OSINFO - Open Sources Information

* Intelligence Panel's Report Warns of Emerging Threats * By Tim Starks, CQ Staff

The House Intelligence panel is worried about emerging threats in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Mexico, and thinks spy agencies are behind in addressing cybersecurity, diversity and foreign language training, according to a committee report released Monday.

The Democratic-controlled committee approved a fiscal 2010 intelligence authorization bill (HR 2701) June 18 behind closed doors. The bill and committee report were made public later in accordance with the panel's procedures.

Republicans bristled in their section of the report at what they said was poor Obama administration consultation with Congress on intelligence matters such as the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay and the release of previously secret documents on Bush administration interrogation policies.

One of the major provisions of the authorization bill would eliminate the executive branch's right to decide when to brief the full intelligence panels as opposed to a more limited "Gang of Eight" top committee and congressional leaders, instead giving Congress the authority to establish rules for "Gang of Eight" briefings. That language was the subject of a major dispute between Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats argued it would tilt control over congressional oversight of intelligence from the executive branch to the legislative, and Republicans warned it was poorly drafted and could prompt the executive branch not to brief Congress at all.

The report also requires 41 new reports in the classified and unclassified sections of the bill, according to Republicans -- a burdensome number, the GOP members wrote. Some of the reports touch on hot-button issues.

On Afghanistan and Pakistan, the report says that "the committee notes with increasing concern that both the political and military situation in these countries continue to deteriorate."

The intelligence community needs to improve intelligence cooperation with Mexico and Latin America, the report states, given the region's importance to U.S. security.

And the report identifies Yemen and Somalia as emerging terrorist safe havens that require an increased focus from spy agencies.

According to the report, national security agencies have "come late" to the issue of cybersecurity. The panel warned that "funding for cybersecurity programs may need to be reduced or slowed until the future direction for cybersecurity is better defined."

The intelligence community, the report states, "lags behind" the rest of the federal government on increasing its diversity, a problem in a field where officers of differing ethnicities are a necessity. Language training is another necessity, but according to the report, the intelligence community miscounts and overestimates its number of employees with foreign language skills.

Another issue the panel's report addresses was what it called the increasing tendency of the military to categorize some intelligence-related operations as "operational preparation of the environment," a distinction allowing the Pentagon to "escape the scrutiny of the intelligence committees." The report threatened legislative action unless the Department of Defense reports its intelligence activities more fully.

On many of these fronts, according to the report, the Obama administration has taken steps to improve on the Bush administration's efforts.

But in at least one area, Republicans found fault with Obama's performance compared to his predecessor.

"While we recognize that changes in policy are inevitable in a new administration and that President Obama has also wisely continued many past policies," Republicans wrote, "we are deeply concerned that many decisions with significant implications for the intelligence community have been and continue to be implemented with absolutely no consultation with Congress, contrary to the established practice of the previous administration."

One of the bill's many reports would require that the director of national intelligence make public a summary of intelligence information about Guantanamo detainees who may have returned to the battlefield. Another would require the director to make public a summary of intelligence on whether Uighurs detained at Guantanamo pose a threat. Both were included under amendments offered by Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., the panel's top Republican.

Other reports to Congress would address intelligence community personnel levels and contractors; the nuclear weapons programs of Iran, North Korea and Syria; the ramping up of intelligence efforts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation; revoking the pensions of anyone who discloses classified information in an unauthorized fashion; retirement benefits for former employees of Air America, an airline once owned by the CIA; and a review of whether to declassify any CIA records on the potential health risks to which Gulf War veterans were exposed.

Under the bill, the director would be required to comply with any Government Accountability Office requests for information if the GAO was acting at the behest of the House or Senate intelligence panels. Republicans faulted that provision because they said Congress should conduct oversight of the intelligence community, not the GAO.