BUILDING CAPABILITIES: THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY'S
NATIONAL SECURITY REQUIREMENTS FOR DIVERSITY OF
LANGUAGE, SKILLS, AND ETHNIC AND CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
__________
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 5, 2003
__________
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PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
PORTER J. GOSS, Florida, Chairman
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska, Vice JANE HARMAN, California
Chairman ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
SHERWOOD BOEHLERT, New York SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
RAY LaHOOD, Illinois COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota
RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM, ROBERT E. (BUD) CRAMER Jr.,
California Alabama
PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan ANNA G. ESHOO, California
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER,
ELTON GALLEGLY, California Maryland
MAC COLLINS, Georgia NANCY PELOSI, California, Ex
J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois, Ex Officio
Officio
HEARING ON BUILDING CAPABILITIES: THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY'S
NATIONAL SECURITY REQUIREMENTS FOR DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE,
SKILLS, AND ETHNIC AND CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
----------
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2003.
U.S. House of Representatives,
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9 a.m., in room
2212, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Porter Goss
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Goss, Boehlert, Gibbons, Hoekstra,
Harman, Hastings, Reyes, Boswell, Cramer, Eshoo, Holt, and
Ruppersberger.
Staff present: Patrick Murray, Staff Director; Merrell
Moorhead, Deputy Staff Director; Mike Fogarty, Counsel; Claire
Young, Chief Clerk; William P. McFarland, Director of Security;
Brandon Smith, Systems Administrator; Barbara Bennett,
Professional Staff; Patrick Kelly, Legislative Counsel/
Professional Staff; Abigail Sullivan, Staff Assistant; Mike
Kostiw, Staff Director, Subcommittee on Terrorism & Homeland
Security; Suzanne Spaulding, Minority Counsel; Wyndee Parker,
Counsel/Professional Staff; Elizabeth Larson, Professional
Staff; John Keefe, Professional Staff; Bob Emmett, Professional
Staff; and Courtney Anderson, Staff Assistant.
The Chairman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I will
call the hearing to order, but note that unfortunately
Republicans every Wednesday morning have a conference scheduled
at 9 o'clock. And normally we would not call a hearing in
conflict with that, but this was the only time we could get the
real estate. As most folks know, this committee generally meets
in the Capitol in executive session, and our spaces aren't
sufficient for public hearings. So that is why we find
ourselves in these circumstances. I know my colleagues will be
along after they get through their other obligations.
I start by saying good morning, everybody, and thank you
for coming. We will try to do something about the temperature
in the room, which I understand is way too warm right now. We
welcome everyone here today to what we think is an important
hearing examining the national security requirement for
diversity of languages, skills, and ethnic and cultural
understanding within the Intelligence Community.
I think today we have got the right people in the right
places to talk about this, and it is my desire that the
Intelligence Community have the right people in the right place
at the right time to be able to do the job that is necessary
for national security, and that means in a broad globe that has
got a lot of hot spots and problems in it, that we are going to
have a lot of need for a lot of capacity, which we presently
apparently do not have in sufficient quantity.
There are some who come this morning, I know, with the idea
that this is an investigation into discrimination or any kind
of wrongdoing in the community. That could not be farther from
the truth. Obviously in our oversight capacity, we are very
concerned that there never be discrimination. That is against
the law, it is against our standards. And if there were any
matters of that type, those will be handled immediately, and I
think efficiently, by our staff. So we are not starting what I
would say on a negative note. We are trying to start on a
positive note about what are the skills and mixes we need in
our Intelligence Community, and how do we get to them. And it
is in that vein I ask the panelists to address the committee.
We have a full schedule this morning. In an effort to
maximize the time we have to do this, I am going to limit
opening remarks. We are fortunate to have two full panels of
witnesses with us today. I look forward very much to hearing
from each of our witnesses.
The first panel is comprised of representatives from the
Intelligence Community. They will provide an update on the
status of their efforts to maximize the recruitment programs
and strategic hiring and their efforts to retain and promote
within their ranks those employees who bring particular talents
to the table. These are the people with the language skills,
ethnic and cultural understanding of their target sets.
The second panel of witnesses is comprised of a broad range
of professionals from outside the Intelligence Community and
outside the government who will provide their individual
perspectives on how their organizations have addressed similar
issues in the nongovernment context.
Given the time constraints this morning, each of the
witnesses on both panels will be asked to limit their remarks
to 5 minutes. This is required so all witnesses will have the
opportunity to testify, so Members each will be given an
opportunity to pose questions. We will first hear from all of
panel one witnesses and then proceed to questions for panel
one. At the conclusion of questions and answers for the first
panel, which will be halfway through the time, we will proceed
to the second panel.
I want to thank you all in advance for your time and
attention to these issues. Panel one witnesses will be free to
leave after their question-and-answer period if their schedules
require or they so desire.
That about covers the administrative remarks I need to
make. Let me briefly turn to the reason we are here again.
This is an important hearing in the ongoing discussion of
sufficiency of intelligence and capabilities which are usually
held in closed session. I would like our focus to be on three
main areas of interest. First I hope we will discuss the
national security imperative for diversity and language skill
sets and ethnic and cultural understanding. It is obvious to
me, given our extensive and continuing interest in Iraq,
Afghanistan, the Middle East, Indonesia, the Pacific Rim, the
Balkans, Africa, Latin America and many other places, that the
Intelligence Community has a pressing need for such diversity
in the collection and analytical requirement. The Intelligence
Community for many years has been working to address this
requirement.
There is no doubt that the Intelligence Community must
anticipate and respond to the actions of an extremely complex
and heterogeneous target set. Success in collecting against
these targets is inextricably linked to the success of the
efforts within the Intelligence Community to expand its
language capability skill set and its ethnic and cultural
understanding of those very targets. Both intelligence
collection and intelligence analysis benefit from each of these
factors; the ultimate beneficiary, however, the American
people, security we care about.
Second, which relates to the first, it is important to hear
from the Intelligence Community about the progress it has made
in recruiting, hiring, retaining and promoting the people whose
diversity of languages, skills or cultural understanding
enriches and deepens the Intelligence Community's ability to
succeed in defense of America's national security interest.
I believe that the most important factor in intelligence
collection is the human factor. Everybody has heard me say that
a number of times. It is people that make the business work.
Today, perhaps more than ever before in our history, it is
critical that the Intelligence Community recruit and hire only
the highest quality intelligence officers and analysts, train
and develop these officers and analysts to the highest
standards of professionalism, and retain and promote only the
very best intelligence professionals meeting the highest
professional standards and manifesting the necessary
capabilities. To this end the Intelligence Community must
develop and maintain a workforce diverse in language skill and
ethnic and cultural understanding. Without this, the
Intelligence Community simply cannot achieve its mission, steal
secrets, inform policymakers of the consequences. In doing so,
the Intelligence Community must reflect the world in which it
operates.
Finally, it is important for the Intelligence Community to
be an attractive employment opportunity for all people across
this plentiful and bountiful Nation. Based on the testimony
expected from panel one, it seems to me that the administration
understands this clearly. They ought to be commended for their
efforts. They cannot, however, rest on progress made to date.
Those improvements must continue because the Nation's security
depends on it.
The Chairman. Before I introduce panel one, I would like to
turn to Ranking Member Ms. Harman for comments she may wish to
make.
Ms. Harman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
welcome good friends on the witness panel, and thank you for
bipartisan cooperation on what will now be our fourth public
hearing this fall. This is unprecedented for the House
Intelligence Committee. We have had two public hearings on
civil liberties, one on this topic, and one on prewar
intelligence on Iraq where we had several former Directors of
Central Intelligence and the former Deputy Secretary of
Defense.
Before several Members just arrived, Mr. Holt and Mr.
Boehlert, I was going to comment our side of this dais included
one African American, the first African American elected to
Congress from Florida; one Hispanic, the first elected from his
part of Texas, which has an overwhelming Spanish population,
and first to rise in the senior ranks in the Border Patrol; and
two women elected in 1992 in the year of the woman. We doubled
the number of women in the House. And now we have a few of the
more historical Members of Congress. But my point is similar to
yours, Mr. Chairman, that we can no longer expect an
Intelligence Community that is mostly male and mostly white to
be able to monitor and infiltrate suspicious organizations or
terrorist groups. We need spies that look like their targets,
CIA officers who speak the dialects that terrorists use, and
FBI agents who can speak to Muslim women that might be
intimidated by men, and this is a hearing about that. It is
about capability.
I am planning to share my brief remarks with Mr. Hastings,
but just want to express some concern about developments we
learned of late yesterday. We learned that the honorable Jose
Fourquet, United States Executive Director of the Inter
American Development Bank, who was scheduled to appear on our
second panel, has been advised by officials at the Department
of Treasury not to appear. Last night we also learned that
testimony submitted to the committee by several of the
witnesses on panel one was being recalled for further review by
the Department of Justice and OMB. This is after their
testimony had initially been reviewed and okayed.
These developments obviously are troubling because they
appear to be an attempt to muzzle these agency heads. And the
question is what were these witnesses going to say that was so
worrisome, and how has their testimony been chilled, or has it
been, by this effort? And most importantly, what does this say
about the level of the support in this administration for a
serious effort to bring greater diversity to the Intelligence
Community workforce? I am concerned, and I am sure these
witnesses will enlighten us when they speak.
Without going further, I want to commend you, Mr. Chairman,
for agreeing to hold this important hearing, and it is my honor
to yield the remainder of my time to Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Hastings. I thank my good friend Ms. Harman for
yielding her time and her vigorous effort to make sure that
this diversity effort is pursued. Without your effort, I doubt
very seriously we would be this far along the path, and that
goes to the chairman as well, who has consistently listened to
us and tried to bring about a better understanding with
reference to diversity.
Also, it is a pleasure to work with my colleagues Silvestre
Reyes and Anna Eshoo and Rush Holt, who have had sensitivities
expressed in this area on a continuing basis. And I would be
terribly remiss if I did not mention the extraordinary work
done by Louis Stokes and Julian Dixon and Nancy Pelosi and Tim
Roemer, some of our predecessors who pressed this issue on a
continuing basis. And not to exclude anybody here, but Sherwood
Boehlert takes no back seat to any of us when it comes to
exploring opportunities for all in our society.
Shortly after joining the Intelligence Committee in 1999, I
was disappointed to learn that the presence of women and
minorities remains proportionately below their representation
in the Federal and civilian labor force. In addition, I also
found that the number of minorities in feeder pools possessing
the skills needed for career advancement was disproportionately
small, and that continues to be the case and is an important
point that I would hope that the witnesses will address. While
strides have been made to increase intelligence workforce
diversity, these trends have unfortunately not been reversed.
In order to help the committee better understand this
issue, I hope that our government witnesses will answer some of
the following questions: What training programs have been
instituted to build core mission competencies across
disciplines, and how do you ensure that all employees are given
the opportunity to take advantage of these programs? To what
degree are you holding managers accountable for increasing
diversity and overall competencies of your entire workforce?
What specific challenges exist to implementing the DCI's
diversity strategic plan, and how have you addressed those
challenges?
I hope that our second panel of outside experts will
provide insight into the best management practices of the
private sector that might serve as a model for the Intelligence
Community.
Over the course of my tenure on the Intelligence Committee,
I have had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of America's
intelligence professionals. They are bright, talented and
dedicated to helping our Nation maintain its strategic
advantage. Indeed, they are our Nation's most important
intelligence resource. Building an intelligence apparatus
flexible enough to meet evolving national security requirements
requires greater investment in recruiting, training and
retention initiatives. The community must not only rely on
traditional methods--and any more of you tell me about going to
a college to recruit, I am going to tell you where you can find
some other people other than at a college that can do what you
do, but you must employ innovative methods used by others,
including private corporations.
Success also requires strong, focused leadership on the
part of the Director of Central Intelligence and the heads of
each agency, including the two here today, General Clapper and
Mr. Teets, both of whom I have great respect for. Sustained
commitment today will pay dividends in the future.
One final comment, Mr. Chairman, all the time when we
recruit in this arena, it seems we go recruiting people that
are, for lack of a better expression, A students. I believe I
can do what George Tenet does, and I was a C student.
The Chairman. Thank you.
The Chairman. With regard to the concern about the panel,
my understanding is that there was one witness, Mr. Fourquet,
who was not exactly on the subject on what we are talking about
and has offered to talk to the staff with any observations he
might have, but that the Treasury Department felt that the
subject matter was not appropriate for him as our witness. He
is happy to talk to us. I am not aware of any attempts to
stifle anybody's first amendment rights.
Mr. Reyes. Mr. Chairman, if I could shed some light,
because he was one of the individuals that I actually went out
and asked to come and testify. He was exactly on this issue and
on target. I think the concern that at least was expressed to
me--and I have to say that I object that less than 24 hours--
with less than 24 hours notice, we are told that a member that
was--or an individual that is supposed to testify before this
committee had been pulled by the administration.
The Chairman. Well, I will be happy to look further into
the matter. My understanding was that the testimony had not
been checked, or there was some question about whether he was
speaking on behalf of himself or speaking on behalf of the
Bureau of the Treasury, and I think that that needs to be
sorted out. I apologize to you if he was your choice witness.
We pick our witnesses on what we think will be the committee's
best step forward, and we will look into that.
With regard to the other matters, I am advised somewhat on
some legalese there is a problem, which I will just read. It is
our understanding that yesterday evening's testimony of the
panel one witnesses were reviewed by the White House counsel
and DOJ Office of Legal Counsel in order to ensure that the
administration's position on these issues was accurately
represented. We understand the executive branch needs to speak
consistently on these issues given the legal positions the
administration has taken before the United States Supreme Court
Michigan case Grutter v. Bollinger and other pending and
related legal matters. Justice Department will be representing
the government in a number of legal cases in the future, and
any statements not consistent with the administration's
position can be used against the government in court, and the
resulting review yesterday evening was done in regard to such
concerns.
I note that we still have five witnesses of the first panel
in front of us, so I gather their testimony passed muster and
was consistent with the administration's worries about cases
that might be brought in court on anything relevant to this
issue. It is a shame that we have to go through all this kind
of stuff when we have good witnesses in front of us and rehash
all these things, and I am sure everybody's motives are
extremely pure on it, but I believe it is important now to get
to the business of the committee.
And I am going to introduce Mr. Don Cryer, Special
Assistant to the Director for Diversity Plans and Programs for
the Community Management Staff within the Office of Director of
Central Intelligence, and as such is speaking on behalf of DCI
for the CIA as well as the community management staff.
Mr. Cryer, did I portray that accurately?
Mr. Cryer. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Honorable James Clapper, Director of the
National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Prior to his appointment
he was vice president and director of intelligence programs at
SRA International. General Clapper's last military appointment
was as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He is well
known to us. Welcome, General Clapper.
Honorable Peter Teets is the Under Secretary of the Air
Force as well as the Director of the National Reconnaissance
Office. As the Director of the NRO, he is responsible for the
acquisition and operation of all U.S. Space-based
reconnaissance and intelligence systems. This includes the
National Reconnaissance Program. He reports directly to the
Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence.
Mr. Teets, good morning, sir.
Honorable William Black, the Deputy Director of the
National Security Agency, has almost 40 years of experience at
the NSA, retiring from NSA in 1997. Prior to returning to NSA,
Mr. Black was assistant vice president and director of
information operations in the advanced technologies, SAIC.
Welcome.
Mr. Armando Rodriguez, who is behind Mr. Teets only because
there is not sufficient room at the table--I am sorry about
that. He will come forward to make his presentation at this
time. He is the Defense Intelligence Agency Chief of the Office
of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity, prior to which
he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diversity Management and
Equal Employment Opportunity at the Department of Veterans
Affairs.
And that--I think that is it for the first panel.
I want to seriously look at you and welcome you all and
thank you for coming up. This is a matter of great concern to
us for all of the reasons you have heard expressed. You
understand there are different concerns. Many of us, for
obvious reasons, come at it from different platforms. What we
want to get is the right answer and make sure that the work
that this committee does is in pursuit of that.
I trust that there is nobody here who feels constrained or
muzzled. If they do, I invite you to say so at the time you
make your presentation.
We will start with Mr. Cryer.
STATEMENT OF DON CRYER, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR OF
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE FOR DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT, ACCOMPANIED BY
RACHEL STROUD, DEPUTY TO MR. CRYER; JAN KARCZ, OFFICE OF THE
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE FOR ANALYSIS AND
PRODUCTION; AND HAROLD TATE, DIRECTOR OF RECRUITMENT, CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Mr. Cryer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the
opportunity to share with the committee community efforts to
build and retain a workforce with the diversity of language and
skills, ethnic and cultural understanding critical to meeting
the global challenges and threats facing our Nation.
The events of 11 September and the war on terrorism have
intensified the requirement for a creative, high-performing,
diverse cadre of professionals. As the Special Assistant for
the DCI for Diversity Management, I can confidently say that IC
agencies are devoting major effort and resources and
collaborating at unprecedented levels to ensure that we build,
develop the talent we need to get the mission accomplished.
Less than 2 months ago, I had the privilege of testifying
before the Subcommittee on Intelligence Policy and National
Security regarding communitywide initiatives to attract and
retain a diverse workforce. Today we will expand on that
testimony.
Several communitywide initiatives have been developed in
anticipation of the requirement for a diversity pilot project
contained in the House version of the fiscal year 2004
intelligence authorization bill. For example, we are building a
four-element retention strategy designed to accelerate the
development of new workers and to sustain high performance
throughout the workforce. The DCI will establish a special
panel of diverse leaders to recommend strategies to ensure that
we have the diversity of talent, skills and perspectives needed
to accomplish our mission today.
In addition, IC agencies are vigorously engaged in
individual efforts that their directors or representatives will
describe in their testimonies in just a moment. At this point I
would like to ask my deputy Ms. Rachel Stroud to briefly
highlight community diversity initiatives and strategies. Mr.
Jan Karcz, from the Office of the Assistant Director of Central
Intelligence for Analysis and Production, will highlight key
programs to build language capabilities and to recruit, train
and retain analytical professionals. And Mr. Harold Tate,
Director of CIA Recruitment will touch briefly on CIA-specific
activities.
I understand, Mr. Chairman, that our time is limited. We
will interchange these speakers very quickly and stay on our
schedule. Thank you for the opportunity to address this
committee today.
Ms. Stroud. I am Rachel Stroud, and I will address very
quickly some of the Intelligence Community initiatives for
targeted outreach, and this in no way would undercut any group,
but we are speaking on cultural and ethnic diversity.
Following 9/11, stirred patriotism as well as a weakened
job market resulted in a substantial increase in resumes;
however, the increase in minority applications was less
encouraging. We are doing a number of things to build
relationships with institutions such as the universities that
have large minority populations. We have done an IC colloquia
at New Mexico State University, and we are planning one for
Atlanta tomorrow. Some of our targeted marketing initiatives
will use the services of a professional consultant. We are
going to follow CIA's lead they have already done this, and
they are specifically looking at cultural and ethnic groups
including Arab Americans, Chinese Americans and Korean
Americans. We know some of our typical marketing techniques
have not worked.
Another important initiative is the high school outreach
program. If we don't reach young people sooner, they are not
going to know about intelligence careers until they arrive in
college, when it may be too late to influence their choices. We
will be targeting bilingual and bicultural students in English
as a second language programs. We know that the Washington area
is rich in diversity. There are about 300 languages spoken in
our area schools, so we will be looking at doing a pilot in the
Washington area first.
In the area of retention, retention is more than just
keeping employees. It is making sure we create an environment
in which employees can be their most productive. As a
community, we want to pilot a course that will focus on
training first-level supervisors in those areas that would
increase retention and maximize performance.
With regard to retirement eligibles and replacements, we
know that a recent GAO study found that more than half the
senior SES members are eligible to retire or will retire by
October 2007. We haven't collected all the community data on
retirement eligibles, but we think we mirror this figure very
closely.
We have asked our intelligence agencies to apply predictive
models to forecast hiring and attrition and ongoing trends over
the next 5 years and to develop strategies to address areas of
legitimate concern. We are concerned about competition with the
private sector now and into the future. We have hired the
Hudson Institute, the renowned Author of Workforce 2020, to
analyze the U.S. Labor force in relation to IC skill
requirements and to make recommendations. In that study, we
want them to look at the private sector and our competition
there. In their recommendations, we expect that they will make
recommendations that may very well impact our personnel
authorities or suggest for new personnel authorities.
This concludes my segment, and I will turn it over to Mr.
Jan Karcz from the office of the Assistant DCI for Analysis and
Production.
Mr. Karcz. Good morning.
Regarding foreign languages, one of the strategic goals
articulated in the DCI 2003 Strategic Direction for
Intelligence Community Foreign Language Activities is to invest
in people, and towards that end the DCI has appointed the ADCI/
AP as the senior authority responsible for guiding and
overseeing foreign language issues within the IC. Dr. Lowenthal
chairs a community body of senior agency officials, the Foreign
Language Executive Committee, which coordinates and shares best
practices amongst the agencies.
The community is actively seeking qualified candidates to
cover its global responsibility, but this remains a challenging
task. A large applicant pool is necessary to meet an Agency's
language proficiency and security requirements. As an example,
the FBI must process 10 applicants in order to hire 1 that
meets their requirements. Several agencies have also recently
reviewed and launched initiatives to enhance language incentive
programs as a principal means of maintaining their foreign
language expertise internal to their own organizations.
Turning to the analytic workforce, we recognize that the
quality of our intelligence analysis is determined by the
strength of our analytical corps. The community is making
concerted efforts in this area to recruit, train and develop
our analysts. Although the September 11 terrorist attacks have
substantially increased the demand and supply of new analytic
recruits, the community remains hard-pressed to retain people
with expertise in certain geographic areas, languages and
disciplines.
In collaboration with several prominent research
institutes, the ADCI/AP is starting an initiative entitled The
Future of the Analyst, which is looking precisely at the issues
that are the focus of today's briefing.
In order to better understand and manage the analytic
community, the ADCI/AP has developed the Analytic Resources
Catalog, which tracks individual analysts by their assignment,
experience, language expertise and education. This catalog is a
critical tool for senior managers not only to identify
analytical expertise and language skills in times of support
crises to support surge requirements and to fill analytic
shortfalls, but also to monitor the overall health and manning
of the analytic community.
Other initiatives currently under way include the National
Intelligence Priorities Framework, which identifies countries
and intelligence topics of greatest concern to policymakers.
The DCI uses this framework to provide guidance to the
community about intelligence objectives, which in turn
influence decisions on community resources.
Mr. Chairman, the DCI and the Intelligence Community he
heads remains committed to building an analytical corps second
to none as we confront the transnational and regional
challenges that threaten our national security. The analysts of
the future must be well educated and expert in their area of
responsibility, equipped with the most advanced analytical
tools, fluent in at least one and oftentimes several foreign
languages, and committed to their profession. The initiatives
and programs we are working on are important components of our
national investment in our analytical corps.
I will now be followed by Harold Tate of the Central
Intelligence.
Mr. Tate. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Harman. I want to share with you some of the efforts we have
underway in the Central Intelligence Agency to enhance our
workforce.
For us, diversity of our workforce is absolutely critical
to our mission because we are in the business of selecting a
mix of skills, experiences and perspectives, including language
area expertise, overseas experience and various backgrounds to
achieve this mission. To this end we do operate a proactive
nationwide program that is focused on finding individuals with
the skills we need to develop the jobs. We are also targeting
all languages, but especially the high-priority languages of
today: Arabic, Chinese, Kazakh, Korean, Pashto, Persian and
Urdu.
In fiscal year 2002, 14 percent of all our new hires claim
proficiency at the level 2 level and above in Arabic, Chinese,
Japanese and Korean. Forty-three percent of all our core hires
in the past fiscal year claimed a foreign language, and 28
percent of all of our analytic hires did the same.
We are quite proud of the record on diversity in terms of
hiring. We maintained a level of 20 percent or higher since
fiscal year 2000. To achieve this we have targeted our
marketing and advertising campaigns. We have collected
information from focus groups around the Nation so we are
developing ads and information that attracts.
On the retention front we have instituted within the Agency
a best management practices program best designed to not only
address issues of development of the workforce, but also
management leaders of that workforce, because clearly to
address any retention issues, it all starts with management
leadership.
Finally, in March of 2002, we created the Central
Intelligence Agency University to bring all of our training and
leadership and development activities under one umbrella. Under
the CIAU, we have also established the Intelligence Language
Institute and hiring of language instructors to increase the
size of the instructors available as one of our highest
priorities this fiscal year.
The Chairman. Mr. Cryer, does that complete your--the team.
I notice that the 5 minutes has expired.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cryer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Don Cryer, Special Assistant to the Director of
Central Intelligence for Diversity Management
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to discuss with the
Committee IC efforts to build and retain a work force with the
diversity of languages, skills, and ethnic and cultural understanding
that is critical to meeting the increasingly complex, urgent and
diverse challenges the IC faces now and in the future. The events of 11
September and the war on terrorism have more acutely accentuated the
requirement for a creative, energized, and diverse cadre of
professionals. As the Special Assistant to the DCI for Community
Diversity Management, I can confidently say that IC agencies are
devoting major effort and resources and collaborating at an
unprecedented level to ensure that we build and develop the talent we
need. I also would like to re-emphasize that the DCI has unequivocally
made work force diversity--in languages, skills, and ethnic and
cultural backgrounds--a high priority. Our business is understanding
peoples and cultures--a diverse work force is one of the most the
powerful resources we can have. I would emphasize however that our
targeted outreach efforts will not be conducted in a manner that
undercuts equal opportunity and recruitment for all racial and ethnic
groups, both minority and non-minority. Nor are our diversity programs
intended to achieve proportional representation on the basis of race or
ethnicity.
Less than 2 months ago, I had the privilege of testifying before
Congressman Bereuter's, subcommittee on Intelligence Policy and
National Security, on several Community-wide initiatives designed to
attract and retain diversity. Today, we will expand on that testimony.
Several of the initiatives were developed in anticipation of the
requirements for a diversity pilot project contained in the House
version of the FY04 Intelligence Authorization bill. In addition, IC
agencies are vigorously engaged in individual efforts, which their
Directors or representatives will describe in their testimony.
At this point, I will ask my Deputy, Ms. Rachel Stroud, to briefly
highlight some of the diversity initiatives and strategies we are
pursuing at the Community level. She will be followed by Mr. Jan Karcz
of the Office of the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for
Analysis and Production who will address some of the key programs and
strategies to build critical language capabilities and to recruit,
train, develop and retain a major segment of the IC work force, our
analytic professionals.
recruitment and outreach
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and in waging the war on
terrorism, IC agencies have substantially increased recruitment and
hiring. Fortunately, stirred patriotism, combined with a weakened job
market, have resulted in a significant increase in resumes received
from the public. However, the increase in applications from minority
individuals was less encouraging. We have to do more in relationship
building with minority communities and institutions to overcome the
lack of information and misperceptions about the IC. We are undertaking
several efforts to address this issue:
<bullet> IC Colloquia.--The purpose of the colloquia is to increase
awareness of the role, mission and contributions of the IC among
colleges and universities that have significant minority enrollments
and to foster enhanced recruiting and academic relationships with these
schools. We have held events at Trinity College here in Washington and,
most recently, at New Mexico State University which has a large
Hispanic population. An additional colloquium, scheduled for Atlanta on
November 6, targets African-Americans. We are also considering a
colloquium on the west coast that targets Asian-American students.
