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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (87885)	11/23/2004 9:04:27 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793559

IBD - Spy Games Spying: The failure of the intelligence reform bill in Congress isn't a bad thing. It's the first step on the road to real reform — and something that's too important to be done in haste. After the compromise intelligence reform bill was scuttled over the weekend, media wags immediately began talking about a "defeat" for President Bush. It was nothing of the sort. Yes, Bush backed the bill — but he did so in a lukewarm way, and only, it appears, because he thought that some kind of reform would be better than none. Technically, the bill wasn't even defeated — it simply wasn't brought to the floor by House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Even though he helped write the bill, Hastert spiked it because he feared that, even with an enlarged House Republican majority, he would have to rely on Democratic votes to get it passed. Not the best way to kick off a new Congress. That fear seemed more likely after two powerful GOP committee chairmen — Duncan Hunter of California and James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin — said they would oppose the bill. No knock on Hastert, but we're glad Hunter and Sensenbrenner prevailed. While we agree there are many reasons for supporting intelligence reform, we're not sure Hastert's reforms would have done the job all that well. Remember, reform was rushed onto the national agenda shortly after the release of the 9-11 commission's report last summer. At the time, 9-11 panel members barnstormed across the nation, making a strong case that their recommendations in the 9-11 report should be made into law right away, with little or no debate. But Congress was right not to be strong-armed into moving too quickly. The heat of a major election campaign cycle is probably the worst time for Congress to decide on something so complex, so important and so far-reaching as intelligence reform. As we've noted before, no major U.S. intelligence agency — not the CIA, not the Defense Intelligence Agency and not the National Security Agency — has done a very good job in recent years. But there are something like 26 intelligence agencies in government. All have different agendas, different clients. Just taking them and folding them into a much bigger agency under a so-called intelligence "czar" — the main part of Hastert's reform bill — does nothing. While we agree reform is badly needed, it's better to do it right than quickly. Besides, right now, new CIA Director Porter Goss is in the midst of a top-to-bottom shake-up of the CIA. No one knows how that will come out, but he seems to be aggressively shaking up an agency known for its bureaucratic complacency in recent years. Why not give Goss, a former spy and congressman who knows something about both the conduct of spying and the policy issues involved, a little time to do his job? He might surprise everyone. Also, the Pentagon hated this bill — and rightly so. It would have deprived them of the ability to run their own spy operations. Why should military chiefs have to beg a new Washington bureaucracy for the intelligence they need to protect us? It makes no sense. We know that no reform bill can be perfect. President Bush has acknowledged that, and has said he'll be glad to sign the best reform he can get. So why not take the time and give him the best? Congress at least needs to debate fully something as monumental as intelligence reform. They owe it to the president — and to us.