Seeking a new spy-in-chief

摘要

After the September 11th attacks on America, the bipartisan commission investigating the outrage made a central recommendation: create a new director of national intelligence (dni) to manage America's 16 intelligence fiefs, with authority to hire and fire, set budgets and break down the barriers to sharing information.rnThe post was created in April 2005, but rejigging the bureaucracy has not fixed America's intelligence flaws. Indeed, the dni's office may be the most troubled of all agencies. Barack Obama this month fired Dennis Blair, and will now have to hire the fourth dni in five years. The trigger for the dismissal is unclear, but the underlying cause is readily apparent: Mr Blair may have been the "head of the intelligence community", but lacked the powers envisaged by the 9/11 commission. At best Mr Blair was first among equals, and often he seemed to be less than that.