More on Intel Reform

[Next few posts will reference articles found in the Early Bird] An article in today's New York Times (Bush Wants Plan for Covert Pentagon Role) is filled with good news for the war on terrorism. Bush has essentially given orders to the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI that he wants clear updates from them by early next year on several key issues: Defense "President Bush has ordered an interagency group to devise a plan that could expand the Defense Department role in covert operations that have traditionally been the specialty of the Central Intelligence Agency, administration officials said Monday." CIA and FBI "The separate directives on the intelligence agency and the F.B.I. laid out an accelerated schedule for the leaders of those agencies to report to the White House on their operations, including areas the Sept. 11 panel and Senate Intelligence Committee have sharply criticized in recent reports." "For the bureau, the directive acknowledges that it has made significant changes but orders it to produce in 90 days "a comprehensive plan with performance measures including timelines for achievement of specific measurable progress in analysis, products, sources, field intelligence operations" and other activities that produce information for the president." Chester says: Transferring covert operations and paramilitary operations from the CIA to the DOD, or figuring out a way for the two agencies to work better on this is part and parcel of the ideas behind the jointness concept we discussed on Sunday. One major issue, briefly touched in the article, is the legal aspects of paramilitary forces. Whenever a military member operates with no uniform, or within other certain regulations, he is violating the Geneva Convention and the Law of Armed Conflict. This is one big stumbling block. There are probably ways around this that we are unaware of here, but it is a sample of the issues arising when you combine CIA paramilitary types and active duty US personnel. [I don't think I've yet mentioned on this blog that the Geneva Convention is completely obsolete. Doesn't mean we shouldn't follow it, but there are some serious changes needed. Many are probably being figured out domestically within our own judicial system via all of the war-related cases currently taking place. We'll touch on the Geneva Convention more in a future post.]