House Nears Vote on 9/11 Reform Bill

[Just Me]

(hoping this isn't a dupe)

<snip>


Bush has called on Congress for months to pass legislation implementing the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations to protect the nation from terrorists. House GOP leaders have been holding up the bill because of Hunter's concerns that it might interfere with the military's ability to get vital information.


But Hunter now supports it because House-Senate negotiators added language to ensure Defense officials would have priority in battlefield areas over the nation's spy satellites and other intelligence equipment.


The California congressman had worried that a new national intelligence director, a position the legislation would create to coordinate spy agencies, would have been able to insert himself into the chain of command from the president to the combatant commanders.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20041207/ap_on_go_co/congress_intelligence

I don't believe the additional language demanded by Bush, Rice & Hunter have anything to do with interference with the chain in command. I believe the Busholinis just wanted to keep power consolidated by giving Rummy the right to trump the new intelligence director.

[Just Me]

1. In essence, they've handed intelligence over to Rummy.

The new director will NOT have the necessary authority or power over the purse to be anything more than merely another bureacratic layer.

I was worried this would happen.

[sidpleasant]

2. The delay on voting for this had nothing to do with military intelligence

It was all about lard ass / Speaker of The House Dennis Hastert's recent decision to block votes on bills that wouldn't get a majority of Republican votes even if the bill would get a majority in the full House. Hastert isn't interested in anything that could be characterized as a bipartisan bill. This strategy is part of Rove's permanent majority scheme: deny Democrats the opportunity to claim even partial credit for anything. The intelligence reorg would never have come up for a vote save for the embarassing pressure from the 9/11 families.

[Just Me]

3. Updated story on intelligence bill.

<snip>

"We have not in 50 years changed the intelligence system. We've never walked away from the Cold War model," Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday on CBS' "The Early Show." "We now have a bill which will pass both houses, I hope, that will change the intelligence system and head it in the right direction."


Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, the chief Republican negotiator on the bill, told CBS that by creating the post of national intelligence director, the legislation would create "a single individual who will be responsible for coordinating our intelligence and who will be accountable. We've lacked that in the current system."


House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., had refused to bring the bill up before Thanksgiving because of the opposition from Hunter and House Judiciary chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. Sensenbrenner said he would still oppose the bill in Tuesday's GOP meeting because it does not deal with such issues as illegal immigration and asylum changes.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&ncid=1278&e=1&u=/ap/20041207/ap_on_go_co/congress_intelligence

Unfortunately, a single individual will NOT have the authority to coordinate intelligence because the additional language demanded by the administration (via Hunter) essentially gives power to Rummy to trump the new Director of National Intelligence.