<bullet> Joint Recruitment.--IC agencies, individually and jointly
through the IC Recruiting Working Group, participate in a host of job
fairs each year to reach diverse candidates in critical skill areas.
Some examples of career fairs that agencies will jointly participate in
this fall include:
<bullet> Women for Hire, Crystal City, VA;
<bullet> Career Expo for People with Disabilities, Washington,
DC;
<bullet> Asian Diversity for Hire, New York City; and
<bullet> American Indian Science and Engineering Society,
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In addition, IC agencies will individually participate in many
similar target recruitment activities throughout the year.
<bullet> IC Website.--The IC Website, launched in October 2002, has
been enormously popular. We will continue to enhance the website to
assist visitors in matching their interests to appropriate occupations
and IC agencies. Also, we have begun to add more information that will
appeal to diverse audiences, e.g. information on minority-focused
career fairs and activities in which IC agencies will participate.
<bullet> Targeted Marketing.--This effort involves the development
of marketing strategies tailored to reach specific ethnic, cultural and
minority groups. We know that traditional methods alone, such as career
fairs, will not achieve the results we want. With the assistance of
professional marketing consultants, we will design and place IC ads
that will most effectively attract the right candidates within targeted
groups, to include Chinese Americans, Korean Americans, Arab Americans,
African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and persons with
disabilities. CIA is taking the lead in this effort and the community
will build on what CIA has already successfully accomplished.
<bullet> High School Outreach.--The increasing diversity of the
American population is most apparent in our schools. We cannot afford
to wait until students have moved on to college, when it may be too
late to influence their choice of an academic major or an employer. Our
goal is to reach potential candidates earlier and create an interest in
IC careers with an emphasis on critical skill categories, including
languages. We will pilot our high school outreach program here in the
Washington metropolitan area, a region rich in diversity. We will
target schools offering science and technology, international
baccalaureate programs and other programs that prepare students for the
college majors we need. In addition, we will target bilingual and
bicultural students. Our initial contacts with counselors in some of
our local school systems indicate that their English as a Second
Language programs serve students who speak almost 300 different
languages. While we have to address the significant security issues
that will surface, we cannot afford to disregard this scarce asset at
our doorstep. Some the activities planned include participation in high
school career days, hosting a regional IC Career Fair, and sponsoring
an IC Camp. Ultimately, our objective is to steer high potential
candidates into one of the many IC student programs and convert
successful students to permanent employees.
In FY02, IC agencies employed over 800 students in various
programs, including the Stokes program, internships and cooperative
education programs. Approximately 35% of these students were
minorities. We believe that more can be done to leverage existing
student programs to improve cultural, ethnic, racial and gender
diversity in the Community.
training and development
We have a number of ongoing programs and new initiatives to develop
current and future intelligence officers.
<bullet> The Intelligence Community Officers Program, designed to
professionalize intelligence officers, has over 1400 participants. Over
144 Community officers have achieved certification to date. All IC
organizations are participating in the program, including the FBI,
Department of State and Department of Energy.
<bullet> We have successfully developed and implemented the
Intelligence Community Officers Course, a two-week course that
challenges managers to collaborate and broaden their perspectives in
resolving Community issues.
<bullet> Centers of Excellence for Intelligence Studies. This
initiative of the Community Diversity Issues Board, coincidentally and
fortuitously, mirrors proposed legislation that would provide funding
to support the establishment of university-based Intelligence programs.
We began formulating the concept for Centers of Excellence after being
approached by several minority academic institutions interested in
developing intelligence-related programs of study. It became apparent
that the IC needed to establish guidelines for schools that wanted to
set up such programs. We are reviewing as a model the program
established by NSA for Centers of Excellence in Information Assurance.
CIA has initiated the lead on this effort and will work closely with IC
agencies and staff of the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence
for Analysis and Production.
retention
We view retention as more than keeping employees; it also means
creating an environment in which employees can be at their most
productive level. As our work force ages and the rates of retirement
rise, retention of our newer employees, particularly in core skill
areas, becomes all the more important. On a pilot basis, we plan to
conduct post-hire surveys of new employees 3 to 6 months after arrival
in IC agencies. The purpose of the surveys is to assess the level of
new employee satisfaction and provide feedback to management that will
help them to develop policies and practices to strengthen the culture
of inclusion and improve retention. In addition, we will develop and
pilot a training course for IC managers that specifically focuses on
retention issues. Another important aspect of retention is offering
tools to help employees cope and flourish in today's dynamic and
demanding environment and adapt to various management styles. We are
reviewing options for training that can assist employees in that
regard.
retirement eligibles
A recent GAO Study found that more than half of career senior SES
members will leave the federal government by October 2007 and, if past
appointment trends continue, the diversity of the SES corps will remain
virtually unchanged. While we have not collected and analyzed data from
IC agencies on retirement eligibility, we suspect that the IC mirrors
the rest of the government. We have asked IC agencies to apply a
predictive analysis model to project hiring, attrition and employment
levels by grade and ethnic/racial/ categories over the next five years
and to develop strategies to address legitimate problems. This model
can also assist agencies in projecting retirement losses and the
potential pool of GS-14's and GS-15's that will be available internally
to replace departing senior executives.
competition with private sector
We have contracted with the Hudson Institute, renown authors of
Workforce 2020, to conduct an analysis of the U.S. labor force in
relation to core IC skill requirements, including area studies and
languages. The study will also examine projected labor market
conditions and competition for talent across the various segments of
private industry. The Institute will recommend recruitment and
retention strategies that will make the IC more competitive in
attracting and retaining the talent we need. Some of these
recommendations may very well suggest the need for new or revised
personnel authorities.
language capabilities
Regarding foreign languages, one of the strategic goals articulated
in the DCI's May 2003 Strategic Direction for Intelligence Community
Foreign Language Activities, is to invest in people. Specifically, the
Intelligence Community is charged to ``build and maintain a diverse
work force with the requisite foreign language, analytic, and technical
skills to meet the critical and growing demand for language processing,
analysis, and operational use throughout the Intelligence Community.''
<bullet> Toward that end, the DCI has appointed the ADCI/AP as the
senior authority responsible for guidance and oversight of foreign
language issues within the IC. The ADCI/AP chairs a community body of
senior agency officials, the Foreign Language Executive Committee, to
coordinate activities and share best practices with respect to foreign
language-capable personnel and the tools to enable their work.
The Community is actively seeking qualified candidates to cover our
global responsibilities, but this remains a challenging task. Languages
we are focusing on include Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean,
Kurdish, Malay, Pashto, Persian-Dari, Persian-Farsi, Punjabi, Russian,
Serbo-Croatian, Urdu, and Vietnamese. A large applicant pool is
necessary to meet the agencies' language proficiency and security
requirements. FBI, for example, notes that they must process ten
applicants to yield one that meets employment proficiency and security
standards. Given these challenges, the agencies do work together in
terms of sharing best practices.
<bullet> CIA, NSA and DIA have all recently reviewed or launched
initiatives to enhance language incentive programs as a principal means
of meeting their foreign language needs. These include adding hiring
bonuses to their current incentive programs designed to attract and
retain persons with the requisite language skills. DIA is planning to
double its language incentive pay for civilians, and NSA has
significantly increased incentives so that civilian employees may earn
up to $1,000 per month. CIA has launched a Foreign Language Strategic
Program that also addressed improved incentives for language
acquisition and maintenance and offers hiring bonuses that can go as
high as a one-time payment of $35,000 per individual.
<bullet> The DCI has established the National Virtual Translation
Center to serve as a clearinghouse for translations to assist agencies
in meeting their translation requirements. The Translation Center under
the executive agency of the FBI is actively recruiting linguist
resources to network qualified individuals in government, the military,
the commercial sector, and academia to meet our translation
requirements.
<bullet> The DCI has taken steps, as well, to address the sharing
and processing of materials captured in the war on terrorism. He has
established a National Media Exploitation Center under the executive
agency of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The Center achieved initial
operating capability in June 2003 and will serve as another community
resource to triage and process foreign language materials.
analyst work force
Recognizing that the quality of our Intelligence analysis is
determined by the strength of our analytical corps, the Intelligence
Community is making a concerted effort in the areas of analyst
recruitment, training, retention, and development. Although the 9/11
terrorist attacks have substantially increased both the demand and the
supply of new analytical recruits, the challenges of training and
retaining them also have increased dramatically. And despite our
general recruiting successes, the Community remains hard-pressed to
attract and train people with expertise in certain geographic areas,
disciplines, and languages.
In collaboration with prominent research institutions, the ADCI/AP
has undertaken an initiative entitled the ``future of the analyst''
which looks precisely at the issues that are the focus of today's
briefing.
<bullet> One project is focusing on developing ``new quantitative
analytical tools''--and reemphasizing neglected older ones such as
comparative analysis--to better equip the ``analyst of the 21st
century'' to understand and analyze today's complex transnational and
region-specific security challenges.
<bullet> Another project is looking at the gamut of issues
respecting recruitment, training, and retention with an eye to learning
from best practices in the private sector, including the business
community.
<bullet> Still others are aimed at expanding the nexus between the
Intelligence and broader knowledge communities outside the government
through the building of data-bases that will provide analysts with up-
to-date information on future conferences in their fields and the best
expert institutions to tap for outside expertise. A new prominent guest
speaker program will further facilitate analyst outreach to other
knowledge communities.
<bullet> Individual agencies also have undertaken major outreach
efforts, and one challenge for the Community is to better coordinate
them and share the substantive results of such outreach.
To better guide our analyst recruitment, training, and retention
efforts, the ADCI/AP has developed a Community-wide Analytic Resources
Catalog (ARC) of analyst assignments, experience, language expertise,
and education.
<bullet> This Catalog is providing a key management tool for the
DCI, the ADCI/AP, and agency directors across the Community to identify
analytical expertise and language skills in order to support crises,
surge requirements, and analytic shortfalls. It also will help us to
optimally assign Community analysts across the Community to meet
Intelligence priorities.
<bullet> Agencies will update data in the Catalog semi-annually to
ensure that the information remains current.
The National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF) is another
important management tool created by the ADCI/AP that the DCI will use
to provide guidance to the Community about intelligence objectives,
which in turn will influence our decisions on the full range of
Community resources.
<bullet> The Priorities Framework identifies the countries and
Intelligence topics of greatest concern and therefore will guide
investment decisions on analyst recruitment and training.
<bullet> The Framework will help determine the kind of analysts we
should be hiring respecting education, experience, skills, foreign area
expertise, and language ability.
Joint educational experiences within the Intelligence Community
break down cultural barriers, erode organizational stovepipes, and
increase interactivity and collaboration.
<bullet> Toward that end, we will strive to complement the progress
in agency specific training programs with an expanded Community
training component for new and middle-level Intelligence officers. We
are unsure at this time about the course content and organizational
aspects of this initiative, but the ADCI/AP in collaboration with
agency officials will develop it further.
Mr. Chairman, the DCI and the Intelligence Community he heads
remain committed to building and analytical corps second to none as we
confront the transnational and regional challenges that threaten our
national security. The analyst of the future must be well educated;
steeped in knowledge of his or her substantive area; equipped with the
most advanced analytical tools and tradecraft; fully fluent in at least
one and oftentimes several foreign languages; and committed to his and
her profession. The initiatives and programs I have described to you
today are important components of our strategic investment in our
analytical corps.
The Chairman. I think as Mr. Rodriguez comes to take the
table, we will ask General Clapper from the National Imagery
and Mapping Agency to address us.
STATEMENT OF JAMES CLAPPER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL IMAGERY AND
MAPPING AGENCY
General Clapper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman
Harman. As you know, this is my second time around as an
intelligence agency Director, and I have appeared before this
panel before when I served as Director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency. I commend the committee for holding this
hearing. I think having these hearings is a positive thing to
keep the light of day on this subject.
I would like to mention that Joann Isham, my deputy, who
now, I believe, is the senior woman in the Intelligence
Community. This is a fact of which I am very proud, as both of
us are strongly committed to diversity not only because it is
the right thing to do, but because it is requisite to our
business and inherent to our mission that we look outward to
the rest of the world. This is particularly true in the case of
NIMA where our business is the rest of the world's geography,
thermography, culture, language, et cetera. For us, diversity
is a big deal.
I have enjoyed the senior leadership in NIMA since I
arrived over 2 years ago to foster an inclusive work
environment. We want, like everyone else, NIMA to be the agency
of choice, the employer of choice. A conviction that I have
arrived at after my 4 years as Director of DIA and now into my
third year at NIMA is that the ultimate solution to diversity
and balance is sustained and focused recruiting, and that
basically underlies the philosophy as I have approached it in
NIMA of a number of our fiscal year 2003 recruitment efforts
which will continue to be designed for diversity; for example,
participating in the model U.N. Conference, and we have struck
up an arrangement with that forum. We have diversity
recruitment program managers specifically to focus on that.
Our challenge--of course, NIMA is probably--as the newest
and perhaps lesser known of the intelligence agencies is just
making all of our applicants aware of what NIMA is and what we
do. We have no real change in overall minority or female
representation over the past 2 fiscal years. Our minority
representation increased slightly, four-tenths of a percentage
from 2002 to 2003, from 17.3 percent to 17.7 percent, and our
female representation similarly increased slightly. Now, what
has affected that, we have also transitioned a significant
portion of our noncore occupations to the private sector, and
so that affected our population as a proportion of our overall
government workforce because many of these people who are women
and who are minority members transitioned as contractors
instead of government employees as we outsourced some of our
noncore competency functions.
One thing I would like to highlight which I have come to
believe is extremely important is a practice called alternate
dispute resolution, which has been very successful in resolving
issues that surround equal opportunity before they become
formally litigated. If you enter into formal litigation, it is
my conviction it is a lose-lose for the employee involved and
for the Agency. We have greatly strengthened and energized our
entire training ladder from entry level to our senior
executives, and one of the principal tenets there that we
foster is inclusiveness. And whom we select for these training
courses is something we try to be sensitive to.
For challenges and solutions, I would mention there are--
clearances requirements are going to become more of a challenge
as the demographics of the Nation change, as the population
proportion of minority members increases. The stringent
security requirements, I think, are going to work against us
somewhat in promoting diversity. Not to whine or an excuse, but
just a fact. And the fact that lengthy security clearance
process, I have found, discourages many entry-level candidates
unless we go back and begin the recruitment process as early as
high school, and certainly into college, to get them sort of
connected with us.
And as I mentioned, we don't have the same level of name
recognition, a situation that is going to be complicated when
and if--I will be optimistic--when the National Defense
Authorization Act is signed into law and our name changes to
the National Geospacial Intelligence Agency. So we will have a
public relations channel there.
So we are transformational, and NIMA by definition, since
it stood up in 1996, is transformational. We will continue to
focus throughout on our most important asset, our people, which
they, too, are transforming. Diversity is a mission imperative,
and we are working to maintain an inclusive working environment
that values each employee's unique capabilities and
contributions, and I do hold our seniors responsible for that.
And one of the things I found very effective is a series of
peer reviews when they make personnel actions, which I think is
an imposing sociological impact.
And again, we want to make NIMA the agency of choice for
those seeking a career in the IC, and I will end where I began:
It all begins and ends with focus and intense recruiting. Thank
you, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, General Clapper.
The Chairman. And we turn to Secretary Peter Teets. Mr.
Teets.
STATEMENT OF PETER B. TEETS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE
OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY ANNETTE WYATT, DIRECTOR, EQUAL
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY AND MILITARY EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY,
NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE
Mr. Teets. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to you
and Ranking Member Harman and distinguished members of the
committee. It is a pleasure to be here this morning and have an
opportunity to talk to you about one of my favorite subjects,
which is the NRO workforce.
Our job, of course is to attract, retain, develop, motivate
and keep at work some of the highest-class professionals in the
world, and, of course, our mission is to develop space-based
reconnaissance systems which can serve our intelligence needs.
Clearly the NRO workforce is the key to our success.
We are inherently a joint operation which provides some
diversity in and of itself. We are an organization that is made
up of a sizable number of CIA professionals, Air Force
professionals. We have representatives as well from the Army,
the Navy, the Marine Corps. And also at the NRO, we have
professionals from the National Security Agency, from the
National Imaging and Mapping Agency, NIMA, as well as some
representation from DIA as well. And so we have a certain joint
character here, and we also have, of course, over 12 personnel
systems that we deal with in terms of having these people who
are assigned to us from their mother agencies.
I also want to say with me today is Ms. Annette Wyatt. She
is Director of Equal Employment Opportunity and Military
Employment Opportunity out at the NRO and is part of a strong
Office of Human Resources effort that we have underway. This HR
effort that we have had ongoing now for more than 2 years is
designed really to create a number of initiatives, to define
and manage current and future workforce requirements, to
recruit and retain a diverse world-class workforce, to
implement expanded career development and training programs,
and, of course, to conduct formalized succession planning for
key leadership and technical skill positions.
I would like to now just say a few words, if I may, about
the NRO and diversity. First of all, I want to say that
diversity is one of the core values at the NRO. We have five
core values, and diversity certainly is one of them. I meet
quarterly with what we call our Unity Council, and this Unity
Council is a group that is comprised of the chairpersons from
each of our special emphasis councils, and they are chartered
really to raise management awareness of breadth of diversity
issues.
We have bimonthly cultural awareness programs. I am proud
to say that some of those cultural awareness programs, we have
had distinguished speakers such as Congressman Reyes come out
to the NRO during Hispanic Awareness Month and gave a stirring
talk really to a full auditorium of people who were very
interested of learning Congressman Reyes' background and his
experiences on the border between Texas and Mexico. And it was
a great day, Congressman Reyes. We continue to appreciate it
and talk about it.
We also were fortunate to have a visit from Senator Inouye
at a gathering that we had for Asian Pacific Island Awareness
Month. We have had Congressman Bishop come out during Black
History Month to discuss, again, his perspective on diversity
issues. We have had American Indian representation in terms of
having the group that came out with windtalkers. Diversity is
an important core value at the NRO, and we honor it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Teets.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Teets follows:]
Prepared Statement of Peter B. Teets, Director, National Reconnaissance
Office
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and distinguished Committee members,
I am pleased to be here today to talk to you about ``Building
Capabilities: The Intelligence Community's National Security
Requirement for Diversity of Languages, Skills, and Ethnic and Cultural
Understanding''.
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) workforce is the key to
its success. Our mission is a complex and critical one and we are
striving to attract, train, and retain the right people to perform this
important work. In order to collect data and information from space,
the NRO conducts space system research and development, manages
acquisitions, conducts launches, and operates overhead systems. The NRO
has an ongoing responsibility to provide pioneering technologies,
systems, and operations methodologies to deliver unparalleled
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to our
Nation. To accomplish this mission, the NRO must acquire the nation's
best scientists, engineers, and operators (from both government and
industry) to work as a team focused on providing decisionmakers and
warfighters the information advantage they require.
Today, the NRO workforce consists of a cadre of dedicated,
talented, and innovative personnel committed to mission success and
steadfast in their pursuit of excellence. It comprises a unique mix of
government civilian, military, and industrial professionals who are
managed under more than a dozen different sets of Human Resources
policies and procedures from across the Department of Defense, Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other Intelligence Community Agencies.
This complex workforce embraces a diversity of characteristics,
backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints that have converged within the
NRO and have led to the superb technologies that we deploy.
Our objective is to continue implementation of our strategic human
resource plan that fosters a challenging and productive work
environment; encourages and supports individual career development; and
builds a system that attracts, develops, and retains a talented and
diverse team of professionals able to meet the future challenges of the
NRO. Part of this process involves crafting new ways of hiring people
into the organization. It also involves finding ways to motivate and
satisfy employees at all levels and job classifications and provide the
training and broadening opportunities necessary to develop our future
space and intelligence leaders.
The ability of the NRO to maintain and improve this diverse work
force is challenged by many factors. Skills, knowledge, and abilities
required for the development and operation of space systems are the
same skills, knowledge, and abilities in high demand throughout the
space engineering sector, a demand unlikely to change for the
foreseeable future. The NRO must compete with industry as well as other
government agencies for critical talent.
Recognizing these challenges, we are positioning ourselves to
effectively compete within today's rapidly changing human resources
environment. The NRO Strategic Plan, revised in Fiscal Year (FY) 2003,
placed an increased emphasis on a number of strategic workforce
initiatives undertaken following the creation of the NRO's Office of
Human Resources (OHR) in 2001. Our strategic plan focuses on developing
and maintaining a world-class workforce through three enabling
objectives:
--Creating and maintaining a diverse world-class workforce;
--Mastering program management as an NRO core competency; and
--Developing a state-of-the-art systems engineering competency.
The NRO continues to work toward improving day-to-day personnel
operations as well as fostering workforce transformation to meet future
needs. OHR's Strategic Performance Analysis Group was chartered to
develop HR performance measures and to conduct analytic studies in
support of initiatives addressing workforce issues. We have increased
the use of objective analyses to guide improvement activities and
strategic workforce programs in FY 2003 improved our ability to
effectively manage our diverse workforce.
requirements definition and management
In January 2003, the NRO completed mapping of all parent
organization occupational classification systems into a standard series
of NRO occupational categories. Parent organization variability in
occupation definitions had precluded consistent, actionable analyses in
the NRO for some time. The mapping overcame this impediment and
provided the NRO with its first ever capability to analyze the entire
organization in a consistent fashion along occupational lines.
The first application of the new occupational categories was an
analysis of the NRO's positions to determine that ``tooth-to-tail'' mix
of mission versus support activities. As a result of the analysis, the
NRO was able to gauge the impact of recent reengineering and internal
realignment efforts to free positions for reallocation to mission
activities. These actions have resulted in a 3 percent reduction of the
NRO's support tail in favor of mission elements.
In addition to recent reengineering and realignment activities, the
NRO is initiating its first corporate attempt to project total position
requirements and establish annual position occupation mix targets.
These efforts are driven by the development of the NRO's technical Way
Ahead, which lays out a vision for future programs in accordance with
the NRO Strategic Plan. We have begun to map the space system lifecycle
to the Way Ahead schedules for each system and to determine the
personnel complements that would be required in each phase of the life-
cycle, thus painting an overall picture of future requirements. We have
also begun to outline the concept of operations for a corporate
decisionmaking body to oversee the reallocation of positions to meet
these future needs.
To further support the shift toward a more mission-oriented
occupational mix, a number of functional reviews are underway to
streamline and/or reduce redundancies in capabilities. The largest of
these efforts are an on-going review of positions within the Management
Services and Operations (MS&O) Directorate and a cross-organizational
position review of the NRO's information technology functions.
Additionally, the NRO's newly created Deputy Director for
Administration plans to conduct reviews of embedded support functions
across the organization to assess the feasibility of shared support
alternatives for improved efficiency and effectiveness of support
activities.
workforce recruitment and acquisition
Acquiring the personnel to meet the NRO's manpower requirements is
a challenge. Reasons include rising retirement rates as ``baby
boomers'' leave the government and increasing competitive pressure from
both the private sector and the parent organizations for limited
technical resources. During recent years, the NRO experienced
increasing vacancy rates in its two most critical mission occupations:
engineering and program management. To remedy these vacancy concerns,
the NRO has placed added emphasis on targeted recruiting of engineers
and program managers. The Office of Development and Engineering, for
example, launched aggressive recruiting campaigns in partnership with
the CIA's Recruitment Center. The NRO provided senior technical
personnel for these recruiting campaigns at a number of universities, a
strategy that has proven effective in garnering more interest among
targeted populations. CIA technical hiring for the NRO doubled from
2002 to 2003. Coupled with the Air Force military element's efforts to
improve assignment rates of technical personnel, the NRO saw a marked
improvement in its engineering and program manager vacancy rates.
While the vacancy rates in the NRO's most critical mission
occupations improved in FY 2003, the NRO's overall vacancy rate did not
improve, and in fact, crept slightly higher to 14.4 percent of our
total personnel allocation versus 13.5 percent for FY 2002. This
happened for the following reasons: first, higher operational tempo of
the parent organizations since September 11th has begun to affect the
speed with which vacancies are filled in the space operations and
intelligence occupations. Second, the NRO has seen an increase in the
vacancy rates for non-technical CIA personnel, primarily in the
administration area. This is partly due to the lower priority to fill
such positions in light of the CIA's focus on critical mission skill
recruiting. The implementation of the CIA's Deployed Support concept
also carries inherent delays in staffing support vacancies within the
NRO. At this juncture, the vacancy trends in space operations,
intelligence, and administration are not having a profound impact on
mission accomplishment, but they warrant continued close observation.
training and career development
We continue to expand our workforce development system by adding
new guidance tools and learning opportunities. We have started to
revise our competency models to better reflect the mission requirements
of the 21st Century NRO. We piloted a new, leadership development
course, Leadership Landscape, which provides case studies and materials
tailored to the complex operating environment of the NRO. Also, we have
revised our annual training program call process to provide a more
equitable environment in which employees may compete for placement in
prestigious external training programs. In addition, the NRO continues
to reap benefit from several well-established functional training
centers that are chartered to provide NRO unique, program-tailored
material. The NRO's Acquisition Center for Excellence, for example,
provides acquisition training and support for the NRO and its mission
partners, ensuring common standards and best practices are effectively
integrated into our programs. Furthermore, the NRO established a
Corporate Learning and Development Group to deliver professional multi-
disciplinary development training to improve the overall quality of
management, promote continuous learning, and to acculturate employees
to the NRO's distinctive environment. This element also offers career
counseling services, manages the NRO's robust mentoring program, and
provides other tools to facilitate lifelong workforce learning.
succession planning
In 2002 we began a succession planning program that will ensure
continuity of NRO operations through development of a leadership cadre.
This program identifies critical management positions and the
competencies and experiences required to fill them and allows all
personnel insight into the development required to successfully compete
for these jobs. Individuals may assess themselves against published
requirements and self-nominate for consideration for positions among
other qualified applicants. The construct of this program affords
opportunities for individuals who might not otherwise have been
assessed in the selection process to be considered for our most
critical jobs. In addition to offering new assurance that that NRO
employees can fairly prepare and compete for critical jobs, this
program also holds promise for improving the representation of women
and minorities in these key leadership posts.
the nro and diversity
The NRO continues to emphasize diversity and fairness throughout
the ranks, embracing the characteristics and capabilities that comprise
a multi-cultural workforce and leveraging them to strategic advantage.
To those ends, our Office Of Equal Employment Opportunity and Military
Equal Opportunity sponsors a robust Diversity program that includes:
--Special Emphasis employment programs required by Title VII
29 CFR 1614;
--17 collateral duty Diversity Liaison Officers (DLO) at our
sites around the world responsible for promoting cultural
awareness within the workforce;
--6 Workforce Excellence lectures for our Headquarters
employees; and
--Quarterly diversity-centric meetings between the Director,
NRO and our Unity Council, a group that is comprised of the
chairpersons from each of the Special Emphasis Councils and
chartered to raise management awareness of a breadth of
diversity issues.
