Are you really sure that Atasuki has an upper ucheleon. Seems like it only consists of the nine ninjas and there isn't some sort of beurocracy ruling above them. I think that when they refer to the upper echelon's there talking about the leader of the oganization the mysterious ninth member.

One thing I was always wondering about. Akatsuki consists of the nine S-rank criminal ninjas. They've all divided into groups of 2 to scour the land for what ever it is they want. But nine divdided by 2 is an uneven number. Do any of you think that the ninth member is the leader of the Akasuki. If there is an all powerful leader I'd bet that it might be the ever mysterious venus fly trap man. So far he's the only member we've seen traveling alone without a partner.