Remember just a few weeks ago, when George Bush was not in favor of giving an intelligence czar budgeting power?
Guess who, once again, has flip-flopped?
The White House unveiled plans Wednesday to give a new national intelligence director strong budgetary authority over much of the nation’s intelligence community, a key provision in the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendations.
President Bush intends to give the intelligence director full budget authority over the National Foreign Intelligence Program and “the management tools” to oversee the intelligence community and integrate foreign and domestic intelligence, the White House said in a statement.
In announcing the new position, Dubya — as always — used the same phrases he uses in almost every public speech (bold below):
BUSH: I want to thank the members who are here.
Thank you all for coming.
Today, we’re going to discuss intelligence reform. I will be submitting a plan to the Congress that strengthens intelligence reform, strengthens the intelligence services.
We believe that there ought to be a national intelligence director who has full budgetary authority. We’ll talk to members of Congress about how to implement that.
I look forward to working with the members to get a bill to my desk as quickly as possible.
It’s important we get our intelligence gathering correct. After all, we’re still at war. We’ve got to find the enemy before they hurt us. We’ve to do everything we can to protect the homeland.
We’re still on the offense here in this country. We’re chasing down these killers overseas so we don’t have to face them here at home. We’re making good progress.
And ultimately, we will prevail because liberty changes countries and liberty changes the habits of people, liberty promotes peace.
And that’s why we appreciate the sacrifice of the men and women who wear the uniform. They’re serving in a great cause. We mourn every loss of life. We’ll honor their memories by completing the mission.
Thank you all for coming.