In January 2002, we published a new Strategic Plan for Diversity to
augment our ongoing efforts in this area. We are partnered with other
intelligence Community agencies to evaluate recruitment and retention
strategies, and participate in outreach programs to elementary, high
school, and university students. In addition, we are also implementing
an NRO Disabilities Internship Program with four slots identified for
FY 2004. Although the overall representation of minorities within the
NRO's administrative specialties is still below the Bureau of Labor
Statistics benchmark for the U.S. population, the representation of
women and minorities in our technical specialties now exceeds those
benchmarks, as a result of the continued emphasis in this area. Because
the NRO does not have its own workforce and is, therefore, limited in
its ability to influence diversity demographics, it is critical that we
continue to partner effectively with the parent agencies and to achieve
acceptable representation in all NRO occupations.
retention
In addition to improving its approach to acquiring personnel, the
NRO has undertaken efforts to preserve as much NRO experience as
possible within the workforce. With lifelong NRO careers largely a
thing of the past, the NRO has attempted to increase the percentage of
its workforce that has prior NRO experience through deliberate efforts
to bring personnel back following mandatory rotations to their parent
element. The NRO maintains alumni and experience rosters and monitors
the career progress of prior-NRO personnel with an eye to future return
assignments. One NRO element, in fact, has established personnel
practices that expedite hiring of military personnel back into the NRO
following their retirement. These combined efforts paid modest
dividends: we experienced a 3.5 percent increase in the average NRO
years of experience in its workforce from 1999 to 2002 and we expect to
see a continuing upward trend.
the nro climate survey
We are committed to providing our workforce with an environment
that promotes high productivity through tools and infrastructure as
well as a supportive culture. Annually, we conduct a climate survey to
gauge employee satisfaction across the full spectrum of work
environment, diversity, and HR support programs. Since its
implementation in 1998, the survey has been invaluable in helping to
direct and focus workforce programs. Consequently, all factors measured
by the survey now exceed the minimum satisfaction rating and most
factors exhibit high levels of workforce satisfaction. In 2003, all
human resources related factors (like quality of life, training, and
performance recognition) showed a measurable increase in employee
satisfaction.
the future
The NRO continues to improve and transform its workforce to meet
the needs of the future through implementation of several new
initiatives:
First, the Way Ahead--which lays out our vision for future
programs--defines the overarching demand for human resources to meet
future needs. We will continue to assess the overall impacts of this
vision on personnel and their development and drive our workforce
planning and implementation activities commensurate with that vision
and mission.
Second, the NRO Strategic Plan emphasizes mission-critical skills,
particularly systems engineering and program management competencies,
thus further dictating the development of focused plans for the growth
and management of the workforce. While earlier efforts have garnered
some improvements, we must continue to carry out targeted workforce
planning to achieve further advancements. With assistance from our
Deputy Director for Systems Engineering, we plan to conduct a deeper
investigation into the health and dynamics of the engineering and
program management populations, and to identify actions to strengthen
these areas.
Finally, with the advent of the space professional cadre concept,
the national security space community has initiated space-specific
workforce planning activities in a number of the parent organizations
that support the NRO. These activities will enhance the quality of the
NRO's future workforce and will drive other initiatives in management,
development, and utilization of the cadre. In addition, we have drafted
our own strategy for managing space professionals during their NRO
tours with an eye toward meeting our unique mission needs while
ensuring compliance with parent organization standards.
In summary, the NRO is fully committed to creating and maintaining
a world-class workforce to meet the needs of the NRO and of the Nation.
Our people are the key to continuing our long record of unparalleled
accomplishment, innovation, and service and our mission requires the
full commitment and dedication of each and every member of the NRO
team. We will continue to attract, train, motivate and retain the right
people--the best people--to perform our critical work.
The Chairman. We now go to the Honorable William Black,
Deputy Director of the National Security Agency.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM B. BLACK, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY
Mr. Black. Thank you very much, Chairman Goss and Ranking
Member Harman. This is my report to you from the National
Security Agency.
I think it is important for everyone to understand that
what I will talk about is the Federal civilian workforce at
NSA. But the truth of the matter is half of our placement is
military, and also we are spread throughout the United States
and in many other parts of the world, and this has had a major
impact on our people which is absolutely critical to what our
mission is about.
The fact that our work strength had been reduced over
recent years has caused us to concentrate on targeting specific
mission areas and to align our work skills with this because we
have gone through a major transformation in the Agency. We have
taken initial steps to improve our situation by, first of all,
moving our diversity office itself into our human resource
organization so that all of our human resource actions will, in
fact, reflect the diversity on which we are built.
Between the fiscal years of 1990 and 2001, the reduction,
as I mentioned, in our civilian workforce was such that if it
wasn't for this committee's support, we probably would not be
able to grow as we are now and to have the impact we are having
on the workforce. Fifteen percent of the Agency's workforce has
been hired in the last 3 years. The growth projected in our
manpower strategy will allow us to increase that percentage to
40 percent by fiscal year 2008. As an example of the
opportunity presented by this influx of personnel, the Agency
hired 350 minority employees in the past 2 years, which is as
many as we had hired in the previous 4 years.
In this past year, NSA recruiters logged more than 290,000
miles on 268 recruiting trips. These trips have included 27
colleges and universities and significant minority population
in many of these institutions. NSA exceeded its hiring goals in
the last 3 years and maintained its 18 percent diversity hiring
rate. Our students program hired an additional 333 students and
achieved a 21 percent diversity rate.
One goal for the coming year is the creation of a new 2-
year Congressman Stokes program geared toward language
students. We also intend to significantly increase the
percentage of language students accepted into the 4-year Stokes
program that we have had ongoing for several years at NSA and
to develop a High School Native Speaker Program.
While target and mission expertise is critical, the foreign
language proficiency of the language professional is essential.
We must understand not only the words, but the intentions
behind the words. This is defined as ``Level 3'' proficiency,
the formal requirement for working a cryptologic language.
In this new environment, retaining skilled linguist
professionals is particularly important. Earlier this year, we
rewarded professionals who have the requisite language
proficiency by increasing their foreign language and incentive
pay ceiling. And additionally, we recently approved the second
step, the Language Analyst Recruitment Bonus and Milestone
Reward Program, which consists of a recruitment bonus for new
hires and a 2-year Milestone Reward Program to retain linguists
and encourage the Level 3 proficiency which is critical for our
business.
I thank this committee for its support in the last 2 years
in the Intelligence Authorization Act. We are working now on
what we call 21st Century Distributed Learning. This ground-
breaking work revolutionizes our language education through
``just-in-time'' language learning opportunities. We are
sharing this information throughout the Nation and particularly
with Flagship Universities. These universities sponsor programs
designed to produce Level 3 proficient graduates in such
language as Arabic, Chinese and Persian-Farsi.
The DCI has emphasized diversity as a corporate imperative,
a strategic goal, and states, ``our people are our most
precious assets, not satellites or high-speed computers.'' We
have reaffirmed our commitment to diversity well beyond the
recruitment and hiring initiatives mentioned above. Diversity
is not just about fairness. It is mission-critical, and we
incorporated this principle into our strategic and business
planning in the day-to-day operations. People remain, to NSA's
success, a key to the 21st century and beyond. We remain
dedicated to those efforts that will ensure we have a truly
diverse workforce, with the right people with the right skills
in the right jobs.
As we grow the workforce, we have unprecedented opportunity
to further our transformation. We will do this by eliminating
the barriers that prevent a truly integrated, seamless,
cooperative learning and thriving information enterprise. With
your help, we will continue to provide the vital information
that will enable the United States to maintain a decisive
information superiority edge.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of this committee, for
this opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Black follows:]
Prepared Statement of William B. Black, Deputy Director, National
Security Agency
introduction
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of
the Committee for the opportunity to report on the National Security
Agency's (NSA) progress in meeting the Human Resources (HR) and
diversity challenges that are central to the continued transformation
of the NSA. Enhancing our expert work force and effectively leading and
managing our people is a critical task and the key to constructing the
unified, end-to-end enterprise needed to achieve and maintain
information superiority for America.
Since 1999, in concert with the Director of Central Intelligence's
(DCI) Strategic Intent, the transformation of the NSA has been focused
on four strategic goals:
<bullet> Ensure responsive intelligence information and information
assurance for national decision-makers and military commanders.
<bullet> Continuously modernize the cryptologic system by using
advanced technology to provide solutions for the production and
protection of information.
<bullet> Shape the NSA work force to meet SIGINT and Information
Assurance mission challenges.
<bullet> Maximize the use of resources through effective business
processes and prudent risk to achieve and sustain responsive Signals
Intelligence and Information Assurance solutions.
NSA has made great progress in each of these areas but much remains
to be done as we embark on the Director's new vision of Transformation
2.0: Cryptology as a Team Sport. This vision furthers the above goals
by focusing on dependencies not only within NSA/CSS, but increasingly
on dependencies beyond the fence line--in the larger DoD and
Intelligence communities. Faced with a variety of changes that include
increasing the scale and scope of computer network operations;
expanding and in some cases tailoring our products to serve customers
at the federal, state, and local levels; meeting new demands
necessitated by precision targeting; tracking people and discrete
things as well as organizations and nations; and automating processes
throughout the enterprise, we will succeed only by improving NSA's
collaborative relationships across the board.
Our future objectives include:
<bullet> Blending the SIGINT and Information Assurance
missions;
<bullet> Integrating the strategic and tactical SIGINT
enterprise;
<bullet> Transforming customer access to the SIGINT process
stream; and
<bullet> Taking the lead in teaming by enabling more Community
collaboration along our five business lines: get it; know it;
use it; manage the mission; and manage the enterprise.
Because people are key to the successful accomplishment of all of
these goals and their associated programs/initiatives, NSA articulated
a work force strategy that is based on growth, skills alignment and
knowledge transfer. The strategy outlines the Agency's need to grow the
work force to meet increased mission challenges and to acquire the next
generation of SIGINT and Information Assurance professionals. But this
growth will not take place equally across the Agency. It is targeted
toward specific areas and realigns skills to enhance capabilities and
readiness in language, focus on analysis, increase our ability to
exploit the global network, preserve our expertise in cryptanalysis,
strengthen our target development activities, protect our people, and
modestly augment some of the enabling functions. The strategy also
addresses the Agency's critical need to transfer knowledge between the
expert on-board population and the new generation. This is vital to our
future success and a critical aspect of transformation.
NSA has made significant progress in hiring, recruitment,
retention, skills mix, and training. Despite successes in these areas,
NSA recognizes that its diversity is an area in which improvement is
essential to sustaining our mission. NSA also recognizes, of course,
that these steps to ensure diversity in our workforce must be
consistent with the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. We
have taken initial steps to improve the situation, to include moving
the responsibility for diversity management to the office that has
successfully managed other HR initiatives.
After years of downsizing we are increasing the size of the civilian
work force . . .
Between FY1990 and FY2001 NSA reduced civilian manpower by 32
percent through voluntary means. With this Committee's support, NSA's
manpower authorizations increased by 400 in FY2002, 428 in FY2003, and
965 in FY2004. This growth allowed for significantly increased hiring
programs to fill current vacancies and the additional authorized
billets with 820 new hires in FY2002, 1125 in FY2003, and 1500
projected for FY2004. As the Agency moves forward, it is now working
with the Administration on the budget to increase civilian billets
between FY2005 and FY2008 to enhance the existing work force with the
multidisciplinary, analytic, and technical personnel needed to
transform the cryptologic enterprise.
This growth also presents a significant opportunity to increase
NSA's diversity. Fifteen percent of the Agency's work force has been
hired since FY2001 and the growth projected in the manpower strategy
would allow NSA to increase that percentage to 40 percent by FY2008. As
an example of the opportunity presented by this influx of personnel,
the Agency hired as many minority employees in the past two years (350
in FY2002 and FY2003) as it did in the previous four years (FY1998
through FY2001).
We continue to improve recruitment processes . . .
NSA continues to improve its recruitment processes and expand its
presence in the job marketplace. This past year NSA recruiters logged
more than 290,000 miles on 268 recruiting trips to 102 schools in 44
States and one Territory. As a key part of the effort to hire more than
1100 new employees and build a pipeline for FY2004, these trips
included 27 colleges and universities that have a significant minority
population (i.e., African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Pacific, and
Native American) and 19 professional events.
NSA's student programs, especially the Cooperative Education,
Summer, and Stokes Scholarship (formerly Undergraduate Training
Program) programs, serve as a prime source of new employee recruits by
providing college students and graduates with Agency operational
experience. Graduates of these programs can immediately begin
productive and responsible assignments. As such, these programs are key
feeders into the Agency's full-time hiring program.
Other major recruiting improvements include:
<bullet> Establishing an Employee Referral Program, which
encourages Agency employees to refer qualified candidates to
the NSA Office of Recruitment;
<bullet> Doubling participation in Intelligence Community
collaborative recruiting events from 4 to 8;
<bullet> Outsourcing scheduling, welcome center, and data entry
functions, which provides a high level of professionalism;
<bullet> Awarding a new advertising contract, which offered the
opportunity to highlight diversity issues;
<bullet> Refreshing the print media;
<bullet> Enhancing web site features and functionality;
<bullet> Deploying a new auto call center voice mail system to
assist applicants;
<bullet> Hiring recruiters with private sector experience;
<bullet> Initiating a recruiter training curriculum;
<bullet> Publishing the third edition of NSA's award-winning
recruiting CD (recognized for excellence by the national
advertising industry) and effectively using other new
promotional items to market NSA as a quality employer (thanks
to this Committee's support for legislative authority to
execute this function);
<bullet> Using invitation-only career fairs and skill group
interview sessions resulting in over 200 hires; and
<bullet> Establishing a language hiring bonus and awards
program to compete in the extremely competitive language hiring
market.
We would be happy to brief you at a later time on our plans for a
new print media and web site advertising campaign in the spring of
2004.
But we also need to retain talented people . . .
Over the past two years NSA transitioned its workforce to an annual
evaluation cycle that links rewards and recognition directly to
performance. At the same time, NSA encouraged managers to push the
decision level for promotion and awards down to the lowest possible
level so that managers can recognize those who are key to achieving the
Agency's mission. NSA increased the overall budget for recognition (10
percent for promotion and seven percent for awards) at a time when
employees were giving their all to support the Global War on Terrorism.
In addition, the Agency received an additional $2.5 million
specifically to recognize employees whose efforts supported the war in
Iraq.
NSA used retention bonuses to keep critical employees from leaving.
Judicious use of these incentives allowed the Agency to retain just
over 100 personnel primarily within the SIGINT Directorate, the
Information Assurance Directorate, and in Research areas. NSA also set
aside $1.5 million dollars for lump-sum performance awards for
individuals demonstrating outstanding work in several of the Agency's
most important and sensitive missions. Fifty-eight percent of these
funds were offered to personnel working the SIGINT mission and 42
percent were used for the Information Assurance mission.
We've focused our hiring program on core mission skills . . .
One of the pillars of the NSA work force strategy is skills
alignment, i.e., identifying the skill mix necessary to meet future
goals and objectives. This includes evaluating the current work force
skill mix, defining mission goals, matching the skill mix to the
mission goals, and developing a plan to get from ``here to there.''
Hiring efforts in FY2003 were aligned with this plan. Over ninety
percent of all FY2003 hires held a Bachelor's degree or above and the
new hire class holds a 3.41 average G.P.A.
NSA exceeded its hiring goals the last three years and maintained
an 18.4 percent diversity-hiring rate. This is remarkable given that
much of the Agency's hiring took place in the areas of language,
analytical, and technical skills that traditionally have less diverse
applicant populations. In addition, NSA achieved its best diversity
results in computer science, organizational leadership and management,
signals analysis, security, and cryptanalysis.
Student programs hired an additional 333 students and achieved a 21
percent diversity rate while shifting the skills of approximately 25
percent of its FY2003 Cooperative Education, Summer, and Stokes
Scholarship program skills from Electrical/Computer Engineering and
Computer Science to language and intelligence analysis. New for FY2004
is the Graduate Training Program, in which six outstanding technical
undergraduates in Electrical/Computer Engineering, Computer Science,
Systems Engineering, and Information Operations were recruited to
continue their education at the Air Force Institute of Technology
(AFIT) and the Monterey Postgraduate School (MPS). The Committee's
inclusion of language authorizing this program in the FY2003
Intelligence Authorization conference report is greatly appreciated.
In addition, NSA's goals in FY2004 include a new two-year Stokes
Program, geared towards students who have already started the study of
a language in college; a significant increase in the percentage of
language students accepted into the four-year Stokes Program; and the
development of a High School Native Speaker Program, with a projected
implementation date of fall 2004. Through this latter program, NSA will
employ high school seniors, who have a native capability in a
critically needed language, as high school work-study students, then
employ and mentor those students through college while paying their
college tuition. NSA also plans to bring in additional language
students by participating in the Intelligence Community Analyst
Training Program, when it becomes available.
We are particularly focused on language . . .
In the past, much of the foreign language material that NSA
processed for national security was somewhat formatted. We basically
knew who our enemies were and we knew pretty much what to expect. That
is no longer the case. Our enemies can be anywhere, and many of them
would do us harm in ways that were previously unfathomable. While
target and mission expertise is still critical for successful SIGINT
work, the foreign language proficiency of the language professional is
essential to successfully protect our country. We must understand not
only the words, but also the intentions behind the words. This is
defined as ``Level 3'' proficiency, which DIRNSA documented in April
2002 as the formal requirement for working cryptologic language.
At NSA, the Senior Language Authority works in a collaborative
partnership with the Military Services and the Defense Language
Institute/Foreign Language Center (DLI/FLC) on plans to bring the
entire cryptologic language workforce, military and civilian, to Level
3. These plans identify a need for considerable increases in funding to
support adjustments in training, assignments, and numbers of billets.
In this new environment, retaining skilled language professionals
is particularly important. Earlier this year, NSA rewarded the
qualified and stable staff of professionals who have the requisite
language proficiency by increasing the Foreign Language Incentive Pay
ceiling for civilians and encouraging DOD action for commensurate
military increases in Foreign Language Proficiency Pay. In addition,
the DIRNSA recently approved the second step--the Language Analyst
Recruitment Bonus and Milestone Award Program. This program consists of
two parts. First, a recruitment bonus for new hires will be used to
enhance NSA's ability to set starting pay for language analysts at
competitive levels. Second, a two-year milestone award program will
serve as an incentive to retain new language analysts and encourage
them to attain Level 3 language proficiency in the language for which
they are hired.
Thanks to the support of this Committee in the FY2003 Intelligence
Authorization Act, NSA is working with the National Security Education
Program (NSEP) and the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) on 21st
Century Distributed Learning (LangNet). This groundbreaking work at the
University of Maryland revolutionizes language education in ``less-
commonly-taught languages'' (LCTLs) and at higher levels. This is
accomplished by providing ``just-in-time'' language learning and
maintenance opportunities on demand at a learner's convenience--night
or day--through the Internet. To date, more than 1000 learning objects
in 15 languages have been delivered.
While the optimal language-learning environment remains a
classroom, building a language workforce at the Level 3 proficiency
requires 21st century alternatives. All learning objects align with the
specific learners' preferences and needs based on diagnostic
assessments. All are unclassified and can be shared throughout the
nation at large and particularly with the new Flagship Universities,
which sponsor programs designed to produce Level 3 proficient graduates
in such languages as Arabic, Chinese, and Persian-Farsi. NSA is proud
to support and advocate for this first-ever language-related academic
initiative for our nation.
In calendar year 2005, two major language initiatives will begin . . .
A new capability-driven language testing system will allow NSA to
streamline its language assessments. NSA will go from its current two-
part performance-based testing system to a one-part proficiency-based
assessment of reading and listening comprehension. In alignment with
the Director's goal for all language analysts to maintain a minimum of
Level 3 in reading and listening, additional funding has been allocated
in FY2004 and beyond to provide training opportunities at the NSA
National Cryptologic School with local vendors and, where possible,
immersion training. NSA is committed to providing continuous learning
and development opportunities for its language workforce worldwide. All
language analysts are encouraged to pursue a variety of proficiency
performance opportunities to maintain and improve their language
readiness.
The second major initiative is the Center for Advanced Study of
Language (CASL) at the University of Maryland: The nations' 10th
University Affiliated Research Center (UARC). The CASL at the
University of Maryland will ensure sustained, sophisticated research in
language and linguistics, critical to intelligence work related to the
Global War on Terrorism. CASL represents a significant step toward
strengthening our nation's language competence by building a community
of researchers actively engaged in the practical scientific exploration
of a skill so critical to the defense of our nation.
Intelligence Community and Department of Defense Language Boards
(composed of senior professionals from NSA, CIA, DIA, DLI, FBI, State
Department, and the Services) identified the requirement for the UARC
as part of an end-to-end solution to address and improve the U.S.
government's foreign language deficiency. In addition to its value in
foreign intelligence, the initiative will support effective response to
language skill deficiencies identified by combatant commanders and
combat support agencies.
With an understanding of the critical nature of languages in
national security, CASL will perform innovative research that is framed
in the reality of classified missions. The research paradigm will shift
from a traditional academic approach to a more pragmatic approach,
investigating and improving how language professionals apply their
skills in actual language work. Research will be responsive to the
requirements collected, documented, and prioritized by U.S. government
language professionals. CASL will also support the federal and national
language skill communities by sharing knowledge, conducting independent
evaluations, and fostering language and linguistics education.
CASL will initially be comprised of approximately 80 University of
Maryland staff members and U.S. government personnel, growing to 150 to
200 personnel over the next five years. NSA, collaborating across DoD
and the IC, will coordinate research priorities based upon unique and
crucial needs of member components. NSA, DoD, and IC component agencies
will provide technical leadership for management of the center and will
integrate language professionals from their components into the
research activity itself.
We're ensuring a well-trained work force with current skills to meet
NSA's evolving needs . . .
NSA is committed to providing the highest level of training,
development, and educational opportunities for its employees. In
addition to offering a myriad of in-house, specialized technical, and
cryptologic training, NSA contracts with academia, industry, and
consultants to enhance the business and management skills of the
workforce. NSA has a proud reputation of supporting the continuing
education of its employees, and for FY2004 spent over $6 million to
support continuing after-hours educational endeavors.
NSA is an active partner in the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program
created at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County in 1988 with
a substantial grant from the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Foundation. The
program supports high-achieving students who are interested in pursuing
doctoral study in the sciences or engineering, and who are interested
in the advancement of minorities in the sciences and related fields.
The National Science Foundation and The New York Times recognized the
program as a national model. NSA has been supporting the program at an
increasing level since 1992. The current grant allows NSA to sponsor up
to 10 students.
The Agency's new Center for Leadership and Professional Development
has begun creating career road maps for the NSA work force throughout
the 22 skill communities to which they belong and creating
opportunities for employees to share technical knowledge and work
experiences. NSA is aligning training and development initiatives with
the mission needs of individuals, professional communities, and
organizations and with values critical to the NSA transformation.
NSA is dedicated to developing ``the leadership in all of us,'' no
matter the level of the organization or the job title of the employee,
whether the individual is a manager or a technical leader or an
individual contributor called upon to lead a project or collaborate
with a partner agency. While NSA's leadership and professional
development efforts are focused primarily on strengthening the
capability of team leaders, supervisors, managers, and senior leaders
to achieve mission success through others, we recognize the need for
all our employees to hone both their technical and leadership skills.
Each NSA employee must be ready to assume leadership roles when the
challenge arises and, for transformation to take hold, each employee
must participate fully in this team sport called ``cryptology.''
Within the Agency's new Center for Leadership and Professional
Development, we launched an ambitious program of training and
development targeted at both basic leadership competencies and specific
management skills. In addition to management and leadership courses, we
are offering opportunities for leadership assessment, coaching,
mentoring, peer networking, and on-line resources to complement and
reinforce learning.
We value diversity . . .
NSA recently increased its ability to link diversity with strategic
Human Resource policies, plans, and programs by placing the Office of
Diversity Management (ODM) in the Associate Directorate of Human
Resource Services (ADHRS). This move emphasizes the importance of
attaining a diverse workforce by including ODM personnel in the
development of strategic manpower management initiatives. The closer
integration of these two offices will greatly increase partnership
opportunities with key human resources personnel responsible for
program development and administration, work force planning,
recruitment and hiring, employee relations, dispute resolution, and
customer service and support.
The DCI emphasizes diversity as a corporate imperative--a strategic
goal--and states, ``Our people are our most precious assets--not
satellites, or light tables or high-speed computers.'' NSA needs to
recruit and retain the best that America has to offer from all of her
people.
NSA has reaffirmed its commitment to diversity well beyond the
recruitment and hiring initiatives mentioned above. Diversity is not
just about fairness; it is mission critical. We incorporated this
principle into our strategic and business planning and day-to-day
operations.
<bullet> NSA employees routinely provide leadership and consulting
services to the Community Management Staff, IC partners, and the
Defense Equal Employment Management Institute.
<bullet> NSA's EEO and Diversity Strategies are clearly linked with
the DCI Strategic Diversity Plan and are fully incorporated into the
NSA Strategic Plan.
<bullet> To ensure that Diversity Management is seen as a
leadership imperative, we modified executive contracts to include
``Leveraging Diversity'' as a critical component for success.
<bullet> We established a team of six Executive Diversity Champions
from the most senior ranks of our business and six Corporate Diversity
Councils with charters designed to enable our business objectives.
<bullet> We continue to offer and provide a wide range of diversity
training to all of our employees.
conclusion
People remain the key to NSA's success in the 21st century and
beyond. We remain dedicated to those efforts that will ensure that we
have a truly diverse work force, with the right people with the right
skills in the right jobs. As we grow the work force we have an
unprecedented opportunity to further transformation by eliminating the
barriers that prevent a truly integrated, seamless, cooperative,
learning, and thriving information enterprise. With your help, we will
continue to provide the vital information that will enable the United
States to maintain a decisive information superiority edge.
Thank you Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee for the
opportunity to testify before you today.
The Chairman. Mr. Rodriguez from the Defense Intelligence
Agency, the Office of Diversity Management and Equal
Opportunity. We welcome you, sir.
STATEMENT OF ARMANDO E. RODRIGUEZ, CHIEF, DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Mr. Rodriguez. Representative Goss, Representative Harman,
committee members, on behalf of Admiral Jacoby, Director of the
Defense Intelligence Agency, thank you for the opportunity to
address you today. As you are aware, I am the new Chief of our
Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity, having joined DIA 2
weeks ago. I am honored to talk about the extensive and
innovative programs and initiatives being implemented across
the Defense Intelligence Agency to optimize the Intelligence
Community's capabilities.
I chose DIA over other departments and agencies for their
leadership, commitment to diversity and acquiring a workforce
with the skills required to meet the formidable challenges we
face now and into the future. The key to building DIA's future
workforce are through unprecedented strategic initiatives,
which I will highlight as they are related specifically to the
areas you have expressed.
DIA recruitment, retention and training strategies have
been transformed to create and maintain the critical talent
required to meet the challenges of the 21st century. We have
launched key initiatives to ensure a partnership of highly
skilled people and leading-edge technologies to provide
warfighters, policymakers and planners with assured access
through acquired intelligence.
The competition with the private sector. DIA does compete
with the private sector for talent on both the hiring and
retention fronts. On the hiring front, competition has
increased precipitously with the hope of new private sector
companies making their foray into the intelligence domain.
There has also been additional competition from other IT
organizations as well as States and local governments who are
also building their own intelligence capabilities.
