President George W. Bush authorized the creation of a National Security
Service, a move designed to consolidate homeland security investigations.
The service will operate within the FBI and combine Justice Department
counterterrorism, intelligence and espionage units. The move is
seen as a consolidation of power under Director of National Intelligence
John Negroponte.
Bush has endorsed all but four of the 74 recommendations made by
the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Other commission recommendations becoming reality include the establishment
of a national counter proliferation center and granting control
of all overseas human intelligence operations to the CIA. The agency’s
director, Porter Goss, said the move “reaffirms our role as
the lead for human intelligence.”
Reshuffling in the intelligence community has led to speculation
about turf wars, with the FBI coming up short. But FBI director
Robert Muller discounted the notion his agency had been forced into
a subordinate position.
“I don’t see this as a loss of independence at all,”
he said. “I see it as an acknowledgment that the FBI plays
a fundamental role in developing intelligence within the United
States.”