Intelligence-overhaul bill heads for vote

By Seattle Times news services

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WASHINGTON — White House and congressional leaders yesterday broke a logjam that has stymied major legislation to restructure the nation's intelligence operations by putting intelligence agencies under a single director's control, prompting lawmakers to schedule a House vote today on the long-debated measure.

The White House secured the support of a key opponent, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., by changing the bill's language to ensure the military's access to intelligence from satellites or other sources would not be impeded by the national intelligence director.

Hunter's support was thought to ensure that a majority of House Republicans would vote for the bill, even though another prominent committee chairman — Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis. — said he continued to oppose it.

The legislation is based largely on the recommendations the Sept. 11 commission made in its final report in July. At that time, the panel said that the failure of the spy agencies to share information and cooperate — and the absence of an overall director — had hampered efforts to defend the nation against terrorist attacks.

Though President Bush was initially slow to back the commission's recommendations, he moved to support its main ideas, including the creation of an intelligence director with authority over the budgets and personnel of America's 15 spy agencies.

The president suffered an embarrassing setback last month when Hunter joined with Sensenbrenner, who leads the Judiciary Committee, to block the legislation the day that House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., planned to bring it to the floor for a vote.

Though enough Democratic and Republican votes existed in the House to push the bill through, Hastert refused to schedule a vote until Hunter's views were fully considered and the Republicans could exhibit convincing majority support.

Intelligence reform Highlights of compromise legislation to revamp the nation's intelligence agencies: • A national intelligence director would be created to coordinate spy agencies, with significant power over budget and personnel matters. After objections by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the bill includes language to ensure Defense officials would have priority in battlefield areas. • It would add 2,000 full-time border-patrol agents per year for five years and increase the number of full-time immigration and customs-enforcement investigators by 800 per year for five years. • Minimum standards would be established for state drivers' licenses and for IDs used to board airplanes. • It makes it a federal crime to provide "material support" to terrorists, to issue a terrorist hoax, to traffic in or possess weapons of mass destruction, and would set mandatory minimum sentences for possession of or trafficking in missiles that could destroy aircraft. Knight Ridder Newspapers, The Associated Press and Reuters

Since then, members of the Sept. 11 commission and family members of the terrorists' victims repeatedly have called on the president to get the bill passed.

Hunter and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., had worried that the powerful civilian-intelligence czar created by the bill would focus on longer-term threats, diminishing the flow of intelligence to troops in battle. They said the compromise means that in wartime, a field commander would have first call on spy satellites and other intelligence resources.

But the bill still would shift substantial power over intelligence spending from the Pentagon to the civilian intelligence chief. And the newly created "Director of National Intelligence" would retain final say over missions by the nation's spy satellites, much as the CIA director does today.

Sensenbrenner opposed the bill because the Senate refused to include controversial law-enforcement and immigration provisions that his committee had written into the House bill.

In a nod to House opponents who said the bill failed to crack down on illegal immigrants, Bush said he looked forward to working with Congress "to address these other issues."

Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., co-authors of the Senate version of the bill, said yesterday the new language preserves "the strong budget and other authorities that the director of national intelligence needs to fight the war on terrorism and counter other emerging threats."

If the House votes today, the Senate plans to vote tomorrow, the last working day of the 108th Congress.

The legislation would create a national counterterrorism center to coordinate the collection and analysis of intelligence across agencies. It also would create a civil-liberties board to ensure that the government's fight against terrorism does not infringe on civil liberties and privacy rights.

The bill, which is more than 600 pages long, would add 40,000 beds for the detention of illegal immigrants apprehended by federal officials over the next five years and increase the number of border-patrol officers by 10,000 during that same period. The bill has a provision to allow the government to more easily obtain subpoenas to help track suspected "lone wolf" terrorists, who may be operating independently of any organization. Another provision would expand the definition of "material support" to prosecute people suspected of providing aid to terrorists.

Compiled from The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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