Clinton presses for anti-terrorism tools
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Congress agrees tougher measures needed
July 29, 1996
Web posted at: 7:25 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton asked Congress Monday to put more teeth in a tough new anti-terrorism law, and won broad agreement but no specific commitments from Republican lawmakers.
Clinton and the Congressional bipartisan leadership met for about an hour at the White House to discuss what steps can be taken to further combat terrorism at home and abroad. Both sides agreed to meet again Tuesday and Chief of Staff Leon Panetta planned to go to Capitol Hill to continue the discussions.
sound icon Flanked by Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, President Clinton opened the meeting by saying, "You can see that when we are attacked, whether it's from within or without, we come together and that's what we're doing here." (191K AIFF or WAV sound)
In a month that has seen an attack on military barracks in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta and the possible sinister downing of TWA Flight 800, leaders of both parties were rallying behind efforts to eradicate terrorism.
sound icon During a photo opportunity before the meeting, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, told Clinton, "We look forward to having a serious discussion here about how we can work with you to continue to strengthen our ability to deal with these kind of people." (254K AIFF or WAV sound)
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Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott echoed Gingrich's spirit of cooperation and suggested a willingness to adopt parts of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 that the White House had supported but were eliminated from the original bill, such as the placing of tracing elements in explosives.
Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, who has voiced concerns about the constitutionality of certain measures, urged the Congress be "expeditious and not rash," in adopting a stricter plan for fighting terrorism.
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Seizing on a signal that Congress might relent on anti-terrorist tools that were denied him earlier this year, Clinton is asking Gingrich and other legislative leaders "to provide these additional protections."
"He'd like to give the FBI more tools so there will be no more bombing like at the Olympics," White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn said Monday.
Clinton told a veterans convention in New Orleans Sunday that he was encouraged by televised remarks by Gingrich that indicated a softening of resistance to expanding wiretapping and to requiring chemical markers in black powder explosives.
He spoke a day after a pipe bomb exploded at an after-hours Olympics celebration in Atlanta, killing one person and injuring more than 100, and 11 days after a suspected bomb downed a TWA jumbo jet at a cost of 230 lives.
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sound icon Clinton planned to press his request at the meeting Monday with Gingrich, Lott, Daschle, House minority leaders Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Missouri and FBI Director Louis Freeh. (254K AIFF or WAV sound of Gephardt)
sound icon The aim, he said to applause, is "to help to agree on a package that will provide these additional protections against terrorism and any other measures we need to take to increase the protection of the American people." (127K AIFF or WAV sound)
Daschle said Monday it was possible an amendment might be offered in the Senate this week to approve Clinton's new proposals but said nothing had been decided.
"It may put Republicans in an awkward position," he said, in a reference to the watering down of the anti-terrorism bill last spring before it reached Clinton's desk. "They have to decide between the NRA and the FBI. I hope they choose the FBI."
Speaking of terrorism at home and abroad, Clinton told the Disabled American Veterans: "This is a challenge we can and will meet. It may well be the most significant security challenge of the 21st century to the people of the United States and to civilized people everywhere."
Meanwhile, it was announced that Attorney General Janet Reno will lead the U.S. delegation to a multinational conference on terrorism in Paris on Tuesday.
The anti-terrorism bill that Clinton signed earlier this year applied the death penalty to convicted terrorists and provided $1 billion in special assistance for law enforcement.
But a provision to allow the FBI to wiretap all telephones used by a suspected terrorist was dropped and one requiring explosives manufacturers to insert chemical tracers in their products was weakened to cover only plastic explosives.
A rare grouping of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats succeeded in killing the wiretap provision on the grounds that it would encroach further on personal liberties.
Clinton said he wanted increased wiretap authority "for terrorists who are moving from place to place," adding: "Where they are flexible, so must we be."
