"Chairman Roberts' proposal to break up the CIA comes as a complete surprise to me. I don't think such surprises - especially when they are without any effort to reach a bipartisan consensus - are helpful with our nation at such risk of terrorist attack.

While I support the establishment of a Director of National Intelligence with meaningful budgetary, statutory and personnel authority, I would have some real concern about a wholesale dismantling of the CIA.

I am not sure it is in the best interest of either the intelligence community or the national security of our nation to proceed in this direction. These are changes not called for by the 9/11 Commission, which may, in fact, exacerbate some of the most serious problems our intelligence community currently faces.

At a time our intelligence community needs a unified focus and to improve the sharing of critical information across bureaucratic boundaries, the bottom line of Senator Roberts' proposal is to simply break up the Central Intelligence Agency and replace it with several separate and possibly competing agencies. In so doing, it may well create chaos in the intelligence community.

The legislation I have introduced to create a Director of National Intelligence has strong bipartisan support. It has had a hearing in Committee, and the 9/11 Commission endorsed its basic premise. The Senate should begin the process of careful reform, using the Director of National Intelligence as a starting point, and incorporating many of the good recommendations of the 9/11 Commission."