Senators cautious on 9-11 response

WASHINGTON – The key recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission – a new position of national intelligence director – received a cautious reception from a Senate panel Friday as Congress began the job of reshaping the nation’s intelligence agencies.

Testifying before the Governmental Affairs committee, commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton urged speedy action and urged the senators to support the intelligence director proposal, which they said would create a “quarterback” responsible for counterterrorism efforts.

The commission proposed that all 15 federal intelligence agencies report to such a director, who would have some budgetary authority and would be a member of the executive office of the president.

“There is a moment here,” Kean said. “It’s a moment when, hopefully, people can come together because we haven’t got a lot of time. … It is an emergency, and there is an enemy out there that is planning, as we meet here, to attack us.”

Commission members, in a related development, announced they will launch a nationwide campaign next week to promote their proposals, although the senators Friday focused largely on the issue of a national intelligence director.

While some senators expressed support for the idea, others from both parties questioned whether the position would be sufficiently independent of the president or if it would create a bureaucracy in which intelligence agencies are forced to answer to multiple bosses.

Hamilton and Kean said they believe the position would be insulated from undue White House influence because the nominee for the post would be subject to Senate confirmation and would be required to appear before Congress if called. They said the post would be akin to the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Other senators questioned how the heads of counterterrorism at the various intelligence agencies such as the FBI and CIA would report to both a new intelligence chief and their own directors – who in turn also have bosses. The FBI director, for example, answers to the attorney general.