Intelligence panel Democrats blast markup session

The House Intelligence Committee completed work on the fiscal 2005 intelligence authorization bill after a contentious, closed-door markup session last Wednesday that Democrats decried as an unprecedented partisan session.

At a press conference Thursday, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said committee Democrats unanimously opposed reporting the bill (H.R. 4548), which she said falls short of providing adequate funding and oversight for the intelligence community. Harman, the committee's ranking member, said she had urged the committee to consider amendments to the bill in an open markup session -- an effort that was rebuffed by the majority.

"As one who has consistently voted for every intelligence authorization bill during five terms in Congress, and who represents a district central to producing intelligence technology, this was a very difficult vote," Harman said in her statement.

During the markup, all Democratic amendments to the bill were defeated along party lines, Democrats said.

Harman said the majority rejected her amendment to adopt the Intelligence Transformation Act in an effort to restructure the intelligence community. That bill, introduced in April by House Democrats, would call for better coordination among the nation's 15 intelligence agencies. But she said House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., promised hearings to consider such reforms.

Harman said the bill provides only one quarter of the funding needed for counterterrorism efforts in fiscal 2005, though Democratic Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, Leonard Boswell of Iowa, and Robert "Bud" Cramer, Jr. of Alabama, offered an amendment to fully fund counterterrorism efforts in the intelligence community.

"The Republicans have ignored these issues for too long, and we are not going to go along with it," Peterson said in his statement.

The majority also defeated an amendment by Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, that would have demanded documents related to abuse at Abu Ghraib prison that the committee has thus far been denied. Another failed amendment, offered by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., would have required the Defense Department to provide a full accounting of its communications with Ahmad Chalabi, a former Iraqi leader and key Bush administration ally who reportedly gave U.S. intelligence information to Iran.

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., offered two amendments, one of which would have augmented a measure included by Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., to improve foreign language capabilities in the intelligence community. Holt's amendment would have funded educational opportunities to combine science and technology abilities with foreign language skills. Holt's second amendment would have set up so-called "red-teaming" or war-gaming programs to give the intelligence community a better sense of what it does and does not know.

Harman said the bill does not include a provision adopted in the Senate version of the legislation that would exempt the Defense Intelligence Agency and other military intelligence organizations from Privacy Act compliance, a 30-year-old law that requires government officials seeking information from U.S. citizens to disclose their identity.

Committee Republicans decline to return phone calls to discuss the bill.