the various U.S. intelligence agencies to cooperate with each other, a senior Bush administration official said.

“The information sharing has been very good, but it’s been by brute force,” the official said (Johnston, New York Times).

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