Editorial
Intelligence coordination committee
A long-felt need is being addressed
SETTING up of a committee to coordinate the function of all the intelligence agencies (NCIC) in Bangladesh is a very timely and welcome step. Need for such a body has been long felt but which, regrettably, successive governments had failed to meet.
The NCIC is a composite body under the PM with other agency heads making up the members. The task of the newly formed committee, as we understand, in addition to coordinating the function of the many intelligence agencies in the country, is to recommend ways of strengthening them.
The list of failures of the agencies tasked with intelligence work is indeed very long -- from the fateful day of August 15 when Bangabandhu was brutally assassinated along with most of his close family members, and which has had a long-lasting impact on the political history of the nation, to the assassination of General Zia, and the grenade attack on the then leader of the opposition Sheikh Hasina, and the countrywide serial blast in August 2005, to the latest gruesome massacre of BDR officers -- none of the agencies was able to alert the authorities of the impending danger. These only illustrate the grave systemic failure of the intelligence apparatuses that went unheeded so long.
We would hope that the new arrangement will help plug the gaps that have so far prevented them from giving timely warning to the government of the imminent violent crises.
There is one aspect though that we would like to put up for the consideration of the government. The PM's advisor on security has been designated to coordinate the activities of the committee. However, we feel that implied in the task of the NCIC is the responsibility of directing the functions of all the intelligence assets. And for which it should have a full fledged operational head with an organic staff and secretariat, which does not appear to be so under the current arrangement. This is all the more necessary to attend to the threats of extremists and radicals with international links whose presence has come to the fore recently.
We would, therefore, like to see something in the mode of an office of director of national intelligence who will serve as the head of the intelligence organisations and oversee and direct the implementation of the national intelligence requirement. He will be the PM's advisor for intelligence matters related to national security.
We also feel that for this committee to be able to perform effectively it will have to be made free of the bureaucratic tangles and not be politicised for partisan consideration, a malady that had severely constrained the operation of our intelligence agencies so far.
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