Monday, December 5, 2005

By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The former vice chairman of the federally convened panel on the September 2001 al-Qaeda attacks today identified securing nuclear materials as the most important of a host of urgent improvements needed in post-Sept. 11 U.S. national-security efforts (see GSN, Sept. 15).

Lee Hamilton's comments came during the panel’s press conference this morning to release a last, highly critical report on progress made in implementing the commission's July 2004 recommendations.

“There is simply no higher priority on the national-security agenda” than securing nuclear material, said Hamilton, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former Democratic congressman.

“Preventing terrorists from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction” in general, he added, “must be elevated above all other problems of national security. … Our current efforts fall far short of what we need to do.”

Since issuing its official report last year, the 10-person bipartisan commission has continued to scrutinize the government response to its recommendations as the private 9/11 Public Discourse Project.

The commission gave the Bush administration mostly poor marks for its work so far to implement the recommendations, prompting presidential counselor Dan Bartlett to make the rounds of television morning shows today in defense of the White House's performance.

Bartlett said on NBC's “Today” that the administration is “acting on” 70 of the Sept. 11 commission's 74 recommendations.

“We're not resting on our laurels,” Bartlett said.

Other problems identified this morning by Hamilton and former commission Chairman Thomas Kean include the failure to implement risk-based federal funding for antiterrorism efforts around the country, instead of funding what Kean called “pork-barrel” projects, and a need for better information-sharing on terrorism among federal, state and local agencies.

They also cited lagging reforms at the FBI, where Hamilton said intelligence should be made the highest priority over the agency’s traditional law enforcement duties, and a lack in Congress of sufficiently strong committees to oversee new administration posts such as the national intelligence director and new government powers to investigate citizens.

Former panel member Jamie Gorelick said yesterday that the United States has failed to ensure that other nations are stepping up efforts to block the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical agents, the Associated Press reported.

On ABC's “Good Morning America,” Bartlett elaborated on the question of risk-based federal funding for antiterrorism efforts. He blamed Congress for the lack of progress, calling it “one of the frustrating things for this administration.”

“We want to base funding on threat,” Bartlett said. “Now Congress has not changed the way it's done business in all terms. They are funding things based on old models, pre-9/11 models, and we think it's important that Homeland Security dollars go to where the threats are, and that's something we'll be constantly pushing the Congress to change.”

Kean today blamed the Senate for the impasse, saying the House of Representatives has three times passed legislation to reform the Homeland Security funding formulas but that the measures have failed to make it through House-Senate conference committees.

“It is time for senators to exercise leadership,” the former Republican New Jersey governor said.

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