Intelligence Panel's Finances Stay Private

February 15, 2004
Intelligence Panel's Finances Will Stay Private
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
 
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — The White House is declining to make public the 
financial histories of the commissioners President Bush appointed to 
investigate American intelligence failures.

Administration officials say the arrangement has helped to attract the best-
qualified people for the panel, but critics say the White House's refusal to 
disclose financial information raises questions about potential conflicts of 
interest that could cloud the commission's work. 

Citing an exemption to federal ethics regulations, the White House says the 
financial disclosure statements filed by the commission's nine members will 
remain confidential because they are not being paid for their work.

"The president was looking for highly qualified, well-respected individuals to 
serve on a temporary basis, and he thought that this was the best way to set 
up the commission," Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman, said in an 
interview.

While ethics specialists said members of most federal commissions typically 
have to disclose their financial interests to the public, the White House 
pointed to a number of exceptions in foreign intelligence and domestic 
security. "There are several out there like this. I don't think it's unique," 
Ms. Healy said. 

But experts said the White House's refusal to make public the commission's 
business links may fuel questions about its independence and taint its 
investigation into one of the Bush administration's biggest potential 
political vulnerabilities: the quality of intelligence used to justify the 
Iraq war and other issues involving unconventional weapons. 

The issue mirrors some of the concerns raised in 2002 when a commission was 
appointed to investigate the Sept. 11 terror attacks, only to have its 
original chairman and vice chairman step down, in part because of private 
business interests.

After initially resisting calls for a commission to study intelligence 
failures surrounding the Iraqi war buildup, Mr. Bush created the intelligence 
commission on Feb. 6 and gave it a broad mandate to look at intelligence on 
unconventional weapons around the globe. But before the commission has even 
begun its work, some critics are already suggesting that political as well as 
financial conflicts could influence its findings. 

Laurence H. Silberman, a conservative judge who is one of the commission's two 
chairmen, has drawn particular criticism from liberal groups because of his 
judicial record and close ties to the Bush administration. Several other 
commissioners also have financial links to groups in the Middle East and the 
defense industry that could become involved in the inquiry.

"This is a critical commission, and if the White House is going to withhold 
basic information about its members that should be made public, that's a 
shame," said Bill Allison, a spokesman for the Center for Public Integrity, a 
nonprofit group in Washington that tracks government ethics issues.

"The point of a financial disclosure form is that it's supposed to be 
disclosed," Mr. Allison said. "This completely defeats the purpose. You're 
starting from a position of bad faith."

One high-level commission that does make public the financial interests of its 
members is the panel created by Congress and the White House in late 2002 to 
investigate the Sept. 11 attacks. But it, too, has been dogged by charges of 
conflicts of interest.

The original chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, Henry A. Kissinger, stepped 
down abruptly because he said resolving potential conflicts of interest would 
have meant liquidating his consulting firm, while his vice chairman, former 
Senator George J. Mitchell, stepped aside in part because of an unwillingness 
to sever ties with his law firm. The commission's current executive director 
and a commissioner have also been interviewed by the commission about their 
knowledge of intelligence activities leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, 
spurring charges of a conflict from some of the victims' survivors.

Bush administration officials and ethics specialists said that when 
politicians seek to appoint people with broad experience to serve on important 
commissions, charges of conflicts arise almost inevitably because those people 
usually have extensive contacts in business and global affairs as well.

"It's a problem that's endemic to Washington," said Stan Brand, a Washington 
lawyer specializing in government ethics. "If this commission is really going 
to conduct a wide-ranging review of intelligence gathering, at some point its 
members are going to bump into individuals or entities of the kind that 
they've represented, and they're going to have to confront that by sealing 
themselves off from those clients."

The nine members of the intelligence commission include both Republicans and 
Democrats, and the White House points to their broad experience in 
intelligence, the military, academics, law and the private sector. Joining 
Judge Silberman as co-chairman is Charles S. Robb, the former Democrat senator 
and governor of Virginia.

Critics, however, suggest that the commissioners' extensive résumés may create 
conflicts.

One commissioner, William O. Studeman, for instance, was a former official at 
the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency and is now a 
senior executive at Northrop Grumman, a military contractor that does work in 
weaponry and in planning and detection for unconventional weapons, among many 
other areas.

Also on the panel is Lloyd M. Cutler, a prominent Washington lawyer who has 
served in several Democratic administrations. The firm he founded, Wilmer 
Cutler & Pickering, has done work for the Carlyle Group, a large Washington 
equity firm that has used former President George Bush and other well-
connected Republicans to advance its interests in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. 
Mr. Cutler said in an interview, however, that he had not personally 
represented the Carlyle Group.

Clearly the most scrutiny has fallen on Judge Silberman, a senior part-time 
judge on the United States Court of Appeals in Washington.

Conservatives hail Judge Silberman as a well-respected and savvy leader who 
has had a long and diverse career as a diplomat, law enforcement official and 
jurist. But several liberal groups and Democratic lawmakers have attacked what 
they call his severe partisanship on and off the bench in episodes including 
the Iran-contra affair, the Whitewater investigation and accusations of sexual 
misconduct against President Bill Clinton.

In a lengthy attack on Judge Silberman delivered on the Senate floor on 
Wednesday, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, charged that "the canons of 
judicial ethics meant nothing" to the judge and that he should be replaced on 
the panel.

Judge Silberman, Mr. Reid said, was on the panel "to protect the president, 
not to get fair information." As long as Judge Silberman is associated with 
the panel, he said, "it is smeared with partisan prejudice."

Judge Silberman, in an interview, dismissed such charges as "fabrications" and 
said he did not believe they would distract from the commission's work.

"This all sounds like politics," he said. "Why should I be concerned if I know 
these charges have no merit?"

Judge Silberman acknowledged that he counts among his friends both Vice 
President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, two of 
President Bush's most influential advisers on Iraq. And he said, "I plead 
guilty to being something of a conservative," but added that this would not 
color his leadership of the commission.

As for the commission members' financial interests, Judge Silberman said he 
was unaware that the White House planned to keep the information confidential, 
and he pledged to make his own disclosure form available in the coming days.

"It's plain vanilla — the only financial interests I have are mutual funds," 
he said.





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