Ugly Politics’ Good Result

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, may have done the right thing when he quashed the latest version of the intelligence reform bill last weekend. Yet the process was marked by such overwhelming political cynicism from Republican leaders, including the president, that it leaves a sour taste.

Intelligence reform played a significant role in the presidential campaign, when both President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry vowed to quickly implement the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. There’s no knowing whether Kerry was sincere, but it’s now pretty clear that Bush wasn’t. The president could have simply ordered House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert to put the bill up for a vote. It had enough Democratic support to pass easily.

This leaves two possibilities: Either Bush didn’t want to give Democrats credit for passing the bill or he doesn’t really want intelligence reform, at least not in the form he publicly claims to support.

As in his dealing with the proposal for the Homeland Security Department, which has become a bureaucratic fiasco, Bush embraced the notion of intelligence reform after initially opposing it. In both cases, he would have been better off sticking to his first instincts rather than caving in to what seemed politically expedient.

Further muddying the waters was Tuesday’s news conference by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld denied that he lobbied behind the scenes to scuttle the bill, as some lawmakers have charged. Myers couldn’t even pretend to support the legislation, particularly after sending a letter last month urging lawmakers not to remove power over “combat support” intelligence agencies from the Pentagon. It’s the ultimate mixed signal.

Gothic politics may have killed the bill, but that doesn’t mean killing it was the wrong thing to do. The real problem, the one that matters, is that the centralization it called for would hinder intelligence efforts.

Lawmakers should return to the issue after a presidential commission reports next year on its investigation of the CIA and other agencies. The bipartisan panel has intelligence experts with decades of experience in and out of government who will offer concrete proposals for improving analysis, covert operations and language skills.

The infighting among Republicans may have been ugly, but it torpedoed a bill that would probably have made the nation less, not more, secure from terrorism.