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Bush alters commission recommendation for spy chief { August 3 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/03/PANEL.TMPhttp://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/03/PANEL.TMP
Bush has own plan for new spy chief
Job wouldn't be in Cabinet as report urged
- Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Washington -- President Bush endorsed the creation of a national intelligence director Monday, but broke with the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks by urging that the position be established outside of the White House.
Bush proposed that the new intelligence czar would not be a Cabinet-level position, but would be appointed by the president and would report directly to him. The president's proposals must be approved by Congress, which is holding hearings this month on the commission's 567-page report.
"I will hire the person and I can fire the person ... that's how you have accountability in government," Bush said in a Rose Garden ceremony, surrounded by Cabinet officials. "I don't think that the office ought to be in the White House, however. I think it ought to be a stand-alone group to better coordinate, particularly between foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence matters."
The question of how to revamp the nation's intelligence-gathering has become a central issue in the 2004 presidential race following the recommendations offered by the Sept. 11 commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States.
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry -- who has said he would implement all the panel's recommendations immediately -- criticized the president Monday for refusing to call Congress into a special session to pass the proposals.
"If the president had a sense of urgency about this director of intelligence and the need to strengthen America, then he would call the Congress back and get the job done now," the Massachusetts senator said at a campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Mich. "The time to act is now, not later."
The president also embraced another key recommendation of the 10-member panel to create a national counterterrorism center to sift through intelligence from 15 separate spy agencies. The new information hub would take over the role of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which was established by the Central Intelligence Agency last year.
Bush's announcement received only a tepid response from the Republican and Democratic chairs of the Sept. 11 commission, which worked 18 months before producing its report on July 22. While calling the president's proposals "an important step," they noted that Kerry had made an "unequivocal endorsement of the panel's recommendations."
"We welcome action to establish a national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center, which were two priority recommendations for the commission," former Republican New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana said in a joint statement. "The president has stated some of his goals for that process. The fate of these reform ideas turns vitally on the specifics."
The commission has argued strongly that the new director must be based in the White House to oversee operations and have the clout needed to deal with Congress and powerful Cabinet secretaries. Currently, the CIA director serves as the president's top intelligence adviser.
The president made the announcement the day after his administration raised the terror threat level to orange in Washington, D.C., and New York City, citing specific intelligence indicating terrorists were plotting an attack on major financial institutions.
While the president accepted two of the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, he didn't address other reforms proposed by the panel, among them: ending the secrecy around the nation's intelligence budget, informally speculated to be about $40 billion a year; confronting the Saudi Arabian government, a U.S. ally, more forcefully over terrorist activities in the country; and shifting responsibility for covert paramilitary activities against terrorists abroad from the CIA to the Defense Department.
The White House also resisted the call by the commission's five Democrats and five Republicans to give the new national intelligence director the authority to set the budgets for the CIA, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies, as well as the ability to hire and fire senior managers of those departments.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who led the president's intelligence reform task force, said the new director would make recommendations but would not have a final say over the intelligence budget. The director would also submit the names of possible nominees to head the spy agencies, but the president would make all appointments.
Top lawmakers in Congress, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, plan to push forward with their own legislation to give the new director the power to make budget and personnel decisions.
The new director "must have the power to develop intelligence strategies, set priorities and move around the players to accomplish these goals," Feinstein said.
Administration officials gave differing explanations about why the new intelligence director would be based outside the White House. Card told reporters the new director would need a large support staff and "it is not realistic that a large staff could fit into the White House complex."
But Card also said keeping the director and his staff outside the executive mansion would help prevent any "undue pressure of the White House staff or a White House activity."
Several lawmakers, including Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine., warned at a Senate hearing Friday that an intelligence czar within the White House could lead to abuses such as the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration. The Bush administration has already faced criticism from Democrats that intelligence agencies were pressured by White House officials before the Iraq war to find evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said the White House has been slow to revamp the nation's intelligence operations, including ignoring a recommendation from a congressional panel 18 months ago to create a new intelligence director.
"Why has it taken three years?" Pelosi asked Monday.
But some counterterrorism experts praised the administration for taking time to scrutinize recommendations that could have far-reaching implications for the government's most secretive operations.
"There has been a tendency toward an irresponsible rush to embrace recommendations from a commission that examined one particular part of the problem -- without any analysis of the costs and benefits of the recommendations," said Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think this is far more wise than any kind of blanket endorsement."
E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
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