INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES Panel to recommend national spy director

The director would have power to decide how agencies spend money.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The committee writing the Senate's intelligence reorganization plan is recommending creation of a strong national intelligence director with spending power, while leaving the Pentagon in charge of some military spy agencies.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and the panel's ranking Democrat, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, were revealing the plan today.
That proposal, said a congressional aide familiar with the situation, calls for a new national intelligence director position with full power to decide how his or her agencies spend their money.
The Senate committee's plan would not look exactly like the Sept. 11 commission's proposal for the national intelligence director, but "we have created a very strong chief intelligence adviser for the president," the aide said.
The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because Collins and Lieberman had wanted to wait until today to announce their legislation.
Under the plan, the military would remain in charge of some of the largest intelligence agencies, which the Sept. 11 commission wanted the new national intelligence director to control.
What would change
The Pentagon would lose budgetary control over the National Reconnaissance Office, which operates spy satellites, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes satellite pictures.
The Defense Department would keep control of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which collects intelligence for military planning and operations.
The committee plan does not deal with reorganizing Congress's oversight responsibilities, another concern of the Sept. 11 committee. Senate leaders planned to hold their first bipartisan meeting on how they might do that today.
Some details have yet to be worked out and could still change, the aide told The Associated Press.
Collins and Lieberman's spokeswomen declined to comment Tuesday.
The Sept. 11 commission recommended creation of a national intelligence director to control almost all of the nation's intelligence agencies because it said the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies did not work together properly to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington.
White House officials said last week they thought the director should control nonmilitary portions of the nation's intelligence community and should decide how to spend money that Congress earmarks for it.
The Defense Department controls 80 percent of the money spent on intelligence, estimated at roughly $40 billion annually. Much of the information is used mainly by the military, as it tracks foreign arsenals and weapons development.
President Bush also would not give the intelligence director unilateral hiring and firing power, as the commission and some lawmakers have advocated.