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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (62223)	12/18/2002 1:15:31 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

The author of this editorial may be President in 2004...He's a bright, smooth talking southerner...we'll see... Wrong Job For the FBI By John Edwards Editorial The Washington Post Wednesday, December 18, 2002 We need a new homeland intelligence agency, one that will dramatically improve our ability to identify the terrorists in America, infiltrate their cells and stop them before they harm us. There is no time to waste. Congress and the administration should get to work on the new agency next month, and we should do it in a way that strengthens our freedom in the process. The agency now at the center of our domestic intelligence efforts is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI's mistakes before Sept. 11 are well-known. Yet only recently, the bureau's number two official said he was "amazed and astounded" by its continued sluggishness in fighting terror. The homeland security bill, which I supported, is a good step forward in many areas, but it leaves the FBI virtually untouched. To understand the FBI's intelligence failures, it's necessary to understand the nature and mission of the bureau. At its heart, the FBI is a law enforcement agency, dedicated to arresting, prosecuting and convicting people who break the law. FBI agents are very good at law enforcement, but law enforcement isn't intelligence. Intelligence is about collecting information, fitting it into a bigger picture and sharing the information with people who can take action. The FBI hires people who want to be law enforcement officers, trains them to be law enforcement officers and promotes them for succeeding as law enforcement officers. Cases are run by field offices, with little of the kind of central coordination needed to combat terrorist networks. With its focus on securing evidence, the FBI has regularly kept intelligence within the agency's walls rather than sharing it with key players. The failure to circulate the "Phoenix memorandum," detailing suspicious behavior at flight schools before Sept. 11, is only one example of the problem. When asked about the terrorist threat, senior FBI officials won't tell you where the terrorists are and what they are planning. Instead, they'll tell you how many cases they have open and how many wiretaps they are running. The answer proves they don't get the intelligence question. While the FBI has tried for years to reform itself, the bureaucratic resistance is tremendous. Today we don't have the luxury of failing to turn the FBI into something it isn't meant to be. We need to create what we need. The central goal of a new homeland intelligence agency should be uncovering terrorist threats before they cause harm. That job will have three basic components: first, to gather information about terrorists, their activities and their plans; second, to analyze data, search for patterns and assess threats; and third, to get that information and analysis to the right people so we can stop terrorists cold. Because the focus will be intelligence, the new agency's officers don't even need arrest powers. Those responsibilities should remain with law enforcement. Incompatible missions are the reason we have this problem in the first place. This agency's activities must be reconciled with legitimate concerns about our liberty and privacy. Right now we have the worst of all worlds: an FBI that does a poor job identifying and stopping terrorists, led by an attorney general who is doing an equally bad job protecting our rights. The administration has promoted a "total information awareness" program that could develop detailed dossiers on every American. It has expanded Internet data collection and allowed government agents to observe political meetings and prayer groups without real oversight. It says that any U.S. citizen it labels an "enemy combatant" may be imprisoned as long as the government wants, without a lawyer or a trial. The creation of a new homeland intelligence agency will give us a fresh chance to strengthen our freedom as well as our security. A recent study by a bipartisan commission at the Markle Foundation points the way. Strong guidelines should indicate what investigations can occur, and when and where. Particularly intrusive investigations should be held to special requirements. Rigorous internal auditing and public reporting should provide accountability. A special office for civil rights, headed by an independent director, should ensure the agency obeys the law. The task is protecting American lives, not monitoring political dissent. I first proposed a new intelligence agency two months ago. Just last week, the joint congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks urged Congress to consider the idea promptly. The administration, after initially signaling support, has backed off, under bureaucratic pressure from the FBI. That's a huge mistake. At a time when even marginal agencies are shifting into a new department, we need the courage to reform where it's needed the most. ________________________________________________ The writer, a Democratic senator from North Carolina, is a member of the Senate's Intelligence and Judiciary committees. © 2002 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com

To: MSI who wrote (62223)	12/18/2002 11:05:50 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Boxer Rejects Talk of War, First Strikes U.S. Losing Its Moral Authority, She Warns In S.F. John Wildermuth, Chronicle Political Writer San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday, 17 December, 2002 The Bush administration's drumbeat for war and backing for political assassination could be a long-term disaster for the country, Sen. Barbara Boxer said Monday. "I believe we have lost the moral high ground with the talk of war, assassination and first strikes coming out of Washington," she told about 200 people at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco. "Sometimes might might have to back right, but only as a last resort." Recent reports indicate that the administration has authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to hunt down and kill top al Qaeda leaders and terrorists, as well as suggestions that pre-emptive nuclear attacks could be used against countries and groups likely to use weapons of mass destruction. "This is not a time for arrogance," Boxer said. The United States has the military and political power to impose its will on the rest of the world, she said, but only at the cost of sowing seeds of resentment, even among our allies. "We have led the world not only because of our military strength, but also because of the strength of our ideas and ideals," Boxer said. The United States must work more closely with allies and international agencies such as the United Nations to deal with issues ranging from terrorism and women's rights to environmental protection and disease control, she said. "If we stand tall, but alone . . . then we will have missed the unprecedented opportunity that stands before us," she said. Boxer, one of the Senate's most liberal Democratic members, was preaching to the choir in her talk on Monday. She was interrupted by loud applause when it was mentioned that she voted earlier this year against giving President Bush the authority to wage war in Iraq and was given a standing ovation at the end of her speech. "I didn't go to the U.S. Senate to be a rubber stamp for any president," she said. "I'm doing everything I can to ensure that the devastation . . . of war is avoided and that disarmament (of Iraq) is achieved," she added. Suggestions that an attack on Iraq could quickly remove a threat to the country's security miss the point, Boxer said. "I don't care what (war) scenario you set, two days, 10 days or 30 days. It's brutal, it's harsh and innocent people will die," she said. "Environments will be destroyed." But while an anti-war, anti-Bush message works in a liberal stronghold like the Bay Area, Boxer will have to sell that program to a much more diverse statewide audience when she runs for re-election in 2004. That's not a concern, she said. "This wasn't a speech about liberal issues, but one about American values," she told reporters after the talk. "I think it's a message that will be very well received in California." Boxer's opposition to war and backing for women's rights and the environment have been staples of her political platform for the 20 years she has spent in the House and Senate and won't change for her re-election effort, she said. "No one ever voted for me because they thought I would make going to war easy," she said. In a state that voted overwhelmingly against Bush in 2000, there are plenty of Californians uncomfortable with the president's apparent willingness to go to war with Iraq without the backing of the United Nations or America's allies, Boxer said. "I've never seen a president, Democrat or Republican, lay out the path for war every day without setting out a plan for peace," she added. "My speech was mainstream; what we're seeing in Washington every day is extreme." truthout.org