Congressional Record: July 24, 2003 (Senate)
Page S9887-S9888
JOINT INTELLIGENCE REPORT POST-9/11
Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, earlier this afternoon a
declassified version of the report of the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees on the events of September 11, 2001, were released to the
public. I will take a few minutes to recognize those who performed a
great public service in producing this report and to commend it to my
colleagues and those who are watching. The public version of this
report is available at the Web site of the Government Printing Office,
www.access.gpo.gov.
This report fulfills the commitment that was made to the American
people and particularly to the families of those who perished in this
tragedy. The commitment was to conduct a thorough search for the truth
about what our intelligence agencies knew or should have known about
al-Qaida and its intentions prior to September 11. It was then to apply
the lessons learned from that experience to reform the intelligence
community in such a way as to mitigate the likelihood of a repetition
of September 11.
This was a historic first-of-a-kind effort. For the first time in the
history of the Congress, two standing committees, the House and the
Senate, joined together to conduct a special inquiry with its own
staff. That staff was led by the very capable Ms. Eleanor Hill. The
staff reviewed nearly 1 million documents and conducted some 500
interviews. The joint inquiry committee held 22 hearings last year, 9
of which were open to the public. The result of this effort was
released today.
This document includes both findings of fact and 19 recommendations
for reform. I am extremely proud of the commitment that the Members of
the House and Senate Intelligence Committee have given to this review.
I would especially like to recognize the vice chairman of the Senate
committee, Senator Shelby, and the chairman and vice chairman of the
House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Porter Goss and Congresswoman
Nancy Pelosi.
The report's findings are grouped in 24 subject areas, but they have
a single bottom line: The attacks of September 11 could have been
prevented if the right combination of skill, coordination, creativity,
and some good luck had been brought to the task.
There is an abundance of important information in this report that
suggests, for example, institutional resistance to making
counterterrorism a high national priority prior to September 11. This
resistance took many forms. It included a lack of information sharing
among key agencies. It included budget cuts at the Department of
Justice for the FBI's counterterrorism program. Simply put, those
problems contributed to the Government's inability to successfully
launch an offensive against al-Qaida.
As an example of this difficulty, a previously classified finding,
No. 14 in the report, states that senior military officials were
reluctant to use military assets to conduct offensive counterterrorism
efforts in Afghanistan or to support or participate in CIA operations
directly towards al-Qaida prior to September 11.
In part, this reluctance was driven by the military's view that the
intelligence community was unable to provide the intelligence necessary
to support military operations. For example, the report confirms that
between 1999 and 2001, U.S. Navy ships and submarines armed with cruise
missiles were positioned in the north Arabian Sea. Their mission was to
attack Osama bin Laden, but it was a mission frustrated because they
were not able to get the actionable intelligence which only could have
come by our ability to place spies close enough to al-Qaida to tell us
what that organization would be doing and where Osama bin Laden might
be on any given day.
The report makes it clear we should have known that potential
terrorists were living among us. Indeed, two of the terrorist-turned-
hijackers lived with an FBI informant in San Diego, CA, for 6 months or
more in the year 2001. A resourceful FBI agent in Phoenix wanted to
follow up on suspicions about foreign-born students who were honing
their skills at American flight schools. Officials at FBI central
headquarters shut him down.
To assure the American people that we take such actions seriously, we
included a recommendation, No. 16, that calls for the Director of
Central Intelligence to implement new accountability standards
throughout the intelligence community. These standards would identify
poor performance and affix responsibility for it. It would also set a
standard to recognize and reward excellent performance.
Had such standards been in place 2 years ago, we might have been able
to hold those whose performance fell short of what our country deserves
accountable for their errors, omissions and commissions, particularly
in the critical period immediately before September 11.
Had these standards been implemented last year, it is possible the
Nation could have avoided the embarrassment and damage to our
Government's credibility that has occurred because of the use of
discredited intelligence information in the President's State of the
Union Address. So far, we have seen no one suffer more than the
indignity of a newspaper headline in either incident.
With the release of the joint inquiry report, it is time to look
ahead and continue to implement the important reforms of the
intelligence community that are necessary and to enhance the Federal
Government's partnership with State and local law enforcement and other
first responders.