On the retention front, public sector organizations have
been a bigger competitor in the private sector. Of those who
have left DIA over the past 3 years, approximately 40 percent
have indicated their employer has been a public sector
organization, and only about 10 percent private sector
companies. Beginning in fiscal year 2003, we have instituted
rigorous attrition analysis in order to better understand the
factors of attrition. The Agency is also currently developing
corresponding mitigation strategies to address these factors.
In the recruitment and development efforts, our diversity
efforts are overwhelmingly focused on the critical skills area.
We would emphasize, however, that our targeted outreach efforts
will not be conducted in a manner that undercuts equal
opportunity and recruitment of all racial and ethnic groups,
both minority and nonminority, nor are our diversity programs
intended to achieve proportional representation on the basis of
race or ethnicity.
Human Resources has worked with Agency directorates to
develop annual workforce plans which will define the needed
skills. Armed with these skill requirements, Human Resources in
conjunction with Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity
built a recruitment program that targeted a diverse set of
applicants with the necessary skills mix for mission
accomplishment. To assist in this effort, DIA has hired the
services of a professional advertising agency, TMP. TMP has
received national recognition by the Society of Human Resource
Management for three ads designed specifically for DIA. These
ads were recognized in the creative excellence award category
for design and presentation both in black and white magazine ad
category as well as the online advertising. DIA's ad campaign
was designed to reach the broadest audience nationwide.
In fiscal year 2003, DIA embarked on a very intense and
aggressive hiring program to meet the current and future skill
set. DIA participated in 72 recruitment events at academic
institutions, military sites and professional organizations. We
hired over 600 employees in fiscal year 2003, by far the
largest influx of new employees in recent memory.
With regard to development of DIA language capabilities,
DIA has morphed its strategy to meet the growing global
requirements. Today we recruit individuals with a number of
targeted languages. Many requirements for linguists since 9/11
have been filled with contract linguists. DIA has a distinct
advantage in our attacks system in that the majority has
language proficiency. Currently we have a requirement for
nearly 1,000 linguists who will be--who will enhance their
capabilities by being in a country and learning the cultural
context of the area. DIA has--is concentrating on recruiting
people with language capabilities that will support our
requirements.
The ability to replace large numbers of experienced
persons. Challenges associated with the number of recruitment-
eligible employees continues to exist at DIA. Currently 30
percent of our workforce is eligible for some form of
retirement; however, only 10 to 15 percent of those eligible
actually execute retirement options each year. We recognize
this and have identified the need for a formal succession
planning framework to minimize the loss of critical
institutional knowledge and mission-critical skills. DIA's
workforce planning effort is currently developing a succession
planning transition plan that will establish and institute
succession planning into DIA's business processes.
We have made a keen investment to ensure that our
capabilities are the capabilities required to meet the emerging
and evolving mission through our workforce planning efforts.
Today the national security environment requires the Department
of Defense reconsider traditional concepts and think in new
ways about the global threat and our corresponding deterrence,
warning and military superiority strategy. For Defense
Intelligence Agency, the complexity of these challenges and
breadth of the opportunities has never been greater. To address
these challenges and maximize our accompanying opportunities,
we have commissioned a workforce planning project to set a
framework for making fundamental changes to the business
processes and to our workforce.
In summary, we are optimistic about the possibilities and
believe we have a unique opportunity to transform the
intelligence capabilities, personnel and processes to support
those that protect and defend our country and its principles.
DIA is exploring new and innovative approaches to attract and
retain the diversity of skills and capabilities needed in this
very dynamic, global, complex environment in which we live. We
do not intend to let this opportunity pass. Rather, we are
working to seize it and to optimize our capacity to serve our
warfighters, support our planners, and inform our policymakers
so they have the best basis for decision-making possible.
Mr. Rodriguez. Our Nation requires it, our forces depend on
it, and our professionalism demands it.
I want to thank you, Representative Goss, Representative
Harman and committee members. This concludes my statement.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Rodriguez.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rodriguez follows:]
Prepared Statement of Armando Rodriguez, Chief, Diversity Management
and Equal Opportunity Office, Defense Intelligence Agency
i. introduction
Thank you for this opportunity to talk about the extensive and
innovative programs and initiatives being implemented across the
Defense Intelligence Agency to optimize Intelligence Community (IC)
capabilities. As the Chief, Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity
Office, DIA, I am pleased to say that the IC agencies are collaborating
at an unprecedented level in sharing ideas, resources and expertise to
ensure that the IC has the diversity and skills that are required to
meet the formidable challenges we face now and into the future.
The keys to building DIA's future workforce are through
unprecedented strategic initiatives, which I will highlight today as
they relate to your expressed areas of interest. DIA recruitment,
retention, and training strategy have been transformed to create and
maintain the critical talent required to meet the challenges of the
21st Century. DIA has launched key initiatives to ensure a
``partnership of highly skilled people and leading edge technologies to
provide war fighters, policymakers and planners with assured access to
required intelligence.''
ii. competition with the private sector
DIA competes with the private sector for talent on both the hiring
and retention fronts. On the hiring front, competition has increased
precipitously with a host of new private sector companies making their
foray into the intelligence domain. There has also been additional
competition from other IC organizations as well as state and local
governments, which are also building their own intelligence
capabilities. On the retention front, public sector organizations have
been a bigger competitor than the private sector. Of those who left DIA
in the past three years, 35% indicated their next employer as a public
sector organization and only 10% as private sector companies. Beginning
in FY03, DIA instituted a rigorous attrition analysis program in order
to better understand factors of attrition; the Agency currently is
developing corresponding mitigation strategies to address these
factors.
iii. recruitment and development efforts to create and maintain a
workforce with the necessary educational, linguistic, ethnic and
experiential backgrounds and skills
I want to emphasize that our diversity efforts are overwhelmingly
focused on the critical skill areas. In the years prior to 9/11, the
focus of DIA's strategic recruitment program focused on academic
disciplines steeped toward analysts, collectors, and information
managers with specialized skills. Directorate requirements changed
little from year to year, and essentially mirrored those skill sets of
the current workforce.
While some efforts were made toward a more strategic approach to
defining future skills requirements prior to 9/11, the terrorist
attacks drove the Agency to accelerate and redefine the very nature of
our intelligence officer and support officer core. DIA's analytical
focus returned to truly ``all source'' analysis, providing immediate
on-demand access to all sources of data. Its collection focus changed
from episodic reconnaissance, primarily from technical collection
platforms, to long-dwell, persistent surveillance, with a heightened
emphasis on Human Intelligence (HUMINT) collection. Information
management focus shifted toward content tagging and building
interoperability at the data, vice systems level, enabling horizontal
integration of information from all sources, at all levels of
classification.
To meet this change in Agency focus, DIA's Office for Human
Resources (DAH) worked with Agency directorates to develop annual
workforce analysis plans which defined the needed skill sets. Armed
with the skills requirements, DAH, in conjunction with the Diversity
Management and Equal Opportunity Office (MD), built a recruitment
program that targeted a diverse set of applicants with the necessary
skills mix for mission accomplishment. Last year, DIA hired a
professional ad agency, TMP. The three DIA specific ads they developed
won National recognition through the Society of Human Resources
Management. The DIA ads were recognized in both the creative excellence
award category for design and presentation, and in the black and white
magazine ad category.
In FY03, DIA embarked on a very intense and aggressive hiring
program to meet current and future skills sets. DIA participated in 72
recruitment events at academic institutions, military sites, and
professional organizations. DIA hired over 600 new employees in FY03,
by far the largest influx of new employees in recent memory!
Hiring:
HIRING RATE SUMMARY
[In percent]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY01 FY02 FY03
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIA............................................................. 9 10 16
Federal Government.............................................. *20 **21 ***17
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Based on BLS data from calendar year January-December 2001.
** Based on BLS data from calendar year January-December 2002.
*** Based on BLS data from September 2002-August 2003.
With regard to development of DIA language capabilities, DIA has
morphed its strategy to meet growing global requirements. Over the past
several years, Agency demand for analysts with language capability has
increased significantly. We are transforming a workforce able to meet
multiple global crises, meet the ability to surge as required, and meet
a growing need for a more geographically mobile workforce. Language
capability and cultural awareness via overseas experience enhances our
ability to meet these mission needs.
In addition to an increased language emphasis for our analytical
workforce, DIA's renewed emphasis in the area of HUMINT necessitated a
corresponding increase in the requirement for language skills. Today,
DIA recruits individuals with a number of targeted languages. DIA has a
distinct advantage in our attache system, in that the majority has
language proficiency.
Many requirements for linguists since 9/11 have been filled with
contract linguists. Currently, DIA has a requirement for nearly 1000
linguists, who will enhance their capabilities by being in a country
and learning the cultural context of the area. Reservists offer us
another resource and we are using them in all our operations.
Prior to 9/11, recruitment of analysts and HUMINT personnel with
language skills was highly desired, but not an absolute requirement.
DIA intends to expand and make language proficiency and cultural
orientation mandatory for many of our specialists.
DIA is concentrating on recruiting people with language
capabilities, and targeting recruitment in areas in the U.S. with high
representation of ethnic capabilities that will support our
requirements.
We would emphasize, however, that our targeted outreach efforts
will not be conducted in a manner that undercuts equal opportunity and
recruitment for all racial and ethnic groups, both minority and non-
minority. Nor are our diversity programs intended to achieve
proportional representation on the basis of race or ethnicity.
At the Intelligence Community level, DIA participates in four
recruitment events per year as part of a collaborative effort to
enhance the IC presence at colleges, universities, and professional
association events. Additionally, DIA maintains a presence on the
Intelligence Community Internet website, and has led and participated
in Intelligence Community advertising programs. In fiscal year 2003,
DIA led an unprecedented initiative to develop and publish a joint
Intelligence Community Agency ad, in three of the broadest reaching
minority publications.
The Community Diversity Issues Board (CDIB) maintains a key focus
on academic outreach. We believe the key to effective strategic
recruitment is connecting with students and the faculty that prepares
them to enter our agencies. We need to make them aware of the academic
majors and skills we require, including foreign languages, and the many
exciting and rewarding career opportunities that we offer. Therefore,
student programs and academic outreach are a very important part of our
strategy. IC agencies, individually and jointly through the IC
Recruiting Working Group, participate in a host of job fairs each year
to reach diverse candidates in critical skill areas. Some examples of
career fairs that agencies will jointly participate in this fall
include:
<bullet> Women for Hire, Crystal City, VA;
<bullet> Career Expo for People with Disabilities,
Washington, DC;
<bullet> Asian Diversity for Hire, New York City; and
<bullet> American Indian Science and Engineering Society,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
IC agencies will participate in many similar recruitment activities
throughout the year
The CDIB led two Intelligence Community Colloquia in FY 03. The
purpose of the colloquia is to increase awareness of the role, mission
and contributions of the IC among colleges and universities that have
significant minority enrollments and to foster enhanced recruiting and
academic relationships with these schools. The initial pilot for our
colloquia was held at Trinity College here in Washington in October
2002. Trinity is a college for women and also has a large enrollment of
African-American students. In September 2003, DIA led an IC colloquium
at New Mexico State University where Dr. Mark Lowenthal was our guest
speaker. Dr. Lowenthal, along with eight other senior executives from
across the community, enthusiastically shared about the real world
challenges we face, the importance of what we do, and the type of
talent we need. The target group at New Mexico State was Hispanics.
Approximately 60% of the students enrolled in the Intelligence Studies
program there are Hispanic. New Mexico State University is home to an
intelligence studies program that develops key skills and competencies
in full alignment with intelligence agency requirements. Students often
work directly with intelligence contracts as part of their academic
experience, and have a security clearance upon graduation, thereby
expediting their transition into our work environment. An additional
colloquium is planned in Atlanta in November which targets Historically
Black Colleges and Universities. We are also considering a colloquium
on the west coast that targets Asian-American and Hispanic students. In
publicizing the colloquia, we make it clear that we are focusing on
students majoring in area studies, international studies, languages,
engineering, and other core skill subjects.
The CDIB has acquired the services of the Hudson Institute, the
renowned organization that published Workforce 2000 and Workforce 2020,
to assist us developing innovative diversity recruitment and retention
strategies. In Workforce 2020, the Hudson Institute predicts that
competition for the type of skills required by the IC will greatly
intensify. It also predicts continuing growth in the proportion of
minorities and women in the workforce. Currently, at least one third of
all new entrants to the workforce are minorities and half are women. We
must become more deliberate in our outreach to these growing segments
of the population if we expect to effectively compete for the talented
applicants. We have asked the Institute to conduct an analysis of the
U.S. labor force in relation to core IC skill requirements, such as
area studies and languages, and recommend recruitment and retention
strategies tailored to the IC.
HPSCI language in the FY04 Intelligence Authorization requires a
diversity pilot project to ``improve diversity throughout the
intelligence community using innovative methodologies for the
recruitment, hiring and retention of ethnic and cultural minorities and
women with the diversity of skills, languages and expertise reflective
of the current mission''. The Community Diversity Issues Board is
excited about this project and has already identified two initiatives
that we will undertake to meet the challenge.
(1) Targeted Marketing. The first initiative is targeted marketing.
This effort involves the development of marketing strategies tailored
to reach specific ethnic, cultural and minority groups. We know that
traditional methods alone, such as career fairs, will not achieve the
results we want.
With the assistance of professional marketing consultants, we will
obtain feedback from focus groups representing the target populations
in order to design and place ads that will most effectively attract the
right candidates. CIA is taking the lead in this effort and the
community will build on what CIA has already successfully accomplished.
CIA has already conducted focus groups of Chinese, Korean, Arab,
African, and Hispanic Americans. Additional focus groups are planned
for Native Americans and persons with disabilities.
To give you some idea of the value of the focus groups, allow me to
describe what was involved in conducting the Arab-American groups.
Eight focus groups were convened in areas where large numbers of Arab
Americans reside, including Detroit, Michigan and Tampa, Florida.
Participants were asked about resources they use when looking for a job
and their perceptions about working for the government and the
intelligence community. Using their responses, as well as their
feedback on proposed advertisements, CIA developed a print ad
specifically geared to Arab Americans and published the ad in media
most likely to reach high potential candidates. The response from Arab-
American job-seekers has been outstanding.
Our objective is to expand on what CIA is doing by developing
Intelligence Community ads as well as applying the results of CIA's
marketing study to develop DIA's marketing strategies. We will ensure
that IC ads focus on the language skills, cultural background and
regional expertise we need. We envision applying a wide array of media,
including radio, television, newspapers, ethnic publications, and the
internet.
(2) High School Outreach. The other initiative is High School
Outreach. Our goal is to reach potential candidates earlier and create
an interest in IC careers with an emphasis on critical skill
categories. Waiting to contact students until they are already in
college may be too late to influence their choice of an academic major.
It also places the IC at a disadvantage when competing with large
corporations that are household names. For the pilot, we will start
with high schools in the Washington metropolitan area, a region rich in
diversity. We will target schools offering science and technology
programs, language programs, and other programs that prepare students
for the college majors we need. In addition, we will target bilingual
and bicultural students. Some of the activities planned include
participation in high school career days as well as hosting a regional
IC Career Fair. Ultimately, our objective is to steer high potential
candidates into one of many IC student programs and convert the most
successful students to permanent employees.
iv. ability to replace the large number of experienced persons soon to
be eligible for retirement
Challenges associated with the number of retirement eligible
employees continue to exist at DIA. Currently, 30% of DIA's workforce
is eligible for some form of retirement; however, only 10% to 15% of
those eligible actually execute their retirement option each year. DIA
recognizes this, and has identified the need for a formal succession
planning framework to minimize the loss of critical institutional
knowledge and mission critical skills. DIA's Workforce Planning effort
is currently developing a succession planning transition plan that will
establish and institute succession planning into the way DIA does
business.
ATTRITION RATE SUMMARY
[In percent]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY01 FY02 FY03
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIA............................................................. 7 9 11
Federal Government.............................................. *16 **16 ***15
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Based on BLS data from calendar year January-December 2001.
** Based on BLS data from calendar year January-December 2002.
*** based on BLS data from September 2002-August 2003.
DIA has made a keen investment to ensure it has the capabilities
required to meet emerging and evolving mission through its workforce
planning efforts. Today's national security environment requires that
the Department of Defense reconsider traditional concepts and think in
new ways about the global threat and our corresponding deterrence,
warning, and military superiority strategy. For the Defense
Intelligence Agency, the complexity of these challenges and breadth of
opportunities has never been greater. To address these challenges and
maximize accompanying opportunities, DIA commissioned a Workforce
Planning project to set the framework for making fundamental changes to
our business processes and our workforce.
This project is a long-term multi-year effort that began in January
2003. We hired two contractor teams to assist in this project and
developed a four-phased approach that will be completed at the end of
this calendar year. Phase one involves capturing the future
environment. We hired Toffler Associates and Dove Consulting to conduct
research and provide context for the future, specifically in the areas
of technology, process, structure, strategy, and people. For Phase two,
we hired BearingPoint and Keane Federal Systems to capture information
about our current workforce and the business processes that support it.
Phase three will require both contractor teams to identify the gaps
between our current workforce and processes and the workforce of the
future, and make recommendations on closing those gaps. Phase four is
the transition planning phase that will provide transformational
roadmaps in eight specific areas: Succession Planning, Compensation and
Rewards, Training, Recruiting, Career Development, Performance
Management, Staffing, and Workforce Planning. Each of these transition
plans will help us institutionalize the changes we need to make in our
processes and workforce, and build the capability to put the right
people with the right skills in the right place at the right time.
v. summary
In summary, we are optimistic about the possibilities and believe
we have a unique opportunity to transform the intelligence
capabilities, personnel, and processes that support those that protect
and defend our country and its principles. With full collaboration
across IC agencies, and partnerships with both academia and
professional consultants, DIA is exploring new and innovative
approaches to attract and retain the diversity of skills and
capabilities needed in this very dynamic, global and complex
environment in which we live. We do not intend to let this opportunity
pass; rather, we are working to seize it and optimize our capacity to
serve our war fighers, support our planners, and inform our
policymakers so they have the best basis for decision making possible.
Our Nation requires it, our forces depend on it, and our
professionalism demands it.
The Chairman. At this point, I am going to go to panel
questioning, and I think we can go about 45 minutes or so
before we bring in our second panel, would be my intent. I am
assuming no votes.
Ms. Harman.
Ms. Harman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank our
witnesses for explaining in great detail what they are doing to
recruit and retain a diverse workforce. It matters. And you are
obviously all making a great effort.
In 1969, when I graduated Harvard Law School, one of a tiny
little band of women and minorities, almost none of us, or none
of my predecessors who were women and minorities, were hired by
the big law firms. In my graduating year, for the first time,
the law school insisted any law firm that came to campus had to
interview--had to--all qualified applicants. And lo and behold,
women and minorities were hired by law firms.
Thirty-four years later--but who is counting--now there are
women and minorities in the Fortune 50, there are women and
minorities who are deans of law schools, including Harvard and
major business schools, there are women and minorities in the
top tiers of all recent administrations including this one, but
there is only one woman and no minorities in the top tier of
the Intelligence Community agencies.
The only woman who has made it to that level, or is
presently at that level is JoAnn Isham, who is Jim Clapper's
very able partner. And she is there, not because it is
politically correct, but because she earned it. And she
functions there, I know he will tell all of us, as a very
valued senior employee of NIMA.
Here is what I want to get at in my remaining 2 minutes. It
is why reaching for the entire talent pool matters. In Jim
Clapper's testimony--we happened to get it in its first version
and then its excised version--there was this sentence that
said: ``the impact of diversity includes the benefit of often
divergent perspectives in solving problems, and presents
opportunities for creativity not available to a more
homogeneous group.'' I am not sure why that sentence was
excised; I certainly agree with it, and I think most of the
witnesses testified to it in their testimony.
But, anyway, here is my question: In The Washington Post
earlier this week, I thought there was a very good article
about what we are reportedly learning from Tariq Aziz, one of
the senior Iraqi officials who has now been captured by our
forces, and he was analyzing the personality of Saddam Hussein
and why it might have been that the weapons of mass destruction
weren't there but Saddam Hussein could not admit that because
of the importance of saving face.
Now, that is a perspective that I think some of us might
think about. But my question specifically is, if we had more
diversity at senior levels in your agencies as you helped
collect and analyze information on the Iraq problem, do you
think that that diversity might have added something to your
understanding of the psyche of Saddam Hussein and that might
have added something to our understanding of whether he had
weapons of mass destruction or not; and if he did not, what his
motivation might be for not telling us that at the time?
General Clapper. I will take a try at that. That is kind of
a clairvoyance question. But I think it is safe to say,
Congresswoman, that were there more diversity, it certainly
would not detract from the analytic approach to trying to
understand the psyche of Saddam Hussein. I think that is a safe
statement. The extent of how might we empirically measure were
there more diversity at the senior levels, which I think is
your question, that is hard to say. But it certainly would not
hurt it.
Ms. Harman. If I might add, Mr. Clapper, and to all of us,
I am not just asking about the empirical scientific
information, I am asking about the understanding of Iraqi
culture and the motivation of Iraqi leaders perhaps to mislead
us in ways that we had not properly assessed.
Mr. Teets. I would just simply say that both in my career
in industry as well as my current activity within the
government, I have found diversity to be an enormously powerful
tool. And given any difficult problem, as certainly the
collection of intelligence is a difficult problem and the
analysis of intelligence is a difficult problem, any problem
like that, you get much, much better perspective when you have
a diverse group of individuals who are coming at the problem in
a positively spirited way but from very different backgrounds.
And the power of diversity has been demonstrated amply in many,
many basis.
Mr. Black. If I could. In the case of the National Security
Agency, you noticed I mentioned Level 3 in linguists. That
means a linguist is almost native. We, in fact, require that
the individuals totally understand their target and who they
are, how they function, and how they think. Even if we take a
Level 3 individual off the street and bring them into our
business, it takes us 18 months to take an American that speaks
at the level 3 level to begin to once again understand their
target.
The understanding of the target, which diversity obviously
impacts, is critical to us. We could not do our job without it.
So yes, it is an important aspect.
Ms. Harman. And Mr. Black, if you could hire someone with
built-in language competence and that cultural awareness,
because that person has the background or that person is an
Iraqi American, a patriotic Iraqi American, wouldn't that jump-
start a lot of this and help you use your scarce resources to
train even more folks to be knowledgeable?
Mr. Black. Yes, ma'am. The fact is that is where we get an
awful lot of our very best.
Mr. Harman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Hastings. Mr. Chairman, when I sat here, Mr. Reyes and
I, after our witnesses finished, decided that we may as well
pack up and go home because everything is okay. And I am
vitally interested in a number of things that I recognize are a
continuing problem.
I want to begin with a program that was initiated by one of
our predecessors, Mr. Lou Stokes, in the late eighties. He
helped create the Undergraduate Training Assistance Program.
The goal of that program was to increase minority and female
representation in the community. I would like to know why has
there been a marked decline in the number of minority and
female participants in the program. The total number of CIA
participants in the program dropped by approximately 90 percent
from the early nineties to 2000.
Now, Lou spoke with me personally about his concern about
the direction of the program. I would like to hear from some of
you that know something about it.
Mr. Cryer. Mr. Hastings, I know you have addressed CIA on
this subject on a number of occasions, and I would say to you
that we are also concerned, as you are, with the drop-off of
participation of minorities in that program. We have now, in
the CIA, centralized that effort under the Director of
Recruitment, Harold Tate, and our progress to date shows that
we are now increasing our numbers of students in that program.
We have also taken another step to look not only at high
school students, but students who are in their first and second
year of college, as potential candidates to come into that
program. But we also see the problem of drop-off not just being
a recruitment issue, but as we have studied this problem we
learned from many of the participants in the programs that once
they were recruited, got into those offices, they really got
into situations that weren't nurturing and certainly did not
encourage their continuation.
Mr. Hastings. So you are going after that?
Mr. Cryer. Right. So we are going after that problem.
Mr. Hastings. Well, the numbers are horrible, and I just
wanted to share with you that the author of the program at
least is concerned.
But Mr. Cryer, while you answer, tell me your view
regarding specifically African Americans in the CIA at this
point. I think the track of Hispanics and women will follow
pretty much what I am asking at this time.
Now, you, Mr. Tate, Ms. Stroud have reached a moderate age
in the agency, as well as----
Mr. Cryer. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Hastings. As well as many of your colleagues that are
black, and you all ain't gonna be there much longer. I would
like to know what is in the pipeline that is going to replace
you and what direct efforts are going on. Because as I look at
it--and I think I know the answer, and I am not trying to be
rhetorical--there are not too many people doing what you all
are doing, in a position to do what you do when you leave. So
we are going to wind up with a problem, a gap, when you all
retire.
Mr. Cryer. Right. Well, we are very much aware of that
problem. We know that many of our senior executive minority
officers will be retirement eligible in the next 5 years. One
of the things that we have done in the community is to bring in
a predictive analysis model that looks at all of the dynamics
of hiring, attrition, promotions, advancement, et cetera, to
predict what those outcomes will be 5, even 10 years out, so
that we can come up with strategies to mitigate against the
kinds of concerns that you are addressing. So we are looking at
that problem.
The other side of this, of course, is that many
organizations are faced with the same problem of losing
institutional knowledge, senior executives, and there are
strategies that are being looked at to find ways to retain
those persons longer in the workforce than would otherwise be
the case. So I can tell you that we are very focused on that
issue and hope to come up with strategies to help us to deal
with it.
Mr. Hastings. I appreciate that very much. I think what the
agency has, or the Intelligence Community has in the way of a
problem is developing a hoops-to-jump-through problem. From
time to time the models have changed and the hoops have
lessened, but when a hoop is removed--let us take marijuana for
example; it was a big hoop 40 years ago, and you couldn't
become an agent if you had smoked marijuana. So they got rid of
that hoop and said if you admit it, then maybe it will be all
right if you can vet on the rest of it. But there are other
kinds of hoops.
And I keep saying this, and I am going to say it until
somebody hears me: Everybody does not have to have more degrees
than a thermometer to be a spy. You can find some people that
may not speak as accurately or with articulation that many of
us claim to do that can do what you do, but you have to get
beyond it. And that is true here in the congressional culture
as well as if we are talking about diversity.
Mr. Chairman, I think I have overspent my time. I thank you
very much for the time.
The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Reyes.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I wanted to thank
you for holding this hearing. As you know, I am finishing up my
third year on this committee, and this is an issue that I think
is imperative that we not just address in this hearing but
continue to address because the statistics, in my opinion, are
horrible in terms of diversity for the Intelligence Community.
I wanted to thank Secretary Teets for your words and also
pass on to Mr. Tenet, who both of you have given me an
opportunity to come out and address the issue of diversity, and
I appreciate that. And I do so because I think, as the Chairman
set out his three main reasons for the importance of this
hearing, the highest one is national security and the fact that
I believe, based on my experience--and I couldn't agree more
with my colleague--that you don't need a whole litany of
degrees to do good work in this area.
In fact, based on my experience, you have got to be able to
blend in, and that doesn't mean that you go out and get people
that look ideal in a three-piece suit. You have got to get
people that can pass off as scumbags. That is the reality of
it. And that doesn't just include minorities. I have had an
extensive career as a chief in the Border Patrol where
antismuggling and working undercover operations were an
important part of being successful on the U.S.-Mexican border.
So this is an issue that is vitally important to me.
