ASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Members of the independent
commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks called on the House
Republican leadership on Thursday to jettison some provisions tacked onto
an emerging measure to reorganize United States intelligence agencies,
saying such add-ons threatened enactment of the legislation.
"We respectfully submit that consideration of controversial provisions
at this late hour can harm our shared purpose of getting a good bill to
the president before the 108th Congress adjourns," former Representative
Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman of the panel, told reporters.
The commissioners were backed in their call by relatives of those
killed in the terror attacks, a number of House Democrats and a few
Republicans who said they were worried that what they considered
extraneous proposals on law enforcement and immigration, among others,
could short-circuit the legislation.
"I have concerns that some on my side of the aisle want there to be
some poison pills," said Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of
Connecticut, who is pushing instead for a vote on his measure that
converts the recommendations of the Sept. 11 panel into law.
The commissioners, who later met with a top aide to Representative J.
Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, urged the House leadership to
allow a vote on that plan and made clear their preference for the more
bipartisan measure being advanced in the Senate.
"This Senate bill is a giant step forward," said former Gov. Thomas H.
Kean of New Jersey, the chairman of the panel, who warned that
commissioners believed there was a narrow window for achieving the
overhaul. "The time for action is now."
Under the proposals being developed in Congress, a new director of
national intelligence would be created within the executive branch and
given substantial authority over the diverse agencies that now collect
foreign and domestic intelligence. The idea is to create a central
repository for the sort of fragmented information that existed before the
Sept. 11 attacks. The legislation contains scores of other provisions
regarding national security.
The commission members acted after a series of House committees on
Wednesday blocked or defeated efforts to advance the measure offered by
Mr. Shays and Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, and
moved ahead with their own versions of the bill.
House Republican officials said they saw the additional provisions on
border security and immigration as perfecting and expanding on the
recommendations of the panel.
"There is more to protecting our country than creating a new
bureaucracy," said Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority
leader.
John Feehery, a spokesman for the speaker, said: "All of the things in
our bill are directly linked to the recommendations. We are going to get
things in our bill that protect the nation and reflect the
commission."
The back-and-forth over the legislation came as the Senate moved slowly
through its plan. Given a list of potential amendments numbering in the
hundreds, Senate leaders were planning to file a motion to cut off debate
and force a final vote next Tuesday. The House expects to vote on its
version next week as well, and Republican leaders were pushing for a final
bill reconciling the two to be completed before the election.
Commission leaders did not specify all of the House provisions that
that they considered problematic, though they singled out a proposal to
allow suspected terrorists to be deported to nations where they could be
tortured as well as proposed regulations on Social Security
registration.
In addition to the law enforcement and immigration initiatives, the
commissioners and their allies are wary of the power the House bill would
give the new intelligence director. The version approved by the House
Armed Services Committee does not go as far as the commission recommended
in transferring authority for intelligence operations from the Pentagon to
the new office.
