ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
And I'm Melissa Block. U.S. Intelligence chief John Negroponte delivered a report card today on efforts to fix the nation's spy services. In a rare public appearance, he fielded questions on topics ranging from Iran and Iraq to domestic wiretapping, to CIA-run prisons overseas. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports.
MARY LOUIS KELLY reporting:
John Negroponte doesn't speak often in public, and even when he does, he has a diplomat's knack for not saying much. Today's speech at the National Press Club was arranged to mark one year since he took over as National Intelligence Director. Negroponte was characteristically dry. His prepared remarks focused on progress in sharing information, in improving analysis, and in collecting intelligence. Negroponte pointed to the creation this past fall of the National Clandestine Service. And he said, overall, U.S. spy efforts are much more agile.
Mr. JOHN NEGROPONTE (National Intelligence Director): For example, if we obtain a critical piece of intelligence in Wazirastan on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border that relates to some threat that might be developing, you can be assured that that information is getting to the people who need to know it right away.
KELLY: Negroponte also used the occasion to refute charges of bureaucratic bloat. On Capitol Hill both Republicans and Democrats have accused him of clogging rather than streamlining intelligence operations by hiring too big a staff too fast. Today he shot back that Congressional and other reform initiatives have loaded his team with dozens of new tasks. And Negroponte, a veteran ambassador said, new duties require new people.
Mr. NEGROPONTE: My last three overseas embassies were larger than the office of the Director of National Intelligence. It's only April 20th, but already this year the ODNI has been asked to testify or brief Congressional members or staff more than 150 times.
KELLY: In the Q&A session, Negroponte loosened up a bit. He referred to the intelligence misjudgments on Iraq as the WMD fiasco. He sidestepped a question about the National Security Agency and its domestic wiretapping program replying only vaguely about the danger of unauthorized leaks about clandestine programs.
Negroponte was a bit more forthcoming on another sensitive topic, the CIA's secret prisons.
Mr. NEGROPONTE: Well it's true that a number of the senior al-Qaida leaders have been, have been apprehended.
KELLY: Negroponte argued that it would be a mistake to turn these people loose until the war on terror is over. But he did not close the door on eventually bringing them into the U.S. legal system
Mr. NEGROPONTE: Surely at some point it may prove desirable that they be brought to prosecution to face justice, but that is something that I think will have to be decided in the future.
KELLY: Negroponte was not allowed the escape without answering the inevitable question, where is Osama bin Laden?
Mr. NEGROPONTE: He's hiding, in hiding somewhere, we believe, in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border area. And I don't believe as nearly as operationally active as he previously was. It would of course be desirable that he be captured or killed, and we wish that this might've happened sooner.
KELLY: Negroponte added, we've dealt al-Qaida a number of body blows but we haven't yet dealt a knock out blow to Bin Laden himself.
Mary Louise Kelly, NPR News, Washington.
Copyright © 2006 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.