Kerry wants 9-11 commission kept alive
NORFOLK, Va. – The election-season fight over confronting terrorism escalated Tuesday, as John Kerry called for the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission to be extended by 18 months to help implement its proposed intelligence reforms and pressure the White House and Congress for fast action.
President Bush did not respond to Kerry’s suggestion, but congressional Democrats and Republicans quickened their pace of reacting to the 5-day-old report. A Senate committee scheduled a hearing for Friday rather than next week, and House Democrats announced plans to gather Aug. 10 – ordinarily the heart of summer vacation – to discuss the report. While some leaders of both parties cautioned against rushing pell-mell to implement recommendations, others said the public demands prompt response to recommendations intended to avert terrorist attacks.
The 567-page report, which tops best-seller lists and soon will come out in hardback, continues to reshape the political debate 14 weeks before the Nov. 2 election. Many Democrats believe Bush and congressional Republicans erred by initially seeming reluctant to embrace its recommendations. Within two days, Bush suggested he would enact some of the recommendations by executive order, but Kerry upped the ante again on Tuesday by calling for keeping the commission alive.
Two days before he accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, Kerry changed a campaign speech here to propose expanding the life and mandate of the commission, scheduled to dissolve Aug. 26. He said the commission should issue a report every six months detailing whether federal officials are moving swiftly enough to tighten homeland security, reorganize intelligence agencies and reshape global alliances to fight terrorists.
“We understand the threat,” Kerry told supporters. “We have a blueprint for action. We have the strength as a nation to do what must be done. The only thing we don’t have is time.” Kerry has previously endorsed the commission’s long list of proposed changes, including the creation of new department-level intelligence director and a broad reorganization of the terrorist-fighting apparatus. “I hope the president will now take the necessary steps,” he said.
Bush, who originally opposed creating the commission, has not embraced the full set of recommendations. Vacationing at his Texas ranch while Democrats convene in Boston, Bush met Monday by videoconference with his national security advisers to determine which recommendations could and should be made by executive order or similar means that do not require congressional approval. Administration officials said Tuesday that Attorney General John Ashcroft was postponing a planned trip to Mexico to work on the commission’s recommendations.
The White House did not offer any public reaction to Kerry’s proposal but privately an official indicated Bush would not accept the idea. In two appearances in southern California Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney played up the commission’s warnings about continued terrorist threats, and said this is a bad time to change the nation’s leadership. Cheney, speaking at a luncheon for a congressional candidate in Bakersfield, said that the terrorist enemy “in the words of the 9-11 commission report, issued just last week, is ‘sophisticated, patient, disciplined, and lethal.’ “