Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that the White House knew of a Pentagon letter that criticized key aspects of a now-stalled bill to revamp the nation's intelligence community. House Republicans who blocked the legislation said the comments bolster their claim that the administration's support of the measure has been tepid at best, and that prospects for a breakthrough are not strong.
Asked by reporters if he was aware last month that Gen. Richard B. Myers was planning to send lawmakers a letter endorsing House GOP opposition to major points in the Senate version of the bill, Rumsfeld replied: "Not only was I, but the White House was. I mean, we had discussed this matter internally."
The points that Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had criticized remain in the House-Senate compromise that President Bush says he supports. Myers said yesterday his views have not changed.
Rumsfeld said he stands with Bush in calling for the bill's passage. But his comments about Myers's letter -- which the White House has never disavowed -- appeared to undermine administration claims that Bush and Vice President Cheney have fought for passage of the measure, which would create a director of national intelligence.
Several House Republicans said yesterday they were not defying Bush on Saturday when they rejected the compromise that the president and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) had endorsed. Rather, they said, they were insisting on stronger protections for the Pentagon and for immigration-control efforts in the face of what many view as mixed signals from the administration.
"We were not saying, 'The hell with the president,' but 'On substance, we think we can do better,' " said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), describing Saturday's closed-door showdown between Hastert and his caucus. Sentiment against the bill was overwhelming, he said.
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), who supports the compromise bill, said: "The White House is in real danger of neutering itself" by allowing the Pentagon to undermine the president's officially stated policy.
For weeks, senior House Republicans have cited Myers's Oct. 21 letter in arguing that the legislation would harm the Pentagon's ability to control important intelligence-gathering satellites. The letter said the Pentagon, not the proposed director of national intelligence, should control the budgets of three intelligence-gathering operations housed in the Defense Department.
The House-Senate compromise that emerged early Saturday would have given much of the budget control to the new director.
Those speaking against the bill included Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.). Bush had called Sensenbrenner on Friday, while House-Senate negotiations continued, urging him to drop his insistence on tougher regulations on issuing driver's licenses to immigrants, which the Senate opposed.
"Out of deference" to the president, Sensenbrenner agreed, said his spokesman, Jeff Lungren. But the chairman insisted that some other immigration-control items be put back in, "and the president agreed," Lungren said. When Senate negotiators rejected those items, he said, Sensenbrenner opposed the conference report.
The White House yesterday released memos from Bush to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and CIA Director Porter J. Goss to implement portions of the Sept. 11, 2001, commission's report that could be achieved by executive action. Aides said all the measures were ones Bush had previously embraced.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan told reporters in Crawford, Tex., where Bush is spending Thanksgiving, that the bill stalled in Congress is something the president "wants to get done" and that "I would say the president has made very clear that he believes the Congress should act on the intelligence bill."
Privately, however, some White House officials continue to express a lack of enthusiasm for the bill. A senior administration official said officials were "attempting to assess the validity of reviving it sooner rather than later."
A Republican official who has discussed the matter in detail with top West Wing officials, but declined to be further identified, said Bush and his aides "had to look like they're pushing the bill" but in fact would cry no tears for its demise. "No one in this administration wants to be held hostage to an external power like the 9/11 commission or the so-called 9/11 families," who support the House-Senate compromise, the official said.
A White House official replied that Bush's staff "has worked this issue endlessly" and said that Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. "has spent more time on this than anything."
Rumsfeld said yesterday: "The president's position is evolving as the negotiation evolves."
Allen reported from Crawford, Tex.
