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May 12th, 2025 | 8:02 AM ET

The ODNI, 20 Years After Its Creation: Reflections From the First Director

Amb. John Negroponte remembers getting the call in Baghdad – and the challenges that followed

WASHINGTON, DC: US President George W Bush (2R) watches as White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card (L), assisted by Dina Powell (2L), assistant to the president for presidential personel, swears in John Negroponte (R) as Director of National Intelligence in the Oval Office of the White House 21 April 2005 in Washington, DC. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
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Posted: April 17th, 2025

By The Cipher Brief

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – The Office of the Director of National Intelligence – the ODNI – was born twenty years ago this month, in response to recommendations made by the 9/11 commission, and a concern that the United States intelligence community (IC) needed a way to ensure the better integration of intelligence reporting and analysis. Put differently – as many said in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks – the aim was to better connect the dots, and ensure that future threats to the nation would not be missed.

On April 21, 2005, Ambassador John Negroponte was sworn in as the country’s first Director of National Intelligence. Amb. Negroponte had gotten the call from the White House while serving in Baghdad, as the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq, at a moment when an insurgency against U.S. forces in that country was in high gear. 

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