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...issue in the pair's long-running tension is the right to name the chief intelligence officer in any U.S. mission abroad. A typical embassy has representatives from several intel agencies - CIA, FBI, NSA, military intelligence, et al. - and one of them is designated the top dog, responsible for liaising with the intelligence agencies of the host country, among other things. For decades, that job has fallen automatically to the CIA station chief. But after the DNI was created in 2004, a question arose: As head of 16 intelligence agencies, should the DNI have the right to name someone other...
Since the legislation creating the DNI was hastily put together, the question - like many others - is not clearly answered. Successive CIA directors have pointed out that because the main task of the top intel person in any mission is to interact with the host country's spy agencies, the CIA station chief is the natural choice. The DNI view, however, is that in some missions, the CIA role is relatively small, and it might make sense for the representative of another agency to take the lead role...
When Blair and Panetta were appointed by President Obama, the question was still unanswered, and the matter was taken to the NSC for adjudication. In May, when Blair issued a directive claiming the right, "in rare circumstances," to nominate a non-CIA person as the top intel official in foreign missions, Panetta immediately took issue with it, and the dispute quickly escalated. (See the top 10 CIA movies...
...Senate intelligence committee backed the Blair directive, arguing in its 2010 intelligence-authorization bill that the DNI was "exercising his authority under the law." The CIA, however, continued to press its case...
With the NSC and Jones unable to come to a judgment, the matter was taken up to Biden, who held at least two meetings with Panetta and Blair over the past several months. Biden's office, the CIA and the DNI have all refused to comment on these meetings, but officials familiar with the deliberations say that last month the Vice President came down on Panetta's side. (See six ways to fix the CIA...