Lessons (Not) Learned II

Even though Bush's tepid embrace of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations for structural changes to our intelligence services seems to have been a sham. While he was out saying publicly that he'd sort of like to maybe eventually get around to implementing those changes, the members of the administration who would really do the work to get those changes made were not-so-quietly scuttling the whole works.

From this morning's Wall Street Journal (subscription):

After the 9/11 Commission recommended major restructuring of U.S. intelligence-gathering, President Bush publicly embraced the plan's outlines. It turns out that his top advisers and key members of Congress haven't.

A month after the 9/11 Commission issued its report, the push for overhaul is being undercut, raising serious doubts about whether intelligence-gathering will change in more than a cosmetic way despite intense lobbying by commission members.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spent much of his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday explaining that Congress should be cautious about far-reaching changes to the current intelligence system. He and other top administration officials appear especially uncomfortable with the commission's main recommendation: creating the position of a national intelligence director with budget and personnel authority over Pentagon intelligence agencies that report largely to Mr. Rumsfeld.

"We need to remember that we are considering these important matters while we are waging a war. If we move unwisely and get it wrong, the penalty would be great," Mr. Rumsfeld warned the panel.

But it isn't just at the Pentagon that the 9/11 Commission's plan is running into determined opposition. Mr. Rumsfeld's call for restraint was echoed yesterday by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia, a central figure in the overhaul debate. His committee has long been a fierce defender of the Pentagon's intelligence role and is loath to see that role curtailed. Mr. Warner, openly dubious about a national intelligence director, called for Congress to pass a small package of incremental changes instead.

"It's important we try to do what we can," Mr. Warner said. "But I'm of the opinion that we should not try to do the whole 9/11 [recommendations] in a single stroke."

Note how Rummy, Warner and the WSJ all frame the discussion in terms of "restraint" rather than facing up to the fact that they are actively working to ensure that these changes, which would move the power over intelligence decisions from the Pentagon; something the administration and its neocon power brokers have fought so hard to establish.

This is a blatant attempt by BushCo. to hide its true intentions with regard to the major recommendations of the 9/11 commission.