Intelligence overhaul supporters seek options

Advocates of a sweeping intelligence overhaul bill, stung by Saturday's collapse to move a compromise measure through the House, spent Monday trying to assess what must be done to get a bill passed by the end of the 108th Congress.

House GOP leadership aides said a decision had yet to be made about scheduling negotiations that would justify bringing lawmakers back the week of Dec. 6, despite optimism expressed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that it could happen.

"Things are still very much up in the air," said a House GOP aide.

Senate conferees who signed off on the deal early Saturday morning say it is now up to President Bush and House GOP leaders to push for an agreement. "The president is committed to getting the bill done -- it's a high priority for him," a White House official said.

This official said Bush had already implemented 90 percent of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations administratively but wants the legislation for such changes as the creation of a director of national intelligence.

House Republicans, spurred by Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., objected to a deal backed by Bush and Hastert late Friday night. As several rank-and-file Republicans said they would go as far as voting against a rule to allow a vote, widely considered to be a "party loyalty" vote, Hastert and other GOP leaders realized they did not want to have a bill pass primarily with Democratic votes, according to aides.

Hunter, backed publicly by senior military officials, opposed giving a director of national intelligence budgetary authority over the Pentagon's intelligence assets. He said through a spokeswoman today that he was optimistic of passing a bill if the Senate comes around to his position. But Senate Governmental Affairs ranking member Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said the Senate had gone as far it could go to compromise with the House.

The failure of negotiations prompted Senate Intelligence ranking member John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.Va., to say Saturday, "I think I am going up to my office and start throwing some chairs around." He quickly added, "I won't hit any of my paintings." But the even-tempered Rockefeller could not suppress his anger at what he sees as the "strong-armed tactics" that torpedoed the legislation.

Singling out House Majority Leader Tom DeLay R-Texas, Sensenbrenner and Hunter, Rockefeller said it was "unbelievable" that a measure of this magnitude that had bipartisan support could be shot down.

"I am standing here like I am not a member of Congress, but I am somebody from Charleston, W.Va., looking up and saying, `What are they doing up there? Why do we even keep them around?' I am just angry."

Rockefeller surmised that the critics simply could not stomach any change in the Defense Department's role. He also dismissed those who were saying that the legislation could be resurrected and passed next year and questioned whether Bush would feel the same urgency next year.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made phone calls to Sensenbrenner and Hunter encouraging them to drop their objections, but their effort failed to change their minds.