But I want to start off by addressing two issues. The first
one, Mr. Rodriguez--and welcome on your third week, it must be
a daunting challenge to come before the committee to defend an
abysmal record in terms of diversity. But let me tell you that
the Defense Attache Program, which you mentioned, is usually
the most senior U.S. department official in a host country. It
is a very important and visible position. That is the face that
the Defense Department is putting forth abroad. How diverse is
the Defense Attache Corps?
I do extensive traveling as a Member of Congress, and I can
remember one minority being in that defense attache position.
Do you know how diverse that Attache Corps is?
Mr. Rodriguez. I do not have any data to give you the
racial or ethnic breakdown of that particular part of the
organization, but we do know that when you talk about
diversity, you are talking about beyond the racial and ethnic
looks of an individual.
When you look at that particular part of an organization,
you have to look at the skills set. And I can assure you that
our first and foremost requirement is the skill. That is what
we need there. What we need to do as a community, if I may,
sir, what we need to do as a community when we talk about
succession planning, we have more opportunities today to bring
diversity into the workforce than we have ever had in this
country. When you start looking at filling jobs at the higher
level, you are filling jobs primarily with a labor pool or an
applicant pool that is the tail end of the baby boomers, and
that is where we lack a lot of diversity.
So once we understand that dynamic, we know that if we are
going to diversify the workforce in the manner that I believe
you are looking at, you need to start very diligently with the
intakes of the entry-level individuals.
Mr. Reyes. The pipeline that my colleague was referring to.
Mr. Rodriguez. The pipeline loses diversity as you look up,
based on the available labor pool that would qualify for those
particular positions.
Mr. Reyes. Well, that brings me to my second point which is
that, according to Table 15 in the DCI's fiscal year 2002
diversity report, the overwhelming percentage of people
attending senior military service schools and military command
and staff colleges are white men. To say that I find that
troubling is an understatement. And I wanted to get your
perspective as panelists on personnel that are being groomed to
lead through these efforts, not adequately representing the
workforce of this country, and certainly taking into account
the conflicts and challenging worldwide mission that we have
seen brought home since 9/11.
How does the Intelligence Community intend to increase the
diversity of participation in these critically important
career-enhancing programs? We will start, Mr. Teets, with you.
Mr. Teets. I would simply say that I would encourage all of
our diverse employee force to engage--embrace methods of
personal development. And as it relates to attendance at senior
service schools, I don't have the demographics at my disposal
right at the moment as to the NRO population and how many
people attend senior service schools versus those that don't,
but I would be more than happy to take that as a question for
the record and get it back to you.
I would encourage in a major way all of our employees to
take a hand in their own career development and aggressively
engage and take advantages of the opportunities that are
afforded to employees at the NRO.
Mr. Reyes. But from my perspective, when we hear this
morning that since 2000 we are doing really good because our
classes have 20 percent diversity, that to me is horrible to
hear that since 2000 only 20 percent of those that we are
recruiting are minorities. That is the figure that was given to
us this morning.
It seems to me like if we identify that we have a
shortfall, that we have underperformance in a particular area,
shouldn't we be trying to compensate? Shouldn't we be going not
just to universities and colleges but to police departments and
other entities to try and balance that off in terms of what we
are trying to compensate for, and still maintain the same level
of entry-level competence that is required by a very, very
critical element in keeping this country's national security
uppermost in everybody's mind?
Mr. Rodriguez. If I may speak for DIA in terms of that
particular effort, we recognize that we have to do more than we
have done in the past. And if you take just as an example what
we are doing in terms of the target of recruiting, using the
advertising agency, I think that is a monumental step in moving
in the right direction. And by that I am referring to the
specific ads that will be placed in specific targeted journals,
if you will, newspapers with professional organizations, et
cetera, that begin to tell people about the opportunities
within our agency.
I think that is paramount, and we are doing that now. Our
efforts are actually bearing fruit. Our diversity continues to
grow. No, it is not perfect, but at least the progress is in
the right direction. So we will continue to step up efforts
like that, because people don't know who we are, certainly in
the minority community. This is a brand new opportunity for
them that they have never been exposed to.
So here we are starting to make the leaps in that area. I
think that is critical. I think we are all going to be stepping
up to the plate on that and you will see results, slowly,
unfortunately, but you will see results over the coming years.
Mr. Hastings. Would my colleague yield for a statistical
sentence? Seventy percent of all Intelligence Community
managers are male, and 77 percent of the managers at the senior
executive level are male. I hope you all hear us here.
Mr. Reyes. Let me just, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your
patience on this. But let me just give another statistic so
that all of us may mull this over, because we are talking about
the feeder pipeline in recruits out there, and this relates
specifically to congressional fellowships and how candidates
are being selected for these fellowships.
In fiscal year 2002, 58 percent of fellowships were white
males, 23 percent were females, and 17 percent were minority
males. That is the reality. Those are the statistics. And you
can come in here and try to put the best face on we are going
to, we are about to, we are thinking about, but the reality is
this is a horrible, horrible track record in a very critical,
critical issue for national defense. And we have got to do
better or else we are going to reap the whirlwind of disastrous
consequences by not being able to understand the culture, by
not being able to get in the mindset of those very same enemies
that we so worry about repeating 9/11.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Hoekstra.
Mr. Hoekstra. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Black, you said we couldn't do the job without it, and
I think you are talking about having diversity, having language
capabilities, and having cultural understanding. As I have had
the opportunity to travel and visit with our folks in the field
and talk with Dr. Kay and go to Afghanistan and other hot
spots, it is clear that we can't do the job without it. They
are having great difficulty getting their jobs done because we
don't have enough folks with these kinds of skills readily
available to go in and act in a timely way to get their jobs
done, and I think we are paying a price for it.
Some of what I have heard today says that we are doing more
of the same that we did maybe during the nineties. This is not
a new issue. When I first came on the committee 3 years ago,
this was something that was brought up consistently, a lack of
diversity, a lack of language skills and those types of things.
I would like the panel members to talk about what are the
barriers that we have faced during the nineties--as I believe
this was an issue through the nineties, or at least the late
nineties--what are the barriers that prevent us from getting
this diversity both in language skills and cultural
understanding?
What are the barriers to getting these people into your
organizations; and are we doing something more, are we making
some more fundamental shifts to remove these barriers so that
in 5 or 7 or 9 years we are not still talking about those same
kinds of issues?
Mr. Black. In 1990 to 2001, our population decrease was
such that we honestly closed our Office of Recruitment because
we didn't have enough people leaving to replace them in the
attrition. So we couldn't do what you are talking about except
through re-training within our existing workforce.
Since then, and in fact as of the year before the 9/11
event, we began a massive transformation at NSA. Our first
initiative was to offer the opportunity for senior, long-term
Federal employees to retire early or to retire with a bonus so
that we could in fact have the room that you are talking about
to build for that. This last year, we hired over 1,200 people,
whereas years before we hardly hired anyone. And in that mix,
at least half of them probably linguists. So we are trying to
fix it now as best we can.
I would also tell you that the military services that we
are working with, we have told them that they must bring us
linguists of a higher capability than in the past. And to be
honest, our business was built on the Soviet Union. In many
instances, our target wasn't much above a 2 level itself, and
it required us not to push the way we have today.
Today, we are facing a global linguistic major problem that
is requiring us to look in every place we can and do what I
would call mid-career hiring, which is very new for us,
bringing people in that in fact already have a lot of linguist
capabilities out of other jobs and converting them into being a
cryptologic linguist.
Mr. Hoekstra. It is pretty difficult to change the face of
your organization over the period of 10 or 11 years if you are
not adding any new people in.
Mr. Black. Yes, sir, exactly.
General Clapper. Sir, if I may just pile on there, I guess
being the unit historian here, having been in the Intelligence
business about 40 years. First of all, the origins of the
Intelligence Community are basically white male, if you go back
to World War II and its aftermath. And that may be a lingering
legacy yet today.
As the nominal founding father of the Defense HUMINT
Service, just to pick up on a point made earlier, DIA is of
course dependent on military departments for the officers who
emerge, particularly in the attache cadre, which I always
consider a unique national resource. So where we as agencies
can influence, for example, participation in service schools,
professional military education courses, those we have
selection authority, which is normally not the military
officers who are assigned to our agencies. Just a point.
Bill Black, I think, made a very key point here, in that
prior to 9/11--and this is certainly the case when I walked in
the door of NIMA on the 13th of September, 2001--my agency at
least was on a drawdown path. We were on a reduction path. We
were going to consolidate facilities, move out of the Navy Yard
because of the continued path in the post-Cold War environment
of reducing the size of the Intelligence Community. When I was
director of DIA, I presided over reduction of almost 23 percent
of the personnel at DIA.
Now, that has a slow bathtub effect, in that we are only
now beginning to turn the tide and we are on the uptick. The
trends are upward in terms of bringing on new people. So all
these numbers you hear, which are quite dramatic that we are
now able to bring on, is after a period of pretty thin pickings
in terms of our ability to recruit when essentially we were
more focused on reducing the workforce.
I would go back to a point I made at the outset. I believe
this begins and ends with focused and sustained recruiting. And
the problem we both face, you as a committee and we here, is
that we are both essentially transients. We are temporary
stewards of these positions, and that is one of the things I
personally signed up to since I was asked to serve for 5 years,
is to sustain recruiting, assuming that our personnel trends
continue upward, because I believe long term that is the way to
rectify these imbalances.
One more thing, if I may. Mr. Teets has inspired me too. I
would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge Congresswoman Harman's
visit to our agency. She gave a stirring speech to our women on
the occasion of Women's Day. So, Pete, thank you for that cue.
Mr. Cryer. I want to thank Mr. Hastings for coming out to
the CIA.
Ms. Harman. Mr. Chairman, if you would yield to me. We are
a very busy committee, and I am very happy that so many members
have been out and about in the Intelligence Community. We are
also a very diverse committee, and I think that is
unprecedented, this level of diversity. And that says good
things about our leadership in the Congress because we are
personally appointed here by our leaders.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cryer. If I could make one further point. One of the
things that has happened, as we have come forward to say what
we are doing to address diversity management issues in our
agencies in the community, we talk about making progress, and
indeed the trends are going upward. But when you look at those
trends, those trends are not indicative of the kind of progress
that you expect. One of the things that we are trying to do is
to be smarter about our practices with regard to these issues.
So we are trying to use modeling tools to help us to
understand, if we continue doing the things that we are doing
now, where we will be in 5 years with regard to diversity
management issues. We think that that is going to help us to
improve our outcomes in the future tremendously, because we
will know those things that are paying off and those things
that are not and we can focus on the things that are promising
and helpful.
The Chairman. Mr. Hoekstra.
Mr. Hoekstra. I would just close with it does become a
performance issue. If you don't have the capabilities on the
staff, just like if we don't have the latest satellites in the
sky or those types of things, if we don't have the diversity in
language skills and cultural understanding, we can't get the
information and you can't provide us with the insights and the
knowledge that we need as decisionmakers to implement policy.
So it is more than a check in a box sometimes that some of
the programs in the private sector may sometimes be viewed. It
really does become a performance basis, and I hope we can work
together and remedy these issues and accelerate the process to
address it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Hoekstra. Ms. Eshoo.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to our Ranking
Member, for your joint commitment, along with all the members
of the committee to have these public hearings which are so
important to the people of our country, because they really
don't know or have an appreciation or get to see who is on the
House Intelligence Committee. And to make a public hearing
central to this issue of what diversity and linguistics mean to
our Nation's capability to operate in the world today on the
critical issues that really face us as a Nation, I think says
something in and of itself. I think it is an eloquent statement
about what the topic of this hearing is about.
I would like to begin with Mr. Black. Last year, NSA was
authorized an additional 290 billets for linguists and
analysts, and these billets were to be added to the billets
already allocated in 2003 for hiring additional linguists. The
committee expected that NSA would hire more than 290 linguists
and analysts in 2003 to address what was the documented
shortage of linguists. The conferees were so concerned about
this issue that it was made an item of congressional concern
requiring the NSA to get prior approval from the committees to
use these billets for any other purpose.
Yesterday, the committee received a memo from General
Hayden summarizing the fiscal year 2003 hiring. To quote the
memo, ``NSA just concluded a highly successful fiscal year 2003
campaign, hiring 1,125 full-time workers, which represents a 27
percent increase over fiscal 2002. NSA hired only 200 linguists
and analysts out of 1,125 new hires, well below who was
authorized by this committee.''
I think I need to be very clear about this. The committee
expected more than 290 additional linguists and analysts. So
can you explain why NSA's hiring did not comply with
congressional direction? How many linguists quit, retired, or
were assigned to positions outside their specialty in 2003?
You said in your testimony this morning that half of the
1,200 hired are linguists. You just stated that a little while
ago. So I think that there are two different cases here, or
maybe three; what this committee and the Senate Intelligence
Committee absolutely insisted upon. There was a high concern
that they came out of the conference with the language that
they did, and then what the NSA is doing. Can you explain what
these differences are about and why? They run contrary to
everything we are here for and what you somewhat testified to.
Mr. Black. In the numbers that you have in the memo, I
think there are about 350 people not even accounted for, in
that it only highlighted certain fields. We hired another 400.
Ms. Eshoo. I think you need to explain that. I don't know
what those words mean.
Mr. Black. As I recall the memo you are speaking about, we
probably don't even have it here, it talked about 200 in a
certain category, another number, and if I added it all up, I
don't think I would have come to the 1,125. We owe you an
answer.
Ms. Eshoo. How many linguists and analysts were actually
hired?
Mr. Black. We owe you an answer. We will have to get back
to you to be exact.
What we did in many instances, also, we hired computer
scientists to become analysts because of our new environment.
That is part of the confusion. The linguists, I know we hired
more than this, and I will get back to you with exactly what
numbers we have in this particular instance.
We have picked up, I know, 450 in the pipeline to be hired.
We can only hire so fast in our place because of the security
requirements, et cetera. But the most important thing here is,
let me get back to you, give you an official answer with the
exact numbers, Congresswoman.
Ms. Eshoo. I think you need to review General Hayden's
memo.
Mr. Black. Yes, I agree, the way it is written.
Ms. Eshoo. I am only quoting the memo. And then you gave us
testimony this morning that half of the 1,200 hired are
linguists.
Mr. Black. Yes, I did, and I was thinking more in terms of
what we have in the pipeline and what we are spending our time
trying to get. But we will come back to you with the exact
numbers.
Ms. Eshoo. With all due respect, I think that when you are
talking about hiring linguists, that you be very clear. Is it
your hope about hiring, is it in the pipeline? When we kind of
push back and ask the questions, it is not what is actually
presented, and I find that just a little disturbing. It is
better for us to know, to have the ground truth on this, so
that we can measure what the congressional directive was, how
the agency has responded to it with very clear numbers. That
way we are all working from the same numbers and we know the
progress that we are making and also where we need to go. But
this is not clear, to put it mildly.
To General Clapper, thank you for the work that you do and
the attitude with which you approach it. Every time you testify
before us, I am very glad that you head up the agency. I think
you do a terrific job.
You mentioned that heightened security requirements may
negatively impact your diversity efforts. Do you have
suggestions for ways to address this challenge, and also maybe
touch on why you think this is so?
General Clapper. Thank you, first of all, for your generous
characterizations. I appreciate that. It is a particular
problem for NIMA because we do not have--which I find amazing,
it was a decision made at standup--our own organic personnel
security apparatus. I am trying to rectify that.
What that means is I am dependent on others, DIA, OPM, and
others, to do our security processing and, most importantly,
adjudication. As I say, I am trying to rectify that. That is
not a cheap proposition, and we have laid out over the FYDP a
program to generate our own organic capabilities. So what that
means to me is I am not in a position to adjudicate personnel
security issues and get people cleared rapidly.
I do not mean this as a criticism of those on whom we
depend, notably DIA. They do a great job for us. But they have
their own priorities as well. So for me this is a particularly
critical problem.
The other point I alluded to, which I think will apply to
all of us, is as the demographics of this country change,
wherein the predominance of what are now minority groups grows,
that the approach we take to security clearances is going to
cause us even more of a challenge in bringing on a diverse
workforce.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman, and,
gentlemen, I do apologize for missing your opening remarks. I
did have some questions, because this is an area of increasing
interest to not only the United States but this committee that
has looked at this issue of language, skill based, and
diversity capability the last several years. I have been on
this committee for 7 years. It has been an issue from the very
beginning of that service, and I am sure for much longer before
that.
My question is one based on my understanding of qualitative
versus quantitative analysis when you look at the problem of
diversity and language skill. And to each of you, I would ask
you to respond to this question. If we are to have an agency
which mirrors the population of the demographics of this
country, how do we surge in areas where a majority of the
requirement in resources are vastly different than the
demographic makeup of the country and the population mix that
you are trying to achieve?
For example, Afghanistan. When the majority of the
resources in our Intelligence Community were required to have
an understanding and a knowledge and education in that part of
the Middle East, those language skill capabilities, whether
they were Pashtu, Urdu, Farsi, how do you take the resources,
when you mix the capabilities based on diversity, and have a
requirement that is specific in another language capability?
Where is the analysis, where is the analytical part that
goes into the makeup of the demographics of the agency with
regard to the surge requirements and the needs on a
quantitative side? Mr. Black, we will start with you.
Mr. Black. What you have presented is probably one of the
biggest problems we have in regard to some of the areas of the
world. We have our own internal programs of training as well as
the weeding out of the analysts, linguists that we use, to be
sure that we can in fact put on the priorities of the problem
the best people for the top priorities.
When you go against one of these targets, there is such a
diverse requirement that what we do is we have to allocate what
we will work on first, what will give us the highest paid
results and put our best people on that. For us, the
Information Age has almost brought on to us the world of too
much, too hard to understand. It is an inundation problem for
us and a prioritization, so that we can put what resources we
have; and we have some people, of course, that have been and
understand the target for a long time and we have them training
others. But it is a very difficult and constant problem.
General Clapper. Sir, let me try that from a little
different dimension. I think the challenge that we collectively
face, I know it is certainly true in my agency, is the ability
to surge. The current tenet is that we are to know a little bit
about everything everywhere, which is fine until you have a
crisis in a particular area. Then the challenge is bringing to
bear the additional resources that you need to focus on a
particular area.
Case in point for me is Afghanistan. Prior to 9/11,
Afghanistan was an area, a country that we had not devoted a
lot of resources to. The geospacial foundation currency was not
what we would like, but with the focus on other areas, you are
always faced with a challenge of surging up, building up your
workforce.
This is not so difficult in my case, because geospacial
analysts, imagery analysts, are somewhat fungible, in that you
can move them around from area to area, although there is an
area of expertise they acquire. With linguists, that is pretty
hard to do. You have a stable of linguists in a variety of
languages and they are not nearly as fungible. So you have that
problem, and, of course, it takes time to train them and all
that.
So I am not sure that that directly bears on your question,
but it certainly conjured up that thought in my mind with
respect to NIMA.
Mr. Gibbons. Anybody else want to attempt to answer that?
Yes, sir.
Mr. Cryer. Can't answer the question. I think the agency is
faced with a similar problem, trying to figure out how do we
balance all of these competing requirements and sustain a
workforce that enables us to be right at the point when things
happen so that we can react to it appropriately and so on. So
we are involved in that process now of trying to figure out
what that balance is needed to sustain our efforts and
certainly allow us to surge when necessary.
Mr. Gibbons. Well, this country has a wonderfully rich,
diverse population from which we have enormous amount of
resources in terms of personnel and capabilities out there.
Have the agencies, whether it is NSA, CIA, DIA, considered
using a reserve force based principally in terms of diverse
populations, skilled capabilities that stand by ready to serve,
identified, cleared, and trained in a reserve capability to
meet the surge requirements of our agencies?
Mr. Cryer. The agency does have such a reserve corps and we
are building on it all the time, yes, sir.
Mr. Rodriguez. I would get back to the question, sir. I
think one of the things that happens in government, when we
start looking at and using phrases such as we want our
workforce to be the face of America, that is very idealistic.
It is wonderful if you have occupations, for example, that
require perhaps not the skills that we need in some of our
particular agencies. When you start focusing on the skills mix
and diversity, that is where the gap comes in. And when we
solve that problem, I think we are going to be in very, very
good shape. We are trying to do that. It is something that has
been in existence for a very, very long time, and,
unfortunately, because it has been the pattern pretty much
historically, it makes it very difficult to find diversity very
quickly that matches up with our particular skills needs.
So our first and foremost requirement, of course, is the
skills need. Then we try to attach diversity to that. We
haven't been very successful. We are making progress and we
will continue to make progress. But there are two different
elements. If we were the Department of Education and we wanted
the workforce to look like the face of America, I am sure it
would be a lot more simple than it is being in the Defense
Intelligence Agency, CIA, or any of my partner agencies.
Mr. Gibbons. One final question, if I may, Mr. Chairman,
and that is have we set a mold or a criteria that presupposes
that the skills required in this eliminates certain people,
whether it is classes of people, types of backgrounds, et
cetera, that have been standardized over the years?
In other words, we have come at this with our own
predisposed prejudices. I would presume that everybody has to
have a college degree, everybody has to have a law degree or a
CPA certificate, they have to have a 3 level in a language that
we are looking for before we set the standard of can this
person achieve that with lesser and sometimes no formal
education background? Have we set a standard that is too high
in achieving diversity?
Mr. Rodriguez. I don't think so. Our efforts are leading to
a model that actually begins to identify the skills mix needed,
so that that can be communicated to what I consider the younger
population.
We heard earlier today that one of the efforts is going
back to the high school level and begin there and pretty much
talking to young people about the possibilities and the careers
in the Intelligence Community. That has to continue, looking at
college students who have what would be considered some of the
basic requirements, bringing them into our workforce, training
them, educating them and giving them the kind of experience
that would lead to those individuals with skills mix that we
need to further our efforts throughout the world. We are doing
that.
We are partnering with academic institutions, we are
partnering with professional organizations, we are partnering
with communities that have the kind of ethnicity that we see
has the cultural mix, if you will, that will address and help
us address some of the issues throughout the world. We are
doing those things. It is just very, very difficult. It is a
new phenomena for America, if you will.
And so as an agency that has that as a requirement, it is
rather slow going, but we are making progress. But as far as
setting the standards too high, I don't believe so.
Mr. Gibbons. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that in
dealing with the question of barriers to entrants into our
Intelligence Community, many have seen the barriers as one of
the reasons why we haven't achieved the diversity that we
should have in these communities. But, again, it goes back to
the qualitative versus quantitative assessment, the skill
versus diversity issues that we have a need for, the surge
requirements, and where the problems lie in this world and the
prediction of what resources we will need to meet those demands
in the future.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back my time.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Gibbons. I am going to address
the tyranny of the clock, very briefly. We had expected to
bring the second panel up at about 10:45. That time has come
and gone. What I propose to do, after canvassing members, is to
recognize Mr. Holt briefly for about two questions, and Mr.
Boswell for one, and then reserve the balance of their time
until after the next panel, if that is satisfactory. And Mr.
Ruppersberger and Mr. Cramer also will have priority after the
next panel has concluded their presentation.
If there are no objections, we will proceed. Mr. Holt.
Mr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to try to
underscore the importance of what we are talking about here.
There was mention made recently, a moment ago, that you look
for skills first and diversity second. This is not an effort to
get the Intelligence Community to look like the face of
America. It is not a matter of just fairness and opportunity,
we are talking about life and death here. National security.
I have talked with Dr. Kay, who, when I asked him how many
of the hundreds and hundreds of people who are working for him
looking for traces of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, how
many of them understand science and technology and are
proficient in the language, of the hundreds and hundreds of
people, he took out one hand and started counting fingers. It
is a real problem in our ability to do our job.
Recently we were talking with agency employees who were
working in the hillsides of Afghanistan collecting
intelligence. I asked them how many knew the native language,
and they said, well, since we have been on the job for a year
or two, we have picked up a little Pashtu. I would argue that
our ability to find Osama bin Laden, to collect intelligence,
is compromised more by the paucity of language capability than
by limitations in combat and small arms training.
These people on the hillsides have good backgrounds in
special forces and so forth but they are unable in many
circumstances to collect intelligence, which is why they are
supposed to be there, so that they can save lives. And so this
is not just to feel good about diversity. This is so that we
have the skills throughout our Intelligence Community to
collect intelligence.
Let me get to my questions, because the Chairman has asked
us to be brief. With respect to languages, I hear about all of
the efforts you are making in recruitment, and it sounds
admirable. You are going around the country, you are appearing
before lots of groups and so forth. Is the problem not just
shortcomings in recruitment but we are trying to recruit from
an almost nonexistent pool?
When I looked at the numbers--and we have far more
Americans studying ancient Greek in college than we have
studying Arabic, Korean, Pashtu, Urdu, and others combined. Far
more. Are there any programs that you see that are worth
investing in that would increase that pool? Because programs
can work. The National Defense Education Act of 1958 changed
education in America. At the time, some people said, well,
maybe it is just throwing money at it. But by making programs
available, we ended up with more people studying science, for
example.
Why have we let the National Security Education Trust Fund
created by Boren in 1992, why have we let that be spent down to
almost zero now? This is to provide immersion language programs
and other things for students. Do you know of any programs that
will increase the pool and that we should be doing more to
enhance those programs?
General Clapper, let me start with you, because I think you
have shown the greatest sensitivity to what we are talking
about here.
General Clapper. I appreciate that, and having said that, I
do not know the answer to your question. And again, I have not
dwelled too much in the language area in my current capacity,
save for our interest in journeyman-level knowledge of
languages as it pertains to place names, which is an art unto
itself, that I have learned in the last couple of years. But I
guess I would have to take that for the record, and if you
would permit me a more thoughtful response to your question.
Mr. Holt. Other witnesses. Mr. Cryer.
Mr. Cryer. One of the things that we are considering at the
community level to address this shortfall of talent and skill
is a concept called centers of excellence, where we partner
with schools to develop curriculums, including language courses
that are geared to provide the kind of talent and skills that
we need, where we have a shortfall. We are hoping to stand up
this concept or project during this coming fiscal year as a
part of our--one of our new creative and innovative approaches
to addressing the problem of skill diversity as well as ethnic
diversity.
Mr. Holt. Thank you. Any others?
Do you know of any programs that would increase the pool of
linguists? Not people who have been recruited who are then sent
to Monterey to learn languages, but, rather, increase the pool
from which we can recruit linguists?
General Clapper. There have been in the past. I know from a
historian reference here, when I was director of DIA--and this
came up during the Somalia engagement--there were some
innovative things that were done to hire contract linguists.
Their duties were somewhat insulated such that the clearance
requirements for a full-fledged clearance were suspended, and
their tasks were circumscribed in such a way they didn't
require a clearance.
So that is one way to at least obviate the issue of how do
you surge when suddenly you need an exotic language which your
day-to-day workforce doesn't include. You can contract for
linguists for a specific time, if their duties can be
circumscribed in such a way--which was done in the Somalia
engagement--that would not require the clearance. I thought
that was, at the time, a fairly innovative way to obviate that
challenge.
Mr. Holt. Let me leave you with a request to get back to us
about, and that has to do with the National Security Education
Act. As I mentioned a moment ago, that fund has been
essentially spent down to zero now. Congress has not
appropriated money to refill it. I realize your actions are not
supposed to guide the appropriations in Congress, it is
supposed to be the other way around; but I would venture to say
that if there were recommendations from the Intelligence
Community for programs such as the National Security Education
Fund that would improve the pool of linguists in America just
as the National Defense Education Act greatly improved the pool
of scientists in America back in the late fifties, then the
appropriations might well follow. You might not get everything
you ask for, but as it is, this fund that was created in 1992
has not been replenished since. And it may be because of our
shortcomings here in Congress, but it also may be in part
because you haven't asked. And I would like to hear from you
about that program and related programs and what should be the
funding level or are they useless.
