Joe Lieberman: “We heard from witness after witness in our committee's deliberations in August and into September that probably worse…”

“We heard from witness after witness in our committee's deliberations in August and into September that probably worse than the status quo-- which is bad, without leadership--would be to create a national intelligence director and not give him the power to direct. This may be an old quote my friend is familiar with, but former CIA Director Jim Woolsey said: In Washington, there is a different definition of the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. We are making sure the national intelligence director has the gold, which is to say the budget authority, both to formulate the budget for this entire community of national intelligence--the so-called tactical military intelligence budget--that stays with the Department of Defense. But while I cannot say the specific percentage, I will tell you under our proposal--again this is classified, but well over 50 percent of the budget authority will now go from the Department of Defense to the national intelligence director.”