Intelligence Overhaul Deal Falls Through

House Republicans on Saturday blocked passage of legislation addressing the Sept. 11 Commission's terror-fighting recommendations to President Bush, but GOP leaders said they would press the effort later this year.

However, the failure to get an agreement in Congress' postelection session most likely means the legislation will die for the year.

"It's hard to reform. It's hard to make changes," Speaker Dennis Hastert said as House members left town after a rare weekend session.

Democrats immediately blamed House Republicans. "The decision to pull the 9/11 bill is a clear and unambiguous failure by House Republicans to protect our nation, who chose ideology over our nation's well being," said House Democratic Caucus chairman Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

But Hastert and other GOP leaders insist that the bill still has a chance since the House and Senate will not officially end their legislative year until December.

"Our members want us to continue, the speaker wants us to continue to negotiate and so does the Senate, so we're going to continue to negotiate and see if we can get a bill in December," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

DeLay said Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., had not agreed to a compromise reached earlier Saturday and he wanted their approval before the House moved forward.

Hastert said Hunter had concerns that shifting some intelligence operations from the Pentagon could hurt combat troops. Hastert said lawmakers want to "make sure that our men and women who serve this country have the real-time intelligence that they need."

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the leader of Senate GOP negotiators, did not attempt to hide her frustration. "I am very disappointed that these objections have been raised at the 11th hour and temporarily derailed this bill," she said.

"I want to point out that Speaker Hastert has been extremely helpful throughout all the deliberations," she added. ...."But a decision has been made to try to accommodate" objections raised by some Republican lawmakers.

That was a reference to Hunter and Sensenbrenner, two committee chairmen who had bucked Hastert in a closed-door meeting of the rank and file earlier in the day to argue against going ahead with a vote on the measure.

If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement his year, they will render moot three months of hearings and negotiations that started with the commission's July release of its report studying the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Lawmakers would have to start from scratch next year - if they even pick up the issue again. With a new Congress taking office in January, unapproved bills expire and new lawmakers and committee leaders would have to consider any new legislation.

"Give me a cigar," said the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. He flashed a "V" for victory with his hand after signing off on the deal.

Collins, R-Maine, one of the lawmakers involved in the talks, said Bush had been in touch with negotiators by telephone from Chile, where he was attending a meeting of leaders from Asian and Pacific nations. Administration officials also said the president supported the compromise.

The commission, a bipartisan group that sharply criticized the performance of intelligence agencies, also endorsed the emerging compromise.

The deal "contains not only major reforms of the intelligence community, but significant measures to improve aviation and border security, and emergency preparedness and response," the commission's leaders, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, said in a statement.

But critics led by Hunter said the bill would interfere with the chain of military command and potentially place troops at risk in combat. Other opponents, including Sensenbrenner, were unhappy that the bill did not go further to change immigration laws.

A final agreement on legislation has been held up for weeks while House and Senate negotiators wrangled over those issues, as well as how much control the new intelligence director should have over budget matters and whether terrorists should face stiffer penalties.

The fate of those issues in Saturday's compromise was not immediately known. But senators said many of the immigration provisions, including the House's ideas about speedy deportations and handling of immigrants seeking political asylum, were gone from the bill.

The agreement had been reached between Collins and Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut - the lead Senate negotiators - and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., early Saturday.

"Lawmakers would have to start from scratch next year - if they even pick up the issue again."

Good.

It was always a bad idea to implement the recommendations of the 911 Commission. Anyone who watched their hearings could see that they were nothing but a bunch of grandstanding political hacks.

The only reason to pass those recommendations was due to political pressure from the media and that pressure is now gone.

Don't forget they are the only things that could make Olympia Snow relevant...if just for a little while.

Well, look what the Dem's did for national defense. A major overhaul requires serious analysis. Dem's would buy anything they are so politically oriented. The vocal dem's suck.

That's what bothered me--implementing the recommendations of the "bipartisan" 911 commission. That $15 million commission was a boondoggle from the start, never "bipartisan", and a waste of time, effort and money. Nothing good came out of the commission.

I say good, too. We don't need another layer of bureaucracy. We need to shovel out the deadwood and traitors and improve personnel.

Usually problems of this kind are due to needing better people, not better structures. The agencies could then cooperate, without needing a Czar to rule over them.

Yep.

This thing is just too much power vested in one organization and its head that can and will influence the perspective of Presidents and the American public......if I wanted a coup or some other defeat for this country, I would sek to become the head of this agency, or at least control the head of it.......then, there is also the many non-germaine provisions the bill contains. Too scary, esp considering its origins as you so aptly described them.

We need lawyers to watch other lawyers, and the same goes for the Intel/criminal agengies.....Reno, Gorelick and her memo are gone now, and that is a big chunk of progress by itself.

.I am very disappointed that these objections have been raised at the 11th hour and temporarily derailed this bill," she (Susan Collins)said

Sh'ya, I bet she was. After the gutting of America's Intelligence services by the left (Torricelli, Cooper, Church, Dodd, Kerry, F.O.I.A., Carter) post VN. Allowing Collins and Lieberman to implement the ludicrous 911 Commission's recommendations would be handing them their Disney World Moment: the Utter Destruction of the CIA. Memo to Porter Goss: Go down fightin'.

This is a good thing. I just got off the phone with Hastert's office and they were very interested to hear what I had to say, were still there on a Saturday evening, and wanted to know the usual particulars.

All of which means we got their attention.

My next gig is to call Jim Sensenbrenner and tell him Good Job.

Hastert wasn't prepared for this storm. It took 50 Republican reps to get him to do this, supposedly. Well, now he knows the political support.

Any of y'all who agree that mass illegal immigration is a threat to this society, keep calling.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.