DNI Would Minimize Contractors

Adm. Dennis Blair, the nominee for Director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that, "one of his first duties if confirmed will be to transfer to federal employees any 'inherently governmental' work being done by contractors:

Blair said the government should rely on contract interrogators only in special circumstances, such as when a suspect speaks an obscure dialect.

"My strong preference is that interrogators in the intelligence world be a professional cadre of the best interrogators in the business," Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during his nomination hearing.

Committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she supported Blair's call to reduce the intelligence community's reliance on contractors. She referred to a 2007 Office of the Director of National Intelligence study that found that 27 percent of the intelligence work force is comprised of contractors, and an individual contractor costs the government $80,000 more on average than a career employee.

"I find this unacceptable," Feinstein said. "Hiring contractors to interrogate detainees and contract psychologists to evaluate [them] is just the wrong thing for the government to do."

Now if only we can apply this to the rest of the government, particularly the DoD.