If the recommendations in this report are heeded by the White House,
by the agencies, and by this Congress, we should be able to make great
strides in improving the security of the American people.
It is my intention to introduce legislation soon, with cosponsorship
of members of the joint inquiry, that would implement the reforms which
require legislative action. I hope it will move expeditiously to
passage with the full support of the administration. I will also begin
that effort with a sense of outrage because we have lost valuable time.
It took 7 months, almost as long as it took to conduct the inquiry,
for the intelligence agencies to declassify the portions of the report
that we are releasing today.
What are the consequences of that 7 months' delay? One is that the
momentum for reform, which was at a high tide in the weeks and months
immediately after 9/11, has begun to diminish despite the scope of the
tragedy. We will learn shortly whether we can reinvigorate that reform
movement. This Senate will face the test of its will to do so. I, for
one, am committed to see this report is not forgotten or overlooked.
In my view, the delay reflects the excessive secrecy with which this
administration appears to be obsessed and which is keeping important
findings of our work from the American people. Such censorship also
saps the urgency of reform and precludes the American peoples' ability
to hold its leaders accountable.
The most serious omission, in my view, is part 4 of the report which
is entitled "Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain
Sensitive National Security Matters." That section of the report
contained 27 pages between pages 396 through 422. Those 27 pages have
almost been entirely censured. This is the equivalent of ripping out a
chapter in the middle of a history book before giving it to your child
or grandchild and then telling her "good luck on the test."
The declassified version of this finding tells the American people
that our investigation developed "information suggesting specific
sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while
they were in the United States."
In other words, officials of a foreign government are alleged to have
aided and abetted the terrorist attacks on our country on September 11
which took over 3,000 lives.
I would like to be able to identify for you the specific sources of
that foreign support but that information is contained in the censured
portions of this
[[Page S9888]]
report which are being denied to the American people.
What are the consequences of this? It significantly reduces the
information available to the public about some of the Government's most
important actions, or more accurately, inactions prior to September 11.
Second, it precludes the American people from asking their Government
legitimate questions such as, How was the information that our
Government might have had prior to September 11 utilized after
September 11 to enhance the security of our homeland and American
interests abroad? Third, almost 2 years after the tragedy of September
11, the administration and the Congress, in the main, have not
initiated reforms which would reduce the chances of another September
11.
For example, we are allowed to report that the estimates of the CIA's
counterterrorism center is that between 70,000 and 120,000 recruits
went through al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan before those
troops were attacked in late 2001. The important questions as to the
significance of that statement, to the security of the American people,
are not available.
This obsession with excessive secrecy is deeply troubling. The
recognition of the evils of secrecy in a free society date back to the
beginnings of our Nation. Patrick Henry declared: The liberties of a
people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of
their rulers may be concealed from them.
President John F. Kennedy observed in the first year of his
Presidency: "the very word secret is repugnant in a free and open
society, and we are, as people, inherently and historically opposed to
secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. We
decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted
concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers, which are
cited to justify." These are traditional American values that are
being trampled.
So the joint committee included our report with this recommendation,
recommendation No. 15. "The President should review and consider
amendments to the Executive Orders, policies, and procedures that
govern the national security classification of intelligence information
in an effort to expand access to relevant information for Federal
agencies outside the intelligence community and for State and local
authorities which are critical to the fight against terrorism and for
the American public".
In addition, the President and heads of Federal agencies should
assure that the policies and procedures to protect against unauthorized
disclosure of classified intelligence information are well understood,
fully implemented, and vigorously enforced.
It is my observation that because classification is used so
excessively, the corollary is only a minimal effort to enforce
classification of materials that truly do deserve to be classified.
Again, I remind my colleagues that these recommendations were written
late in 2002 before the current crisis developed over the use and
possible misuse of intelligence leading us to war in Iraq. But that
crisis has given this recommendation even greater urgency for the
Government's credibility with the American people and our credibility
with the rest of the world.
These qualities have been severely eroded in large part because of
excessive secrecy. To regain the people's trust we must bring new
transparency to our decisionmakers. We must bring new transparency to
our decisionmaking. We must move decisions and governmental information
into the sunshine. We owe that and much more to the 3,000 victims of
September 11.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. ENZI). The majority leader.
