President Clinton said Saturday Republicans in the House of Representatives had gutted his anti-terrorism bill after listening to the "back-alley whispers" of the gun lobby.
Despite last year's bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City and four recent suicide bombings in Israel, the House had taken the teeth out of the administration's efforts to fight terrorism, Clinton said in his weekly radio address.Conservative Republicans, led by Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, diluted the legislation, fearing it gave the government too much new power.
The president noted the irony of the decisive vote coming while he attended a counter-terrorism summit in Egypt with two dozen other world leaders.
"On the same day that I was in the Middle East rallying the world community to fight terrorism, some in Congress, led by Republicans, were taking apart piece by piece the tough legislation designed to beat back that very threat," he said.
Clinton called it unbelievable that the House, in fact, voted to give law enforcement officials fewer tools to fight terrorism than they had to fight "far less horrible" crimes in the United States.
He noted the House had stripped a provision to mark chemically explosive materials used by terrorists to build bombs because the Washington gun lobby opposed it.
"The House and the Washington gun lobby are against giving law enforcement the ability to trace explosives," Clinton said.
The president said the House version of the bill would allow terrorist groups such as Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for the recent attacks in Israel, to continue to raise money in the United States by stripping the Justice Department's authority to designate organizations as terrorist.
Clinton also complained that the House voted against allowing the quicker deportation of foreigners who supported terrorist activities and rejected a provision that would have helped to protect police from "cop-killer" bullets.
In what was billed as the Republican response, Rep. Andrea Seastrand, R-Calif., talked about an immigration bill to be considered by Congress next week instead of the terrorism bill.
"The illegal immigration system is in crisis and must be solved," she said. She said a bill proposed by Republicans would reinforce prohibitions against illegal aliens getting public benefits, ensure that illegals do not rely on taxpayers for financial support and double the number of border patrol agents over the next four years.