THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF THE MADISON TIMES WEEKLY NEWSPAPER

Compiled By Heidi M. Pascual

• 9/11 probers call for full intelligence overhaul

WASHINGTON (IPS/GIN) — Capping 18 months of work, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission recently released its 567-page report, and challenged President George W. Bush and Congress to urgently make sweeping changes to the structure of the U.S. intelligence community.

The report's central recommendations called for the creation of a "National Counter-terrorism Center" (NCTC) that would feature joint operational planning and intelligence-sharing across different government agencies and, more controversially, the position of a National Intelligence Director (NID) who would oversee the 15 different agencies that make up Washington's vast intelligence apparatus.

Such a post, which would require confirmation by the U.S. Senate and be given space in the White House, is certain to be strongly resisted by the Pentagon, which currently controls about 80 percent of the estimated 40-billion-dollar U.S. intelligence budget and focuses most of those resources on spying on foreign militaries rather than on suspected terrorist groups.

"Our reform recommendations are urgent," said former Illinois Gov. James Thompson, one of the Republican members of the 10-person body, whose full name is the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

"They need to be enacted, and enacted speedily, because if something bad happens while these recommendations are sitting there, the American people will quickly fix political responsibility for failure, and that responsibility may last for generations," he warned.

Bush praised the group for doing "a really good job," promising to study their "very solid, sound recommendations." His Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry, issued a statement endorsing its conclusions and calling for their urgent implementation.

The independent commission, whose creation and mandate were initially resisted by the Bush administration, reviewed tens of thousands of documents and heard testimony from some 1,200 witnesses, including Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — who insisted, however, on appearing jointly and behind closed doors — as well as senior members of the Bush government and that of his predecessor Bill Clinton.

The main findings of the long-awaited report came as little surprise, as much of it has leaked out since the commission issued an initial staff report last month.

The commission said it found no evidence of an Iraqi connection to the 9/11 attacks, nor any evidence of any "collaborative operational relationship" between the al Qaeda terrorist group and the government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. An alleged link between Hussein and al Qaeda was one of the Bush administration's most-repeated arguments to justify invading Iraq in March 2003.

Similarly, the commission found no evidence of a role by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran with respect to the 9/11 attacks, although it did find evidence that Iran may have had an operational relationship with al Qaeda at one time — an allegation that has already provoked renewed tensions between Washington and Tehran.

But the main thrust of the report was on how the intelligence community failed to "connect the dots" about the threat posed by al Qaeda, and specifically the hijackings of the jetliners used for suicide attacks on New York and the Pentagon on Sep. 11, 2001, a plan that appears to have been hatched as early as 1998, the report said.

"Ninety percent of the facts that we knew about Osama bin Laden we knew in 1998," said former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey, another commissioner. "But the full story wasn't delivered until after 9/11 because it was held in classified compartmentalized sections of the government."  

A survey by the Pew Center for People and the Press released this week found that over 60 percent of the public had confidence in the commission's work, compared to only 24 percent who did not — a level of support that commission members clearly hope will be used to press Congress and the administration on the reforms. — Jim Lobe  

• Millions write to defend forest protection law

WASHINGTON (IPS/GIN) — Over 2.5 million public comments in support of the Roadless Rule that protects wild forests have been sent to the Bush administration that is reviving its effort to relax this important environmental protection.

Politicians and environmental groups are angered by what they say is the Bush administration's attempts to undermine the rule that protects wild forests in the lower 48 states and Alaska from logging, road building, and other forms of development. The administration is acting in the financial interests of the logging industry, at the expense of national forests, by trying to repeal the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, said Senator Maria Cantwell and House Representatives Jay Inslee, Rosa DeLauro, Maurice Hinchey, and Earl Blumenauer at a recent Capitol Hill press conference.

The rule, enacted in January 2001 following more than two decades of debate and three years of official review and public participation, puts nearly 60 million acres off limits to development.

"Six hundred meetings were held to discuss this," Inslee said in an interview. "Ninety-six-percent of the people at these meetings supported it. Now President Bush wants to tear it up."

Immediately upon taking office in January 2001, President George W. Bush suspended the Roadless Rule. But in May 2001, under pressure from Congress and the public, his administration promised to uphold the rule with only minor changes.

Despite this promise, the administration announced sweeping changes to the rule in June 2003, and failed to defend it against a challenge in Idaho Federal District Court by timber company Boise Cascade, a Kootenai native Indian tribe, and the State of Idaho.

The administration's defense of the policy was so poor that the presiding judge cited the government's own arguments in his ruling to halt putting the rule into place by imposing a preliminary injunction.

In the 2004 election cycle in advance of November's presidential election, the Bush campaign has received $512,271 dollars from forestry and forest-product related industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan research group that tracks campaign contributions.

"By gutting this national policy objective, the Bush administration has broken its promise to uphold the rule,” Hinchey said.  “And in handing over management of our last remaining roadless national forests to state and local special interests to log, mine, and drill, the Bush administration has betrayed its responsibility to manage these forests in the national interest."

The changes to the Roadless Rule are subject to a 60-day comment period, ending Sept. 15, before the rule changes could be implemented through an executive decision. The administration has already received over 2.5 million public comments in support of the Roadless Rule but appears to have chosen to ignore them, according to USPIRG. — Eli Clifton  

END OF NATIONAL NEWS