U.S.
Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Staff Study.
IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: 9 Apr. 1996. [Available at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/intel/ic21/index.html]
Text of the HPSCI report is available at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/intel/ic21/index.html. The text is both searchable and accessible by chapter.
1. The Report
2. Reportage and Comment
3. Assessing IC21's Impact
U.S.
Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Staff Study.
IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: 9 Apr. 1996. [Available at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/intel/ic21/index.html]
Surveillant 4.2: This is "a major review of the role, functions and structure of the entire Intelligence Community.... The report seeks to determine which ... intelligence norms are still relevant ... and which need revision or replacement. For those in the latter, suggested alternatives are discussed." A report by the Congressional Research Service, included in the appendices, provides "a superb historical review and summary of official examinations and dissections of the Intelligence Community."
U.S. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century: Summary. Washington, DC: 4 Mar. 1996.
Click for the official summary of the House report.
See also [Combest, Larry.] IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century. The Intelligence Community Act of 1996. Statement by Chairman Larry Combest, March 4, 1996. Washington, DC: 1996.
[Combest,
Larry.] IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century. The Intelligence Community Act of 1996. Statement by Chairman Larry Combest, March 4, 1996.
Washington, DC: 1996. American Intelligence Journal 16, no. 2/3 (Autumn/Winter
1995): 5-10.
"Unless one looks at the intelligence process as an integrated whole working towards an agreed end, the IC makes little sense and can become, in its individual parts, self-serving.
"That is why, throughout our IC21 proposals, we have emphasized the idea of a truly corporate IC, an IC in which all components understand that they are part of a larger coherent process aiming at a single goal: the delivery of timely intelligence to policy makers at various levels."
Congressional Quarterly
Weekly Report. Editors. "Combest Has 'Fairly Radical' Intelligence
Agency Plans." 9 Mar. 1996, 635.
HPSCI Chairman Combest is proposing creation of a new spy agency that would combine the CIA's Directorate of Operations with the Defense Department's overseas collection activities. He has also proposed abolishing the NSA and creating a new Technical Collection Agency to collect all satellite, signals intelligence, and air reconnaissance data.
Combest subsequently toned down his proposals, removing many of "the sweeping structural changes" he had originally included in his bill. Lori Nitschke and Mark T. Kehoe, "Panel Scales Back Proposal to Revamp Spy Apparatus," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 11 May 1996, 1317.
Pincus,
Walter. "Untangling the Spy Network's Webs: Rep. Combest Wants CIA
Clandestine Operations Separate and NRO Split." Washington Post,
5 Mar. 1996, A13.
"One difference between the DO of today and the proposed clandestine service is that a new emphasis would be placed on creating two types of clandestine officers: those who want to go on to management and those who want to remain as operators overseas. In that sense it would be more like the British MI6, which is much smaller than CIA's Directorate of Operations."
Weiner,
Tim. "Proposal Would Reorganize U.S. Intelligence Agencies." New
York Times, 5 Mar. 1996, A20.
"What would be left [of the CIA] is a small box on a big flow chart."
Miller, Abraham H.,
and Brian Alexander. "Structural Quiescence in the Failure of IC21
and Intelligence Reform." International Journal of Intelligence
and Counterintelligence 14, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 234-261.
"IC21 was, in a large sense, the boldest, most innovative and most radical of the proposal" of the time for Intelligence Community reform. However, the "[r]eforms necessary to deal with the issues that brought IC21 into existence were beyond its reach." The HPSCI "provided no linkage between its diagnosis of the problem and its prescription for reform." IC21's writers "created a model that had little if anything to do with why they were initially convened.... Structural reform was ultimately prevented because of the competing efforts of powerful officials.... [T]he interests of the Pentagon ... prevailed in the battle over reform."
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