On July 22, 2004, immediately after the 9/11 Commission report was released, I found myself with 9/11 commissioner (and former senator from Washington) Slade Gorton in the BBC blue room in Washington. I had the temerity to remind him that it was far from the case that “no one was in charge” of the intelligence community; that Tenet had all the authority he needed.
Gorton turned to me, smiled and said: “Of course we know all that; but we in the Commission and in Congress just had to do something so the American people would see that we were doing something.”
Yuck.
The national intelligence director, and the newly created bureaucracy, is what it is. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard can take the reins and make the community work. It will take a miracle; let’s hope for one.