CQ's Tim Starks: White House threatens to veto House intel authorization bill, that has already been stripped of amendments requiring the CIA to abide by US military regulations restricting harsh interrogations:

Foiling House Democrats’ ambition to produce an intelligence authorization bill that President Bush would sign, the White House issued a veto threat Wednesday against the measure headed for floor action.

The statement of administration policy targeted various accountability and reporting provisions that the White House said represented overzealous congressional interference in the workings of the intelligence community.
The House was likely to pass the fiscal 2009 measure (HR 5959) later Wednesday, despite the threat.

The administration criticized portions of the bill that would demand additional information from the administration, create a statutory inspector general for the intelligence community and restrict the Central Intelligence Agency from using contractors to conduct interrogations — even though the administration could waive the latter provision.

The policy statement said the administration opposed provisions “that conflict with the effective conduct of intelligence activities, the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and arrangements that for decades have balanced congressional oversight responsibility with the need to restrict access to intelligence information to safeguard sources and methods used to acquire that information.”

The White House said the bill’s requirement for a Senate-confirmed inspector general contradicted recommendations of the independent Sept. 11 commission that intelligence officials assume their posts without delay. ...

After hearing Jane Mayer speak yesterday, one wonders if it was David Addington who pushed the White House to demand essentially total capitulation by Congressional intelligence oversight committees in their intel authorization bill. And whether, next up, he'll demand Congressional intelligence committee members wear "Kick Me" t-shirts under their suits. "Since interrogation stuff is still in the Senate bill, and that'll make it hard for that bill even to get to the floor, it may not ever get to a veto, because the bill may never get to the president at all," Starks adds.

And while some on the committees are worried about whether to permit the CIA to conduct torture or not, former House intel committee chairman Peter Hoekstra added his own urgent amendment to the draft bill. Starks:

Another amendment, offered by Michigan’s Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, would prevent funds from being used to produce documents that discourage the use of terms such as “Islamic terrorists.”

Some intelligence officials have argued the terms could reinforce perceptions among Muslims that the United States takes issue with their religion.

But Hoekstra argues that the guidelines amount to censorship of accurate terms. A similar amendment was defeated when the Intelligence panel approved the bill on May 1.

Hoekstra also recently complained that the intelligence community did an assessment of the seemingly ideologically incorrect topic of the potential national security implications of global climate change.

Posted by Laura at July 16, 2008 12:28 PM