The Hindu : International : `U.S. vulnerable to terrorist attack'

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Sunday, Aug 01, 2004

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International

`U.S. vulnerable to terrorist attack'

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, JULY 31. Stressing that the status quo is not an option, the Chairman and Co-Chair of the National Commission that looked into the attacks of September 11, 2001, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, urged lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Friday to speed up the process of revamping the intelligence machinery.

The warning was that bureaucratic wrangling is leaving America vulnerable to another terror attack.

"We have concluded that the intelligence community is not going to get its job done unless someone really is in charge," Mr. Hamilton told members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

"That is just not the case now and we have paid the price," he said. The top members of the Commission were at a rare hearing in the Senate which has long been known for its rather quiet summer recess; and various committees of the House and the Senate have scheduled more hearings — a total of perhaps 15 in all — in an effort to get to the bottom of all of the recommendations of the Federal panel.

Focus on two points

The bipartisan panel had some forty recommendations but on Capitol Hill yesterday the immediate focus was on two — a new national counter-terrorism centre and the proposal for a new Cabinet level Director of National Intelligence.

"We are going to get this job done and get it done with unprecedented thoughtfulness and speed," remarked the ranking Democrat in the Senate panel Joseph Lieberman.

The Chair of the Senate Committee, Susan Collins, called on colleagues to be `bold' but not `reckless' in going after what would be a "fundamental overhaul" of the current intelligence system and existing mindsets.

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