posted on February 10, 2004 10:59:17 AM newThe heat is on for Kerry
Kerry Haunted by Votes to Cut Intel Funding
By Jeff Gannon
Talon News
February 10, 2004
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Democrats are hoping to make the controversy over intelligence failures a political liability for President Bush. But the appointment of a presidential commission to investigate intelligence failures may prove troublesome to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the likely Democratic nominee, when the panel begins its work.
Responding to a question from Talon News, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan suggested that the commission's investigation would be looking backward as well as forward.
"If you're doing a broad assessment of your intelligence capabilities, you want to make sure you look at where we've been and where we're headed," McClellan said.
The president's executive order that formed the commission stated that its purpose would be to "Assess whether the intelligence community is sufficiently authorized, organized, equipped, trained, and resourced." This poses a particularly difficult situation for the Democratic front-runner. His votes in the Senate have already begun to emerge.
As recently as 1997, Kerry questioned the size of the intelligence community.
"Now that [the Cold War] struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow," Kerry said.
In 1995, the Massachusetts Senator proposed a bill that would gut $1.5 billion from the overall intelligence budget by reducing funding $300 million for five years, beginning in 1996. No co-sponsors signed onto the bill and it never made it to the Senate floor for a vote.
The previous year, Kerry proposed a bill to slash $1 billion from the budgets of the National Foreign Intelligence Program and from Tactical Intelligence, and freezing their budgets. That bill was rejected.
The National Foreign Intelligence Program encompasses all programs, projects, and activities of the intelligence community. A major component of the program is the FBI's Nationwide Counter Terrorism Programs. The responsibilities of the FBI's field offices include foreign counterintelligence and counter terrorism within the United States.
The mission for special agents working in these programs is to detect and thwart the intelligence collection activities of foreign powers and their agents, and take aggressive measures to reduce the vulnerabilities of the United States to terrorism.
Tactical Intelligence provides critical time-sensitive information on foreign entities in support of operating forces on the ground as well as training personnel for intelligence duties.
In 1993, Kerry proposed $45 billion in science, intelligence, and defense spending cuts.
posted on February 10, 2004 09:04:12 PM new
Well... for all the good our intellegence agencies have been, perhaps all of thier funding should have been cut-- after all, what difference would it have made if we had these agencies or not ?
posted on February 10, 2004 09:16:16 PM new
Oh, Reamond, please do start a separate thread on the role of 'Intelligence Agencies' in America! They've got wild and sinister histories, all of them, and we could have one of the liveliest discussions ever about their value to our country...
posted on February 10, 2004 10:43:52 PM new
Bear, if I'd denounced the info, you'd've quacked about the author...
In deference to your august status as Papa Bear, I clicked on the CNN link you posted. I'm clear that you believe Kerry is "weak" on Defense, but that voting record of his cited in the article doesn't begin to tell the story.
In the first place, no one knows how much money goes towards funding the CIA every year, but the fact that Kerry (or anyone, for that matter) stood up and had the guts to propose cutting eight billion dollars from the CIA's budget suggests that it (the CIA) has a lot of fat to trim!
(Have you seen the video clip of the CIA's multi-million-dollar remote-controlled catfish? )
Harry S. Truman warned in the early 1950's that the CIA was already out of control; he couldn't stop it and no one else could (or has) either.
I've never been comfortable with a non-elected body running loose around the world creating/enforcing "policy" on my unaccounted-for dime.
Also, Bear, when a paid staffer (as Mehlman is) makes disparaging remarks against his employer's rival, you've gotta take it with a grain of salt. Mehlman is George Bush's campaign manager; what's he supposed to do? He'll twist every senate vote of Kerry's to make his employer look good. That's business; that's licking the hand that feeds you.
I understand that you support Bush for whatever reasons you do; please understand that I can't, and won't, despite the smile my image of you as "Papa Bear" brings to my face...
