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Homeland Security Plan Questioned
06/21/02

By Thomas Frank

Newsday

Washington - Several lawmakers raised pointed concerns yesterday that the proposed new department of homeland security would not solve intelligence failures. 

Senators and House members honed in on a part of President George W. Bush's proposal that would bar the new department from getting "raw" intelligence, such as recordings or transcripts of conversations, without presidential approval. 

The department would routinely receive reports from intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the FBI, which it would analyze independently and in conjunction with other reports about vulnerabilities. Those analyses would lead the department to recommend protective measures to be taken by the government and private sector. 

But yesterday, in the first hearings featuring Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, several lawmakers said that without the raw intelligence, the new department could not conduct a thorough analysis to detect patterns from varied reports. 

"The new agency isn't going to connect the dots. That would be done by an analysis inside the CIA and the FBI," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). "The trouble is, they don't connect the dots, as we've recently seen." 

Levin told Ridge, "There's no accountability here. If the FBI doesn't share the information with you, you don't know about it." 

At a hearing in the House later yesterday, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said the proposal's failure to force the FBI and CIA to cooperate with the new department is "a glaring flaw." 

Ridge told Levin that the department's "primary function" would be to "integrate" intelligence reports from other agencies. 

But after persistent questioning by Levin, Ridge conceded, "Perhaps we need to work on the language" of the bill proposed by Bush. 

As lawmakers began their review of Bush's proposal to create a department that would protect U.S. borders and coordinate efforts to prevent and recover from terrorist attacks, many expressed concerns about local issues. 

Lawmakers from coastal states such as Massachusetts, Maine and Alaska protested moving the Coast Guard into the new department, saying it would reduce that agency's work in boating safety and fisheries protection. 

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who represents an "immigrant-rich district" north of Chicago, wondered whether transferring the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the department would help people who are "already suffering under an inefficient and insensitive agency." 

Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney complained to the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees about a news leak concerning messages intercepted on Sept. 10 by the National Security Agency. News organizations reported yesterday that the NSA had intercepted Arabic conversations in which someone said, "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match begins tomorrow." 

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush was "deeply concerned about these leaks," saying they could "endanger America's ability to gather intelligence information." 

Senate intelligence committee chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.), after speaking to Cheney, who Graham said "was not a happy man," asked the attorney general to investigate the leak. 

 

 
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