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Several senators say that the lack of information on the war on terrorism is keeping them from doing their jobs.
By PAUL DE LA GARZA, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 6, 2002
WASHINGTON -- With a battle raging in eastern Afghanistan and President Bush threatening to expand the fighting to other parts of the world, members of Congress are increasingly upset by what they see as an obsession with secrecy at the White House.
The criticism escalated Tuesday when several senators said that the lack of information they were getting about the war on terrorism was keeping them from doing their jobs.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said senators were not demanding information about military operations.
"But," he added, "we do have to have basic knowledge to make decisions."
Administration officials, Conrad said, "just seem they don't want to let anything out for fear that it will be controversial and cause them problems."
Some senators -- such as Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Trent Lott, R-Miss. -- defended the administration's communication. But Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said her colleagues' questions about strategy and long-term goals are legitimate.
"We are in a war," she said. "We have a united government as we should in such a time. But that doesn't mean that the Congress, which has to serve as a check and a balance, should be kept out of the loop when it comes to information that it needs to fulfill its constitutional functions."
Since Sept. 11, senators have seemed divided between their allegiance to President Bush as commander-in-chief and their desire to be more closely consulted when the lives of military men and women are in jeopardy.
Last week, in a sign that life was returning to normal in the nation's capital, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., uttered his first public criticism of the president's handling of the war by complaining about the expansion of military aims "without at least a clear direction."
Republicans pounced on Daschle as unpatriotic. But on Tuesday, with large numbers of U.S. ground forces engaged in fighting in Afghanistan for the first time, even some Republican senators said the White House must do a better job of keeping members of Congress informed about its war plans.
"Congress has a right to ask questions and should ask questions," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a prisoner-of-war during Vietnam.
McCain suggested "some kind of modus operandi" between Congress and the White House to share information without jeopardizing military operations.
"Every conflict there's a tug of war between the Congress and the administration as to who controls the flow of information and how, and it was exacerbated by the Vietnam War obviously, and we've never completely gotten over that," McCain said.
Monday night, in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said the administration also had to do a better job of defining victory.
"As an elected official, I am sensitive to the need for a clear definition of victory in the war on terrorism that the American people understand and support," Lugar said.
"We have not yet found that definition," he added. "We must have it if we are going to sustain the support of the American people, as well as that of our allies overseas."
In recent days, critics in Congress have charged the White House with failing to inform them about several key developments in the war.
For example, Daschle said the White House never told him about the so-called "shadow government" the president established in the hours after the Sept. 11 attacks to keep the federal government operating in case Washington is destroyed.
He also said that administration officials never told him about plans to expand the war on terrorism into Yemen and the Philippines.
Clinton, meanwhile, complained about "this pattern of refusing to share information with the Congress."
She cited the refusal by the White House to allow Tom Ridge, director of homeland security, to testify before a Senate committee about President Bush's call for $38-billion in domestic security programs.
She also was upset that New York officials were never told about a tip that terrorists planned to plant a nuclear device in New York.
Senate Minority Leader Lott, however, dismissed the complaints by his colleagues.
Lott insisted that in his 34 years in Congress, "there's never been an administration that has made a greater effort to keep members informed."
He noted that the administration's top officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and the president, regularly briefed members of Congress.
He said that as elections approached, Democrats were desperate to make an issue of nothing because the leadership in the Senate had failed with its legislative agenda. With the economy bouncing back, he said, they have nothing negative to pin on the White House.
"When you can't talk about substance, you talk about process and the need for more information," Lott said. "Now any senator that needs more information should request it from the administration, or if they have a problem, let me know.
"Quite frankly," Lott said, "I think we're about to choke on information, and if that's all they've got to talk about, they're in deep trouble."
Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he believed that as a whole, the White House is doing a good job of keeping members of Congress informed.
The Florida Democrat said that as the intelligence chairman, he himself had kept Daschle apprised of the latest developments in the war.
Graham, however, said he had not been told about the shadow government.
"I would say we've had, every other week, a detailed briefing on the war in Afghanistan and its broad implications," primarily by CIA and FBI officials, Graham said. "I would say we have been, we at the Intelligence Committee, have been kept well-advised."
The senator added, "I think one of the things about this war is that it is a war in which there is a degree of ignorance on all sides. The fact that information is not provided is not necessarily that it is being withheld.
"In some instances, it is a fact that no one has good information. The first question typically asked is, "Where is bin Laden,' " he said, referring to the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden.
"I don't think anyone particularly knows."
Conrad, meanwhile, said it is important for America's enemies to understand that Congress supports the war.
"At the same time, we have a need for basic information. And we need to ask questions," he said.
"What is the plan? What do they see as what are the targets? How long is this going to last, from their perspective, from what they're seeing. ... You know, are they really planning on being at war for a decade?"