It is a national tragedy that the Central Intelligence Agency is being pulled apart by commissions. Americans were understandably disappointed by the agency's performance on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, but they realise that the CIA is desperately needed and that it carries out important work at considerable risk. Many of the CIA's activities are secret, but even the latest report - from the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction - recognises the crucial work done by the agency and notes its success in collecting and analysing intelligence on Libya's weapon programme and on the activities of A.Q. Khan, the disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist.

Yet, under the guise of reform, the WMD commission and the September 11 commission are dismantling the CIA. The WMD commission's proposals for structural change do not seem to improve substantially the collection and analysis of national intelligence. The commission does an effective job in laying out many of the problems faced by the intelligence community, but it gets bogged down trying to address them. If we head down the path laid out in the commission's recommendations, the result will almost certainly be a bloated Washington bureaucracy, a demoralised and greatly weakened CIA, and little prospect of successfully combating terrorists and other national security threats.