Please tell us. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Holt. Mr. Boxwell.
Mr. Boswell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I, in the interest of brevity, I would like to say I
associate myself with what has been said. I think there is a
message here, and I read your faces that you are hearing it,
and I hope that is true. There is a sense of urgency. I think
you sense that, and we certainly do.
I kind of wonder sometimes as I go out across the country,
where is the sense of sacrifice. Are we at war? The Director
said we were a long time ago. People being killed every day.
And those of you and those of us who have led troops in combat
know damn well you have to have intelligence or else you can't
do your job.
Mr. Chairman, I will hold off on my question because the
information coming back that Ms. Eshoo and others have brought
up will answer those questions.
I would just like to say this. I think Mr. Hastings made a
pretty significant statement in the opening in talking about
not having the skill sets. You know, I don't think Mr. Hastings
or even you, Mr. Reyes, or myself, if we had to meet all the
skill sets, we would even be here today. But we are here. And
you know, I think that proves a point to some degree. So I hope
that we can get the information back timely. I think some good
points have been made asking for the information. I trust you
do.
And I will just close with this. We would like to share a
few nice things back and forth. I came down to NIMA and got a
wonderful briefing and I asked you to come out to our State and
brief our emergency folks. Eleanor Gordon--you have heard the
name--one of the most outstanding women I know in a leadership
position. And it was well appreciated and caused a lot of
things to be moving on. So I want to thank you for that as
well.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I do as you requested give you
back the time.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Boswell. We will reserve more
time for you in the next round. I want to thank this
distinguished panel very much.
We have some additional information requested coming back,
and this is not a one-time event. I think you understand this.
This committee has an abiding and continuing strong interest in
this subject. We will be continuing to pursue it in our regular
oversight. Whether all the meetings will be open like this or
we will operate in our more normal closed session will be the
decision of others in the future. But rest assured that there
will be a call again for you to come up and talk on behalf of
your agencies on how you are doing on these matters.
So I hope you will keep that in mind as you go back, and
also thank the employees that you have for the extraordinary
hard work they are doing under very difficult circumstances, we
know, today. I know how hard people are working in the
Intelligence Community. And it is very reassuring for me to
know that, that our community is well led and well motivated.
And that wouldn't be happening if we didn't have good people
doing our jobs.
I am going to excuse this panel and ask the next panel to
come forward. Mr. Wes Bush is the Corporate Vice President and
President of Northrop Grumman Space Technology where he is
responsible for all general management responsibilities for
Northrop's space technology business. Northrop Grumman has a
clearly stated mission to support and nurture a diverse
workforce that mirrors the communities in which we reside, and
in fact offers a diversity speaker series to provide a forum in
which community partners, employees, and leaders can give
insight in ethnic and cultural diversity. Previous to his
position at Northrop Grumman, Mr. Bush served as President and
CEO for TRW Aeronautical Systems. I would point out that Mr.
Bush is no relation to other Mr. Bushes in this town, to the
best of my knowledge.
Major General, Retired, Robert A. Harding is the President
and CEO of Harding Security Associates, LLC, where he provides
consulting and support services to U.S. Government agencies on
human counterintelligence and security and MASINT. Previously
General Harding served as the Executive Vice President for
Operations at Innovative Logistics Techniques in McLean,
Virginia. In his last military assignment, General Harding
served as the Army's deputy G2, Intelligence, and prior to
that, he was the Director for Operations at the Defense
Intelligence Agency.
General Harding, welcome. Mr. Bush, welcome.
Moving forward, Ms. Juliette Kayyem is the Executive
Director of the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness at
the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Her work is focused on terrorism, domestic preparedness and law
enforcement. Ms. Kayyem also served on the National Commission
on Terrorism with Ms. Harman, I presume, which was created to
provide a review of America's counterterrorism efforts. Ms.
Kayyem is also a national security analyst for NBC News and the
National Public Radio's--NPR's--On Point. Welcome.
Mr. Miguel Diaz is the Director of the South America
Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The South America Project focuses on advising U.S. policymakers
and the private sector on political and economic developments
in the region. His expertise is U.S.-South American relations,
with an emphasis on regional economic integration initiatives,
Latin American financial markets, regional electoral politics,
and structural reform initiatives. And you must be a very busy
man, because things are popping south of the border.
Thank you. We welcome you all. And I think the order of
presentation would be the order of introduction. So, Mr. Bush,
I will begin with you. We ask that you try and hit our 5-minute
mark if you can.
STATEMENTS OF WES BUSH, PRESIDENT, NORTHROP GRUMMAN SPACE
TECHNOLOGY; MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT A. HARDING, PRESIDENT AND CEO,
HARDING SECURITY ASSOCIATES, LLC; JULIETTE KAYYEM, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, EXECUTIVE SESSION ON DOMESTIC PREPAREDNESS, HARVARD
UNIVERSITY; AND MIGUEL DIAZ, PROJECT DIRECTOR, SCIS SOUTH
AMERICA PROJECT
STATEMENT OF WES BUSH
Mr. Bush. Thank you, sir. Chairman Goss and Ranking Member
Harman, distinguished members of the committee, I would like to
thank you for inviting me to provide a private sector
perspective on the importance of recruiting and developing a
world-class workforce for the future of the Intelligence
Community. My company has served your committee and the
Intelligence Community for many years, and we are honored that
you would ask us to participate in this discussion today. We
share your view that this is an issue of national priority, and
I believe this is a critical time to be rededicating ourselves
to this task.
Industry faces many of the same workforce development
issues as the government side of the Intelligence Community. We
are both committed to attracting the best and brightest minds
in our country to develop and maintain systems to protect our
national security. And although we compete for talent with one
another at times, we must together address a fundamental
obstacle to expanding the pool of talented and dedicated
citizens who are willing to commit themselves to national
security. This fundamental obstacle is the declining trend in
college enrollment of U.S. citizens in science, engineering,
and the physical science fields, including math and computer
sciences.
The expansion of the workforce required to meet our common
objectives simply cannot occur without attracting more minority
and female participation into the fields of study that support
our national security mission.
I would like to provide some examples of things we do at
Northrop Grumman to help attract women and minorities to math
and science careers, as well as steps we take to promote their
career development. Our recruitment and development strategy
begins with support for programs that promote interest in math
and science from preschool and elementary education through
postsecondary fellowships. We believe the premise that students
need to be turned on to math and science very early in their
education. That is why we focus our financial commitments and
volunteer commitments on schools that are fostering curricula
designed to increase the percentage of women and minority
students interested in studying math and science in college.
For example, more than a decade ago, we helped found a math
and science magnet high school in southeastern Los Angeles,
California, the California Academy of Math and Science, or CAMS
as we call it. We have continued a very active presence in
their development. The CAMS student body is drawn from more
than 11 school districts in L.A. County, representing one of
the most diverse populations in our Nation. Two-thirds of its
students come from inner city schools. CAMS has produced 1,300
graduates with 100 percent graduation rate; 85 percent of CAMS
graduates advance to receive degrees from 4-year universities.
In addition to financial assistance, we have placed
Northrop Grumman executives on the CAMS corporate advisory
committee. Each summer we have hired CAMS students as interns
at our Space Park facility in Redondo Beach, California. As the
students move through university education, they are eligible
for college-level summer internships. Our goal is to develop
CAMS students into strong contributors to our Nation's future
workforce, whether they choose Northrop Grumman or another
employer.
We also participate in NASA's summer high school
apprenticeship program, hiring about 15 interns a year. This
program is designed to encourage the career paths of students
that have been traditionally underrepresented in math, science
technology, engineering and geography. Each intern works for a
mentor for 8 weeks, gaining exposure to cutting-edge research
using state-of-the art equipment. We support these programs
because they increase the likelihood that these students will
someday seek math or science careers.
At the undergraduate level, we manage a broad array of
programs with the explicit objectives of increasing the quality
and diversity of our workforce. We are active partners in the
minority engineering programs at about 20 U.S. Universities,
providing both financial support and Northrop Grumman
representation on their boards. For example, we are sending a
group of executives to Stanford University to address the first
one. And just this week, I spent an entire day with engineering
undergrads at MIT, working to draw them into careers at space
and defense.
In addition to our university programs, we maintain strong
partnerships with national diversity engineering programs to
serve students' needs, such as the Society of Hispanic
Professional Engineers, the National Society of Black
Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers, and the American
Indian Science and Engineering Society. While these
relationships clearly serve the competitive needs of our
business, they also encourage broader participation of
underrepresented groups in math and science careers across the
board.
Diversity plays an extremely important role in our direct
college recruiting as we are pursuing the best minority and
female talent. We operate a diversity engineering scholarship
program whereby a minority or female student majoring in
engineering or related discipline can complete a summer
internship at Northrop Grumman and receive a stipend for each
academic year they remain in the program. More than one-third
of these interns become full-time Northrop Grumman employees
upon graduation. This program provides our company access to
top minority and female students, while at the same time
increasing their access to experienced mentors and high-
technology projects not available in any other workplace.
Shifting emphasis from recruitment to employee development,
our diversity objective is to help employees succeed in
building their careers within our company. We want to increase
the diversity at all levels of our company's management. And we
have worked hard to provide meaningful career paths for women
and minorities. For example, nearly one-third of Northrop
Grumman's space technology vice-presidents today are female or
minority executives. We provide a number of career development
programs designed, specifically for underrepresented groups in
our workforce including nine diversity networking groups each
at the vice president level. These groups sponsor professional
development activities, networking opportunities, diversity
education, awareness events and community outreach.
In addition to our own programs, we are strong partners
with professional development organizations that provide
opportunities for our employees to continue to learn from
professionals in their field. These organizations have
recognized Northrop Grumman professional employees with a
variety of awards: the Hispanic Engineering National
Achievement Award, the Black Engineer of the Year Award, and
similar other recognitions.
I provided a few examples of how important we at Northrop
Grumman view the recruitment and development of a talented and
diverse workforce within our own company, our industry, and
across the broader Intelligence Community.
It is important first to expand the pool of potential
employees and help them to successfully build their careers.
There is one more factor, however, that makes this a critical
time to focus on developing the workforce, and that is building
a stable future for our industry. In 2003, we at Northrop
Grumman Space Technology have more than tripled the number of
college hires compared to last year, which provides
significantly greater opportunities to increase the diversity
of our workforce. One of the reasons we have been so successful
in recruiting college students this year is that for the first
time in more than a decade, we are able to convey to students
the potential for stable programs in the coming years. The
spending downturn of the 1990s created an environment of
shrinking employment and reduced opportunity. At Space Park,
for example, our population shrank from nearly 20,000 employees
down to less than 8,000. It is very difficult to attract the
best and brightest minds to a declining industry. Today, things
are different. We have great new technology programs that have
the promise of stable continued funding.
The future does look very bright. Now is the time to excite
our elementary and high school students about math and science
and the important technologies that they can develop. And now
is the time to emphasize to our brightest engineering students
that national security is a noble endeavor worthy of their
skills and efforts. If we can sustain that continued stability,
we can and will expand the talent pool for our industry and for
the Intelligence Community. We can build the more diverse
workforce that we will strive to attain.
The Chairman. Thank you very much Mr. Bush.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bush follows:]
Prepared Statement of Wes Bush, President, Northrop Grumman Space
Technology
Chairman Goss, Ranking Member Harman and distinguished members of
the Committee, I am Wes Bush, President of Northrop Grumman Space
Technology, and I want to thank you for inviting me to provide a
private-sector perspective on the importance of recruiting and
developing a world-class work force for the future of the Intelligence
Community. My company has served your committee and the Intelligence
Community for many years, and we are honored that you asked us to
participate in this discussion. We share your view that this is an
issue of national priority. And I believe this is a critical point in
time to be dedicating ourselves to this task.
Industry faces many of the same work force development issues as
the Government side of the Intelligence Community. We are both
committed to attracting the best and brightest minds in our country to
develop and maintain systems to protect our national security. And
although we compete for talent with one another at times, we must
together address a fundamental obstacle to expanding the pool of
dedicated and talented citizens who are willing to commit to careers in
national security. This fundamental obstacle is the declining trend in
college enrollment of U.S. citizens in science, engineering and the
physical science fields, including math and computer sciences. The
expansion of the work force required to meet our common objectives
simply cannot occur without attracting more minority and female
participation into the fields of study that support our national
security mission.
I'd like to provide some examples of things we do at Northrop
Grumman to help attract women and minorities to math and science
careers, as well as steps we take to promote their career development.
Our recruitment and development strategy begins with support for
programs that promote interest in math and science from preschool and
elementary education through post secondary fellowships. We believe the
premise that many students need to be ``turned-on'' to math and science
careers very early in their education. This is why we focus our
financial and volunteer commitments on schools that are fostering
curricula designed to increase the percentage of women and minority
students interested in studying math and science in college.
For example, more than a decade ago, we helped found a math and
science magnet high school for females and minorities in southeastern
Los Angeles, California--the California Academy of Math and Science,
and we have continued to have an active presence in their development.
The CAMS student body is drawn from more than 11 school districts in
L.A. County, representing one of the most diverse populations in the
nation. Two-thirds of its students come from inner-city schools. CAMS
has produced 1,300 graduates, with a 100 percent graduation rate.
Eighty-five percent of CAMS graduates advance to receive degrees from
four-year universities.
In addition to financial assistance, we have placed Northrop
Grumman executives on the CAMS Corporate Advisory Committee. Each
summer, we hire CAMS students as interns at our Space Park facility in
Redondo Beach, California. As the students move through university
education, they are eligible for college-level summer internships. Our
goal is to develop CAMS students into strong contributors to our
nation's future work force, whether they choose Northrop Grumman or
another employer.
We also participate in NASA's Summer High School Apprenticeship
Research Program, hiring about 15 interns per year. This program is
designed to encourage the career paths of students who have been
traditionally underrepresented in science, math, technology,
engineering and geography. Each intern works with a mentor for eight
weeks, gaining exposure to cutting-edge research and using state-of-
the-art-equipment. We support these programs because they increase the
likelihood that these students will someday seek math or science
careers.
At the undergraduate college level, we manage a broad array of
programs with the explicit objective of increasing the quality and
diversity of our work force. We are active partners in the minority
engineering programs at about 20 U.S. universities, providing both
financial support and Northrop Grumman representation on their boards.
For example, last week we agreed to send a group of executives to
Stanford University to address its Diversity Forum. And just last
Monday, I spent the day with engineering undergrads at MIT, trying to
lure them to careers in space and defense.
In addition to our university programs, we maintain strong
partnerships with national diversity engineering programs that serve
student needs, such as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers,
the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers
and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. While these
relationships clearly serve the competitive needs of our business, they
also encourage broader participation of underrepresented groups in math
and science careers across the board.
Diversity plays an extremely important role in our direct college
recruiting as we are pursuing the best minority and female talent from
the top schools. We operate a Diversity Engineering Scholars Program,
whereby minority or female students majoring in engineering or related
discipline can complete a summer internship with Northrop Grumman and
receive a stipend for each academic year they remain in the program.
More than one-third of these interns become full-time Northrop Grumman
employees upon graduation. This program provides our company access to
top minority and female students while at the same time increasing
their access to experienced mentors and high technology projects not
available at many other workplaces.
Shifting emphasis from recruitment to employee development, our
diversity objective is to help employees succeed in building their
careers within our company. We want to increase the diversity at all
levels of our company's management, and we have worked hard to provide
meaningful career paths for women and minorities. For example, nearly
one-third of Northrop Grumman's vice presidents today are female or
minority executives.
We provide a number of career development programs designed
specifically for underrepresented groups in our work force, including
nine diversity networking groups, each with a sponsor at the vice
president level. These groups sponsor professional development
activities, networking opportunities, diversity education and awareness
events, and community outreach.
In addition to our own programs, we are strong partners with
professional development organizations that provide opportunities for
our employees to continue to learn from other professionals in their
field. These organizations have recognized Northrop Grumman
professional employees with awards such as the Hispanic Engineering
National Achievement Award, the Black Engineer of the Year Award and
other similar awards.
I've provided a few examples of how important we at Northrop
Grumman Space Technology view the recruitment and development of a
talented and diverse work force, within our own company, our industry
and across the broader Intelligence Community. It is important first to
expand the pool of potential employees and then help them successfully
build their careers. There is one more factor, however, that makes this
a critical time to focus on developing the work force. And that is
building a stable future for the industry.
In 2003, we at Northrop Grumman Space Technology have more than
tripled the number of college hires compared to last year, which
provides significantly greater opportunities to increase the diversity
of our work force. One of the reasons we have been so successful
recruiting college students this year is that for the first time in
more than a decade, we are able to convey to students the potential for
stable program growth in the coming years. The spending downturn of the
1990s created an environment of shrinking employment and reduced
opportunity. At Space Park, for example our population shrunk from
nearly 20,000 employees down to less than 8,000. It is difficult to
attract the best and brightest minds to a declining industry.
Today, things are different. We have great, new technology programs
that have the promise of stable, continued funding. The future looks
bright. Now is the time to excite our elementary and high school
students about math and science and the important technologies they can
help develop. And now is the time to emphasize to our brightest
engineering students that national security is a noble endeavor, worthy
of their skills and efforts. If we can sustain that continued
stability, we can, and will, expand the talent pool for our industry
and for the Intelligence Community. We can build the more diverse work
force that we all strive to attain.
Thank you.
The Chairman. General Harding.
STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT A. HARDING
General Harding. Chairman Goss, Congresswoman Harman, I
appreciate the opportunity to appear before this committee
again. Like many Americans, I have been following the work of
this committee and applaud you for your continued bipartisan
and effective support of the Intelligence Community as well as
your continued innovative approaches and recommended solutions
to the many seemingly intractable problems the community
seniors face everyday. This issue of diversity clearly is in
that category. Robert Callum, from the Center for Naval
Analysis, wrote an article entitled ``The Case for Cultural
Diversity in the Intelligence Community.'' It is found in the
Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence in Spring of
2001. In it he suggests the following: ``* * * while the
leaders of the CIA, DIA, NSA, and the NRO have all acknowledged
lack of diversity and have created focused recruiting efforts,
the acceptance of minorities into the Intelligence Community
has been disappointing to date. The reason, in part, is that
diversity has been viewed as a legal and moral imperative and
not as an analytical necessity.''
I sincerely hope, given the current state of our analytical
community, that we have collectively overcome that sentiment.
So I will not spend time trying to convince this committee
about the pressing need for diversity, but rather share some
thoughts and observations on the continuing challenge as seen
by someone who has followed the diversity issue in the
Intelligence Community for more than 30 years.
Although this is my fourth appearance in front of this
committee, it is my first out of uniform. And in spite of my
initial feelings to the contrary, it is still just as daunting
as when I was in uniform. As the Director of Operations for
DIA, I had three very precious and rewarding opportunities to
ask this committee to support the President's budget with
respect to human intelligence. Your unfailing support was
always a source of strength to me personally and to DIA in
general. To my side each time was my counterpart, the Director
of Operations of CIA. And I survived three DOs: Dave Cohen,
Jack Downing and Jim Pavitt. And all remain good friends to
this day in spite of one particular professional challenge they
posed: They recruited my people.
During testimony in the spring of 1998, this committee
remained steadfastly clear about the need for diversity in the
ranks of CIA. My counterparts at CIA were not only mission
driven, but precisely focused on addressing that issue in short
order. The following year, during spring testimony, as the CIA
DO held up resumes and waved them at the committee with photos
of young, talented, and linguistically adept recruits, I looked
over and began to recognize my best and brightest from DOD.
Betrayed? Not at all. The military experience, combined with
language training and willingness to commit to this line of
work, was something that not only benefited CIA and the Nation,
but DOD as well.
These soldiers, airmen, marines, and civilians actually
added cement to a bond that grew closer and closer between DIA
and CIA, and it was very important at that time for these
agencies to do that. It was sort of the argument of you are not
losing a son, you are gaining a daughter.
But could we continue to sustain large losses like that
initial one at DOD? Of course not. But the experience made us
focus on the issue of diversity and the need to field a first-
class workforce in each of the agencies. In the case of DOD
HUMINT we would have to build a system and incentives to
attract, maintain and sustain the diverse group of gifted
HUMINT operatives. In addition to bridging the gap in the
cultural understanding between the two organizations, many of
the young DIA analysts and collectors had experience overseas.
DIA had the advantage of being a subset of the diversity extant
in the Department of Defense. CIA did not have a similar
demographic pool to pull from until they started pulling them
from me and DHS. Right before I left my DO job in March of
2000, Mr. Tenet and I handed out diplomas together at the
training school, to what he described as the most culturally
diverse class in the history of the agency.
My point is that my friends at CIA went after what they
needed to ensure diversity of languages, skills, and ethnic and
cultural understanding. It was not just a congressional
mandate. It was a matter of survival. I have been aware for a
couple of years now, but I suspect that sustainment of that
effort has been both challenging and to a degree unsuccessful.
I often wondered if CIA and DIA--if they ever developed the
capability and flexibility to hire multicultural talent at
senior levels to help work this troubling issue. Creative and
flexible approaches to hiring seniors with diverse backgrounds
just seems logical.
After leaving the military a couple years ago, I consulted
in private practice for about a year. But about 2 months ago I
decided to go after government contracts, specifically in
homeland security areas relating to counterintelligence.
Working with larger defense contractors like Northrop Grumman
and others, I find that bringing in multicultural talent
remains challenging, especially on classified contracts, but
doable. The freedom that I have to simply pitch that ideal
candidate without worrying too much about a bureaucratic
process is both liberating and enjoyable. If I need a native
linguist, I will find one. As a minority-owned company, I
constantly reach out to a diverse workforce and feel I have the
responsibility to do that. More importantly, it makes the
company exceedingly more capable.
It seems to me that the Intelligence Community that I love
still needs senior folks with language and cultural diversity
at the top, folks who feel that responsibility in a
particularly focused way, never taking their eyes off the
ball--and I have seen that both in DOD and the Intelligence
Community in the past.
When Joan Dempsey moved to the front offices within DIA
and then DOD, then CIA and then to the DCI, the number of women
seniors increased. Mind you, not nearly at the rate equivalent
to the male counterparts, but at a significantly more rapid
rate, in my opinion, than they would have absent Joan's
insights, her influence, and her mentoring. And she violated no
civil service regulations.
When General Shinseki became the Army Chief of Staff, I
noticed a much-welcomed increase in the number of Asian
Americans on the Army staff. Mind you again, not nearly at the
rate equivalent to the non-minority counterparts, but at a
significantly more rapid rate, in my opinion, than they would
have absent General Shinseki's insights, influence and
mentoring, and I am sure he violated no personnel regulations.
When General Claudia Kennedy became the Army's Chief of
Intelligence, I noticed a significant increase in the number of
senior intelligence females in key positions in the Army, again
not at the same rate as their male counterparts, but way better
than before General Kennedy arrived. But did she ensure that
she mentored, coached, and developed the sometimes forgotten
minorities at a pace and rate equal to their non-minority
counterparts? Absolutely. And I was included in that group, as
was my late wife who went on to become a Senior Executive
Service member in the CI and security field.
My point here is the same as with my experience with the
professional proselytizing done by my CIA DO counterparts.
Their strategy: If you want to see a healthy increase in your
numbers, don't come back to Congress with only a strategic
plan. Go tap the talent directly, and maybe that has something
to do with just being human and they know that is how you get
what you want. If you want to see more women at senior levels,
then bring them in at senior levels. Don't wait and grow them.
I heard Mr. Black in the previous testimony talk about NSA
bringing them in at the mid-levels, I am talking about above
that. Don't wait to grow them. Find them. Send them to whatever
finishing program you choose, and then appoint them to
positions of responsibility, and just watch what happens
throughout your organization. It has been done and it has been
done without violating the sensibilities of the civil service
lawyers. Selections must be made at the senior levels. Many
ways to do that, I believe. But if legislation is needed, then
maybe that should be part of the discussion here.
Chairman Goss, Congresswoman Harman, and members of the
committee, thank you for allowing me to share this long-held
view. And I would be happy to address any questions.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of General Harding follows:]
Prepared Statement of MG Robert A. Harding, USA (Retired), President
and CEO of Harding Security Associates, LLC
Chairman Goss, Congresswoman Harman, I appreciate the opportunity
to appear before this committee. Like many Americans, I have been
following the work of this committee and applaud you for your continued
bipartisan and effective support of the Intelligence community as well
as your continued innovative approach and recommended solutions to the
many seemingly intractable problems the community seniors face on a
daily basis. This issue of diversity is clearly in that category.
Robert Callum from the Center for Naval Analysis wrote an article
entitled: The Case for Cultural Diversity in the Intelligence
Community. It's found in the Journal of Intelligence and
Counterintelligence in Spring 2001. In it he suggests the following:
``While the leaders of the CIA, DIA, NSA, and NRO have all acknowledged
the lack of diversity and have created focused recruiting efforts, the
acceptance of minorities into the IC has been disappointing to date.
The reason, in part, is that diversity has been viewed as a legal and
moral imperative, and not as an analytical necessity.'' I sincerely
hope that, given the current state of our analytical community, that
we've collectively overcome that sentiment. I will not spend time
trying to convince this committee on that point. However, it would not
surprise me if you were somewhat disappointed with the numbers provided
you by my former colleagues in the previous session. Therefore, I would
like to spend the next few minutes sharing my observations as someone
who has followed the diversity issue in the intelligence community for
more than 30 years.
Although this is my fourth appearance, it's my first out of uniform
and in spite of my initial feelings to the contrary, it is just as
daunting as when as I was in uniform. As the Director for Operations at
DIA, I had four very precious and rewarding opportunities to ask this
committee to support the president's budget with respect to Human
Intelligence in the Department of Defense. Your unfailing support was
always a source of strength to me personally and to DIA in general. To
my side each time was my counterpart, the DO of CIA. I survived three
CIA DO's--Dave Cohen, Jack Downing and Jim Pavitt--all remain good
friends to this day in spite of one particular professional challenge
they posed. They recruited my people. During testimony in the Spring of
1998, this committee remained steadfastly clear about the need for
diversity in the ranks of the CIA. My counterparts there at CIA were
not only mission driven but precisely focused on addressing that issue
in short order. The following year, during Spring testimony, as the CIA
DO held up resumes, with photos, of the young, talented and
linguistically adept recruits--I looked over and began to recognize
some my best and brightest out of DoD. Betrayed? Not at all. The
military experience combined with language training and a willingness
to commit to this line of work was something that not only benefited
CIA and this Nation, but DoD as well. Those soldiers, sailors, airmen,
marines, and/or civilians who left DIA for CIA added cement to a bond
that grew closer and closer between the two agencies at an important
time. It was sort of the ``you're not losing a son, you're gaining a
daughter argument.'' Could we continue to sustain large losses of key
personnel like that initial one in DoD, of course not. But the
experience made us all focus on the issue of diversity and the need to
field a first-class workforce in each of the agencies. In the case of
DoD HUMINT, we would have to build systems and incentives to attract,
maintain and sustain a diverse group of gifted HUMINT operatives. In
addition to bridging the gap in the cultural understanding between the
two organizations, many of the young DIA analysts and collectors had
experience overseas. DIA had the advantage of being a subset of the
diversity extant in the Department of Defense. CIA did not have a
similar demographic pool to pull from--until they started recruiting
right out of Defense HUMINT Service. Right before I left my DO job in
March of 2000, Mr. Tenet and I handed out diplomas together at the
training school, to what he described as the most culturally-diverse-
combined CIA/DIA class in the history of the agency.
