9/11 commissioners testify before House panel
Kerrey stresses need for strong intelligence chief
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A proposed national intelligence chief must have the power to hire, fire and set budgets, a 9/11 commissioner testified Tuesday, warning that the Pentagon will likely oppose at least part of that plan.
"If all it is is consultative -- if all it is is advisory -- then you're better off not doing it," Commissioner Bob Kerrey told the House Government Reform Committee. "You're better off not taking action, if the agency produces another agency that doesn't have real statutory authority."
Kerrey, a Democrat and former U.S. senator from Nebraska, also said lawmakers should "kick the crap" out of the Defense Department after any new intelligence failure if it blocks proposed changes set out by the 9/11 commission.
Tuesday's hearing came one day after President Bush asked Congress to create the intelligence director's post and a national counterterrorism center -- both steps recommended by the independent commission that investigated the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The question of how much real power a new intelligence chief would have has become an issue in the presidential race, with Democratic challenger John Kerry saying Bush's proposal falls short.
Fellow Commissioner John Lehman, a Republican and former Navy secretary, encouraged Congress to look at the panel's recommendation's as a whole.
"Our recommendations are not a Chinese menu," Lehman said. "They are a whole system. If all of the important elements are not adopted, it makes it very difficult for the others to succeed."
Rumsfeld concern
The national intelligence chief would replace the director of the CIA as the overall head of U.S. intelligence. Commissioners found that while the CIA director is responsible for all U.S. intelligence agencies, more than three-quarters of the U.S. intelligence budget is controlled by Pentagon agencies.
Kerrey told the House panel that he expects Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to oppose some of the commission's recommendations, and they may face opposition in the congressional armed services committees as well.
"If they win one more time -- if DOD wins one more time -- the next time there's a dust-up and there's a failure, don't call the director of Central Intelligence up here, kick the crap out of DOD," Kerrey said.
Rumsfeld has privately expressed concern that the commission's recommendations could result in an additional layer of bureaucracy rather than streamlining U.S. intelligence, CNN has learned.
Lehman said security won't be ensured "by moving around organization charts." But he said the network of intelligence agencies and the oversight mechanisms created in the Cold War era "are no longer appropriate."
"It's time for an entirely new system," said Lehman.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that Bush's plan would give a national intelligence director "an awful lot of authority when it comes to the budget and personnel matters."
"As we move forward with Congress, we'll be talking in more detail about the authority that this person will have," he said. "But the national intelligence director will have the authority he or she needs to do the job."
Kerry criticism
But critics say Bush's proposals fail to give a national intelligence director the powers that person would need.
Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, has urged the president to call Congress into special session to take up the report's recommendations, and Kerry adviser Richard Holbrooke called the White House proposal "cosmetic."
"The director of national intelligence that the president proposed would indeed have no more authority than the current director of central intelligence has," said Holbrooke, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration.
The 9/11 commission also called for significant changes in congressional oversight, including the creation of a joint committee on intelligence -- which Lehman urged Congress to address first "if there has to be a priority."
While the commission's bipartisan report has received considerable praise, the chairwoman of a Senate panel holding similar hearings cautioned that lawmakers will not serve as "a rubber stamp" for its recommendations.
Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said Congress would move forward on the proposed reforms "with both deliberation and speed."
"We should use the commission's recommendations as a thoughtful and informed guide. That does not mean that this committee will be a rubber stamp," said Collins, R-Maine. "The final shape of our restructuring legislation will be determined by what we learn at these hearings."
CNN's Joe Johns contributed to this report.
