Senators introduce sweeping 9/11 legislation

A bipartisan group of Senators introduced sweeping legislation Tuesday to enact recommendations made by the 9/11 commission, including the creation of a powerful national intelligence director with budgetary and personnel authority over 15 intelligence agencies.

The 280-page omnibus bill encompasses all the commission's recommendations, with only a couple of changes. For example, the bill would establish a National Intelligence Authority outside of the White House, rather than within the executive office of the president as the commission recommended.

"This is a dream that all of us had on the commission," said the panel's chairman, Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey. "What haunted us was the possibility that we'd make recommendations to make the American people safer and, like other commissions, nobody would do anything about them."

The senators expected at least parts of the bill, called the 9/11 Commission Report Implementation Act, to be passed before the November elections. It was introduced by Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and Arlen Specter, R-Pa. A similar bill will be introduced in the House by Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Christopher Shays, R-Conn.

The 9/11 commission's final report and recommendations concluded that the U.S. intelligence community was too fragmented and did not have anyone in charge of directing resources, centralizing intelligence and ensuring information sharing.

"In my opinion, there's no doubt that had all the facts been centralized … 9/11 could have been prevented," Specter said.

Bayh said, "It remains to be seen whether we can rise above bureaucratic inertia, turf jealousies, and divisions within Congress and the executive branch" to enact the legislation.

"This proposal emphasizes accountability and that is something that is long overdue," Bayh added. "As far as I know, following the tragedies that led to 9/11 and following the mistakes that were made on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no one has been fired, no one has been admonished, no one has been demoted."

The senators noted, however, that other legislation has been introduced to reorganize the intelligence community. For example, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, unveiled an intelligence reform proposal two weeks ago that would transfer sections of the CIA and intelligence agencies controlled by the Defense Department to the direct control of a new national intelligence director. Critics said Roberts' plan would essentially abolish the CIA.

The legislation introduced on Tuesday addresses a broad array of subjects, such as intelligence reform, border and transportation security, information sharing, increased diplomacy and foreign aid, terrorist travel, biometric screening, national preparedness and civil liberties.

The bill calls for implementing several recommendations that ran into opposition during congressional hearings last month. For example, it would create four deputy national intelligence directors appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Those positions include a principal deputy within the National Intelligence Authority; a deputy for foreign intelligence who would also serve as the director of the CIA; a deputy for defense intelligence who would also serve as the undersecretary of defense for intelligence; and a deputy for homeland intelligence who would also serve as either the undersecretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection within the Homeland Security Department, or as the executive assistant director for intelligence at the FBI.

The deputy directors would essentially serve two masters, reporting to the national intelligence director and the bosses within the agencies they worked.

The bill also would require DHS to distribute homeland security preparedness grants solely on the basis of threat and risk assessments. Currently, every state receives a base amount of homeland security funding regardless of risk and threat.

In addition, DHS must establish minimum standards for birth certificates, drivers' licenses and personal identification cards -- a move that critics say is the first step toward creating a controversial national identification card.

And the bill directs Congress to develop committee structures by the end of the year for intelligence and homeland security oversight.

McCain said he expects opposition from various agencies and within Congress to parts of the bill.