Intelligent intelligence?

In the years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, this nation has undertaken an immense effort to increase its ability to detect and stop those intent on harming Americans. The effort has grown so big that questions have been raised as to whether it has become unmanageable.

The Washington Post on Monday started publishing a series on the intelligence community — the people and agencies involved in trying to stop terrorism — and has provided a stunning portrait. Because so many people and organizations are involved, and because of the demand for secrecy, important information often isn’t shared or noticed.

“There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that — not just for the CIA, for the secretary of defense — is a challenge,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Post.

About two-thirds of the nation’s intelligence programs are based in the Defense Department, yet only a few people have access to the entire constellation of top secret organizations and ultrasecret Special Access Programs in the Pentagon. The military’s list of code names for the programs is 300 pages long.

“There’s only one entity in the entire universe that has visibility on all SAPs — that’s God,” said James Clapper, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and President Barack Obama’s nominee to be director of national intelligence.

Since 9/11, the publicly announced budget for intelligence has more than doubled to $75 billion a year, not including the military’s efforts or domestic counterintelligence.

More than 260 agencies have been created or reorganized since September 2001, and more than 1,200 government organizations and nearly 2,000 private companies are involved in intelligence work and counterterrorism. The work is being done at 10,000 locations across the United States, and nearly 900,000 Americans have top-secret clearances.

There has been a building boom to accommodate the growth. In the Washington area alone, 33 building complexes have been built or are under construction since September 2001. Together they will have about 17 million square feet of space, the equivalent of nearly three Pentagons.

What has become increasingly clear is that no one is really in charge of overseeing all of the intelligence gathering and tying it together. Retired Lt. Gen. John Vines was asked by the Pentagon to review how the Defense Department tracks its sensitive intelligence programs and couldn’t find “any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities.”

“The complexity of this system defies description,” he said.

And that’s just the Pentagon.

In 2004, President George W. Bush and Congress acknowledged the problem and created the post of director of national intelligence. The director was supposed to oversee and coordinate the intelligence community. However, the director wasn’t given the legal or budget authority to do the job. And, as the Post noted, there are turf wars: Before the first director took office, the Pentagon shifted its budget so the director couldn’t touch it, and the CIA reclassified information so the director wouldn’t see it.

What is clear from the Post’s reporting so far is that the system is not working properly — no one has a solid grip on the nation’s intelligence — and that leaves the country vulnerable. The stakes are too high to allow this to continue. Congress must step in and make sure that not only is there proper oversight of the nation’s intelligence community, but also that there is coordination among agencies.