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CIAの解体案は怒れる共和党長老議員も巻き込む大騒ぎ
911事件の3周年を間近に控えて、アメリカの体制は、調査委員会の幕引きで誤魔化そうとしたものの、自作自演の大嘘に、嘘の屋上を重ねる無理は、今や爆発寸前なのである。
このニューヨークタイムズ記事は、上院の情報委員会の委員長の写真入りである。
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/24roberts.html?th
photo: Reuters/Molly Riley
Senator Pat Roberts is chairman of the intelligence committee.
August 24, 2004
An Angry Republican Roils Intelligence Waters
By DOUGLAS JEHL
ASHINGTON, Aug. 23 - The very idea of dismantling the Central Intelligence Agency, Senator Pat Roberts concedes, is one that he could not have conceived of proposing even a year ago.
But the overhaul now being pressed by him and seven other Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee is very much the product of accumulated frustrations, Mr. Roberts said. On the issue of Iraq in particular, but also Sept. 11 and other setbacks, repeated intelligence failures have transformed even Mr. Roberts, a Kansan long regarded as a dependable defender of the C.I.A and a loyal ally of President Bush, into a vociferous critic of intelligence agencies and an impatient second-guesser of the White House's own overhaul plan.
Among the factors that Mr. Roberts, a droll former marine, cited in a conversation with reporters in his office on Monday afternoon as those that prompted his call for urgent action were a succession of "Oh my God hearings'' in which senators asked in response to one intelligence failure after another: "Oh my God, why did that happen?''
Now, Mr. Roberts said Monday, "we cannot afford to fail this time around.'' He added, "If you believe that the intelligence community is doing just fine, thank you, then obviously this is not your bill.''
The plan put forward by Mr. Roberts and other Republicans is more far-reaching than even the one endorsed by the Sept. 11 commission. It has infuriated the C.I.A., whose former director, George J. Tenet, issued a statement on Monday that denounced the plan as unwise, and it blindsided the White House. The Democratic presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry has signaled tentative support for the plan, but on Monday both President Bush and members of the Sept. 11 commission remained noncommittal about it.
Still, offering the plan has consolidated Mr. Roberts's new role as a plain-spoken voice from the American heartland who in a series of statements in recent months has come to portray intelligence agencies as nothing short of broken. They surfaced most notably last month, with the release by his Senate committee, after a yearlong investigation, of the scathing report that portrayed the faulty prewar intelligence about Iraq's suspected illicit weapons as the result of poor leadership and dysfunction.
Even before that report was released, the harsh judgments that it was widely known to contain were seen as a major factor in Mr. Tenet's decision in June to step down. Mr. Tenet's temporary successor, John E. McLaughlin, has criticized the Senate findings as unfair, and Mr. Tenet took aim at Mr. Roberts on Monday in a statement that criticized the proposal as reflecting "a dangerous misunderstanding of the business of intelligence.''
Responding to criticisms from senior intelligence officials, who have warned against the dismantling of the country's pre-eminent intelligence agency, Mr. Roberts took pains in the meeting with reporters on Monday to argue that under his plan, the C.I.A's work force and mission would both remain intact.
But the plan would abolish the agency in name, splitting its operations into three main components and realigning them under a new national intelligence director, Mr. Roberts acknowledged. If approved, the plan could leave in limbo the fate of Representative Porter J. Goss, the Republican nominated by President Bush to succeed Mr. Tenet as director of central intelligence, though Mr. Roberts said his committee still planned to consider that nomination as scheduled beginning Sept. 8.
Whether the Senate Republican proposal can win broader approval, Mr. Roberts conceded, will depend in large part on whether it is endorsed by members of the Sept. 11 commission, whose report last month gave enormous momentum to the idea of a major intelligence overhaul. Mr. Roberts described his plan as faithful to the commission's recommendation to create a national intelligence director with real power. But the idea of dismantling the C.I.A. goes beyond the commission's specific proposal, and it also exceeds the proposal endorsed by Senate Democrats including Mr. Kerry, whose plans would leave the C.I.A. intact.
Still, it was notable that Mr. Roberts and his staff chose not to consult with fellow Republicans in the White House at all in drafting their own proposal. Describing his plan as "real reform,'' Mr. Roberts made no effort on Monday to disguise his disappointment with what he called an "administration plan'' that amounted to "deck-chair reform.''
Under the Bush plan, the Pentagon would retain control over most of the $40 billion-a-year intelligence budget and a new national intelligence director would have only limited authority over budgets and personnel decisions at the various intelligence agencies.
For months, Republican Congressional officials have complained of being shut out of White House deliberations on intelligence issues, including the shaping of Mr. Bush's plans, and on Monday some described Mr. Roberts's surprise initiative as a kind of turnabout.
A year ago, Mr. Roberts remained so reluctant to criticize intelligence agencies that he initially resisted a Democratic call to begin a committee inquiry into the prewar intelligence on Iraq.
His views have clearly hardened as the conflict in Iraq has dragged on and as the illicit weapons cited by the administration as the justification for war have not been found. In a speech in May, Mr. Roberts used with apparent sarcasm the phrase that Mr. Tenet, the former intelligence chief, is said to have used at a White House meeting in December 2002 in asserting that there was no doubt that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons.
"Rarely is any intelligence case a 'slam dunk,' '' Mr. Roberts said.
In an interview last month, Mr. Roberts also said he believed that intelligence agencies should be held accountable for putting American troops in harm's way in Iraq without providing them with accurate information on the postwar threat from Iraqi insurgents. He scoffed at what he called "this business of everybody greeting us with open arms.''
Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, one of the seven Republicans along with Mr. Roberts on the Senate committee who has endorsed the C.I.A. proposal, said in a recent interview that he believed the chairman's views had been transformed as the Senate inquiry revealed what he called "the huge gaps in our intelligence process.''
"It became more and more apparent that we were not only going to have to continue to bore it pretty deeply so we could find out what went on and wrong and why, but also offer some fixes,'' Mr. Hagel said.
Until last week, Mr. Roberts himself had called for careful, deliberate consideration of the various plans for change. But by Thursday night, he said he had told Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, his Democratic counterpart on the committee, that he had concluded that the limited time remaining before Washington was overwhelmed by election-year politics made it imperative that he and other members of the intelligence committee make their views public now.
Still, Mr. Roberts said that in introducing new legislation he remained willing to be flexible in the debates beginning early next month.
"This bill is not written in stone,'' he said. "It didn't come down from Mount Intelligence.''
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