Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- [Do I live in America or Russia? Since when is a Czar a position in Democracy?] Lawmakers Propose 'Czars' in Attack Aftermath by Tabassum Zakaria http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?section=Politics&storyId=246606 Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:00 p.m. EDT E-mail or Print this story - - - - - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers, upset by the failure of intelligence agencies to uncover plans for last week's hijack attacks, have proposed creating new "czars" to fix the problems. The proposals all have an eye toward raising the profile of intelligence and counterterrorism within the U.S. government by elevating the office in charge of those areas. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham plans to introduce legislation to create a counterterrorism czar in the White House to coordinate activities in different agencies. "The main focus of it is to create a position within the White House akin to the drug czar," a spokesman for the Florida Republican said on Wednesday. The senior Republican on the Senate panel, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, has said creating a counterterrorism czar would not necessarily be the solution. He proposes raising the CIA director to Cabinet rank to coordinate all 13 intelligence agencies. The CIA director is responsible for managing the whole intelligence community. Meanwhile, Rep. Porter Goss, a Florida Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is proposing creating a broader "intelligence czar." "The (counterterrorism) czar idea is a fine idea. We have a Counterterrorist Center and if we had a czar who had a higher profile that ought to be fine," he said of Graham's proposal. "I think the better idea, the bigger idea, is to fold that activity into an intelligence community that has an elevated position," Goss told Reuters on Wednesday. "And that would be an intelligence czar who is basically head of the whole intelligence community, who has a Cabinet level position, who does not have to be saddled with the running of the CIA," he said. HINDSIGHT In eerie hindsight, a Senate Intelligence Committee report released on Wednesday about the panel's 2002 funding legislation for spy agencies described lawmakers' concerns prior to last week's attacks on New York and Washington. The panel approved the bill the week before the attacks and increased the funding for intelligence agencies next year. The amount is classified. The committee report said while the intelligence community had been "aggressive, effective and creative" in efforts against terrorism, "there is room for improvement." The report expressed concern that the intelligence community had wrongly adopted "a crisis mentality" related to terrorism. "International terrorism is not, however, in the view of the committee, a 'crisis,' with its connotation of a short-lived phenomenon," the report said. "International terrorism is a 'condition' with which we will have to deal on a long-term basis," it said. The committee also expressed concern that intelligence related to terrorism was increasingly reliant on the ability to translate quickly and accurately information from a large number of languages. The U.S, government has limited capability in many of the languages that "are of critical importance in our counterterroism efforts," the report said. The committee recommended creating a "National Virtual Translation Center" that would link secure locations throughout the country and apply digital technology to network, store, retrieve and catalog audio and text information. Intelligence could be collected in one location, translated in a second and provided to an intelligence analyst in a third, the report said. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. - - - - - RELATED STORIES • Inquiry Begins Into Intelligence • U.S. Senator Says Cabinet Stature CIA Chief Needed • U.S. Vows to Reassess Spy Operations After Attacks • U.S. Vows Reassessment of Spy Operations After Attacks • U.S. Vows Reassessment of Spy Operations • FBI Piecing Together Terrorism Case Have a comment on this article? Send it. ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
