Senators McCain and Lieberman Propose Legislation Addressing 9/11 Commission Recommendations
BROWN: Congress returned from its summer recess today to a long list of unfinished business with just weeks to complete it before breaking again for the November campaign, at the top of the to-do list the 9/11 Commission's recommendations for improving U.S. intelligence agencies, reporting the story for us tonight CNN's Joe Johns.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With time running out to act on the 9/11 Commission's recommendations before Congress breaks for the election, Republican Senator John McCain and Democrat Joe Lieberman, two key players on national defense and security issues, unveiled legislation that addresses all the commission's proposals.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission have been embraced by virtually one and all, clearly with some reservations because it's not a perfect document but overall the overwhelming majority of Americans expect that we should act on this blueprint.</s>SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: The commission's recommendations should be our starting point and I believe in many cases, probably most, they should be our ending point as well.</s>JOHNS: The bill would create a new National Intelligence Director and National Counterterrorism Center. It would strip power from the Pentagon over 80 percent of the nation's intelligence budget, improve information sharing throughout the intelligence community, set up a terrorism screening network at U.S. borders and ensure the protection of civil liberties. The bill won the endorsement of the 9/11 Commission co-chairs.</s>TOM KEAN, 9/11 COMMISSION CHAIR: This is a dream.</s>JOHNS: The proposal has bipartisan support but it also faces considerable resistance.</s>REP. ROY BLUNT (R), MISSOURI: The idea that we would just carte blanche accept everything the commission came up with I personally think would be a big mistake.</s>JOHNS: But a warning from the bill's backers that the political price for inaction could be severe.</s>SEN EVAN BAYH (D), INDIANA: For those who would seek to delay, for those who would seek to temporize, the burden will be very heavy.</s>JOHNS (on camera): The president is meeting Wednesday morning with top congressional leaders on how to proceed with the commission's recommendations. A senior Republican aide says Mr. Bush is expected to outline which proposals he wants Congress to pass and how quickly. Joe Johns, CNN, Capitol Hill.</s>BROWN: Senator Bob Graham, the Democrat from Florida, is serving his third and final term in Washington. He spent a decade on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, co-chair of the Joint House/Senate inquiry into the failures of U.S. intelligence prior to 9/11 and his new book is "Intelligence Matters," and we're pleased to see him tonight. Welcome.</s>SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D), FLORIDA: Thank you, Aaron.</s>BROWN: Let's see how much ground we can cover quickly. Congress needs to reform its own oversight over intelligence?</s>GRAHAM: Yes, particularly to streamline it. Today there are a dozen or more committees in the Senate that have some aspect of oversight of the intelligence community. That's too cumbersome. It takes too much time from the executive agencies in order to service all those committees.</s>BROWN: Is Congress likely to reform itself?</s>GRAHAM: I think so. I think that they will reform themselves in terms of focusing more responsibility on the intelligence committees, strengthening the intelligence committees' control over the appropriations for the whole intelligence community and making an investment in improving the training and expertise of members of the congressional intelligence committees.</s>BROWN: OK. A couple things from the book, you write: "Two hijackers had a support network in the United States, including agents of the Saudi government." What does that mean that the Saudi government knew or that the Saudi government, like Pakistan, is something less than pure?</s>GRAHAM: Well, probably some of both but I think the Saudi government was aware of the fact that they had set up an infrastructure. They had been requested through that infrastructure to support at least two of the terrorists. We laid this out in some detail in 27 pages of the joint inquiry report, all of which has been censured by the president. For that reason, I think that action verges on being a cover-up.</s>BROWN: Did they, did the Saudi government, you say they knew about these two terrorists, did they know what they were up to?</s>GRAHAM: I don't know if they knew what their specific goal was but they had been requested through their network, particularly in San Diego, to provide them assistance and they did.</s>BROWN: Why is the American government protecting the Saudi government?</s>GRAHAM: Well, I don't know. I think some of the reasons could be that there's been a long time close relationship between the Bush family and the royal family in Saudi Arabia. We've had a special relationship with Saudi Arabia since the end of World War II. We provide them security. They provide us oil but at this point in our nation's history...</s>BROWN: There's 3,000 dead Americans.</s>GRAHAM: I know and the fact that we are covering up the role of this so-called ally in facilitating that horrendous slaughter is absolutely stunning and unacceptable.</s>BROWN: On Iraq, you saw the prewar intelligence, do you believe there were WMDs there?</s>GRAHAM: I was suspicious but I was prepared to accept the statements of the president of the United States that he knew that there were weapons of mass destruction there but that wasn't -- to me that wasn't the basic issue. The basic issue is there are many evils in the Middle East. Did we pick out the right one to go to war with? I think the answer is no. We should have stayed on task in Afghanistan and finished the war against al Qaeda.</s>BROWN: OK. But if tomorrow Osama bin Laden is caught or dead or whatever and his top ten guys are caught and dead or whatever does it actually change anything?</s>GRAHAM: It's much less significant today, Aaron, than it would have been even two years ago. Al Qaeda was like a blob of mercury. We've slammed our fist on it. It's broken up now into dozens of small droplets, so the central control is much less significant than it was originally and yet we have not laid out a battle plan to go after all those droplets.</s>BROWN: Good to see you. The book is called "Intelligence Matters," Senator Bob Graham retiring but not retiring I suspect. Thank you.</s>GRAHAM: I've got a few other things to do.</s>BROWN: Nice to see you sir, thank you.</s>GRAHAM: Good, thank you.</s>BROWN: Always welcome here. Coming up on the program, now that the damage and the destruction has been done the cost in dollars and dreams in rebuilding Florida. We'll take you down there. Also, is Iran influencing the war in Iraq? We'll take a break first. Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.