Senate sends sweeping intelligence reform bill to Bush

WASHINGTON – By an overwhelming vote Wednesday, the Senate sent President Bush legislation… WASHINGTON – By an overwhelming vote Wednesday, the Senate sent President Bush legislation mandating a sweeping reorganization of the nation’s intelligence community, but Congress’ completion of that task sets the stage for a more bruising fight early next year over immigration policy.

The Senate voted 89-2 for the intelligence overhaul, clearing the measure for Bush’s signature, which isn’t expected before next week. Only Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., voted against the bill. The House of Representatives approved it 336-75 on Tuesday. It will establish a new national intelligence director with unprecedented authority to consolidate the government’s many spy agencies under one leader, with the goal of centralizing accountability.

Congress cleared the bill only after House Republican leaders bowed to demands from dissidents in their ranks that the price of passage must be a promise for Congress to take up ticklish immigration measures early next year. That brewing controversy will test once again President Bush’s ability to tame divergent views within his party.

The clash over immigration, which surfaced during the intelligence-bill deliberations, has far-reaching policy and political implications. The coming debate already is creating tension between Bush’s homeland-security goals and his promise to Mexican President Vicente Fox last month that he would seek legal status for millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally. It also could have an impact on Republican desires to build support among Latino voters, the nation’s fastest-growing minority group.

In passing the intelligence overhaul, Congress heeded a series of post-Sept. 11 investigations that portrayed the intelligence community as dysfunctional, ranging from failures to detect the al-Qaida threat to assurances that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The bill creates a new Cabinet-level officer to oversee the CIA and 14 other intelligence agencies currently housed in different departments of the executive branch – especially the Pentagon.

While the legislation may improve the sharing of intelligence among turf-conscious agencies, it will take time to determine whether it does anything to address the two biggest problems that have afflicted the Bush administration’s efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and against terrorist groups such as al-Qaida: a dearth of reliable intelligence on “hard targets” and faulty analysis.

“Probably the organizational structure is improved,” said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The key, Lugar said, is whether the restructuring leads to hiring more spies. “My own view is the purpose of this is to hire more spies … people who could infiltrate al-Qaida or other groups or whole countries, like North Korea.”

The intelligence bill will expand border patrols and add immigration officers. It also calls on states to set minimum standards for drivers’ licenses.

House and Senate negotiators removed controversial provisions that would have made it more difficult for foreigners to obtain asylum in the United States and would have restricted states’ powers to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, in an effort to prevent would-be terrorists from using them as identification.

House Republican leaders vowed to take up those measures first thing next year. But many Senate Republicans insisted Wednesday that any changes to asylum or license policy be part of a bigger overhaul of immigration law that gives illegal immigrants legal status.

“Any expert, including the president of the United States, believes that you have to have comprehensive immigration reform, and that includes a guest-worker program,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. “There are jobs that Americans will not do, we all know that.”

Bush’s relative success with Hispanic voters gives him a leg up on the debate; he boosted his share of the Hispanic vote in last month’s presidential election to at least 40 percent, up from 35 percent in 2000.

“There’s no question that there is a political gain for Republicans,” said Janet Murguia, the executive director of the National Council of La Raza, an immigrant advocacy group. “Leaders in the Senate like Senator McCain recognize there is an opportunity.”

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas conservative who supports Bush’s plan to provide legal status to some immigrants, said the president probably would face a divided party on the issue. “Immigration is a big fight. There’s more passion to it than a trade fight.”

Bush, Brownback said, has “got a great argument: `Look guys, this is a big voting bloc. We can’t turn them away. If you want to cede that community to the Democrats, then fight against this.’ Actually, that’s going to help something overall to pass, because both sides are going to be competing to some degree to say `We’re pro Hispanic.'”

The leading House Republican advocate of tightening immigration law, Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, said he would oppose any effort to link his proposals with broader changes that made it easier for immigrants to stay in the country.

“These are two separate issues on it, and it should be decoupled,” Sensenbrenner said. “If you mix up immigration with national security, you’re going to end up having both lose.”

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(c) 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.