Senators Hold First Hearing on Sept. 11 Commission Recommendations

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http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBHZNEIAXD.html

Senators Hold First Hearing on Sept. 11 Commission Recommendations
By Katherine Pfleger Shrader
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Leaders of the Sept. 11 commission urged senators Friday to embrace its politically sensitive proposals for massive changes to the nation's intelligence structure, warning that bureaucratic wrangling leaves America dangerously vulnerable to another terrorist attack.
"We have concluded the intelligence community is not going to get its job done unless somebody really is in charge," said Lee Hamilton, the Democratic vice chairman on the commission. "That is just not the case now, and we have paid the price."

Friday's unusual hearing - coming during summer recess on Capitol Hill - focused on two of the most complex proposals: the creation of a new national counterterrorism center and a new national intelligence director with expanded powers over the 15-agency intelligence community.

Thomas Kean, the Republican chairman of the commission, described a litany of failures by the intelligence community in the months preceding the 2001 terror attacks against New York and Washington. He attributed failures to a profound lack of coordination across intelligence agencies.

"No one was the quarterback, no one was calling the plays," said Kean. He said that in the proposed reorganization, "each agency needs to give up some of their existing turf and some of their authority." <snip>