Intelligence Probe Is Congress’ Job

On Nov. 4, 1791, an expedition of 2,000 U.S. soldiers dispatched by President Washington to subdue the defiant Indian Confederation was set upon by the Indians it was pursuing; almost half of the force was wiped out.

For this fledgling government, so recently established under the Constitution, the defeat was humiliating. The event, however, did give Congress its first opportunity to hold hearings on a national calamity, which it did in 1792 even in the face of Washington’s assertion of executive privilege--the first time such a claim had been made.

No doubts were raised about that committee’s ability to present to the American people a satisfactory picture of the events that led to the disaster.

Would that it were so in the present day, as the 107th Congress begins its investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks. The call for an independent commission--and the assumption that the interrogations by senior statesmen serving on corporate boards or navel-gazing in think tanks would be any more rigorous than those of the famously combative members of Congress--is essentially groundless.

The House-Senate Select Intelligence Committee’s slowness in getting its footing is not sufficient cause for some of the most respected and influential Democratic members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), to call for an independent commission to operate in parallel with the House-Senate panel.

Part of the difficulty for the panel in tracking lapses in intelligence that might have contributed to the slaughters in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania is a White House with a penchant for secrecy. This disposition to invoke confidentiality would hinder any effort to shed light on our unpreparedness.

The more immediate problem, however, lies with Congress and the joint House-Senate committee that enjoys both the legal authority and the budget to investigate the intelligence community’s performance. In a well-ordered political world, this committee ought to be conducting hearings, calling witnesses and, if necessary, issuing subpoenas to establish what, if anything, went wrong and what might be done to avert future disasters. Instead, the committee has had difficulty pulling free from the political polarization that seems to afflict much of what Congress does nowadays.

The difficulties that have hindered the committee are not, however, insurmountable. The sheer volume of material that the staff must wade through has contributed to the slippage, as has the fact that the committee must work with the federal government’s most secretive bureaucracies.

Still, the eagerness of Democrats to consign this committee to operate in the shadow of an independent commission consisting of 14 Beltway nabobs is an appalling abdication of responsibility. It betrays a fundamental lack of confidence in our elected representatives to conduct a proper inquiry and puts Democrats in the uncomfortable position of preferring an elite, nonelected panel over one that was chosen by the people.

No one would deny that political polarization in Congress has turned many important debates into grudge matches.

Both the Watergate hearings 30 years ago and the Iran-Contra hearings of 1986 were conducted in atmospheres that were highly partisan. Yet both yielded high-quality results.

Over the last 70 years, a major factor contributing to the low esteem in which Congress is held has been its eagerness to delegate its powers to presidents, bureaucrats and nonpartisan commissions. This tendency has been most pronounced when there are controversial issues that members would prefer to dodge.

Grasping the nettle of controversy on matters relating to Sept. 11 may be painful in the short run, but the institution would suffer more enduring scars from the self-inflicted wound of an independent commission to perform an inquest that is more properly conducted by Congress alone.