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Focus on Oversight

By Clark, Timothy B
Publication: Government Executive
Date: Monday, November 1 2004
HEADNOTE

Intelligent reform is worthy, but that's not what we've been getting. BY TIMOTHY B. CLARK

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When things go wrong,

government loves to reorganize. It sounds like action and it's easier than identifying the real cause of the problem. That observation by Charlie Peters, former editor of The Washington Monthly, seems timely as we approach the first presidential election of the terrorist era.

We already have the unwieldy Homeland security Department, approved by Congress in a hurried reaction to the attacks of 2001 that did little to solve the key problem-lack of communication among the FBI and intelligence agencies that weren't part of the reorganization. And now we seem on the verge of having an intelligence reorganization rushed through the House and Senate in the heat of the presidential election over the deep reservations of such experts as former CIA Director George Tenet.

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