Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were really angry over what they condemned as White House foot-dragging on briefing them on the Sept. 6 Israeli air strike that destroyed what U.S. intelligence experts concluded was a nuclear reactor that Syria secretly built with North Korean help.

     So the Republicans joined majority Democrats this week in approving legislation in the 2009 Intelligence Authorization Act that would require the administration to keep all committees members, not just the chairman and senior minority member, informed on all intelligence activities other than covert actions.

     Under the proposed amendment to the National Security Act of 1947, the president could seek an exemption from the requirement if he asks - in writing - that access to information be limited because of "extraordinary circumstances affecting the vital interests of the United States."

    But it would be up to the chairman and ranking minority member to actually decide "whether and how to limit access to the information or material."

    That could be a big "BUT" for an administration that believes the power to make such decisions lies with the president, not the Congress. Tell that to Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., the committee's top Republican.

    "It is likely that there is no single current issue on which there is stronger bipartisan consensus than our shared deep concern that the administration is not fulfilling its statutory duty to keep each member of the committee fully and currently informed with respect to certain intelligence matters," said a statement of Republican views released by Hoekstra.

    The statement noted that the committee members were briefed on the al Kibar reactor on the same afternoon - April 24 - as the media despite a request to President Bush for a briefing "several months earlier."

    "With respect to another matter, the administration refuses to brief all members of the committee even though it has briefed five members of the committee staff," continued the GOP statement. "This follows other incidents in which no member of the committee was briefed in a timely fashion, if at all."

    What that "matter" and "other incidents" were, the statement didn't say.

    They're classified.