Q&A: John Negroponte
What single change has made the biggest difference in your 18 months?
Well, first, let me say this is a work in progress. This is a longer-term issue, and I don't think anybody, when they passed the legislation, expected instantaneous results. We're talking about a large enterprise. It's a little bit like moving a very large crude oil carrier and changing its direction–it takes time, and it's got to be done in a systematic way.
So, this is just by way of saying I think expectations about results need to be measured. But I think what I would say is, first of all, the National Counterterrorism Center. There was not as much agreement prior to the creation of the DNI, and prior to the time that I came here, about how federal intelligence information should be fused, analyzed, and shared. That is much clearer now than it was two years ago. And I think Adm. [Scott] Redd has done an extremely good job at building up the capabilities of the National Counterterrorism Center and that the government as a whole has come more and more to see it as a focal point for that kind of intelligence analysis.
Any other initiatives that you put at the top of your list?
A lot of then are medium- and long-term efforts, but I would say the creation of the National Security Branch of the FBI–that is a real initiative and a real innovation. That's not just a marginal change. It's an effort to respond to the observation that was made by many in the wake of 9/11 that the culture of the FBI was focused pretty much exclusively on the law enforcement–making cases–and that intelligence needed to be emphasized more in the work of the FBI. How do you change that culture? The decision was adopted to create the National Security Branch, merging counterintelligence and intelligence operations and counterterrorism operations within the FBI, and to reward the intelligence career track within the FBI much more than was the case before. So, incentives have been put into their personnel system to make that a more rewarding avenue for FBI careers.
Are you encouraged about what's going on at the FBI?
Very. Very. Now they are part of our group of the Big Six intel agencies that meet every week under leadership of my principal deputy. They've done a lot to improve human intelligence training standards. I'm sure that [Deputy DNI] Mary Margaret Graham mentioned to you that we've created a human intelligence management office over in the CIA to help encourage uniform, high standards of training and tradecraft in the human intelligence area, and the FBI has bought into that. I think that [CIA director and former deputy DNI] Mike Hayden's phrase used to be "spaces between case," right? The idea of not only focusing on the criminal cases but on trying to improve our situational awareness here inside of our country.
When you took this job the skepticism was not about you but about the agencies and the culture inside the agencies. The CIA had been tough to reform in the past; it had resisted a lot of these efforts. A lot of people felt there was no way the FBI can change. Do you still encounter elements of that as you go through this?
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