Analysis: Internal reforms hard sell on Hill

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- While much has been made by lawmakers and the Bush White House of the intelligence reshuffling put into law earlier this month, the Sept. 11 commission also called for a massive reform of the way Congress conducts oversight of the intelligence community that has yet to come.

If action on the issue this year is any indication, not much can be expected on this front next year.

While the new law creates a national intelligence director to oversee a new national counter-terrorism center that is intended to be a clearinghouse for the nation's intel on terrorist activities, the NID is not given total control of the nation's civilian intelligence agencies.

Although broad budgetary power is given to the NID under the new law, much of the specifics will have to be worked out in implementation, and critics say that without day-to-day operational control the NID will ultimately not have the power to truly control the intelligence community as many had hoped.

In addition, with some assets staying within the purview of the Pentagon, information bottlenecks are also still a possibility between civilian and military agencies.

However, the new law gives the NID much more power than originally called for by the president, who initially did not back the creation of such a position.

When President Bush ultimately backed such a position under political pressure after release of the Sept. 11 commission report in July, the White House was calling for a position with no budgetary authority and that functioned mostly in an advisory role to the president.

Despite the embrace of the law by the members of the Sept. 11 commission on its passage, they are clearly not yet satisfied with the level of reform enacted by lawmakers.

The commissioners, now members of a private group known as the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, have announced that they will begin to lobby for real overhaul of the way Congress handles oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies, which the commission report described as "dysfunctional."

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, one of five Democratic commissioners; and former Navy Secretary John Lehman, one of five Republican commissioners; told the House Government Reform Committee in August that the most important thing that must be done in response to the problem of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is fixing the problem Congress has had in oversight over intelligence matters and the Department of Homeland Security.

"The rest of the system will not function properly without Congress fixing its own committee structure and oversight," said Lehman.

The commission advocated the creation of a joint House-Senate Intelligence commission to continue the kinds of oversight the independent panel had provided.

Alternatively, the commissioners called for keeping the existing separate intelligence committees intact but giving them appropriations power and the resulting greater control over not only policy, but also implementation of recommendations.

Separate committees in both the House and Senate currently handle appropriations and oversight.

The panel also called for a permanent joint House-Senate oversight committee for the Department of Homeland Security.

A report issued by former House Speaker Tom Foley and retired Sen. Warren Rudman this month embraced the "dysfunctional" charge made by the Sept. 11 commission against congressional oversight of the Homeland Security Department.

The report says that at least 412 of the 435 House members and all 100 senators have some jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security from their membership on 79 committees and subcommittees with power over the agency, resulting in confusion and duplication.

"The Department of Homeland Security is still responsible to everyone -- which makes it accountable to no one," said the report, which was sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, and Business Executives for National Security, an advocacy group.

In October the Senate rejected the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, adopting a plan that only slightly changes the way the body conducts oversight of intelligence matters.

The Senate did embrace some of the commission's recommendations, such as removing the Senate Intelligence Committee's term limits for members.

But the plan falls short of centralizing budgetary and policymaking power in a single congressional committee as called for by the commission.

Thanks to the work of the powerful heads of several committees, the body made only mostly symbolic internal changes.

Among these is the renaming of the Governmental Affairs Committee to the Homeland Security Committee and giving it some power over related issues while consolidating some existing subcommittees.

But opponents to significant reform rolled back the power the committee would have had under the original proposal by the then-deputy leaders of both parties, Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., retaining power in several committees that would have lost some oversight otherwise.

Even that proposal did not go far enough in the minds of many by not embracing reform to the degree called for by the Sept. 11 commission, particularly by not giving appropriations power to the new Homeland Security Committee.

For others, even the shifting around of power went too far toward pointless consolidation.

Prior to approval of the Senate's changes, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the body wasn't embracing "a modicum of change" in the "farce" reforms being enacted.

"Since we are consolidating power, what this proposal does is even more dangerous to America than the status quo was," said McCain. "The 9/11 commission described congressional oversight of intelligence as 'dysfunctional' ... and that it needed comprehensive change. As far as the Senate is concerned Sept. 11 never happened, if you look at what is going on."

But even with the move toward some consolidation of power within the Senate, existing committees retained most of the oversight they have on intelligence and national-security issues.

Powerful ranking members of committees from both parties, including Finance Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Max Baucus, D-Mont.; Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; and Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and ranking member Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.; all successfully removed provisions from the reorganization resolution that would have resulted in a loss of power their committees have over various homeland-security-related agencies.

McConnell and Reid argued that the changes represented a good compromise that accomplished 90 percent of what the Sept. 11 commission has asked, but the commissioners clearly do not agree with this spin.

But even if the Senate had embraced the panel's recommendations by giving appropriations power to the existing Senate Intelligence Committee, it would not mean much because internal reform is not on the list of top priorities of House leaders.

Aides to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and some top Republicans in the body have indicated that the idea will not fly in the House.

Spokesmen for Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, did not return calls for comment, but House GOP aides said they did not expect the issue to be on the forefront of the Republican agenda no matter how much the families or commission members lobby for it.

Republican and Democratic aides said that reform that means a loss of power or admitting things have not been handled well on their watch is not something lawmakers from either party will ever be interested in.

"These guys will not admit they are doing a bad job, which is what actually acting on internal reform means in their eyes," said one House Republican aide.

--

(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)