Head of US intelligence makes a quiet one-day trip to New Delhi

With 16 agencies including the CIA, FBI, DEA and Homeland Security reporting to him, McConnell is today the highest ranking intelligence official in the US. The office of the DNI was created through the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Protection Act, 2004, a fall out of the 9/11 Commission report. The main purpose was to create a nodal authority that analyses inputs from different agencies and provides regular assessments to the US President and relevant US Congressional committees. The first DNI was the current Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

It’s learnt that the discussions McConnell had with Indian officials covered a whole range of issues including recent terrorist trends, the situation in Pakistan as well as the kind of effort being put in by the DNI to streamline intelligence gathering and analysis in the US. In this context, both sides discussed ways to strengthen intelligence cooperation and maintain high-level contacts.

Already, sources said, there is an institutionalized annual meeting between the CIA and RAW chiefs. This is bolstered by quarterly meetings between senior officials of both agencies, either in India or in the US on a reciprocal basis. Broadly, there is considerable exchange of technical intelligence between both countries. However, India has been emphasizing on the need to share more “relevant” information in quick time.

Besides sharing intelligence, sources said, India is also looking to gain from the kind of intelligence reforms happening in the US. The DNI is a key outcome of that reform process which aims at changing the “need to know” principle to a “responsibility to provide” principle.

Incidentally, the US offered assistance soon after the Jaipur blasts but India is still to find any foreign connection in its probe so far. In his last intelligence estimate before the Senate Armed Forces Committee in February, McConnell had drawn a link between the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Al-Qaeda, and observed that Pakistan-based groups will continue to target Indian religious places and transport infrastructure.

“The IC (intelligence community) assesses that Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Toiba and other Kashmir focused groups will continue attack planning and execution in India. Shia and Hindu religious observances are possible targets, as are transportation networks and government buildings. We judge that Kashmir focused groups will continue to support the attacks in Afghanistan and operatives trained by the groups will continue to feature in Al Qaeda transnational attack planning,” he stated during his testimony.

Interestingly, McConnell has been projecting India and the US as key partners in this century. In an address at the George Washington University last month, he said that this being the “century of Asia”, India and US would either the second or third largest economies of the world. “Demographically, China, Japan and Europe¿the demographic trends are all negative. Think of it as a cliff that falls of the edge…(in) United States and India, the demographics are positive. India for its groth rate, its birth rate; and the United States for its immigration. For these two reasons, India and the United States in addition to being democratic societies that tend to solve problems, it’s a much brighter future,” he observed.