Acting CIA chief opposes idea of creating national intelligence director

John McLaughlin, acting director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), on Sunday expressed opposition to the idea of creating a cabinet-level position of national intelligence director.

It was unnecessary to have a new national intelligence chief asintelligence agencies had made changes since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to better protect the country, McLaughlin told "Fox News Sunday."

The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is expected to recommend the creation of the post in its final report, which is to be released next week.

"A good argument can be made" for a cabinet-level position to oversee the nation's 15 intelligence agencies and control their budgets, he said, but "I see the director of Central Intelligence as someone who is able to do that and is empowered to do so under the National Security Act of 1947."

With changes in the way the CIA was set up, the director of central intelligence could carry out that function well and appropriately, said McLaughlin, who began to serve as CIA acting director when George Tenet left the agency last Sunday.

McLaughlin said the CIA had disrupted a number of al Qaeda plots to mount attacks by air, sea and other methods in the United States. But the threat remains. "We can be successful 1,000 times and these people have to be lucky only once," he said.

Source: Xinhua