Security votes lose context in Senate race

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http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1153557820242390.xml&coll=2

Saturday, July 22, 2006
Stephen Koff
Plain Dealer reporter

Washington- After the Cold War ended, the intelligence community in Washington had to refocus. Making it harder were the embarrassments of the 1990s - erroneous targets hit by deadly missiles, billions of dollars unaccounted for, failure to warn of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

A minority in Congress, including Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, wondered if the CIA was accountable to anyone. So they voted to cut the intelligence budget.

"The whole point was that we knew there was a slush fund at the CIA, that they had a lot of money set aside," Brown recalled. "We knew they had a lot of problems at that agency, where they weren't doing their jobs, and we were sending them a message."

That message, stressed repeatedly in unsuccessful annual votes through the 1990s, now has been flipped on its head. Over the last week, Sen. Mike DeWine has used Brown's votes to bolster his contention that his re-election opponent was "weakening national security." As proof, DeWine cites Brown's unsuccessful desire to slice intelligence budgets before 9/11...