Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said last week that he had opposed the law creating the new director of national intelligence, sending an eight page letter to the Senate on the problems the new unit would create.
Gates said after a speech in Colorado he “didn't feel that it really addressed the root problems in the intelligence community.”
“The biggest problem all along has been that I have 85 percent of [DNI Director Michael McConnell’s] budget. And the question is, how do you let the DNI actually run the intelligence community in a meaningful way without further empowering it?” Gates said.
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Gates said he turned down the job of DNI because it did not include the authority to fire workers. “How the hell can you run something if you can't fire anybody, and everybody knows you can't fire anybody,” he said.
Currently, firing intelligence workers requires concurrence of both McConnell and Gates.
