The Unfinished Reforms of 9/11

04/19/2008

NY Times Editorial
Published: April 19, 2008


When the independent 9/11 commission warned that the nation’s intelligence defenses were a shambles, Congress embraced nearly every call for reform. Guess which one it didn’t? It has conveniently overlooked the commission’s call to consolidate Congress’s multiple intelligence oversight committees and subcommittees — which ends up leaving no one with real oversight power.

Any reduction of political turf was a nonstarter.

Now the idea has been at least partially revived. In a letter last month to the Senate leadership, 14 of the 15 members of the Intelligence Committee — which oversees intelligence operations — recommended creating a new intelligence subcommittee to oversee appropriations. The subcommittee would include members who sit on both the full intelligence and appropriations panels.

Over on the Senate Appropriations Committee — the jedi masters of the budget universe — top members were not in a compromising mood and quickly volleyed in their own letter insisting that there is no such need. For them to surrender any of their authority, the appropriators declared, would hamper oversight.

We stand with the 9/11 commission that the national interest requires the two houses’ intelligence committees to fully assume appropriation authority. Considering the thicket of egos, the proposed compromise is a start. The overlap would begin to address the situation in which the appropriations committees handle intelligence as only one of many specialties.

The leadership should let this debate emerge from the shadows and be settled in the public interest. If there is to be better oversight of the intelligence agencies — with their tens of billions in secret budget operations — the people who control the purse strings must have knowledge, expertise and clear responsibility.