Columnist Benjamin Grove: A jittery week in the nation’s capital

Benjamin Grove

Friday, May 24, 2002 | 4:09 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The nation's capital was abuzz last week about Sept. 11 warning signs -- and news that the remains of missing intern Chandra Levy had been found.

Meanwhile the Yucca Mountain project quietly trudged forward. Notes from Capitol Hill:

People here want to know: What more can America do to prevent the next attack?

The answers may be found in a careful examination of communication gaps in the U.S. intelligence network. If those gaps can be filled, the whole nation could feel safer.

Congress is mulling whether to convene an independent blue-ribbon commission to find out who knew what, and when. It should. Lawmakers should not rely solely on a joint House-Senate Intelligence panel, or any other partisan congressional team, to do this job.

It's among the most important jobs in Washington, and it should have begun sooner. After Sept. 11 many of us lulled ourselves into believing there was no way to predict such an attack. But clues suggested otherwise.

Predictably, a political firestorm ensued in scandal-hungry Washington May 15 when news broke that President Bush received an intelligence warning that Osama bin Laden operatives were mulling hijackings.

Democrats pounced, and Republicans pounced on them for pouncing.

But now the political fracas has subsided and cool heads on both sides are wisely calling for an independent panel to probe an array of important questions:

Bush directed national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in July to find out why so many terrorist warnings were crossing his desk, Newsweek reported. How could follow-ups have yielded more clues?

The already-famous FBI Phoenix memo telegraphed important warnings. How should that memo have been handled? And why weren't the FBI and CIA talking?

These kinds of questions should be answered -- not to spark fruitless new political blame games -- but to ignite debates that lead to better intelligence gathering and information handling.

I desperately want to believe finger-pointing won't get in the way of making the U.S. intelligence system better.

It wasn't the acting or gripping plot that kept my attention. It was the offer of an hour's escape every week into a world where government agents really can save the day.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., could pull off a miracle when it comes to a full Senate vote, likely in July. They could muster a 51-vote majority in opposition to the dump.

But they probably won't.

The writing is on the wall and the faces of senators at this week's hearings wore the haggard look of lawmakers who were ready to approve Yucca a long time ago.

"At some point you have to make a decision," Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. "You can't vacillate forever."

Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., said with disgust, "The only thing we have in that hole in Nevada is $7 billion."

I recalled that several days after Sept. 11, as I was bundling up the week's newspapers for the recycling truck, the Washington Post's Style section from Sept. 10 had caught my eye. It featured a splashy story about Michael Jackson. Such a frivolous topic. I had an immediate yearning to have those days back, when pop stars made for compelling copy.

Perhaps overblown media coverage last week of the Levy discovery was a small indication that Washington is back to normal now -- as back to normal as it can get in a city awash in renewed speculation that United Flight 93 was bound for the White House, and vague new warnings about terrorist attacks Memorial Day weekend.

As the Levy story broke, I also wondered about the dog walker who found her remains. I have walked my own dog in Rock Creek Park. I wonder if the man will remember Levy as the bubbly, bright graduate student whose cheery face the media emblazoned everywhere -- or as the bones he found callously discarded on a cold, steep forest floor?