Terry Everett, December 16, 2002

Last week, the joint House-Senate panel probing the intelligence breakdown leading up to the tragic events of September 11, 2001 released its final report to the public. While the general conclusion of the panel's findings is the same as was highlighted in the preliminary reports which were released earlier this year, the details of the intelligence failures are more specific in the final report and leave little doubt that our intelligence community was not doing its job.

For almost a full year, members of the House-Senate intelligence panel investigating 9/11 have interviewed hundreds of witnesses and poured over literally tens of thousands of documents, many of which remain classified. As a member of this select investigatory panel, I can assure you that we left no stone unturned in our search for what the government knew leading up to 9/11. Our probe identified systemic weakness in America's intelligence gathering and processing methods that, if not addressed, will leave our nation vulnerable to more such attacks.

In short, America is not prepared to deal with the new kind of threat posed by terrorists like Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. Our intelligence community, while extensive, is spread out over too many departments and lacks necessary coordination to quickly identify emerging threats and implement adequate counter action. This was painfully evident in the years leading up to 9/11 as the pieces of the 9/11 puzzle were presented to our intelligence agencies, yet no one put them together.

The problems encountered by the intelligence community are wide-ranging and persist to this day. From a lack of intelligence sharing and coordination, to a shortage of linguists to translate material, to inadequate resources and funding, America's intelligence community was and remains handicapped. While steps are now being taken by the Bush Administration with the support of Congress to shore up and streamline our intelligence gathering efforts, more can and must be done to protect Americans from the continued threat of terrorism.

One of the key recommendations of our panel was that the President create a new cabinet level post of Director of National Intelligence. The new Director would be subject to Senate approval. In so doing, intelligence gathering and sharing will be given the highest priority in our government, something unfortunately which has not been the case heretofore. The new Director would have full power over the entire U.S. intelligence community and serve as the President's point man for intelligence.

In addition to other ongoing intelligence community reforms, our panel placed an emphasis on the new Homeland Security Department's mission of coordinating domestic terrorism intelligence and analysis. We strongly encourage the implementation of this goal as well as the timely sharing of terror threat information with all government agencies and emergency responders.

Congressman Terry Everett represents the 2nd Congressional District of Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives.