Congress Gets Intelligence

Reforming the nation’s intelligence-gathering agencies has been such a political fight this fall that it is easy to forget about the important communication improvements it makes among agencies so that they can better anticipate threats from terrorists. With a strong shove from President Bush and a minor language change, the legislation won support yesterday once it was OK with Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

That means, most importantly, creating the position of director of national intelligence, which will oversee a dozen agencies that collect but do not always share information. This responsibility is currently with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, but as the 9-11 Commission concluded, that job is both too focused on CIA functions and lacks overall budget authority to carry out the larger role effectively.

The new legislation will also create a counter-terrorism center, which will use the expertise of several agencies to assess information from across the various agencies and connect the dots. The new director of national intelligence will have some ability to move personnel into and within this center as threats appear. The reform bill will also increase border control and set aside more money for detention facilities, and it would create a civil liberties board to ensure that the public’s rights are respected.

Why the success of the bill was reduced to Rep. Hunter’s approval was the fault of Speaker Dennis Hastert, who supported the intelligence reforms but didn’t want to offend his party, even apparently at the risk of offending his party’s leader, the president, who for a month has been trying to balance party members’ concerns with the reform he may not have loved but knew was essential. Speaker Hastert didn’t want the reform to pass without the majority support of Republicans, which is another way of saying he held it up to ensure Democrats didn’t get credit for helping to pass a bill that he himself supported.

The standoff continued until Sen. Susan Collins and her staff offered language to clarify the Pentagon’s ability to direct tactical intelligence to troops in battle, a compromise pressed energetically by Vice Presi-dent Cheney. The amended language requires the intelligence director to “respect and not abrogate” the current wartime command structure. No one had suggested taking away the Pentagon’s authority on this but, theoretically, the occurrence of such a situation wasn’t impossible, so the clarifying language gave Rep. Hunter the cover he needed to claim victory. On the 63rd anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the nation got a new structure to protect itself against attack.

Sen. Collins, the lead author of the legislation, was handed the job of transforming the 9-11 panel’s recommendations into a bill because she and ranking Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman of the Governmental Affairs Committee were trusted to put partisanship aside and focus on legislating. They exceeded expectations. Sen. Collins was tireless in crafting the largest change to the nation’s intelligence agencies in a half century. She has served Maine and the nation well in her efforts, and deserves enormous credit for her thoughtful, forceful pursuit of this reform.