The revelation that the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are feuding over a matter of precedence brings to light a problem that long ago was expected to rear its ugly head.

Under the post-9/11 reformation of the Intelligence Community (IC) the DNI should have the final authority over intelligence without having to invoke the President's authority. One of the DNI’s biggest challenges since then has been to be recognized as the IC’s CEO.

More than four years ago HSToday.us cautioned that the historic, congressionally-mandated reform of the IC did not adequately address the equally as historic impediments to intelligence collaboration like territorial wars, the jealous hoarding of secrets, bureaucratic inertia, and the fear of making career-crippling controversial decisions.

In the ensuing years since the IC was overhauled there have indeed been warnings and indications of a creeping return of these hindrances, especially the encumbrance of turf protection, which first provoked the ire of the CIA director in reaction to controversial moves by former DNI Mike McConnell.

The latest dispute between DCI Leon Panetta and DNI Dennis Blair has its roots in inaugural DNI John Negroponte having designated an intelligence officer that answers directly to the DNI be installed at embassies, military commands and overseas posts – a position that ruffled the feathers of the traditional turf authority of the CIA’s Chiefs of Station (COS), the IC’s principal representatives abroad since 1947.

But despite Negroponte’s IC CEO authority, his plan was never fully achieved and the Bush administration eventually had to issue a presidential directive - the first executive-level overhaul of the IC’s powers in more than 25 years - to cement in place the authorities of the DNI that apparently were left much too unstable by Congress’s reform of the IC that established the office of DNI to begin with.

Like his predecessor, McConnell also tried to establish his own eyes and ears abroad answerable only to the DNI. Objections by the DCI left the matter still unresolved by the time Barrack Obama was elected President.

And now the issue has erupted all over again as Blair also is trying to install his own representatives at embassies instead of relying only on CIA station chiefs.

Despite the DCI’s legitimate questions about the concept, the utlimate issue is whether the DNI has the final authority over such IC matters as its reformation was supposed to have given the DNI.

HSToday.us pointed out years ago that one of the DNI’s biggest challenges was going to be being recognized as the IC’s CEO while at the same time being able to have productive relationships that are not based on turf issues, but rather team issues. In other words, making the best arrangements within the community so that it’s not a win-lose proposition every time the DNI makes a decision.

“What is going to be key for [the DNI] as a leader is he’s got a lot of issues that he’s got to deal with up front, but the biggest issue is he’s going to have to come out as a credible player, and demonstrate that he’s willing to use the mandate [to reform the IC]. But he has to be careful how he does it, because if he has to go too often to bat – to the Presidential piggybank for influence – it shows that he doesn’t actually rule the kind of power that you need to personally,” former CIA officer Melissa Boyle Mahle told HSToday.us.

Author of, “Denial and Deception: An Insider’s View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11,” and a counterterrorism expert who was the top-ranked female Arabist in the CIA when she retired as a covert officer, Mahle told HSToday.us that the DNI must “especially have the President’s full support ...”

She was echoed by former CIA case officer Robert David Steele, who said “the DNI shouldn’t have to be going to the President to resolve disputes – he needs to be able to exercise his congressionally mandated authority. Case closed.”

Other veteran IC officials and former government leaders involved in the 9/11 Commission and the IC reform said the President ultimately would need to make it absolutely clear that the DNI is the undisputed leader of the Intelligence Community and that his internal decisions, like the one Blair, McConnell and Negroponte have tried to implement, are his to make.

But as the Associated Press reported this week, the recurring issue that DNI Blair is now facing has had to be referred to Obama’s National Security Advisor James L. Jones to settle, possibly with Obama’s official blessing, which isn’t the way it’s supposed to work. Under the IC’s overhaul, the DNI is supposed to have the final word over these matters, which President Bush had tried to lay to rest in an Executive Order.

But instead, the DNI has had to rely on the power of persuasion to carry out the office’s mandate.

As DNI, Blair clearly has been trying to solidify his office's authority once and for all. Recognizing the problem prior DNIs have had, Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at his confirmation hearing in January that he intended to fully exercise the authorities of the DNI's office, adding that if the DNI’s powers could not be invoked without unresolved dispute – like having to go to the White House for resolution - then he would ask Congress and the president to provide the DNI with the unequivicable authority it needs to make decisions that are final that IC components – like the CIA – might object to.