How intelligent a bill?

President Bush, who seemed hesitant to spend any political capital to overcome a couple of balky GOP House chairmen holding up the biggest intelligence reorganization bill since World War II, finally cracked the whip and got it passed.

The measure is several hundred pages long, so keep your fingers crossed that it does more than add another layer of bureaucracy to our already over-bureaucratized federal government.

The legislation creates a new agency, the National Counterterrorism Center, and a new director of national intelligence who'll coordinate the nation's 15 spy agencies and be the president's primary adviser on intelligence matters. Maybe this will help, but the immediate impact amounts to a demotion of the Central Intelligence Agency, which up to now has been the No. 1 spy agency. How will this change affect morale at the CIA, which is already low?

To be sure, there are some good things in the bill. It strengthens visa application requirements and tightens border surveillance. Hopefully, this will lead to more effective border security, especially in the most porous areas along the Mexico-U.S. border.

Turning back the tide of illegal immigrants flowing into this country should be a top anti-terrorist priority. Illegals could be bringing with them anything from dangerous diseases to dirty bombs to deadly drugs.

The White House got the bill unstuck from the two balky committee chairmen by appeasing one and rolling over the other.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., concerned about protecting the Pentagon's turf, was appeased. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who sought to include the 9-11 commission's recommendation to create uniform federal standards for driver's licenses, was steam-rolled. This is a shame, because as the commission pointed out, "For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons."

The 19 Sept. 11 hijackers had 63 driver's licenses between them. Using those IDs is how they traveled about the country and were able to board the planes. A standardized driver's license would be more difficult to get and easier to expose as fraudulent.

Sensenbrenner has been promised that his rejected amendment will be taken up later in a separate bill. It certainly deserves to be. Standardizing driver's licenses is only one aspect of his bill. His measure would also stop liberal federal judges from granting illegals legal asylum in this country if their home country believes they are terrorists.

Yes, you read that right. Some of our judges are actually granting suspected terrorists asylum here because they would be "persecuted" for their politics if they were sent home.

We've still got a long way to go.