My point is that my friends at CIA went after what they needed to
ensure diversity of languages, skills and ethnic and cultural
understanding; it was not just a congressional mandate, it was a matter
of survival. I've been away for a couple of years now, but I've often
wondered if DoD maintains the capability and flexibility to attract and
hire multicultural talent at senior levels.
After leaving the military a couple of years ago, I consulted in
private practice for a while, but two months ago, I decided to go after
government contracts--specifically in homeland security areas related
to counterintelligence, HUMINT and MASINT. Working with larger defense
contractors, I find that bringing in multicultural talent remains
challenging, especially on classified contracts. But the freedom I have
of simply pitching that ideal candidate without worrying too much about
a bureaucratic process, is both liberating and enjoyable. I can
negotiate directly on salary, benefits, and flexibility. If I need a
native linguist, I'll find one. As a minority-owned company, I
constantly reach out to a diverse workforce and feel that I have a
responsibility to do that. More importantly it makes the company
exceedingly more capable. It seems to me that the intelligence
community that I love still needs senior folks with language and
cultural diversity at the top--folks who feel that responsibility in a
particularly focused way--never taking their eyes off the ball.
I've seen folks like that in DoD:
--When Joan Dempsey moved to the front offices within DIA, then to
DoD, then to CIA, then to DCI--the number of women seniors increased.
Mind you--not nearly at the rate equivalent to their male counterparts,
but at a significantly more rapid rate, in my opinion, than they would
have absent Joan's insight, influence and mentoring. And she violated
no civil service regulations.
--When General Shinseki became the Army Chief of Staff, I noticed a
much-welcomed increase in the number of Asian American seniors on the
Army Staff. Mind you again--not nearly at the rate equivalent to their
non-minority counterparts, but at a significantly more rapid rate, in
my opinion, than they would have absent General Shinseki's insights,
influence and mentoring. And I'm sure he violated no personnel
regulations.
--When LTG Claudia Kennedy became the Army's Chief of Intelligence,
I noticed a significant increase in the number of senior intelligence
females in key positions in the Army. Again--not at the same rate as
their male counterparts but way better than before LTG Kennedy arrived.
But did she ensure that she mentored, coached and developed the
sometimes forgotten minorities at a pace and rate equal to their non-
minority counterparts? Absolutely; and I was included in that group--as
was my late wife who became an SES in the CI/Security field.
My point here is the same as with my experience with the
professional proselytizing done by my CIA DO counterparts. Their
strategy: If you want to see a healthy increase in your numbers--don't
come back to Congress with only a strategic plan; go tap the talent
directly. (Could be something they learned as HUMINTers.) If you want
to see more women at senior levels--then bring in more senior women at
the top. Don't wait to grow them; find them, send them to whatever
finishing program you choose and then ``appoint'' them to positions of
responsibility and just watch what happens throughout your
organization. It's been done without violating the sensibilities of the
civil service lawyers. Selections must be made at the senior levels!
Many ways to do that, I believe, but if legislation is needed then
maybe that should be part of the discussion here.
Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Harman and members of the committee,
thanks for allowing me to share this long-held view with you today. I'd
be glad to address any questions.
The Chairman. Ms. Kayyem, welcome.
STATEMENT OF JULIETTE KAYYEM
Ms. Kayyem. Thank you for inviting me here today. I want to
start by thanking Congresswoman Harman on this diversity issue.
If I had a quarter for every woman who views you as the model
for getting into intelligence and national security work, I
would be a rich woman, as well as Suzanne Spalding, who is
sitting behind you. I served with both of them on the National
Commission on Terrorism.
I am going to--I wrote remarks that you can--I am actually
going to change a little bit about what I am going to talk
about today, just based on the fact that you heard a lot of
what I was going to say, and my personal experience as an Arab
American within the national security community. Granted, I was
within the law enforcement community, coming out of the
Department of Justice, and then served on the National
Commission on Terrorism, but perhaps I can provide some
analogies for you all.
I am not Muslim, I am Lebanese Christian, and I do not
speak the language well. I can barely speak it, unfortunately.
I am also, at the Kennedy School, the director of a new
research project which may be of import to you on diversity in
the Intelligence Community. And because of that project, not
only are we sort of looking at the benefits of diversity, which
have been clearly and well articulated by everyone here, but
also some of the challenges.
I have been in communication with a number of young Arab
Americans and Muslim Americans who have had experience with the
intelligence and law enforcement communities. Like you, I view
the Arab and Muslim world as both a threat today,
unfortunately, but also an opportunity for what we may and what
the world will look like in the future.
I also do not view diversity as merely an issue of
diversity of personnel, not merely an issue of the translation
of words, but really what you know and what you acquire from
experience. It is basically what I call that dinner table talk.
If you were around the dinner table of my family or other Arab
and Muslim families, Republican or Democrat, I think the lead-
up to discussions about perhaps the Iraqi's reaction to our
presence in Iraq after the war would have been very different,
not politically based. I think it was just based on some
understanding of our families abroad.
So the diversity of--and bringing in more Arab and Muslim
Americans into the Intelligence Communities is of great import
to me, because it is not an issue of words, but really will
change the content and quality of our intelligence, which
cannot be dissociated from the question of recruitment and
diversity.
And I do agree with you on the senior levels. You can
imagine what some of those conversations at the senior levels
would have looked like if there had been probably more presence
of Arab and Muslim Americans, a keen cultural understanding of
that part of the world. And not that they would have been
different or the policy decisions would have been different,
but certainly more viewpoints are probably better than one, and
certainly that more viewpoints, as was recognized--and I have
in my written testimony--by Sandra Day O'Connor in the Michigan
diversity case really will make a better institution and a
better community.
But I changed my oral remarks because I think that with due
respect to the first panel, I think there is a bit of a pink
elephant in the room that is important to discuss, and that is
the perception by the Arab and Muslim communities about whether
they are wanted in the Intelligence Community. It is important,
and it is an important issue about recruitment right now,
because you can have the best recruitment policies out there
and they are not going to work if there is a feeling, which
there clearly is right now--that is no secret within the Arab
and Muslim communities--of a sense that they are not wanted;
that it is, as I said in the written testimony, sort of the
potential threat versus the government official.
And so I want to talk about ways, having talked to people
who are interested in the community, certainly myself who am
very interested in the national security community, about
bridging some of those gaps. I think that the recruitment
efforts have to be much more targeted than they have towards
people who not only can learn the skills, which is obviously
important, but the people who actually have the skills that we
need and particular language skills and cultural skills.
We can--this is not new. We recognize it with parts of--
with our approach to community policing, our integration of
police forces in urban police departments after the riots in
the 1960s. We recognized that we had to do targeted recruitment
to specific ethnic and religious groups, including I daresay to
religious groups, mosques, Arab Christian facilities, and
others where there is--trust me, because every time I would
appear somewhere, I would get 20 cards of people wanting to
enter government service, a cadre of law-abiding, patriotic
Arab and Muslim Americans that want to join the force. The
problem clearly is that many of the policies adopted by the
United States Government, adopted by every administration,
actually, because we were dealing with this issue when I was
working for Janet Reno; we were dealing with the same issues
that Attorney General Ashcroft is dealing with: the
relationship between Federal law enforcement and communities
that are predominantly lawful, but where we have a concern that
some portion of them may be related to terrorist groups. It
became, you know, obviously more focused after 9/11, but it is
something we have been dealing with--both administrations have
been dealing with.
And nor do I suggest that the vigorous enforcement of our
counterterrorism efforts, even if they have a disproportionate
impact on Arab and Muslim communities, should be stopped simply
because they may have that different impact. I do think that
the face matters; however, I do think that had some of the
lawful and even legitimate policies after 9/11 that had a
disproportionate impact on the Arab and Muslim communities had
been--if the face had been different, if there had been more
outreach to Arab and Muslim leaders, the law enforcement
experience, FBI agents who could talk to those communities, I
think the reaction would have been very different. And the
long-term consequences of that, I think, would have been people
much more wanting and willing to enter law enforcement,
national security and the intelligence communities. So I raise
that in my written testimony.
I have--in the preliminary research, I suggest where I
think other recruitment efforts may be focused and where we can
try to lure people who already have the skills--of course, they
are going to have to go through security clearances--who can be
put in and give us the atmospherics of the parts of the world
that are presently the greatest threat but probably, hopefully,
their greatest opportunity.
Those are my both personal and also sort of sense of what
is going on out there and it is important to say--to call it
the pink elephant. I think we need to address that. I think we
can't dance around the fact that there are 10 million Arab
Americans in America whose resources we definitely need, who
rightfully or wrongfully feel very alienated from the Federal
law enforcement Intelligence Community, and we need to figure
out really helpful, constructive, bipartisan ways to lure them
in.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kayyem follows:]
Prepared Statement of Juliette N. Kayyem, John F. Kennedy School of
Government, Former Member, National Commission on Terrorism
The subject you are addressing today--Building Capabilities--is a
very personal issue for me. I am an Arab-American who works in the
national security community, a perspective that is important to this
hearing. So, I will begin by relating my personal experience in the
national security community as it informs what I believe to be
essential aspects of America's intelligence requirements with respect
to Intelligence Community personnel.
background
Presently, I am a Senior Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of
Government where my work is focused on terrorism, domestic preparedness
and law enforcement. For the last two years, I directed the Executive
Session on Domestic Preparedness at the Kennedy School, a research
program that addressed the domestic preparedness needs of local, state
and federal policymakers with respect to homeland security. My work
appears regularly in academic and popular publications and I consult
with government and private institutions on America's counterterrorism
strategies. I serve as a national security analyst for NBC News. I am
also the co-editor of ``The First To Arrive: State and Local Responses
to Terrorism'' (MIT Press, 2003).
My entree into the world of national security and terrorism,
however, was not a straight line. In fact, I began my legal career as a
civil rights attorney at the Department of Justice. There, I litigated
cases as a trial attorney. Eventually, I became a Special Assistant and
then Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.
I am an Arab-American and, to be specific, a Lebanese-Christian. My
mother was born in Lebanon; my father comes from a small town in the
Bekaa Valley. I do not speak Arabic. But, I was raised with a keen
respect for my background and an understanding of the Arab world that
likely only comes from being raised in that community.
In 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno began a series of
conversations between the Arab-American community and federal law
enforcement agencies. At that time, like today, there was concern in
the Arab-American community about the treatment of immigrants and
citizens by the INS, FBI and individual U.S. Attorneys Offices. In
particular, the Attorney General was concerned about a number of cases,
known as the ``secret evidence'' cases, where individuals were being
detained by immigration courts based on evidence that they could not
see or contradict.
There were, to be blunt, basically no other Arab-Americans at the
Department of Justice who could sit in on those meetings and serve as a
bridge for communication. While I had for some time been raising
concerns at the Department about these cases and the weight of the
secret evidence, it is just as likely that my presence at those
meetings had as much to do with my background. I eventually would serve
as an advisor to Attorney General Reno on national security issues
related to the conduct of federal law enforcement agencies.
Those meetings marked the beginning of an important dialogue
between Arab-American groups and federal law enforcement regarding the
relationship between their respective communities. What was clear from
the outset was the extent to which federal law enforcement agencies had
almost no ties to the Arab community of interest. The FBI and INS are
predominantly white and predominantly male.
At about the same time, Congress enacted legislation creating the
National Commission on Terrorism that would provide an independent
review of America's counterterrorism efforts. It was formed after the
African embassy bombings and was chaired by L. Paul Bremer (now the
civil administrator in Iraq) and included Congresswoman Jane Harman,
General Wayne Downing and former CIA director Jim Woolsey. Suzanne
Spaulding served as its Executive Director.
I, too, was appointed to the Commission as there was a growing
concern that a commission on international terrorism should be informed
by at least one Arab-American. To be honest, while I am proud of the
work of the Commission, I do not doubt that my appointment--at the age
of 29--had much to do with the fact that there were so few Arab-
Americans who had any experience in national security.
The Commission issued its report in June 2000. It was a detailed
and exacting critique of our preparation for the growing threat of
terrorism. It received some notice, but did not, unfortunately, have
tremendous impact until after the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001. Its recommendations now serve as the foundation for much of the
governmental reforms now taking place, and many of its members serve in
senior positions in government related to terrorism.
The recommendations include issues that will seem familiar to you
today: the need to buttress intelligence capabilities and, more
specifically, to buttress quick and reliable translation capabilities.
The Commission also urged that America's counterterrorism efforts be
fair and equitable and that America serve as an example of hope and
justice both for ourselves and for nations struggling towards
democracy. My presence at that table, I hope, led to important
discussions about ethnicity, counterterrorism efforts affecting
particular communities, and the need for greater dialogue and
understanding.
the demographics of our national security community
Because of my background and work, I personally believe that the
question of the content of our intelligence cannot be disassociated
from the question of recruitment and diversity in the intelligence
agency's workforce. I believe that they are fundamentally related in
three important ways that suggest that America needs to begin a
strategic recruitment effort to draw Arabs and Muslims into our
intelligence agencies, rather than chasing them away.
First, strategically, our law enforcement and intelligence
communities are woefully inadequate in Arabic translation skills, and
are often forced to contract out these vital duties. Today, much of the
human intelligence that our agents go to such extraordinary lengths to
gather is left unused, simply because it is left untranslated. A larger
pool of people to choose from for translation services would mean that
the intelligence we are gathering would actually be utilized.
It would also mean that we would never have to employ people who
may pose a security threat. Clearly, I say this in the context of the
present controversy on Guantanamo Bay. Lately, there has been increased
discussion of the risks associated with hiring Arab- and Muslim-
Americans or immigrants in America's counterterrorism efforts.
Specifically, the recent allegations of potential sabotage by U.S.
personnel on Guantanamo Bay--as many as 10 people who worked on
Guantanamo Bay are under scrutiny for espionage--have raised concerns
about the sentiments and allegiances of those we hire. It appears that
all the men under scrutiny are either Islamic or of Arab descent. I do
not know the cases specifically, nor do I personally agree with the
longterm detentions of persons on Guantanamo Bay. But, we do seem
particularly desperate for translators when public court documents
disclose that Syrian-born airman Ahmad al-Halabi was under some sort of
surveillance before he was ever on Guantanamo Bay. Obviously, he should
never have been given access to the island, let alone prisoners, if he
was already under suspicion. Yet we are forced to cut important corners
because we simply do not have a big enough pool of people.
Second, as was recognized in the 1960s after the race riots in
America in relation to urban police departments, diversifying our
national security communities will go far in creating effective bridges
of communication between Arabs and Muslims and the federal government.
That relationship today is not a very good one; some of the
government's efforts are viewed as draconian and unforgiving. We now
recognize that a community policing strategy--in which local police
broaden the nature and number of police functions so as to relate
better to their neighborhoods and the citizenry--coupled with a very
strategic minority recruitment program has changed the nature of the
relationship of the cops to the citizenry in many urban jurisdictions.
We need to change the nature of the relationship between the citizenry
and our national security community as well. In the end, the
effectiveness of the policies we adopt will be influenced by those who
work within government.
Third, our strategic and cultural understanding of the Arab and
Muslim world could be enhanced by better integration of all of our
national security related agencies. It is often said that we need to
bridge relationships with the Arab and Muslim communities so as to
greater understand the potential threat of terrorism here in America. I
find this claim to be without much merit. Indeed, the nineteen 9/11
hijackers were not at all integrated into local Arab or Muslim
communities. Instead, a more integrated national security workforce
would likely provide two important benefits.
Firstly, it would make our federal intelligence and law enforcement
communities a more desirable place to work for Arabs and Muslims.
Presently, there is a palpable tension between Arab and Muslim
communities and the U.S. government because of detentions,
interrogations, and strict immigrations policies. For young Arab and
Muslim Americans, the prospect of serving their country in
counterterrorism efforts is likely attractive, but also complicated. It
is not entirely clear that they are wanted, as their relationship with
our national security agencies tends to be one of suspect and
interrogator.
Secondly, the U.S. government is often forced to contract out or
rely on people with their own potential agendas in order to better
understand the Arab and Muslim worlds. For example, a recent non-
partisan report suggested that the information the U.S. government was
receiving from Iraqi dissidents about what post-war Iraq would be like
was outdated and sometimes ill-informed. This is not necessarily to say
that our pre-war intelligence would have been more accurate if our
agencies were better diversified; it is to say, however, that we would
not have been so dependent on this one source of intelligence.
the problem of security clearances
From the government's perspective, there are significant concerns
about the security background of recent immigrants or those with ties
to countries in the Arab region. Once again, my case is illustrative.
My mother was born in Lebanon, as were 5 of her 9 siblings. Two of her
sisters were born in Cuba. My security clearance was complicated and
long. There were few records kept, for example, of their immigration to
America.
This fact, however, only suggests that more efforts may need to be
made to grant those clearances early, not that the effort shouldn't be
expended. Presently, there is a tremendous backlog of clearance needs,
a backlog that has been addressed by Congress and will continue to be
addressed by our security agencies. But to argue, as some have, that it
is simply too hard to get security clearances for Arab and Muslims
nationals or citizens is too gross a generalization. There will be hard
cases, of course, but there will be easy ones as well, people who seek
to serve their country in a unique and important way.
a strategic recruitment effort
I am in the beginning stages of a research project at the Kennedy
School related to the question of diversity and national security. It
seeks to determine the experience of Arab and Muslim Americans in the
intelligence and law enforcement communities. As yet, I have not been
able to determine the demographics or representation of Arabs and
Muslims in our national security agencies. The number is likely to be
low. For the project, I am also exploring anecdotal evidence that Arabs
and Muslims hired by the U.S government are finding their unique skills
underutilized and sometimes facing hostile work environments.
Though I have only just begun this research, the basic outlines of
a recruitment strategy for Arab and Muslim Americans are clear.
Initially, a recruitment effort would need to include the following
aspects:
<bullet> Partnering with Arab and Muslim American leaders to
attract qualified applicants;
<bullet> Providing career development opportunities related
to the individual's unique skills;
<bullet> Ensuring a non-hostile workforce;
<bullet> Providing opportunities for greater dialogue between
law enforcement agencies and the communities of interest to
promote greater trust and less antagonism;
<bullet> Recognizing that some counterterrorism efforts will
be viewed as antagonistic to certain communities, and taking
steps to either end or reduce the potential harm.
Recently, the Council on Foreign Relations issued a report entitled
``Finding America's Voice: A Strategy for Reinvigorating U.S. Public
Diplomacy.'' The bipartisan report argues that the United States needs
to spend more time and resources on public diplomacy in the Arab and
Muslim worlds so that we can change the overwhelming negative
perception about America. It is in America's security interest to do
so. That assessment seems accurate, but surely part of that effort must
be to engage those very communities here in America. A government
recruitment plan that would make our national security agencies better
reflect areas of the world that are not only a threat, but also an
opportunity, should be part of that mission.
There is tremendous discussion today about putting an Arab face
on our post-war reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The argument goes that
such a change would provide legitimacy to the occupation in Iraq. I do
not know whether that is true or not, but I can understand the
sentiment as it relates to our efforts here at home. A more diversified
national security community makes sense not merely because of each
employee's own perspective and the sensitivities that they may bring to
the table. It may also bolster arguments that those enforcement
policies we are pursuing are not aimed at any particular religious or
ethnic group, but rather at identifiable threats and individuals.
Last year, the Supreme Court addressed the difficult issue of
diversity in the law school admissions process at Michigan Law School.
I do not intend to discuss the merits of one particular recruitment
plan over another. What is important is that we have, as a nation,
seemed to reach a core consensus on the benefits of diversity in all
aspects of our life. The majority opinion by Justice O'Connor notes
favorably a brief filed by high-ranking retired officers and civilian
leaders of the United States military wherein they wrote ``[b]ased on
[their] decades of experience (a) highly qualified, racially diverse
officer corps . . . is essential to the military's ability to fulfill
its principal mission to provide national security.'' Grutter v.
Bollinger, et al. (2002) at 18. Given the nature of the threat of
international terrorism from particular areas of the world, it is
important to remember, in the words of Justice O'Connor, that
``participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic
life of our Nation is essential if the dream of one Nation,
indivisible, is to be realized.'' Id. at 19-20. Our national security,
in the end, will be better served by a focused effort to attract a more
diverse intelligence workforce. It is in our very strategic interest to
do so.
The Chairman. Mr. Diaz.
STATEMENT OF MIGUEL DIAZ
Mr. Diaz. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you
for this opportunity to testify this morning on the need for
greater diversity in the Intelligence Community. The case of
diversity is clear. Let me lay out some of the basic arguments
in support of it.
First, we should encourage diversity within the
Intelligence Community because it is the right thing to do. The
U.S. Intelligence Community, like the government as a whole,
should reflect America. The Intelligence Community's personnel
should reflect all the variations, cultural diversity, and
coloration that have made our country great. It demeans us as a
Nation to have such a wide discrepancy between the proportion
of the population who are minority and the representation in
the Intelligence Community. Closing that gap should be a
national goal.
Inclusion is a political imperative. Minorities have earned
their seat at the table where foreign policy is made. We have
been on the front lines, literally, in carrying out policy in
Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and, more recently, in Iraq. And we
have too much at stake to remain marginalized within the
decisionmaking process. I am glad to see that our minority
leadership in Congress is paying attention to the subject of
foreign policy and I encourage them to persevere.
Second and perhaps more importantly, we should pursue
diversity within the intelligence services because it is the
smart thing to do. In order for the foreign policy
establishment, and the Intelligence Community in particular, to
have the support of the American people, it must look like the
American people. Historically that has not been the case both
in the upper echelons of policymaking and in the bureaucracies.
There is no denying that substantial progress has been made
with the appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as
Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, but down in
the ranks of the State Department and the CIA, there is still a
long way to go before we can say that these institutions truly
reflect America.
We need to take advantage of the fact that in this country
we have a globalized society, unlike any other country in the
world, to beef up our intelligence capability. Minorities have
much to offer in the way of language capabilities, social
skills, and cultural sensitivities that have been sorely
lacking in the past. Because of the variety of our national
origins, we look like the rest of the world, an important
attribute in the intelligence business. It is a fallacy to say
that diversity has to come at the expense of merit.
Intelligence agencies must demand excellence and require all
employees meet the highest standards of performance. Our Nation
can afford nothing less.
But while doing that, we can and must give minorities a
better environment in which to compete and succeed. In some
circumstances, this may require a proactive affirmative step.
While the need to include more minorities may be self-evident,
how to go about recruiting them in the intelligence service,
retaining them and promoting them is less clear. There has been
some progress in all three areas, but the fact that you are
holding this hearing suggests there is more to do. Retention
and promotion of minorities seems particularly exigent.
Based on my 3 years working as an analyst in the
Directorate of Intelligence nearly a decade ago, I can offer
some reflections on the subject and I hope they prove relevant
to the task at hand.
On the subject of recruitment, I see multiple challenges.
One is the need to overcome the reservations potential recruits
may feel about working for the intelligence services. Many
minorities hail from parts of the world where the CIA has, to
put it bluntly, a bad name. First generation Hispanics like
myself had to contend with the negative legacy the CIA had in
Latin America. I suspect the same applies to Arab Americans,
Asian Americans and others who have come from the developing
world. Accusations surfaced a few years ago in some quarters
that the CIA was complicit in bringing drugs into the country.
The fact that such absurd accusations resonated with some
minority groups tests the inevitable resistance the agency
confronts in recruitment.
Another challenge that the Intelligence Community faces is
knowing where to recruit. Historically the agency had a
reputation for recruiting only from the ivy leagues. There are
indeed minorities at Harvard, Columbia and Yale, but the odds
are greater of recruiting qualified minorities, Hispanics, at
least in schools such as the University of Miami, University of
Texas, or University of Southern California. I could also
suggest there are publications better capable of putting
recruitment ads in front of minority leaders.
I also wonder whether the Intelligence Community can make
better use of the minority personnel it already has to reach
out to the minority community. In my case, I did not come
across a single minority person during my entire recruiting and
interview process. I will contend that there is no more
powerful way to court a minority than being engaged by somebody
who looks like you, talks like you, or comes from a part of the
world that you come from.
Let me now move ahead to the question of retention, where
my own experience at the agency may be relevant. Joining the
agency is daunting to everyone coming in, although I suspect it
may be more so for minorities. At the agency, we are even more
of a minority than we are on the outside world. The culture of
secrecy further exacerbates this isolation. Some have to
contend with those who saw us as tokens. I confess that at
times I also felt distrusted, as if I was not American enough
to be there. When you don't fit the bill of what a CIA man or
woman looks like, this treatment can be very disconcerting.
Undeniably, there was great pressure on the few of us to
blend in. It seems to me that the time has come in America that
we can rejoice in our differences. The reaction of many of us
was to try to bend over backwards to prove that we belonged,
that we were American and worthy of trust as everybody else. At
times, some of us fell to the temptation of overcompensating,
and, in the course of doing so, lost our sense of perspective,
a dangerous mistake when your very business is making sound
judgments. The pressure to blend in was not only cultural but
also applied to how you carried out your work. Based on my
experiences, the following are suggestions you might consider:
Make more of an effort to make the minorities who join the
agency feel more welcome. I believe that message of welcome
should be delivered by none other than the CIA Director, both
in private and in the public manner. The agency could also
encourage the creation of a network of minority support groups
to receive and mentor minority newcomers at the very starts of
their career there. At the very least, new recruits should have
new opportunity to take advantage of such a support network.
This support may not be available--may be available, but it was
not when I was there 10 years ago.
I would also urge that the agency better treasure the few
minorities it has been able to attract by entrusting them to
seasoned managers, managers who have a track record of
successfully developing minority professionals. The institution
could be patient and open-minded in handling our adaptation to
the ways of the agency. A little bit more time and guidance
could be provided to overcome the historical difficulties
minorities have had in adopting the DI writing style, a major
stumbling block for minorities in the past. Bear in mind that
many of us come from bilingual backgrounds and have a wider
communications gap that we need to bridge than recruits for
whom English is a first language.
Finally, my thoughts on why there might be a dearth of
minorities in the upper ranks in the Intelligence Community and
what could be done to rectify the situation. One obvious
explanation comes to mind. There is not a big enough pool of
minorities to promote. Not many minorities will be promoted.
Suspecting that politics may be more of a factor in
competition for more coveted jobs, I would also recommend that
more effective monitoring be marshaled to ensure that no
discrimination takes place. A commission of CIA minority alumni
can be called upon to play this role.
Let me conclude by making a particular case for Hispanic
inclusion in the intelligence service. I believe Latin America
will pose a greater intelligence challenge in the years to
come. Terrorism is no stranger to the region. Our economic
interests have also never been more intertwined. Undoubtedly,
having a cadre of Latino intelligence analysts who speak the
language and have a special sensitivity to the region would be
very valuable.
