Congress balks at key 9/11 recommendation

WASHINGTON -- Powerful House and Senate leaders are balking at one of the two key recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission -- that Congress streamline its own scattered oversight of intelligence and homeland security matters, at the expense of many committee chairmen and their turf.

The commission described the current system -- in which intelligence officials report to six committees of Congress, and homeland security oversight is spread among 88 subcommittees -- as "dysfunctional," and an indirect cause of flaws that led to the government's failure to foresee and prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

None of the panels overseeing intelligence has the ability to create a comprehensive national strategy, while the thicket of panels overseeing homeland security overly burdens officials, who get called upon to stop work and answer questions by members of Congress almost daily, the commission said.

But while Congress is rushing to pass before the election the commission's recommendation to create a single intelligence director who will run the nation's 15 spy agencies, it is faltering at making a similar change to itself. Committee chairmen and staff members have said in recent interviews that Congress does not plan to address the matter any time soon.

Several key members of Congress already are opposing any changes, causing commission members and security specialists to express alarm.

"It's a scandal and an outrage," said James Carafano, a homeland security specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Congress should reform itself first. These guys are running around writing legislation and they don't have their own house in order. I think it's just criminal."

Since the Sept. 11 commission issued its final report in July, Congress has held nearly 20 hearings about how to implement its other proposals, but not one was devoted to congressional oversight. The commission predicted this problem, calling it "among the most difficult and the most important" of all its recommendations.

"Few things are more difficult to change in Washington than congressional committee jurisdiction," the report said. "To a member, these assignments are almost as important as the map of his or her congressional district. The American people may have to insist that these changes occur, or they may well not happen."

Congressional resistance to restructuring its committees was illustrated at a recent news conference called by House Transportation and Infrastructure chairman Don Young, Republican of Alaska, to announce a $3.5 billion bill aimed at preventing terrorism on buses and trains.

Young boasted that his bill followed the Sept. 11 commission's recommendation that security grants be focused where there is greater risk. But his attitude changed when asked about its recommendation that he cede power over transportation security matters to a homeland security panel.

"I am not overly enthusiastic about all the recommendations made by that commission," Young said, arguing that his committee has the expertise to better handle transportation-related security issues.

Commission member Jamie Gorelick, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton adminstration, said in an interview that the current structure is like a football team with a different coach for each player. But, she said, no one wants to surrender his or her clipboard.

"There's not a natural constituency for this," Gorelick said. "Those who would gain turf are flat outnumbered by those who would lose, and it's a difficult issue for the public to grasp."

The Senate has formed a 22-member task force for secret reorganization talks behind closed doors. The House has not taken any action to change its oversight of intelligence matters. Few expect the matter to be addressed before this term ends, and many fear the next Congress will lack the impetus for major changes.

Spy agencies report to three committees in each chamber-- Appropriations, Armed Services, and Intelligence. The Intelligence committees are the weakest. They do not control budgets. The Armed Services committees change their bills, sometimes protecting the Pentagon's desires at the expense of broader intelligence needs.

The new CIA director and former House Intelligence Committee chairman, Porter Goss, expressed frustration with this "cumbersome, foolish, inefficient system" when he testified before the commission in May 2003, and told them that "congressional oversight is an area that screams for your attention."

The commission called for creating either a single joint intelligence committee, or vesting all intelligence oversight power in one committee in each chamber.

But House Appropriations Committee chairman C.W. Bill Young, Republican of Florida, said it would be a bad idea for one panel to oversee everything, including budget decisions his committee now handles. "We're not going to do something just to satisfy a political schedule or the 9/11 commission," he said.

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner, Republican of Virginia, would also lose power under the proposal. Press secretary John Ullyot said Warner favored doing the right thing, but left vague what that may turn out to be.

"He has not yet developed a fleshed-out position," Ullyot said. "However, he wants to do what's right to make sure we have the best oversight possible regardless of considerations of turf or other parochialism."

The commission also called on Congress to create a single panel to oversee homeland security in each chamber, rather than the 88 subcommittees that now oversee pieces of the new department. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has asked for that number to be condensed, as he or other top officials must now stop work to testify on Capitol Hill one out of three days.

The House has created a committee to oversee homeland security, although it may expire at the end of this year and was given no real power. Primary jurisdiction over each agency's issues remains with the old committee chairmen.

Each of those chairmen was given a spot on the Homeland Security Committee and has used it to protect his own turf. In July, most of them boycotted a meeting to make changes to legislation authorizing the department's activities -- preventing a quorum and keeping the committee from having any input on the bill.

Commissioner John Lehman, a Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, has testified that reorganizing the executive branch without simultaneously streamlining Congress would be like "one hand clapping" and told one committee that "the most important thing to do is fix the congressional issues.

But Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, replied that making changes in the executive branch would keep them from being "buried in congressional committee jurisdictional turf battles."