Bill would enact 9/11 panel's 'dream'

WASHINGTON - An influential bipartisan group of members of Congress, backed by leaders of the Sept. 11 commission, announced Tuesday that they were offering a bill in the House and Senate to enact virtually all of the commission's recommendations, including its call for creation of the post of a national intelligence director to oversee all of the government's spy agencies.

The legislation was embraced by the commission's chairman, Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. Kean described the legislation as "our dream" and said the bill, which would also restructure congressional oversight of intelligence issues, could "make the American people genuinely safer."

The Senate bill is sponsored by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. An identical bill is expected in the House.

Congressional leaders, under what some acknowledge is intense election-year pressure to act on the unanimous recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, have vowed to pass some sort of legislation before Congress goes into recess ahead of the general election in November.

The White House had no immediate comment on the specifics of the bill, although a spokeswoman, Erin Healy, noted that President Bush signed an executive order last month that had accomplished much of what the commission had recommended.

The bill, which would create a National Intelligence Authority and a "national intelligence director" to oversee the work of the CIA and the government's 14 other spy agencies, is one of several proposals being considered in Congress in response to the commission's final report.

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