I salute you in this initiative to raise the profile of the
issue of minority inclusion in intelligence, and I hope my
remarks have proven a value in thinking through on how to make
further progress in this front. I look forward to answer any
questions you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Diaz.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Diaz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Miguel Diaz, Director of South America Project,
the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify this morning on the need for greater diversity
in the intelligence community. The case for diversity is clear. Let me
lay out some basic arguments in support of it.
First, we should encourage diversity within the intelligence
community because it is the right thing to do. The U.S. intelligence
community, like the government as a whole, should reflect America. The
intelligence community's personnel should reflect all the variations,
cultural diversity, and coloration that have made our country great. It
demeans us as a nation to have such a wide discrepancy between the
proportion of the population who are minority and their representation
in the intelligence community. Closing that gap should be a national
goal.
Inclusion is a political imperative. Minorities have earned their
seat at the table where foreign policy is made. We have been on the
front lines--literally--in carrying out policy in Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, and more recently Iraq and we have too much at stake to
remain marginalized within the decision making process. I am glad to
see that our minority leadership in Congress is paying attention to the
subject of foreign policy, and I encourage them to persevere.
Second, and perhaps most importantly, we should pursue diversity
within the intelligence services because it is the smart thing to do.
In order for the foreign policy establishment, and the intelligence
community in particular, to have the support of the American people, it
must look like the American people. Historically, that has not been the
case, both in the upper echelons of policymaking and in the
bureaucracies. There is no denying that substantial progress has been
made with the appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as
Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. But down in the ranks
of the State Department and the CIA, there is still a long way to go
before we can say that these institutions truly reflect America.
We need to take advantage of the fact that in this country we have
a globalized society, unlike any other country in the world, to beef up
our intelligence capability. Minorities have much to offer in the way
of language capability, social skills, and cultural sensibilities that
have been sorely lacking in the past. Because of the variety of our
national origins we look like the rest of the world, an important
attribute in the intelligence business.
It is a fallacy to say that diversity has to come at the expense of
merit Intelligence agencies must demand excellence and require that all
employees meet the highest standards of performance. Our nation can
afford nothing less. But while doing that, we can and we must give
minorities a better environment in which to compete and succeed. In
some circumstances, this may require proactive affirmative steps.
Why we need to include more minorities may be self-evident, how to
go about recruiting more minorities into the intelligence service,
retaining them, and promoting them is less clear. I understand that
there has been some progress in all three areas, but the fact that you
are holding this hearing suggests there is much more to do. Retention
and promotion of minorities seems particularly exigent.
Based on my three years working as an analyst in the Directorate of
Intelligence nearly a decade ago, I can offer some reflections on the
subject. I hope that they prove relevant to the task at hand.
On the subject of recruitment, I see multiple challenges. One is
the need to overcome the reservations potential recruits may feel about
working for the intelligence services. Many minorities hail from parts
of the world where the CIA has--to put it bluntly--a bad name. First
generation Hispanics, like myself, had to contend with the negative
legacy the CIA had in Latin America, for example. I suspect the same
applies to Arab Americans, Asian Americans, and others who have come
from the developing world. Accusations surfaced a few years back in
some quarters that the CIA was complicit in bringing drugs into the
country. The fact that such absurd accusations resonated with some
minority groups attests to the inevitable resistance the agency
confronts in recruitment.
Another challenge that the intelligence community faces is knowing
where to recruit. Historically, the agency had a reputation for
recruiting only from the Ivy leagues. There are indeed minorities at
Harvard, Columbia, and Yale, but the odds are greater of recruiting
qualified minorities (Hispanics at least) in schools such as the
University of Miami, University of Texas, or University of Southern
California. I could also suggest there are publications better capable
of putting recruitment ads in front of minority readers than the
Economist or the New York Times.
I also wonder whether the intelligence community can make better
use of the minority personnel it already has to reach out to the
minority community. In my case, I did not come across a single minority
person during my entire recruiting and interview process. I would
contend that there is no more powerful way to court a minority than
being engaged by somebody who looks like you, talks like you, or comes
from a part of the world that you come from.
Let me now move ahead to the question of retention, where my own
experience at the agency is relevant. Joining the agency is daunting to
everyone coming in, although I suspect it may be more so for
minorities. At the agency, we are even more of a minority than we are
in the outside world. The culture of secrecy, further exacerbates this
isolation. Some have to contend with those who saw us as ``tokens.'' I
confess that at times I felt distrusted, as if I was not ``American''
enough to be there. When you don't fit the bill of what a CIA man or
woman looks like, this treatment could be very disconcerting.
Undeniably, there was great pressure on the few of us to blend in.
It seems to me the time has come in America that we can rejoice in our
differences. The reaction of many of us was to try to bend over
backwards to prove that we belonged: that we were as American and
worthy of trust as everyone else. At times, some of us fell to the
temptation of overcompensating, and in the course of doing so, lost our
sense of perspective, a dangerous mistake when your very ``business''
is making sound judgments. The pressure to blend in was not only
cultural, but also applied to how you carried out your work. Based on
my experiences, the following are some suggestions you might consider.
1. Make more of an effort to make the minorities who join the
agency feel more welcome. I believe that message of welcome should be
delivered by none other than the CIA Director, both in a private and
public manner. The agency could also encourage the creation of a
network of minority support groups to receive and mentor minority
newcomers from the very start of their careers there. At the very least
new recruits should have the opportunity to take advantage of such a
support network. This support may now be available, but was not when I
was there ten years ago.
2. I would also urge that the agency better treasure the few
minorities it has been able to attract by entrusting them to seasoned
managers, managers who have a track record of successfully developing
minority professionals.
3. The institution could also be patient and open-minded in
handling our adaptation to the ways of the agency. A little bit more
time and guidance could be provided to overcome the historical
difficulties minorities have had in adopting the DI writing style, a
major stumbling block for minorities in the past. Bear in mind, that
many of us come from bilingual backgrounds and have a wider
communications gap that we need to bridge than recruits for whom
English is the first language.
Finally, let me share my thoughts on why there may be a dearth of
minorities in the upper ranks of the intelligence community and what
can be done to rectify the situation. One obvious explanation comes to
mind. If there is not a big enough pool of minorities to promote, not
many minorities will be promoted. Suspecting the politics may be more
of a factor in competition for more coveted jobs, I would also
recommend that more effective monitoring be marshaled to assure that no
discrimination takes place. A commission of CIA minority alumni can be
called upon to play this role.
Let me conclude by making a particular case for Hispanic inclusion
in the intelligence services. I believe that Latin America will pose a
greater intelligence challenge in the years to come. Terrorism is no
stranger to the region and its spread is easier now than ever before.
Our economic interests have also never been more intertwined.
Undoubtedly, having a cadre of Latino intelligence analysts who speak
the language and have a special sensitivity to the region could be very
valuable.
Again, I salute you in this initiative to raise the profile of the
issue of minority inclusion in intelligence and I hope my remarks have
proven of value in thinking through how to make further progress on
this front. I look forward to trying to answer any questions you may
have. Thank you.
The Chairman. We are going to start the questioning with
Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. It is a shame that the first panel
didn't hear you all because I think they would have learned a
lot. And I am very impressed with the testimony. I think
today's testimony shows that we do need diversity within the
Intelligence Community, and it is not just to be politically
correct or meet certain goals. The bottom line, that is the
future of the Intelligence Community and world peace as far as
we are concerned.
So let us talk about recommendations or how we get to where
we need to be. We have identified that problem. Number one, Mr.
Bush, you seem to have an effective program, and you are in
business and we all know Northrop Grumman. Give me your opinion
why you think you are doing the job and our Intelligence
Community is not. And I know you have a lot of contracts and we
will protect you from that.
Mr. Bush. From a broad perspective, we have some
flexibility that perhaps our government counterparts do not
enjoy. Part of our flexibility is a bit more internal
discretion. We are able to go out and financially support,
based on our own view of what needs to be done, development
programs, K through 12. Some years ago we figured out--it
wasn't that students got to college before making decisions
about what they were going to be, it was long before that. We
have taken proactive measures to address the K through 12
elementary system and high school system throughout our area,
and we do it across the country as well with a focus of
creating a broader pool of people. In aggregate, we are
collectively failing at that because the enrollment in math and
science continues to decline. But nevertheless, my point is we
have some flexibility that those on the government side don't
have necessarily.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Let me ask anyone on the panel, do you
think the civil service issues have a big deterrent, especially
what you talked about, General, about bringing people in mid-
level or higher level? Unless we do something about that--I
mean, intelligence is our security. And it is national
security. Do you all have comments on the panel of how our
civil service laws now reflect on what is going on as far as
intelligence and diversity?
General Harding. I would like to say to some degree not
just the civil service system, but the military system has
processes of moving up a ladder and structure that goes back to
the flexibility that we have that neither the civil service nor
the military system may provide. An example is over the last
couple of months it was very easy for me to find a linguist who
wanted to not be deployed. It is also easy to find linguists
who only wanted to be deployed. The Nation needs both. When
either one gets stuck in a system that forces them to do
something they don't want to do, they tend to want to leave and
look to us to provide them the flexibility, to say that ``The
Nation needs folks like you back here to do documentation
exploitation, because we have a contract and we can keep you
here and provide you stability. You always want to deploy, and
I can move you to a number of locations.''
We have that flexibility. While I was in the military, I am
not sure that they had that.
Mr. Ruppersberger. You feel that we need to change our
existing laws as it relates to civil service, as it relates to
the Intelligence Community? Anyone have a comment?
General Harding. I would say to the extent--we are all
thinking this issue very seriously--and to that extent, I would
say it should be reviewed with a bias toward changing.
Mr. Bush. I have an opinion on that as well. The ability or
flexibility of the Intelligence Community--and I think we see
it in other parts of government--to compete, not only capturing
talent but also retaining talent is critical and is impaired by
some of the restrictions in the civil service structure.
Mr. Ruppersberger. You have some of those issues, and NSA
is an example as it relates to technology and the new
generation that is much more competent in that area. So there
is a lot of competition, too.
Ms. Kayyem, your comments--and I think you were the first
to bring it up today--but the Arab Muslim relationships and how
important it is that we as Americans and the Muslim community
not perceive that we are at war with Muslims. That was my
biggest concern, more than anything about going to war with
Iraq, that that would be perceived. And I think with the help
of a lot of Muslims in the United States a lot of that was
deterred, but it is still out there. And you have to learn a
lot more about who you are dealing with, and why people react;
and now that we are in Iraq, it is not just that we are there
and maybe their life is better because of what happened with
Saddam Hussein. But if we are going to help that country move
to the next level we have to understand what they want, not
necessarily what we want, as far as their everyday life is
concerned.
I was a county executive during 9/11 in Baltimore County,
Maryland, and we had a mosque of about a thousand Muslims, and
they had a school. And as soon as 9/11, I sent a couple of
police cars over to protect them. By doing that I have been
extremely close to the Muslim community. That was an act they
couldn't believe that it was done. And we have tried to develop
relationships. Now, as a result of those relationships, there
are a lot of concerns about the PATRIOT Act and things of that
nature. But what recommendations would you have as far as
dealing with the Muslim community and as it relates really to
recruitment of what we need in the area of intelligence?
Ms. Kayyem. Well, a couple of them I mentioned. And let me
pick up on one point you just said about sending the police
cars on 9/11. I have to say little gestures like that--and I
don't mean to belittle you--but gestures like that go an
incredibly long way for a community. You have to remember that
the Arab Muslim community that left the Middle East for a
reason, totalitarian government--you know, no hope for a
future--adore America because it provided them significant
opportunity. And so things like that go a long way.
I think one thing is we can't wait until the next terrorist
attack to do this. We have known about this problem for 10
years, the diversity in the Intelligence Community. And at that
stage, and even now, there is no question. There is a lot of
discussion about the mosques and whether they are recruitments
for terrorist fund-raising. There are legitimate lawful mosques
with legitimate leaders who have people who are young
professionals, speak the languages, who would--who need to be
approached, who need to be talked to by law enforcement
agencies, the Intelligence Community to get it out there.
Whatever recruitment--as I said before, whatever
recruitment effort that was discussed by the first panel, it is
just not being heard, it is not being heard by the community.
The message they are hearing is unfortunately the PATRIOT Act
or sort of the questioning things like that, so I think the
counter important message needs to get heard a lot probably
needs to be more focused.
I also mentioned something in talking about the structure.
The issue of security clearances is obviously an issue that is
much bigger than this discussion and how long it takes. The
people who are doing security clearances I think need to be a
little bit more sensitive about talking to other people about
peoples' background, where they come from, where their families
come from. For example, documentation of the proof that my
mother and seven siblings were born in Lebanon is very
difficult for the 1940s and 1950s. Another two were born in
Cuba. You can imagine from the FBI agents' perspective that
list, seven people from Beirut and two from Cuba, didn't look
too promising, but I am okay.
I think discussions like--and I know people are trying to
attract the Muslim and Arab community. I am very optimistic
about this just based on both my professional research and just
being out there in this world. I think that if we can tap into
an enthusiasm for patriotism and enthusiasm for working in this
world in the Intelligence Community and law enforcement
communities and if we can just harness it more specifically, I
think we can cure maybe some of these problems, and in the end,
you know, maybe actually change some of the policies adopted by
government, which may not--whichever administration--may be a
good thing.
Mr. Ruppersberger. The issue of security clearance is an
issue that we all have to look at. Congressman Goss and
Congresswoman Harman have discussed that before, how it is
antiquated, if when we are trying to go out and recruit
diversity in individuals. Right now in the Arab or Hispanic
community, the different areas and hot spots in the world, a
lot of people aren't going to wait for a long period of time.
Because we did it one way, we have to really evaluate it. And
there are ways to make sure and there are checks and balances.
And I only raise this because it is something after this
hearing, the more that I have been on this committee, that this
whole security clearance has to be looked at. We will be
sitting in a room with 15 people, even for CIA, you ask one
question and half the room has to go out. That is ridiculous.
And the need to know is fine. And if there is a breach, then we
are going to deal with it. That is part of the network that has
to be changed. Do you agree?
Ms. Kayyem. If you are talking about people right out of
universities who, based on my experience and I am sure others',
it is not like you have a job and are waiting to get the next
job. You talk about the financial issues involved especially
with immigrant communities; it may not be as financially sound
as others. It is a burden they just can't wait for as compared
to if you were presently employed.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I meant no disrespect to Ms. Harman
about ivy league schools, but I agree with you that they may
need to recruit--there are a lot of good people that are out
there that you need to identify them. If you are trying to get
4.Os from the ivy league schools, you will get a lot of
intellectual individuals, but you may not get the best. It is
important we look at not only in diversity in color and
culture, but look at diversity in education and backgrounds and
things of that nature, too.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Harman.
Ms. Harman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do agree with that
remark. I think my friend, Ms. Kayyem, also went to Harvard Law
School.
Ms. Kayyem. I am married to one of the professors.
Ms. Harman. I would like to extend a warm welcome to this
panel. I think the testimony is excellent. Juliette Kayyem and
I served on the National Commission on Terrorism, also known as
the Bremer Commission. Jerry Bremer was the Chair and did
valuable work, along with Suzanne Spalding who is the executive
director. And Wes Bush heads a very critical part of Northrop
Grumman, aided adeptly by Dan McLean behind him. And that part
used to be called TRW in large part.
And I just want to tell a tiny story about TRW, which is
that 5 or 6 years ago the then-Israeli Minister of Defense came
to the South Bay of Los Angeles because he wanted to visit TRW,
because he wanted to thank the TRW workforce for its work on a
program called THEL, the Theater High Energy Laser program,
which is now quite well along and is a program that will use a
laser mounted on a mobile platform to shoot down Kayusha
rockets to be launched against Israel's northern border or
against any war theater by anyone. This is not just a program
that has application in Israel.
At any rate, we went to Redondo Beach where TRW is
headquartered, and now part of Northrop Grumman, as I said, and
the program manager of the THEL program explained the program
to the Israeli Minister of Defense. And her name is Joanne
Maguire. And it was enormously impressive to have this very
well-qualified woman in charge of this very successful program
explaining it to a high-level foreign official. She has moved
to an another aerospace company but she still is enormously
talented.
And it is to the great credit of some of the aerospace
firms that they are not just growing but promoting and
rewarding women and minorities in senior positions. So thank
you.
I just want to ask you one question, and it is the same
question I asked the prior panel. Let us see what your answers
are. That question is about perceptions and cultural awareness.
I was recently at the CIA with Ms. Spalding and others, getting
a briefing by the highest-level folks who wrote the 2002
national intelligence estimate on Iraq, and all of the white
males that did that were facing me. My question to all of you
is, if we had more diversity at the top levels of our
Intelligence Community, would the cultural awareness that
they--that this diverse workforce brought to the effort to
write good analytical products and other things perhaps make
those products different? And in the case of understanding
Saddam Hussein and his intentions with respect to WMD, do you
think we might have had more accurate information?
Ms. Kayyem. Short answer, yes. I mean as I discuss in my
written testimony, I don't know if it would have led us to
different policy conclusions. I think we may have headed that
way anyway, but I certainly think that at least some of the
perceptions that we have of Saddam Hussein's conduct and his
relationship to Syria, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon and his--for want
of a better word Arab, machismo attitude that he really held on
to may have been part of the discussion, you know, how--what
could be animating him besides the fact that he potentially had
the weapons? I think more--as importantly, the perception, the
understanding of the Arab street would have been vitally
changed if that table--the table had looked very different,
because I think people who have sort of current ties to the
Arab street or Muslim street in the sense of family or visits
or that sort of dinner table analogy that I use probably would
have been clear about the potential reaction, which is where we
are right now.
Ms. Harman. Any other comments?
General Harding. I absolutely agree with the comments you
made.
Mr. Diaz. I found a lot of institutional pressure at the
agency to basically not rock the boat. And especially as a
minority person, you really didn't want to stick your head out
too far. I spent 10 years as a Wall Street economist and
strategist for an investment bank. And the pressure there,
interesting enough, was be counterintuitive, basically come up
with something that nobody else had. And that is where the
rewards were. I think--my experience, I think it led to better
analysis and better work.
Mr. Bush. I might offer a perspective, and I think
Secretary Teets said it very well, that diversity always
changes your thoughts. It changes the outcomes in any
decisionmaking process. We value that within our corporation,
and we have a diverse leadership team. I go in personally into
those conversations thinking we might have one outcome, and
very often come out with a very different outcome because of
the diversity of thoughts and perspectives. So it always adds
value, and I think we would all agree on that.
Ms. Harman. I appreciate that.
I don't have any further questions, Mr. Chairman. But I
just would note that you and I met with some representatives of
the 9/11 victims a couple of weeks ago, and one of their
comments--in fact, their strongest comment--was that we don't
do enough in public in this committee and in our Senate
counterpart committee. I hope they are tuning in today. I see
cameras in the room.
This hearing and the testimony we have received and the
comments by the members on a bipartisan basis I think is a high
mark for this committee, and I am very proud of playing a small
role in it. And I would like to thank all of our colleagues and
staff for the role that they have played, and our witnesses,
putting out there to the public something we all feel, I think
to a person, is critically important.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Harman. I know the time is
running.
Gentlemen, do you have pressing questions you need to get
in?
Mr. Hastings. Mr. Chairman, I wish, if I could, to make one
suggestion; and that is that the testimonies of our witnesses,
that have been outstanding and scintillating, be prepared and
be sent forward to the bureaucrats who, because of time
constraints, had to leave, with the thought in mind that they
would be encouraged to learn from many of the things that, in
my view, were accurate reflections of the state that we are in.
Secondly, I think it would be helpful if the committee were
to look at all of the testimony with an eye toward potential
legislation that might remedy some of the problems or model
ourselves after some of the things that have been done, for
example, at Northrop Grumman to give the Intelligence Community
a great deal more flexibility in terms of going after certain
students.
And picking up on Ms. Kayyem's point, one of the things
that needs to be understood is, today's young people grew up in
a culture where they want to be rich quick. And that's all of
them; it doesn't matter where they come from. And wanting to do
that allows that we are going to have to have monetary
incentives of major proportions in order to be able to recruit
the skills mix that is needed.
Mr. Diaz points out something that I think is vital with
regard to the pressures, and I think Ms. Kayyem would have said
the same thing with respect to Arabs. General Harding has known
it himself personally, as well, in growing up; the Agency would
be wise to hire all these people as consultants to give them
some better understanding about how to get around some of the
attorneys and civil service and all of those kinds of things.
One hundred percent of the new senior-level people in the
Intelligence Community are white males. Now, I don't have
anything against white males, and I ain't Howard Dean either,
but the fact of the matter is, the last six hires I made--one
Haitian, two Hispanics, two females, and one person of the
Jewish faith, and I am looking for an Arab. And the reason I am
doing that is because I want that diversity in my office. And
if we want it on this staff, if we want it at Northrop Grumman,
if we want it at the CIA, we can make it happen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all.
The Chairman. Mr. Reyes.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, again, I thank you
and the ranking member for holding this very important hearing.
And I should also point out that the compelling testimony that
we have heard from all the panelists on this panel, in
particular Mr. Diaz, we would have had similar insight from Mr.
Fourquet, although he was pulled off the panel by the
administration, and that was because he was going to be frank
and honest, as a lot of you have been.
And so one question I would have, Mr. Chairman, is it
possible to have a closed hearing for on this issue? Because it
is my understanding that Mr. Fourquet has been given the
flexibility to testify before the committee if it is a closed
hearing. Would it be possible?
The Chairman. I suspect it is definitely possible. I could
advise you that I had asked, as I promised at the beginning,
that we would try to have further explanation. I am told that
that is being faxed as we speak. In fact, saying right now,
members will have five legislative days to submit extraneous
material for the record so they will be assured his thoughts
will not be excluded, and that the opportunity for him to share
with us his views will be available in the future.
However, the problem was whether he was speaking for
himself or whether he is speaking for the government. As you
pointed out, or as I pointed out, there is some legal action
going on that the government is very interested in maintaining
a consistent statement on, since they are in court on some of
these matters.
Mr. Reyes. And I certainly understand that. But I think--as
we have seen here this morning by the testimony of both panels,
I think it is a lot like the guy that refuses to go to AA
because he knows he doesn't have a problem.
The first panel, everything is great. When Mr. Hastings
made mention that we talked among ourselves after hearing the
testimony of the first panel, we might as well go home because
there isn't any problem here, and the reality is, we have got
to send a clear message to the Intelligence Community that they
have a huge problem.
The first step may be having them accept the fact that they
have a problem and that we cannot go, as the Department of
Defense is trying to go, with giving them the flexibility to
provide a work force that has like minds with like opinions
that lead to a yes-yes environment, in large part because it is
going to get us into a serious, serious dilemma and possibly
very quickly.
There are several concerns that I have that I want to put
into the record here. The first one is that since I have been
on this committee and working the issue of diversity, there are
some minority employees of the Intelligence Community that have
complained that there is a tendency, because the Intelligence
Community operates in the black, to pit one minority versus
another. That is a very real issue, a very real problem that
has been confirmed by a number of individuals that would make
that testimony available.
The other one is that when we talk about talent, that which
is represented particularly on this panel, the Fourquets, the
Diazes, the Kayyems, all would make a significant and
extraordinary contribution to the Intelligence Community if
given an opportunity.
We have heard the testimony from the first panel that
apparently there is no problem, so there is no plan to provide
opportunities to people like Mr. Diaz, Ms. Kayyem, and perhaps
General Harding to come in at a level where they can make a
difference.
One of the statistics that I didn't get to read to the
first panel was that all the minorities in the Intelligence
Community seem to be concentrated in the GS-3 to GS-6 level.
Well, it is not too hard to figure out that they are not going
to have any kind of input in the direction of the recruitment,
of the diversification of the Community, and all of those
things that are so important. These panelists would have; they
get it. They ought to be given an opportunity to get in to the
Intelligence Community to make a meaningful contribution and a
difference in an area that is vital and critical to our
national security.
The last point I would like to make, and with apologies to
the panelists because the time crunch has caught up with us--
because I have a ton of things that I would have liked for each
one of you to have commented on based on this; and that is why
I am kind of summarizing it. The last thing I would ask, Mr.
Chairman, is there a possibility, or what is the process, the
procedure, for our committee, the Intelligence Committee, to
put together a commission or a working group or an advisory
panel comprised of individuals like this that are willing to
come in and take a look at what we are doing, take a look at
the things that have been done and the things that haven't been
done? And not in a vacuum, because we have the experience
there; we have a well-grounded, multitype experience.
If the Intelligence Community looked exactly as this panel
does, we would have no problem. But it doesn't, and we need to
get there.
So is there a process where this committee could possibly
put together or entertain putting together a commission to help
us in this violation area?
The Chairman. That would be a committee decision and
certainly something the committee can undertake, if you wish to
pursue it.
Mr. Reyes. And, again, thank you so very much, Mr.
Chairman. I know at times we are kind of pains in the butt
about specific issues. But I really think this is a vital and
important and worthwhile issue to pursue.
And, again, thank you so very much for your candid
testimony. We definitely appreciate your contribution to this
great country of ours. Thanks.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Reyes.
One of the reasons we had this hearing--as we have done
this in the past, and we will continue to do it in the future
would be my hope--is to emphasize the fact that it is a matter
of interest to the committee; and we take oversight in this
area very responsibly. And if there are constructive ways to
help with the issue as the legislative branch, we should pursue
them. I think that is all fair game for us.
I would like to conclude with thanks also. I have actually
had a good deal of conversation on the subject of diversity in
the past couple of years. My perspective comes a little
different.
I happen to be one of those white males, so my view has
been to look at it more from the perspective of what is it that
the Intelligence Community needs to do its job in the best
possible way. And I firmly believe that we need an
extraordinary broad and deep commitment to the entirety of the
richness of our Nation's background to do that.
I start with loyal Americans. And when I hyphenate
Americans, I always put American first. And I think if we do
that, we sometimes have an easier task explaining what we are
about.
I was making an address yesterday to some former
intelligence people, and I made the point that one of the new
dimensions that I think we have in front of us in the
Intelligence Community is to make sure we get away from what
some might call an old shibboleth, some might call an old
truth--it depends on your perspective. Again, in my time in the
Agency, there was a tendency to recruit in your own image. I
think if we limited the potential of the Intelligence Community
to just Ivy Leaguers recruiting Ivy Leaguers, we would get Ivy
League results.
Now, I have a lot of confidence in the Ivy League, and I
think it has served our Nation and the world very well, but it
is not the whole thing. Now, I think that it is a great launch
pad, and I certainly feel proud to have been an Ivy Leaguer,
but I have learned there is much more. So I think getting away
from recruiting in your own image, and setting some of the
goals that I have heard Mr. Reyes and Mr. Hastings and Ms.
Harman espouse here today, is pretty much saying the same
thing, but just coming at it from different ends of the
spectrum.
I think this hearing has been good. I did want to point
out, lest I get reminded later by some angry ladies, that there
is somebody called Joan Dempsey, who is now, in fact, the
Executive Director of the President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board; and then there is a lady who considers herself
part of the national security program named Condoleezza Rice,
who might take umbrage at the fact that she is not the highest
ranking member in the Intelligence Community.
So I don't know whether that is a debate we want to have or
not; I just need to know, we are thankful for all of those
people, and we probably should end saying that that proves the
point that we are richer for being observant about the question
of diversity.
I thank you all. We will adjourn this meeting.
[Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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