Bush Urged to Focus on 9/11 Bill

WASHINGTON – A former New Jersey governor, Thomas Kean, and Senator Lieberman yesterday warned that intelligence reform will fail to pass this year unless President Bush exerts more pressure on holdout House Republicans.Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Kean, a Republican who co-chaired the September 11 commission, said “the president has got to go to work.” He added that after months of negotiations on the intelligence overhaul, the crucial question “is whether it will pass now or after a second attack.”He acknowledged that the president had lobbied on behalf of the intelligence reform legislation but said more effort was needed by the White House to secure passage of the measure.Mr. Lieberman, a Democrat, was a lead Senate negotiator on the intelligence reform legislation, which was withdrawn from the House floor just before Thanksgiving because of House GOP opposition. “If the president of the United States wants this bill, as commander in chief in the middle of a war, I cannot believe Republicans in the House are going to stop him from getting it,” the Connecticut senator said.Compromise legislation to overhaul the nation’s intelligence agencies along lines recommended by the September 11 commission was withdrawn on November 20 by House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who was unsuccessful in efforts to overcome a rebellion by GOP rank and file.The rebellion was led by the Republican chairmen of two committees: Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, chairman of the armed services panel, and Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.Yesterday, neither chairman appeared to be in a conciliatory mood. Mr. Hunter said on “Fox News Sunday” that he fears the intelligence realignment would break the link between troops and combat support agencies that run intelligence-gathering satellites of battlefield movements. That would mean “life and death to our people in the field,” he said.Mr. Sensenbrenner wants the bill to deal with illegal immigration and is opposed to a provision in the legislation that would allow illegal aliens to secure drivers licenses. “We have to do something about plugging up our immigration laws,” he said also on “Fox News Sunday.”The compromise legislation passed the Senate almost unanimously, but it attracted considerable criticism from the Pentagon. Some of the legislation’s sponsors, including Senator McCain of Arizona, attacked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld for behind-the-scenes lobbying against the legislation.Last week, Mr. Rumsfeld denied opposing the legislation and gave his backing to the intelligence reform bill, saying “I support the president’s position.”If lawmakers fail to pass legislation before January, then the measure will expire and the 109th Congress will have to start again from scratch. The 108th Congress has had three months of hearings and negotiations over the legislation with the reform drive starting in July, when the September 11 commission released its report on the terror attacks on New York and Washington.Meanwhile, Senator Schumer of New York criticized new proposed cargo screening rules, arguing they would leave alarming loopholes in New York’s air security and place millions of air passengers at risk.Earlier this month, the federal Transportation Security Administration released a plan that was meant to improve air cargo security by checking the backgrounds of workers who handle freight. The plan also requires cargo airlines to screen people who board their planes. But Mr. Schumer says the rules don’t go far enough to protect the 10 million passengers a year who fly in or out of the city-area airports.“The holidays aren’t just the busiest travel time of the year – they are the busiest shipping time of the year, too,” he said at a news conference. “But even as people getting into planes this weekend see strong new precautions at the gate, the cargo and mail flying in the belly of the plane is still virtually unexamined.”

Bush Urged to Focus on 9/11 Bill

Bush Urged to Focus on 9/11 Bill

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