Bipartisan Push For Intel Reform

Some lawmakers started a push Tuesday for Congress to adopt all the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations for revamping the intelligence community.

"This bill would enact bold and comprehensive reform that changes the status quo, because the status quo in intelligence and diplomacy has failed us," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who introduced the 280-page bill along with Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Commission chairman and former Republican governor of New Jersey Tom Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton, a retired Democratic congressman from Indiana, appeared at a Tuesday press conference announcing the bipartisan bill.

The bill would create a national intelligence director with "real budget authority" and a national counterterrorism center, a Lieberman statement said.

It would also improve information sharing among government security agencies, bolster screening at U.S. borders, increase aid to key countries and "ensure that civil liberties and privacy rights are protected as reforms are implemented."

"To protect the security of our nation, Congress must act with dispatch to carefully consider the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission and to enact needed changes to further secure our homeland," McCain said in a statement. "We continue to confront grave threats, and there is no greater priority than ensuring the safety of our country."

Senate Governmental Affairs Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, and her committee are drafting legislation that Lieberman, the committee's ranking Democrat, predicted would be ready for a committee vote in two weeks.

Reps. Chris Shays, R-Conn., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., will introduce a House version.

Congress is working on several different bills inspired by the Sept. 11 commission, making it unlikely that it will just accept legislation based strictly on the commission report.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., wants Congress to transfer the nation's major intelligence gathering from the CIA and the Pentagon to control by a new national intelligence director.

Some people have opposed the idea, with Roberts saying Tuesday his plan "has been deemed by some as radical and others as bold — not as many 'bold' as 'radical.'"

But Hamilton did not reject the idea when asked about it at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, calling the idea "a very bold move. It's a lot bolder than we made."

The commission wanted "achievable and pragmatic" goals, and didn't consider change on the scope that Roberts did, Hamilton said Tuesday.

"We just didn't look at it that boldly," Hamilton said. "What we said was the NID needs to control the budget of these groups and we thought that was sufficient. And we did not recommend pulling these agencies out of the DoD because we thought that was too much of a change."

FBI Director Robert Mueller and acting CIA Director John McLaughlin will get to weigh in on possible changes to the nation's intelligence agencies at a Senate Governmental Affairs hearing Wednesday.

Congress is giving itself a month to come up with legislation restructuring the nation's intelligence apparatus, but Republican leaders acknowledge the goal may fall victim to turf disputes and lawmakers' focus on getting themselves re-elected Nov. 2.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert and key Senate committee chairmen are warning against a rush to judgment.

"Four or five groups of ideas (are) out there, and I think we need to take a very serious study on all those ideas," said Hastert, R-Ill., at the end of August.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who as Armed Services Committee chairman oversees more than 80 percent of an intelligence budget estimated at $40 billion a year, has called for "great caution" to avoid "turbulence or disruption in the intelligence system that now — I think — serves this nation reasonably well."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., originally tasked the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to get a bill completed by Sept. 30. The panel held several hearings in August and has another planned Wednesday.

When squabbling arose, Frist and Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., quickly named a 20-member bipartisan working group made up of Warner, Roberts, Stevens, Byrd and other senior lawmakers who now have a share of intelligence oversight.

With Congress scheduled to break again Oct. 8 until after the election, pressure will be on for leaders to call a lame-duck session that could run until Christmas to complete the intelligence overhaul and a corporate tax bill.

Two weeks ago, President Bush addressed some of the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations. He signed executive orders strengthening the CIA director's control over intelligence agencies and creating a national counterterrorism center.

The president had previously endorsed both a national director and a terrorism center, but had not outlined the powers of each office — except to say that, contrary to the Sept. 11 commission's suggestion, the director would not be part of his executive office.

A White House official described Mr. Bush's actions as a step toward creating the position of a national intelligence director, a job separate from the director of the CIA. The official stopped short of endorsing full budget authority for the proposed position, saying that must be worked on with Congress, which has the power to decide whether to create the new position and what authority the person who fills the job will carry.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has called for adopting all the commission's recommendations and doing it immediately. Democrats maintain the issues are not new or unfamiliar, saying a joint House-Senate intelligence inquiry came out with much the same conclusions two years ago.