Detroit Free Press December 09, 2004
U.S. spy agencies to join forces
Senate passes intelligence bill
By FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES
Congress has replaced a U.S. intelligence network geared to the Cold War fight against communism with a new structure requiring military and civilian spy agencies to join forces against the nation's newest enemy -- networks of terrorists intent on waging war against the United States.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the legislation 89-2 on Wednesday, one day after the House easily pushed through bill that has President George W. Bush's endorsement.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people proved that the intelligence operation established in World War II and modeled to fight communism wasn't effective against the threats of the new century, senators said Wednesday.
"We are rebuilding a structure that was designed for a different enemy at a different time, a structure that was designed for the Cold War and has not proved agile enough to deal with the threats of the 21st Century," said Senate Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., voted against the bill, with Byrd saying that it was folly to expect that a law could make the United States safer from foreign terrorists.
The Sept. 11 commission, in its July report, said discord and competition among intelligence agencies contributed to the inability of government officials to stop the attacks. The government failed to recognize the danger posed by Al Qaeda and was ill-prepared to respond to the terrorist threat, the report concluded.
In response, the legislation establishes a director of national intelligence to oversee the nation's 15 military and civilian spy agencies and ensure they work together to forestall future attacks. The bipartisan commission said that didn't happen before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bush has not yet decided whom to nominate to be the first intelligence director, spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Mystery program: Leading Democrats criticized a mysterious and expensive spy program, included in the new blueprint for intelligence spending, with Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia calling the highly classified program a threat to national security.
The program is "totally unjustified and very, very wasteful," said Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
He and four other senators, including Michigan's Carl Levin, refused to sign a negotiated House-Senate compromise providing for future intelligence activities.
They -- and more than two dozen current and former U.S. officials contacted by the Associated Press -- declined to further describe or identify the program, citing its classified nature. Thirteen other senators on the Intelligence Committee and their counterparts in the House approved the compromise.
Experts from organizations such as Globalsecurity.org speculated that the program may involve a spy satellite system with technology to destroy enemy targets.
Lighters grounded: Passengers already are barred from smoking on commercial flights. Now they can't bring their butane lighters on board either.
As part of the intelligence overhaul bill, Congress added the lighters to the long list of banned items, including scissors, penknives and box cutters.
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