[San Francisco Chronic] Sept. 11 families want intelligence reforms, but not GOP plan

Sept. 11 families want intelligence reforms, but not GOP plan
Washington -- Relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks appealed to Congress on Tuesday to quickly pass legislation revamping the nation's intelligence establishment, but without provisions supported by House Republican leaders that would expand law enforcement powers and could spur opposition to the bill.

But Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas insisted the House will proceed with the GOP-backed bill, which goes beyond the Sept. 11 commission's bipartisan recommendations by including such proposals as requiring the detention of terrorist suspects, broadening the definition of "material support'' for terrorist groups, and making it harder for immigrants to succeed with asylum claims and easier to deport noncitizens suspected in terror cases.

While leaders of the Family Steering Committee for the 9-11 Commission said they might support some of those ideas, they said the provisions shouldn't be part of the intelligence reform effort.

"Legislation should be unencumbered by language or amendments containing extraneous provisions or extending or expanding the Patriot Act. The latter, in particular, deserves separate debate,'' said a statement from the committee, whose leaders have attended hundreds of hours of hearings in Congress and before the Sept. 11 commission.

Congress this week has leaped into a full debate over complicated legislation to create the post of national intelligence director, which would take command of the country's 15 intelligence agencies and their estimated $40 billion annual budget. The decision to name such an intelligence czar was a key recommendation of the commission charged with investigating the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath.

In addition to the controversial provisions in the House bill -- which was personally introduced by Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. -- the measure faces another potential obstacle: Some influential members of Congress and the Defense Department, which would lose control over a majority of intelligence spending under the proposed changes, are urging a minimalist, go-slow approach to reform.

Leaders of Congress expressed hope the separate House and Senate versions of the intelligence reform legislation could be passed by both houses, reconciled and sent to President Bush before Congress ends its session, perhaps as early as Oct. 8. But the new criminal provisions could snag that.

"I've lost a lot of faith in my government,'' said Beverly Eckert of Stamford, Conn., whose husband was killed in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and has become a leader of the families' committee. "But I am determined to do whatever I can to ensure that the Congress understands it's their obligation to rectify the dysfunction in the intelligence system that allowed my husband to be killed sitting in an insurance office in New York City.''

Several senators, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have criticized the House Republicans for introducing "poison pills'' into the intelligence revamp proposal either to scuttle it or to embarrass Democrats who might vote against the new criminal provisions before the election.

But DeLay rejected that criticism. "Some people are just interested in taking the easy way out,'' he said at a press conference. "Poison pill to them is something they don't want to address.''

DeLay said the criminal provisions in the House bill, which will go before several committees today and is expected to get to the House floor next week, "are just commonsense things we need to fix.''

Democrats were caught in a similar bind in Congress' closing days in 2002, when some senators who supported the idea of a Department of Homeland Security tried to delay its creation because of Republican insistence that many workers in the department lose their union status.

Republicans turned the fight into a campaign issue, most notably in Georgia, where TV commercials questioned the patriotism of Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, a grievously wounded Vietnam veteran. Cleland lost his race to then- Rep. Saxby Chambliss.

The leaders of the families' committee appeared at a Capitol Hill press conference with two members of the Sept. 11 commission, the bipartisan authors of the Senate intelligence reform plan now being debated, and the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence Committee. While not all were as outspoken as the relatives, they appealed to members to act before they go home for election campaigning.

One of the lawmakers, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., urged the House to "not attach extraneous and divisive measures that will weigh down the bill and make it hard to get it passed.''

Even without the criminal provisions, there are plenty of other issues for Congress to argue about. The proposed Senate and House bills differ markedly in how much power the new national intelligence director would have over the 15 agencies' budgets and how much control the official would have over the several spy agencies that would remain in the Defense Department.

The House Intelligence Committee's new chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R- Mich., appeared with the Sept. 11 families, and with his panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman of Rancho Palos Verdes (Los Angeles County).

Hoekstra and Harman said they have been meeting and pledged to try to work together today when their committee meets to vote on portions of the legislation pertaining to the national intelligence director and the proposed new national counterintelligence terrorism center.

Harman said she supports the bipartisan Senate bill. Hoekstra is going with the House GOP bill, but said the differences aren't monumental.

"We have much more in common than what divides us,'' he said. "We recognize this work is too important to make it partisan or even bipartisan. It needs to be nonpartisan.''

 

Republicans are leveraging 911 for their political gain. Shame on them!!!