Cheney Blocked Intel Reform

The nonpartisan Federation of American Scientists reports that in 1992, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney refused to implement many of the key intelligence reforms that the 9/11 Commission is proposing:

In a March 1992 letter to Congress, Secretary Cheney defended the status quo and objected to proposed intelligence reform legislation, particularly the DNI position. "The roles of the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence have evolved in a fashion that meets national, departmental and tactical intelligence needs," Cheney wrote. The intelligence reform proposals "would seriously impair the effectiveness of this arrangement by assigning inappropriate authority to the proposed Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who would become the director and manager of internal DoD activities that in the interest of efficiency and effectiveness must remain under the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense," he wrote...Secretary Cheney successfully torpedoed the initiative with his warning that "I would recommend that the President veto [the measure] if [it] were presented to him in its current form."...Cheney's unyielding opposition stifled the first initiative for post-Cold War intelligence reform. As a result, we now face many of the same problems, and the same proposed solutions, more than a decade later.

Cheney's full letter is here.