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Congressional Record: July 24, 2003 (Senate)
Page S9897
JOINT INTELLIGENCE REPORT POST--9/11
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise tonight in response to the
comments of my friend, the Senator from Florida, about the report that
was issued today about September 11. There were a lot of innuendoes and
direct statements by the Senator from Florida with respect to the
administration, faults on the part of the administration leading up to
September 11 and the connection of causation between the administration
and some deficiencies with the administration and September 11. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
My friend from Florida made the comment that the lack of resources in
our intelligence community played a big part in the intelligence
deficiencies that allowed September 11 to happen. I agree with him 100
percent. What he failed to say is that this administration had been in
office less than 8 months when September 11 happened. This
administration had not even been through an appropriations cycle. It is
this body and the House that made the appropriations over the last
several years that, in fact, did lead to a decline in resources, with
the leadership of the previous administration, that caused the
resources not to be put in the right place, that allowed the problems
within the intelligence community to arise.
The Senator mentioned certain declassification, or failure to
declassify certain aspects of the September 11 report that were not
included in the report that was released today. Again, he is exactly
right. But there is a reason for that. The public does have a right to
know everything we can tell them about the facts leading up to
September 11. But the intelligence community does not have the right
and should not release information relative to sources and methods.
The intelligence community is a very complex community. The
intelligence community has human assets in place all around the world,
gathering information from an intelligence standpoint that is important
to saving the lives of Americans.
In addition to that, we have methods of gathering intelligence that
we simply cannot disclose and divulge to people we are gathering that
intelligence from, or it will reduce or significantly lessen, or maybe
even not allow us to gather information from them. So it is very
important that we not release sources and methods.
Last, let me say my friend made the comment about secrecy on the part
of this administration, this President. Again, nothing could be further
from the truth. Secrecy is not the issue here, as set forth in that
report that was released today.
The real issue as set forth in that report is the protection of
America and the protection of Americans. This administration had done
everything within its power leading up to September 11 to make sure the
intelligence community had the ability to gather intelligence and that
the law enforcement community had the ability to interrupt and disrupt
intelligence activity. Unfortunately, as was concluded in the report
today--the Senator from Florida was the chairman of the Intelligence
Committee that participated in that report--that report says that, in
spite of everything, there is nothing that could have been done on the
part of the intelligence community that would have prohibited September
11 from happening.
What we need to be aware of and what the American people need to be
aware of is that the intelligence community has learned a lesson from
September 11, and we are moving forward to make sure our children and
our grandchildren live in a safe and secure America just like we have
enjoyed. We have a lot of recommendations within that report that are
being followed today to make sure America is a safer place.
While I commend the men and women--and I was part of it--who worked
very hard to get that report together, there is a lot of information in
that report that was not declassified and which should not be
declassified so that we can have a safer and more secure America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Senator from New Mexico ought to be
doing the thanking. I knew when the people of the Senator's State sent
him up here--he thanked us, but we ought to be thanking him; we thank
the people of his State for sending him here--we knew when the Senator
came that he was going to be a stalwart and someone to whom we could
look. We knew we would be getting the "straight scoop," so to speak.
Tonight it didn't take the Senator very long to set this record
straight.
There is no use playing politics with things that do not need any
politics added to them. There are already plenty of problems
surrounding that big tragedy that came to America. We thank the Senator
for telling us the way it is, the way it was, and the way we ought to
understand it. This Senator thanks him for that. I wish he had more to
say. I hope before it is over, he will have more to say about it.
With all of the inferences and implications when things go wrong,
there is a political campaign. Just wait, and somebody will find some
reason to blame the person running for office. Regardless of how
farfetched or how wild, or how irrelevant it is, it will be there.
Frankly, we have a Senate with lots of privileges. I like the
distinguished Senator from Florida. He had a big job when he had to put
that report together. He doesn't have any more to say about it than a
lot of other people. He just happens to be running for President. So he
has a lot to say. But we thank the Senator very much for his few words
which are excellent, as I understand it, and it is something we needed
to hear.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I will have a lot more to say about it
later.
Mr. DOMENICI. I hope so.
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