WASHINGTON, April 6 (UPI) -- The newly confirmed U.S. spy chief says the agencies he oversees have lost the ability to successfully choose and make big-ticket acquisitions.
During the 1990's, "we saw the (Intelligence) Community atrophy in many areas," said Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell Wednesday at a conference for federal officials -- using the insiders' term for the sprawling collection of 16 agencies he heads.
"One of them was our ability to purchase, procure (and) acquire large-scale systems," he said.
"Two things were happening," McConnell continued. U.S. spending on intelligence declined 40 percent, "and there was something called the dot (com) boom."
"Fungible skills inside the government, very sophisticated program management skills, engineering talent, information technology talent, was drawn out to industry where the jobs were more plentiful, so we lost a generation in our community in our ability to buy, purchase, with skill and acumen, large-scale systems."
McConnell's comments follow a reorganization of his office he announced last week, in which he created a deputy director for acquisition. "We're on a path now to try to get that corrected," he said.
