Senate OKs Intelligence Overhaul

Senate passage of a bill to enact the Sept. 11 commission's terror-fighting recommendations now puts the focus on the House, where getting Republicans and Democrats to agree on the legislation may be more difficult.

On a 96-2 vote, senators also approved the creation of a national intelligence director who would coordinate most of the nation's nonmilitary intelligence agencies and a national counterterrorism center to help fight terrorist plots.

"Those two provisions are the key recommendations of the 9/11 commission," said GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who shepherded the bill with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. "We want to make sure that the new national intelligence director is able to marshal the funds, the people and the resources to counter the threat of terrorism and other emerging threats."

President Bush applauded the vote in a statement and called on the House to follow suit quickly with its own legislation. He didn't endorse one version over the other.

"This legislation is another important step forward as we do everything in our power to defeat the terrorist enemy and protect the American people," Mr. Bush said of the Senate bill.

House GOP leaders say their proposal, which includes creation of a national intelligence director as well as additional anti-terrorism and illegal immigration powers, is the best bill. "It's real simple. The House bill — every single word of it — will make the American people safer," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Minority Democrats, however, contend the law enforcement and immigration provisions were included to force Democrats into a difficult, election-year vote that could have political consequences. "House Republicans have turned this into a political exercise," complained Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

"House Republicans stand alone as the only obstacle in the way of passing a 9/11 bill that will make America safer," said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Government Reform chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., disputes those claims, and insists changes make the bill better.

"I think we all want the same thing for the country at the end of the day," he told Dave McConnell of CBS radio affiliate WTOP. "We face unprecedented assault from people coming in to do us harm, and that means we have to change the rules."

The House hopes to have something finished before leaving for the year at the end of the week, but differences are unlikely to be settled before Congress quits and it's unclear when intelligence changes will get to the president, reports McConnell.

A house bill would have to be reconciled with the bill that overwhelmingly passed the Senate on Wednesday.

Unlike in the House, the Collins-Lieberman bill faced little opposition from either side in the Senate although many supporters of the Pentagon and the intelligence community wanted it changed to preserve power for their committees or those agencies.

"Some of our colleagues who started out most skeptical or opposed to what we were doing ended up supporting the proposal because they believed it was right," Lieberman said. "I look forward to the House Senate conference with the same kind of optimism. The fact is that there's an urgency to do something."

The 9/11 commission contended that the 15 military and civilian intelligence agencies' failure to cooperate precluded an effective defense that might have prevented the 2001 terror attacks on New York City and Washington. The panel recommended creating a position of national intelligence director to control and coordinate all the agencies.

There is general agreement in the House on that proposal.

In addition, the commission called for more safeguards at home, such as setting national standards for issuance of drivers' licenses and other identification, improving "no-fly" and other terrorist watch lists and using more biometric identifiers to screen travelers at ports and borders.

The commission, along with the White House, endorsed the Senate bill.

"I've been in this body for only 18 years, but this is one of my prouder moments because of the way this entire body has acted in the national interest," added Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who originally wanted the Senate to pass a bill that would have enacted the commission's recommendations verbatim.

But several of the Senate's senior members — many of whom would lose some power over the intelligence community — argued against the bill, and warned that the legislative process was moving too fast.

Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Democrats' senior senator, reminded his colleagues that they moved too quickly on the Iraq war resolution and the creation of the Homeland Security Department.

"Like a whipped dog fearing its master, the Senate obediently complied with the demands of the White House," Byrd said. "Hindsight reveals the mistakes the Senate made two years earlier."

The Homeland Security Department is stymied by "bureaucratic infighting, unresolved turf wars, and insufficient funding," Byrd said, while the White House's arguments of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have "has disintegrated into a mess of lies and hot air."

The Senate bill is S. 2845. The House bill is H.R. 10.