Feeling Pressure From 9/11 Commission, Lawmakers Urge Speed and Caution

[papau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48710-2004Aug7.html

Congress Split on Pace of Intelligence Reforms
Heeding the 9/11 Panel

By David S. Broder
Sunday, August 8, 2004; Page B07

Proceed with caution.

<snip>When I saw Hart in Boston during the Democratic National Convention, he was full of praise for the Sept. 11 commission -- but unequivocal about a few points. Referring to the suggestion that a new "intelligence czar" be named to ride herd on the CIA and all the other intelligence agencies, Hart said, "It would be a disaster" if the new official went into the Cabinet or onto the White House staff -- the latter being the commission recommendation.

"You have to have a clear organizational separation between those responsible for generating intelligence and those policymakers who are the consumers," Hart said. "You mix them and you will inevitably get political pressures affecting the quality of the information." <snip>

But Hart voiced a second concern that has only grown since Bush expressed his views. "Unless the new man has control over the whole intelligence budget of government," Hart said, "you simply have added a new layer of bureaucracy and set it up to fail."

"Every past proposal," Hart said, rattling off a half-dozen such efforts during his Senate years and since, "has foundered on the refusal of the Pentagon to give up an inch of control of its own intelligence spending." <snip>

Rudman told me that as a practical matter the military would fight to the end to keep control of "tactical intelligence," the specific data that allow it to plan battles and monitor their progress. But he said the generals have a weaker case for running their own strategic intelligence operations.
<snip>

Feeling Pressure From 9/11 Commission, Lawmakers Urge Speed and Caution

By Helen Dewar and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 8, 2004; Page A08

Members of Congress are sharply divided over how fast to proceed in drafting legislation to restructure the nation's intelligence services -- torn between political demands for speed and caution arising from the complexity of their task.

They also appear split over some of the major recommendations that the national commission charged with investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, made in its 567-page report last month, triggering the extraordinary mid-summer legislative effort. Those proposals -- especially ones that seek a far-reaching realignment of intelligence responsibilities -- could prompt a serious turf war among powerful Washington departments and agencies as well as congressional committees charged with overseeing them.

Over the last 30 years there have been eight unsuccessful efforts to reorganize intelligence operations -- including two recent ones from a presidential commission chaired by retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who is also chairman of President Bush's own Foreign Intelligence Board, and the joint House-Senate panel that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.

Skeptics caution against unintended consequences that could impede rather than strengthen intelligence efforts. But the commission has been fierce in its lobbying for approval of all its recommendations, and its stature, reinforced by broad acclaim for its work and the support of Sept. 11 victims' families, has generated election-year pressure on Capitol Hill.

House and Senate leaders remain committed to producing legislation by the end of September, although they have been less clear about whether they will push for final passage before the Nov. 2 elections or later, perhaps in a post-election "lame duck" session. <snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46967-2004Aug6.html

[aden_nak]

1. Speed and Caution? Does anyone else see the irony?

[KoKo]

2. I hope nothing is done until a new administration. I'm very suspicious of

some of these recommendations until we have the full exposure of the truth about what happened on 9/11. This rush..seems to be more a way of ensuring more Imperial Government, and I don't think that's good for either a Bush or Kerry Administration, but I'd sure as hell rather wait for a Kerry Admin to implement changes than this group of lying crooks.

I hope it gets stalled in partisan fighting and put off. I doubt we would be any safer at this point with a new Czar than without one in the coming months, and who knows if the other recommendations are real or just bandaids or more "big government" designed to obscure information from the American people.