A House committee begins marking up a homeland security bill today that could strip the State Department of its power to issue visas to foreigners. Naturally the Foreign Service is upset, but maybe America's diplomats should stop and reflect on how things came to this pass.

We sympathize with the argument, made by Colin Powell and others, that visa decisions are a foreign-policy matter. The problem is that Congress no longer trusts the State Department to administer visas honestly, much less in America's best interests. And why should it, given the department's track record since September 11?

That's the day the U.S. was attacked by 19 airplane hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals. Yet instead of shutting down its Visa Express program for Saudi citizens the next day, as common sense would suggest, State kept it going as if nothing much had happened.

Even now the department won't tell Congress what the program's status really is. During sworn testimony last month, State's Dianne Andruch implied that the program had been "shut down," and that there was now a waiting period for male Saudi applicants to enter the U.S. But last week a cable from the U.S. Ambassador in Riyadh that was leaked to the press made clear that Visa Express was still up and running, because he was asking for guidance on how to close it.

It gets worse. A single Foreign Service Officer in the Jeddah consulate issued 10 of the visas to the Saudi hijackers. Yet GAO investigators told House staffers that no one from State ever interviewed that officer after 9/11 to learn what might have gone wrong.

We've also had a scandal about foreign nationals working in the U.S. Embassy in Qatar, who sold at least 71 visas, including three to people with al Qaeda connections. To accomplish this, they either had to have the assistance of a Foreign Service Officer (i.e., an American) or access to his code. Either way it's a serious security breach.

Undersecretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman has testified to Congress that State "uses visa policy to advance our goals." We wish. Take Saudi Arabia, where the House of Saud still refuses to grant Amjad Radwan, an American woman, a visa to leave Saudi Arabia to return home to America. But that apparently hasn't stopped our State Department from granting a visa to the family of Miss Radwan's uncle, whose brother refuses to grant her permission to leave. The episode has done the impossible and united arch-Congressional enemies, Democrat Henry Waxman and Republican Dan Burton, in common outrage.

In the mid-1990s, U.S. Ambassador to Riyadh Ray Mabus (a political appointee, not a career diplomat) actually tried to use visas to sway the Saudis, and to good effect. He revoked U.S. visas for any member of a Saudi family related to Alia and Aisha Gheshayan, two other U.S. citizens detained in the kingdom. This brought the Saudi government to the bargaining table with a deal for their freedom. But Mr. Mabus's policy was overruled by his successor, and the deal fell through.

It's true that Mr. Powell recently sacked Mary Ryan, the head of consular affairs responsible for these fiascoes. But there's reason to doubt that the culture of State has changed. The real spirit of State was revealed in an e-mail circulated by Chuck Keil, a State careerist and acting ambassador to Italy, that was leaked earlier this week.

The e-mail said that Mr. Burton's attempts at visa oversight showed that "the spirit of Joe McCarthy is alive and well" and went on to "fervently hope" that "Secretary Powell and his leadership team can find a Joseph Welch to step up to confront the likes of Dan Burton and his ilk." Another officer, Columbia Barrosee, hailed this as "an excellent message," and suggested that any non-career officer appointed to the Ryan post would be a "neo-Nazi." In other words, Saudis who imprison American citizens deserve an express pass to the Mayo Clinic, but elected representatives of the American people are witch hunters.

Secretary Powell began his tenure telling the foreign service he'd be their champion, but by now it's clear he needs to clean house. Until he does, Congress can be forgiven if it tries to teach American diplomats that their job is to represent American interests.