Why can't they tell the 911 commissioners to go home now.
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August 17, 2004
Rumsfeld and Key Senator Signal Disagreement With 9/11 Report
By DAVID STOUT
ASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a key Senate chairman signaled today that they favor a slower, more cautious approach to revamping the United States intelligence network than has been advocated by the Sept. 11 commission.
"In pursuit of strengthening our nation's intelligence capabilities, I would offer one cautionary note," Mr. Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It's important that we move with all deliberate speed. We need to remember that we are considering these important matters, however, while we are waging a war. If we move unwisely and get it wrong, the penalty would be great."
But a moment later, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "I doubt that we should think of intelligence reform being completed at a single stroke."
At another point in the session, the committee chairman, Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, gave his view in practically the same words: "I'm of the opinion that we should not try and do the whole 9/11 in a single stroke. That's my opinion."
Mr. Warner's statement seemed to indicate a disagreement, for the moment at least, with another key Republican, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Mr. Roberts said on Monday that he favored quick approval of a central recommendation of the 9/11 commission: the creation of a new post, an intelligence director who would have broad power to hire and fire people and control the budgets of the government's 15 intelligence agencies.
Mr. Roberts said he and his committee's ranking Democrat, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, would introduce legislation this week built around the final report of the commission, formally the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which was headed by former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey and former Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana.
The differences in Congress, and between some lawmakers and the White House, indicated that the debate over the 9/11 commission's findings, which have already prompted unusual August sessions on Capitol Hill, could grow more heated.
President Bush has said he too favors creation of a new national intelligence post. But — in an all-important difference — he has made it clear that, so far, he favors giving the new director far less sweeping budgetary and hiring-and-firing authority.
Members of the 9/11 commission have criticized the White House stance, saying that the new intelligence director should have full authority over budgets and people, or else the turf battles and miscommunications that have sometimes plagued the intelligence bureaucracy will continue. (The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said today that Mr. Bush still has not ruled anything out. "It's important for the national intelligence director to have the authority he or she needs to do the job," Mr. McClellan told reporters traveling with Mr. Bush to Pennsylvania and West Virginia, according to The Associated Press.)
Given the background of disagreement, there was some anticipation over what Mr. Rumsfeld would say before the Armed Services Committee today, especially since the Defense Department controls about 80 percent of the overall intelligence budget.
The secretary, a seasoned bureaucrat whose Washington experience goes back three decades, spoke in neutral-sounding generalities, as is his custom.
Mr. Rumsfeld spoke of the need for crisp analysis of intelligence, to avoid the "group think" that the Kean-Hamilton commission warned against, and he spoke of the need for military commanders to get the best intelligence available — positions unlikely to stir dissent.
"Information security and access policies, information technology standards and architectures across the community are also enormously important, and reallocating resources in the year of budget execution," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "As I said, the precise extent of such authorities and other issues are still under consideration."
A new national intelligence director "likely will need some authorities of these types," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, tried to pin down the secretary, asking him whether he agreed with the 9/11 commission's recommendation to create a new intelligence directorship (which would take some power over the present position of director of central intelligence, who heads the Central Intelligence Agency) as well as a new national counterterrorism center.
Mr. Rumsfeld answered at some length, alluding to "statutory responsibilities of departments and agencies," prompting Senator Levin to break in.
"If you can't give us personally agree, personally disagree, or it's not that simple — I'll accept that you can't give us one or the other," Mr. Levin said. "That's acceptable to me; you can neither agree nor disagree with that. I mean, that's a specific recommendation. Mr. Secretary, we got specific recommendations — "
"I understand," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
" — from the 9/11 commission," Mr. Levin went on. "I'm quoting them. I just want to ask you your personal agreement or disagreement. If you can't give us that, that's okay, but just say you can't give us a personal yes or no from your perspective."
"I can't do it with yes or no, that's for sure," Mr. Rumsfeld said, adding that the question was "vastly more complex."
"Okay," Mr. Levin said. But apparently not satisfied, he added, "It's a very specific recommendation."
One area of disagreement between Mr. Rumsfeld and the 9/11 commission was underlined today, when Mr. Kean testified before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. The topic was "information sharing," which many critics of the American intelligence network have said there was far too little of before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Mr. Kean was no doubt aware of Mr. Rumsfeld's call last week for a go-slow approach to eliminating barriers to the flow of information among the nation's 15 intelligence agencies. In the jargon of the intelligence world, those separate realms are called "stovepipes."
"Every time you bust down a stovepipe, you run the risk of information getting compromised," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
But Mr. Kean offered a different perspective today.
"Agencies live by the need-to-know rule," he said, using the shorthand for the long-standing principle that there should be no more sharing of sensitive information than is necessary. "Each agency has its own computer system, its own security practices, and these are outgrowths of the Cold War. Implicit in their practice is the assumption that the risk of inadvertent disclosure outweighs the benefits of larger sharing among agencies, and we believe, as a commission, that that's a Cold War assumption, and it's no longer appropriate."
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