White House Names Terrorist Threat Center Director

The White House has named John O. Brennan, the CIAs deputy executive director, as the first director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC). President Bush said in his State of Union speech the TTIC would be the “seam” between analysis of foreign and domestic intelligence on terrorism and put the agency under the control of the CIA.

According to a White House fact sheet, the new center will be comprised from elements of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, and the Department of Defense. The organization plans to begin operations on May 1.

A 23-year CIA employee, Brennan has also served as chief of staff of the agency and worked in counterterrorism and Middle Eastern affairs.

The center will have access to all intelligence information from raw reports to finished analytic assessments available to the government.

The plan calls for a cross-agency integration of terrorist-related information collected domestically and abroad in order to form the “most comprehensive possible threat picture.” Funding for the project was not mentioned, but Administration officials said the program would not require approval from Congress.