Intelligence Redo Is Harshly Judged

Intelligence Redo Is Harshly Judged
A Judge Critiques 9/11 Overhaul, and Finds It Top-Heavy

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 31, 2006; Page A17

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard A. Posner sharply criticized the restructuring of U.S. intelligence agencies last week, telling CIA lawyers that the overhaul has done nothing to rectify flaws exposed by al-Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that the changes "in the end . . . will amount to rather little." [...]

Posner has a book coming out on the subject, but it does not sound as though he was trying to solicit publicity for the book when he made that statement.  His main concern is this:

In Posner's analysis, the director of national intelligence (DNI), created by Congress to be the president's top intelligence adviser, was given too much to do. DNI John D. Negroponte oversees the CIA and 15 other intelligence agencies, including those at the Pentagon. Negroponte's staff, which has grown to about 1,000, "has become a new bureaucracy layered on top of the intelligence community," Posner said.

As I recall, that was one of the major concerns that was raised when the reorganization was planned.  It sounds as though that concern was justified.