Barack Obama got his first intelligence briefing as the
Democratic US presidential candidate this week and spy agencies are
ready to do the same for Republican rival John McCain, a senior US
official said on Thursday.
Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for
analysis, said US spy agencies had also begun reanalyzing and
updating reports from around the world in preparation for the next
president, who will take office in January.
"We've begun to engage with the campaigns," Fingar told an intelligence conference in Florida. "Obama received a briefing on Tuesday." Intelligence officials would not discuss what topics were covered in Obama's briefing.
The briefing was given in Chicago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who normally briefs President George Bush six days a week, and other leading officials, an official familiar with the process said.
Obama's briefing was probably tailored to his requests and not the same as Bush's, the official said. Fingar said the briefings would be "substantive."
He said each candidate can receive any information given the other. As senators, the candidates could ask for information and their requests would have been kept confidential, but as candidates, any such request can be shared with the opponent, Fingar said.
"Our approach in this is complete transparency." he said.
National security expertise and readiness to handle crises have emerged as central campaign issues. Both Obama and McCain sit on US Senate committees that deal with security issues.
Intelligence analysis
With the United States engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and pursuing a war against terrorism initiated by Bush, the new president will face a steep learning curve on intelligence issues and have his own policy agenda, Fingar said.
This will force the agencies to freshen their analyses from across the globe. The Bush administration in its later years has usually needed updates only from fast-changing places, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Intelligence efforts were reduced in areas such as Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, Fingar said.
"People will want a fresh look at the issues," he said. "We have to be ready to go on January 21," the day after the new president's inauguration, he said.
Fingar cautioned against any new efforts to overhaul intelligence agencies after a wrenching restructuring called for by Congress in 2004, the biggest reorganisation since the CIA was created in 1947.
The reorganisation followed intelligence failures before the September 11, 2001, attacks and inaccurate assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities that led to the US invasion in 2003.
Fingar said the agencies had made significant improvements in the quality of their intelligence and had absorbed a major influx of new staff since September 11. About 55% to 60% of the work force has joined since 2001, he said. Any new overhaul would risk that progress, he said.
