Pentagon and FBI should stop picking away at the CIA

WASHINGTON — Pity the poor CIA. Everyone seems to want a piece of its action.

The Pentagon has formed its own unit to conduct those intelligence operations generally assigned to the CIA's paramilitary units, contending this will produce quicker, more reliable information for commanders in the field.

Never mind that the Pentagon's own spying has been on about the same par in deficiencies as both the CIA's and the FBI's and that there really seems little need for the military to duplicate CIA operations.

Now the FBI wants to take over the one area of domestic activity afforded the CIA, recruiting operatives here who are traveling overseas and debriefing returning business travelers and students. Since these activities take place on U.S. soil, the bureau says they belong to it by right of eminent domain or constitutional fiat or the divine right of kings or whatever despite the fact the CIA has been conducting them for decades.

The FBI also wants to make sure it is the agency that disseminates any of the information gleaned from sources, foreign or U.S., living here. That would give it virtual control over all intelligence matters in this country.

Never mind that the FBI is just now — three years out from 9/11 — beginning to set up intelligence units in all its cops-and-robbers field offices. Never mind that the bureau can't even get its e-mail straight to accept tips, and that its big computer initiative that was to solve the information-sharing mess is a $170 million disaster and had to be abandoned. Never mind that the FBI has little experience in handling foreign intelligence assets. Never mind that the bureau is always generally behind in disseminating its reports and reportedly now has a sizable backlog of undistributed information.

The biggest "never mind" of all is that the FBI's domestic counterintelligence operations are comparable to those of the Pinkerton detective agency, which helped prolong the Civil War by producing estimates of Confederate troop strengths that were greatly exaggerated. In the history of intelligence-gathering, the FBI's rank may not even be that high — as inquiries in the aftermath of 9/11 have revealed over and over. Well, at least the bureau is trying to enlarge its abilities, but as usual by grabbing for someone else's territory.

The real issue here is, once again, what all this says about that status of the nation's overall intelligence apparatus after three years of hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing and hollow pledges and rushed legislation from the White House to the Capitol. If accurate intelligence is the first line of defense, and there is little dispute over that, the country is still in trouble.