INTELLIGENCE Group opposes quick fix

Intelligence reform is too important to rush through, the former officials wrote.
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of former senior Cabinet members, senators and national security officials, including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, urged Congress not to rush to pass legislation restructuring the intelligence community based "on an election timetable."
Tuesday's statement marks the first substantial opposition to a rapid congressional response to the recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. President Bush and most congressional leaders have signaled a determination to pass legislation restructuring the nation's intelligence machinery before Congress adjourns for the election.
Kissinger told the Senate Appropriations Committee that swift enactment of proposed legislation would result in "months and maybe years of turmoil" as adjustments are made in operating procedures and intelligence machinery.
Legislation
Meanwhile, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee conducted the first of two scheduled markups of a 191-page bill to restructure the U.S. intelligence community, which Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she hoped to send to the Senate floor by today.
The bill, put together by Collins and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the ranking committee Democrat, calls for creation of a National Intelligence Authority (NIA) as an independent agency within the executive branch to be headed by the National Intelligence Director (NID), who would become the president's chief intelligence adviser.
Although the reform measure, which reflects some proposals put forward by the 9/11 commission, has drawn support from both President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., opposition to hasty action came Tuesday from the two senior senators on the powerful appropriations panel, Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and three former senior military officers who had served as commanders-in-chief of the European, Pacific and Strategic commands.