Intelligence chief defends U.S. agencies

WASHINGTON — The nation's top intelligence official sought Monday to rebut a Washington Post series charging that intelligence agencies have become bloated and inefficient, insisting they "are achieving untold successes every day."

David Gompert, acting director of national intelligence, contended in a statement that the intelligence agencies strive to be efficient, and that some overlap is by design.

"We work constantly to reduce inefficiencies and redundancies, while preserving a degree of intentional overlap among agencies to strengthen analysis, challenge conventional thinking, and eliminate single points of failure," he said.

Gompert said the intelligence community "can do better, and we will." He said the Post's account "does not reflect the intelligence community we know."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs also defended the intelligence community. He said the White House had "some concerns" about security risks of some of the information disclosed in the series but declined to elaborate.