Panel: Nobody is in charge

Three years is a long time to let problems continue, a Sept. 11 co-chairman said.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Three years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there's still no one coordinating government efforts to thwart a new assault, the co-chairmen of the Sept. 11 commission told Congress on Friday.
"I don't find anyone is in charge," former congressman Lee Hamilton said.
In their testimony, he and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean outlined a government bureaucracy that had missed clues to the attacks because it didn't share information or take responsibility for stopping terrorists.
Many of those problems still exist, Hamilton said.
"The whole government just is not acting with the urgency we think is required across the board, whether it's screening for cargo or checking airplane passengers or checking the airspace or whatever," Hamilton said.
"Lots of good things have been done, and what seems to us to be lacking is that real sense of urgency."
While acknowledging that reforms take time, Kean said three years is a long time to allow vulnerabilities to continue to exist. "We can't really afford it any longer," Kean said.
Kean also urged Congress to go beyond simply reorganizing government agencies as it looks to prevent terrorist attacks.
"Organizing the government alone will not make us safe and more secure," Kean said. He urged lawmakers to make changes to foreign and economic policy while stepping up border and transportation security.
"If we favor one tool while neglecting others, we leave ourselves vulnerable and weaken our national effort," Kean said.
What's happening
Hamilton and Kean appeared before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in the first of what will be as many as 20 hearings scheduled for August as Congress responds to the commission's report.
The commission made more than 50 recommendations on ways to prevent another terrorist attack.
Congressional leaders originally said they wouldn't take up the recommendations until after their traditional summer break, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., suggested the recommendations might not be acted on until next year.
But public criticism forced Congress to move more quickly, and the senators tried to convey a sense of urgency at Friday's hearing, just nine days after the commission's report was made public.
Lawmakers said they hope to complete writing legislation by Oct. 1 that would reform the intelligence community to better address terrorism.
"We cannot let another attack succeed because of our own inaction," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the senior Democrat on the committee. "We must not go slow or protect the status quo."
President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry have signaled that they intend to respond quickly to the commission's report, which also detailed the failures of government oversight.
Kerry vs. Bush
In his acceptance speech Thursday at the Democratic National Convention, Kerry said he would implement all of the commission's recommendations.
Bush has made no similar commitment, but White House officials have said that Bush has been meeting with top advisers to consider the report. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the task force was to have met again Friday.
Bush, campaigning in Springfield, Mo., defended his record, citing the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the passage of the Patriot Act, which gave broad powers to federal law enforcement agents.
It wasn't clear Friday, however, which of the commission's many proposals would be adopted.
The commission proposed a massive overhaul of the intelligence community, dropping its current structure that focuses on how specific intelligence is collected and analyzed, and instead organizing it around specific missions, such as counterterrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
"All the resources should be brought to bear on key issues," Hamilton said.
But senators Friday anticipated resistance from agencies whose budgets, and perhaps existence, would be threatened under such a broad change. "I expect [turf battles] to be fierce," warned Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
Senators also questioned the wisdom of one of the commission's most high-profile suggestions, the creation of a director for national intelligence who would oversee all budgets and personnel in the intelligence community, which spans the Defense and State departments, the FBI, the CIA and other government entities.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked how such a post could maintain its independence and worried that Congress wouldn't be able to conduct oversight without treading on executive privileges of the presidency.