WASHINGTON -The Senate yesterday overwhelmingly approved a massive reorganization of the United States intelligence community to address the Sept. 11 commission's complaints that the nation's spy agencies do not work together properly to deter terrorist attacks.
The bill, approved on a 96-2 vote, would create a national counterterrorism center and also a position of a national intelligence director who would coordinate most of the nation's nonmilitary intelligence agencies.
The House plans to take up similar legislation later this week, but that legislation includes additional anti-terrorism and illegal immigration powers that could preclude getting the recommended changes to President Bush before the election.
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.
The bill, pushed by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., was endorsed by the 9/11 commission and the White House and faced little opposition from either sides in the Senate.
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 said 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 has disintegrated into a mess of lies and hot air.
The Senate bill must be reconciled with House legislation before it can go to the White House for Bush's signature, and the two bills currently are very different.
The House also plans this week to approve legislation to create an intelligence director position and a national counterterrorism center. The GOP also adds provisions on anti-terrorism, identity theft, illegal immigration and border security -measures that Democrats and some Republicans think should not be included.
House GOP leaders already are preparing to fight for their provisions.
It's really simple. The House bill - every single word of it -will make the American people safer
said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
But opponents of the GOP bill say the provisions were included to force Democrats into a difficult, election-year vote that could have political consequences.
The 9/11 Commission urged Congress to work in a bipartisan manner to implement all of its recommendations
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said. In contrast
House Republicans have turned this into a political exercise.
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