Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper announced Monday the creation of a new security and counterintelligence center that critics say will diminish U.S. spy hunting efforts. …

The center combines the functions of government security programs, such as issuing tens of thousands of security clearances to government personnel and conducting background checks and investigations, with the mission of countering the activities of foreign intelligence services, currently the role of the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, created to improve counterspy programs in the aftermath of a string of extremely damaging spy cases in the 1990s.

Michelle Van Cleave, National Counterintelligence Executive—known as NCIX—during the George W. Bush administration, said adding the security mission to counterintelligence programs will dilute spy-catching efforts. … “Security and counterintelligence are complimentary missions, to be sure,” Van Cleave said in an email. “However, the imperative in creating the NCIX was to have a single head of U.S. counterintelligence with a singular mission and purpose and funding,” she said.

“Security has an unbounded appetite for dollars and attention. It is the here and now versus the longer, strategic needs of CI. And the here and now always gets priority.” … Kenneth deGraffenreid, White House National Security Council intelligence director during the administration of Ronald Reagan, also criticized the new center. … “This is part of an effort to finish off counterintelligence,” deGraffenreid said. “Since 2001 there has not been a single arrest for foreign espionage.”

The Obama administration has been stung by a series of intelligence and security disasters, beginning with the disclosure of more than 750,000 classified documents leaked to the anti-secrecy website Wikileaks by Army Sgt. Bradley Manning. … Despite calls for tightening security and intelligence-sharing after Wikileaks, U.S. intelligence then was struck with its worst security failure in history: The theft and piecemeal disclosure of an estimated 1.7 million National Security Agency documents by NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

SEE COMPLETE TEXT