"Members include Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger,
FRANK CARLUCCI, Brent Scowcroft, and Richard V. Allen ...
"[Except for one], all have worked in the administrations of Republican
presidents Reagan and Bush ..."
GOP Enlists Security Advisers
By TOM RAUM
.c The Associated Press
WASHNGTON (AP) - Republican congressional leaders announced Thursday the
formation of an election-year advisory panel of outspoken Clinton
administration critics to study breaches of nuclear secrets and other
national security issues.
The panel will be chaired by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott,
R-Miss.
``We'll ask the members of this group to review the administration's record
of failure in safeguarding our nation's most important secrets,'' Lott told a
news conference.
The panel reads like a who's who of prominent administration detractors on
defense and foreign policy issues - and several on the list have advised
Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
Members include former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George
Shultz, former defense secretaries Richard Cheney, James Schlesinger, Caspar
Weinberger and Frank Carlucci, former CIA Director James Woolsey, former
national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Richard V. Allen and former
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell.
``We in the leadership are extremely fortunate to be able to tap the
knowledge and expertise of these seasoned national security advisers,''
Hastert said in a statement.
Woolsey is the only one on the list to have worked in the Clinton
administration, as CIA director early in Clinton's term from 1993-95. But
since then, he has been a frequent critic of the administration's national
security policy.
The others all worked in the administrations of Republican presidents Ford,
Reagan and Bush - although Schlesinger also did a short stint as Democratic
President Jimmy Carter's energy secretary.
Lott said the panel was not an attempt to bypass the committee system in the
House and the Senate, ``but the expertise that can be brought to the speaker
and me in critical areas from this group could be very helpful.''
He said the group would look into the recent disappearance of computer disks
at the Los Alamos nuclear lab - and their mysterious reappearance - and would
make recommendations on further tightening security.
The group will also provide advice on ``national missile defense, deployment
and the deployment decision, relations with China, Russia, Iraq (and) what is
the true situation in North Korea,'' Lott said.
``As you know, we've had security lapses at the State Department, we've had
them with FBI files showing up on White House kitchen tables, we had the
problem of former CIA Director John Deutch. Security is not getting the
attention it should have been getting,'' Lott added.
Lott also used his news conference to offer some unsolicited criticism of
Vice President Al Gore, noting that he had broken a tie in the Senate on a
budget bill that included a rise in the federal excise tax on gasoline by 4.3
cents a gallon.
``And of course, he thinks the internal combustion engine is a really bad
idea,'' Lott asserted. He did not elaborate.
