Posted on: Saturday, November 27, 2004

EDITORIAL
Intelligence reform bill needs time, work

It's understandable that Congress felt a need to rush intelligence reform legislation to the president's desk. But as the product of an election-year stampede, the result is not ready to become law.

There's a real dilemma here: Members of the 9/11 commission argue convincingly that the U.S. intelligence community is dysfunctional, that al-Qaida is definitely looking for a way to top 9/11, and thus there's no excuse for delay.

The commission did a laudable job of documenting the breakdown in coordination and information-sharing between intelligence agencies before the 2001 attacks, and the manner in which intelligence analysts seem to have fallen victim to "groupthink" in evaluating the threat presented by Saddam Hussein.

Instead of a patriotic, bipartisan effort to truly reform the way the nation gathers and evaluates intelligence, however, the effort quickly degenerated into a turf war among the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, with various committee chairs serving as their surrogates to protect vast budgetary powers.

Worse, unrelated changes in immigration law and police powers got twisted into this bill, issues that need further discussion quite apart from the intelligence context.

The White House says it supports the bill, but its support is halfhearted at best. Urgent as this legislation is, it's better to get it right than to get it done quickly. Let the election-year fever cool and let a new Congress tackle it next year.