Attack exposes flaws, Some House Armed Services Committee members have long been concerned about the country's intelligence operations and whether Congress should exert more authority in that area, says U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, senior committee member.
Abercrombie says
He feels Congress did not place
emphasis on issues of terrorismBy Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com"I'm afraid some of those fears, which were somewhat abstract and sort of intellection ... are no longer in that category," he said yesterday after terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
He said he has felt for a long time that emphasis on national missile defense, "while commendable in a theoretical sense, was misplaced in terms of the realities or potential realities ... under what I felt were more likely circumstances.
"It's not something as apocalyptic as flying planes into buildings, but that was always a possibility," Abercrombie (D, Honolulu) said, noting little planes have landed at the White House and even crashed into it.
"I even wrote a novel somewhat out of frustration," he said, referring to his book, "Blood of Patriots," a 1996 suspense novel about terrorism in the nation's capital.
"It's difficult for people to believe the United States is vulnerable to anything," Abercrombie said, "even after Pearl Harbor."
He and other Armed Services Committee members, both Republicans and Democrats, have questioned defense priorities.
Many have emphasized the need to upgrade the nation's communications capacity, to get a firmer grip on intelligence issues and perhaps reduce emphasis on massive hardware procurement, he said.
"It is a lot easier to buy hardware than it is to gain good intelligence. I think there has been a certain tendency to think we could go on and on ignoring a lot of these places in the world where severe political confrontation has been allowed to fester."
Abercrombie said he told his staff it's important now to think clearly and not act precipitously. He said his staff was in his apartment, about five minutes from the Capitol, when TV showed the World Trade Center towers collapsing yesterday.
One of his interns, a young man on the job the first day, "was sitting on my couch with tears in his eyes," he said.
"My military aide, former assistant to the secretary of the navy, was weeping. She was watching TV when the plane went into the Pentagon."
One of the ironies, Abercrombie pointed out, is the defense bill is up for a vote on the floor, probably by the end of the week. He was in a rules committee meeting Monday talking about an amendment he hopes to submit, he said.
"By the time we get into conference, we will have enough time to think whether we should reorder priorities.
"It is going to be very difficult to say national missile defense should take priority over redirection of emphasis with respect to terrorism and massive destruction."
But he emphasized the importance of the Pacific Missile Range at Barking Sands, Kauai, and experiments to handle short-range missiles and others that can have weapons of mass destruction, "if it isn't something like a car bomb or hijacked plane.
"We never want to discount the element of the human factor, as opposed to sophisticated equipment and all that kind of thing. That, I think, has been a little bit lost in the discussion at this point," Abercrombie added.
