Intel Community Turmoil

Little attention has been paid to the impact of the turmoil in the intelligence community (typified by the Goss resignation last week, of course) on the already enfeebled DHS "Information Analysis" intelligence unit. When the CIA was primus inter pares within the community, DHS was relatively out of the loop on key homeland security related information, according to no less an authority than the Silberman-Robb commission. Now that the CIA has itself been downgraded into near irrelevance by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and power grabs by DOD, DHS' role is even further diminished. As things stand now, the next time there are indications of a terrorist attack on the homeland, Homeland Security will probably be the last "intelligence agency" to know about it, even though it is at least nominally in charge of preventing, responding to, and helping the nation to recover from such an attack.