Rumsfeld Denies Trying to Block Intelligence Bill

Days after proposals to overhaul the nation’s intelligence community stalled in Congress, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld denied Tuesday that he privately lobbied to scuttle the legislation, as some lawmakers charged.

Instead, Rumsfeld said he has endorsed President Bush’s support for the intelligence reforms. A controversial provision is the creation of a national intelligence director to oversee the nation’s spying agencies. The Pentagon currently controls the budgets of nine of the 15 agencies.

The post of intelligence czar was a key recommendation of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission and is backed by Bush and lawmakers from both parties, who spent weeks wrangling over legislation that would establish the Cabinet-level post and wrest 80% of the nation’s $40-billion intelligence budget from the Pentagon.

However, efforts to reach agreement in Congress foundered over the weekend. Many lawmakers pronounced the bill dead after it was blocked by House Republicans.

Rumsfeld has warned publicly on several occasions against central control of intelligence. But he said Tuesday that these statements came before the White House embraced creation of a national intelligence director with control of the entire intelligence budget.

“The congressmen who are saying that I had blatant opposition to the bill [are] incorrect because the bill didn’t exist in the form that it currently is, and the president didn’t have a position on the bill at the times that I was briefing him,” Rumsfeld said during a Pentagon press briefing Tuesday.

“Needless to say, I’m a part of this administration. I support the president’s position,” Rumsfeld said.

However, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, refused to disavow a letter he wrote to lawmakers last month, endorsing a version of the legislation that differed from the bill endorsed by the White House. Myers argued in favor of preserving the Pentagon’s control over three intelligence agencies providing “combat support” -- the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office.

“My position on the particular issue is stated in my letter,” said Myers, who appeared with Rumsfeld at the briefing.

Although at odds with the White House position, Myers’ stance has been echoed by several top officers in the Pentagon who worry that taking control of “combat support” agencies from the Defense Department could disrupt the flow of timely intelligence to U.S. combat troops.

Rumsfeld said that he and White House officials were fully aware of Myers’ position and of his letter to Congress.

Although Bush has in recent days expressed his support for intelligence reform, Rumsfeld characterized the president’s position as “evolving,” indicating that the White House saw room for negotiations to revive the bill.

Asked about Rumsfeld’s statement, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the president’s “principles and objectives are unchanged with his goal to have a strong national intelligence director with full budget authority and preserving the chain of command.”

But she did not reject Rumsfeld’s characterization of Bush’s stance, either, suggesting that the White House was open to changes.

“There can be a variety of words that can be used to accomplish those objectives, and we’re working with various parties to get that done,” she said.

After House Republicans thwarted a compromise over the restructuring legislation last weekend, top lawmakers criticized civilian and military officials at the Pentagon for lobbying behind the scenes to kill the bill.

Some even suggested that the White House, despite its open support for intelligence reform, was privately trying to block it.

“Some of [the opposition] is from the Pentagon. Some of it, quite frankly, is from the White House, despite what the president has said,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said on Sunday.

Rumsfeld, during testimony before the Sept. 11 commission in March, was critical of the concept of a national intelligence director, which was new at the time.

“I’ve heard arguments in the wake of 9/11 that we need to consolidate all the intelligence agencies and put them under a single ‘intelligence czar.’ In my view, that would be doing the country a great disservice,” Rumsfeld told the commission.

“There are some activities, like intelligence, and research and development, where it’s a serious mistake to think that you’re advantaged by relying on a single, centralized source,” he said.

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Times staff writer Peter Wallsten in Crawford, Texas, contributed to this report.