Pelosi plans intelligence oversight panel

WASHINGTON -- The incoming House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, pledged yesterday to heighten congressional oversight of intelligence, answering complaints by national security specialists and lawmakers in both parties that Congress has been lax in monitoring the highly secretive community.

Pelosi, a California Democrat set to become speaker next month, said she will appoint a new intelligence oversight panel within the House Appropriations Committee that will examine the intelligence budget, monitor funds spent by intelligence agencies, and prepare the classified document that explains their expenses.

"I know it will make the American people safer," Pelosi said. The panel would for the first time break down the barriers between the authorization side of the intelligence budget -- the overall plan for collecting sensitive information -- and the appropriations side, which determines how much money should go to each program.

The 9/11 Commission, convened to explore the intelligence failures that preceded the 2001 terrorist attacks, recommended that a single committee take control of both the planning and funding of intelligence operations. Pelosi's plan does not create such a separate committee, but she said it does bring the two sides closer together. Further, Pelosi said the new oversight panel within the House Appropriations Committee will examine the president's intelligence budget request to Congress and make classified recommendations on it.

A Senate committee investigation has blamed faulty intelligence for leading the US government into a now highly unpopular war in Iraq, and lawmakers in both parties have called for more congressional oversight.

Most of the intelligence budget, including its overall cost, is classified, and members of Congress can read it only in a secure room. Those who do read it are not permitted to discuss it publicly or on the House floor.

Pelosi said yesterday that she believes the intelligence budget request should become public, and she wants more information made accessible to a wider group of House members. Currently, only the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees can view some sensitive information. But she said hers "isn't a view that is shared by all in Congress" or by the Bush administration, which wants the budget request kept classified to avoid tipping off adversaries.

"There are some things that relate to sources and methods and covert operations and the rest that have to be held very closely," Pelosi said. But "more openness is really important."

Representative John Boehner , Republican of Ohio and the incoming minority leader, said he appreciates Pelosi's efforts to examine congressional oversight, and will study her plan with the GOP caucus.

Steven Aftergood , director of the project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, welcomed the Pelosi plan.

"Budget disclosure is important in itself, and it also will serve as a stimulus to re thinking classification policy," which many critics contend is heavy-handed, Aftergood said.

"If this long-contested secret can be disclosed, then so can a lot of other things," he added.

Also yesterday, Pelosi said a bipartisan task force will decide whether an independent ethics panel should police the House, the Associated Press reported.

Pelosi said at a news conference that Boehner has agreed to the idea. The task force has not been set up , but it will be expected to report back in March, she said.

"There is no question that the ethics process in the last couple of years has lost the confidence of the American people," Pelosi said. "I'm hopeful . . . we can have an outside entity that will restore that."