WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and senior administration officials have begun receiving a daily CIA report on the global economic crisis in addition to briefings on terrorist threats and other national-security issues, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday.
The CIA’s role in producing the report underscores the level of anxiety within the administration over how rapidly the economic downturn is spreading, as well as its potential to hobble foreign governments and trigger instability overseas.
The report, called the Economic Intelligence Brief, was launched at the request of the White House and delivered for the first time Wednesday.
Panetta said the daily brief would survey major economic developments internationally but also focus on how plunging markets and credit pressures are driving decisions in nations such as Russia and China.
It will cover “economic, political, leadership developments” in other countries as well as “the implications of those developments in terms of the U.S. economy,” Panetta said.
Panetta’s comments came during his first extensive meeting with reporters since he was sworn in as CIA director last week. The former California congressman and onetime chief of staff to President Bill Clinton also touched on a wide array of national-security issues, including a Pakistani truce with militants’ violence in Mexico and deteriorating conditions in Somalia, Yemen and other countries seen as potential havens for al-Qaeda.
Panetta also aimed criticism at his predecessors and the Bush administration.
“There was a deliberate effort not to develop firm ground rules, to be able to do things in a haphazard manner,” Panetta said, adding that he believed the agency did not need so-called enhanced interrogation methods or other harsh measures to get intelligence from terrorism suspects.
