Congressional Record: February 3, 2004 (Senate)
Page S385-S388
INTELLIGENCE LESSONS
Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, yesterday I spoke to the Senate
relative to my assessment of the responsibility for the attacks of
September 11, 2001, some of the lessons learned from those attacks, and
the status of the implementation of those lessons. I explained that my
view was that those terrible events would have been prevented if our
national intelligence community had been better organized and more
clearly focused on the problem of terrorism. And if the Congress and
the President had drawn on those lessons learned from the tragedy of 9/
11 and initiated reforms of the intelligence community, we might well
have avoided some of the embarrassments of the flawed intelligence on
weapons of mass destruction or the misleading use of that intelligence
which formed the basis of the war against Iraq. Today I would like to
continue my discussion of those lessons that we should have learned and
implemented.
As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for most
of the 107th Congress, I had the honor of cochairing a bipartisan,
bicameral committee charged with investigating the events of the
intelligence community and their activities before and after the
attacks of September 11. We set out to determine whether or not there
was anything more we could have done to prevent the attacks and,
specifically, if our intelligence community had problems that needed to
be corrected.
The importance of our task was well understood. The 9/11 attacks were
not the work of a crazed individual but, rather, were the result of a
sophisticated plot carried out by a group of 19 terrorists and an
undetermined number of facilitators who prepared for the execution of
their plot over a period of almost 2 years. We can, we must, improve
our ability to detect and disrupt plots of this nature. We can do so by
ensuring that our intelligence-gathering networks are operating in an
optimal manner and that any flaws in our intelligence community are
addressed as quickly and effectively as possible.
Our committee identified a number of problems with our current
intelligence-gathering system. We followed up with recommendations on
how to fix these problems. By conducting this inquiry, making these
recommendations, Congress not only assumed the responsibility for
determining what happened before and after September 11 as related to
our intelligence community, but it also assumed a responsibility
relative to the implementation of the recommendations.
The American people will respond to future terrorist attacks by
asking: What did we learn from the previous attack and how has that
information been used to give the American people greater protection?
They have the right to ask this question and we have an obligation to
give them a good answer: What have you done with the information and
the lessons learned? How have you implemented those lessons in a way to
give me and the American people a greater sense of security?
So far, we have not made acceptable progress toward providing an
answer to the American people. In fact, if we had to give it today, it
would not be an answer of which we would be proud.
A large number of the problems identified by the joint inquiry and a
series of commissions which preceded the joint inquiry have not been
addressed. In my previous statement, I discussed those recommendations
which related specifically to the issue of counterterrorism. This
morning, I would like to address those recommendations which deal with
the structure of the intelligence community.
Our national intelligence community is beset by a number of serious
problems. There is a lack of leadership at the top and the absence of a
coordinated national intelligence policy that gives us agencies with
priorities, missions, and resources that do not necessarily complement
one another.
As an example, in December of 1998, the Director of Central
Intelligence, the man who has the statutory responsibility for the
coordination of all of our various intelligence agencies, told senior
managers of the CIA that he considered the United States to be at war
with al-Qaida and that the intelligence community, all of its agencies,
working in a coherent manner, should devote as many resources as
possible to combating that terrorist organization.
While this statement might seem to be a positive step, a step in the
right direction, our joint inquiry found that the DCI was either unable
or unwilling to enlist other intelligence agencies in this effort. The
troops either didn't hear or simply ignored the bugle call of war.
The lack of consistent, coordinated priorities is paralleled by a
lack of consistent, predictable funding as well as the lack of internal
accountability. This shortage of resources meant that the intelligence
community simply did not have enough personnel to perform all the
functions that were needed. This left the intelligence community ill-
prepared to deal with the rapidly changing terrorist threat.
One of the reasons for the unpredictability and decline of funding of
the intelligence community was the mistaken belief that the end of the
cold war yielded a peace dividend for the American people when it came
to defense spending, including a reduced need to spend money on
intelligence.
Mr. President, in fact, the change from the single focus on the
Soviet Union and its allies to the current world of diverse, constantly
changing, emerging threats such as weapons of mass destruction and
international terrorist groups has increased demand and, therefore, the
cost of intelligence.
The first recommendation made by our commission urges the creation of
a Cabinet-level director of national intelligence, appointed by the
President and subject to Senate confirmation. We made this our first
recommendation because we think it is the most important recommendation
and one that can do the most to prevent another 9/11 tragedy. I
gratefully recognize the excellent work of Senator Feinstein in
championing this issue.
The director of national intelligence would be responsible for
establishing consistent priorities for all of our national intelligence
agencies and assuring that these agencies work together, rather than
independently, by coordinating budgets and resources and managing
interagency relationships. We made this recommendation because of the
obvious need for strong leadership in our intelligence community.
It is clear that prior to 9/11 our intelligence-gathering agencies
had no comprehensive strategy for counterterrorism. Intelligence
priorities were inconsistently formulated and applied throughout the
various agencies and were not effectively leveraged through interagency
coordination. The joint inquiry report offers specific details of FBI
supervisors who thought there was no need to pay attention to Saudi
citizens in the United States while at the same time the CIA was
tracking suspected Saudi terrorists around the world.
The director of the national security agency, which is responsible
for our electronic eavesdropping, described the problem of unclear
priorities when he said: ``We had about 5 number 1 priorities.''
Although the Director of Central Intelligence is normally the head of
the intelligence community, in practice he
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has functioned as the head of one of those agencies, the CIA, with
limited influence over other organizations. The limited ability of the
Director of Central Intelligence to mobilize other intelligence
agencies in the war against al-Qaida is a tragic example of this point.
Before 9/11, personnel in many intelligence agencies--particularly the
FBI--had not even heard his statement on the topic, let alone acted
upon it.
The DCI does have some budgetary authority, but it cannot be
exercised effectively without the cooperation of the Department of
Defense since many intelligence agencies are run through the Department
of Defense. It is therefore necessary to appoint a strong director of
national intelligence who is not the head of any specific intelligence
agency. This is a recommendation which has been consistently made by
citizens, commissions, and governmentally appointed commissions which
have reviewed the intelligence community in the recent past.
So far, Congress and the administration have not acted on this first
recommendation and indeed appear to be moving in the opposite
direction. The recent creation of an Under Secretary of Defense for
Intelligence will serve to further separate the Defense Department from
the civilian intelligence agencies rather than improving cooperation.
Legislation has been introduced to accomplish this
necessary restructuring, but as of this date it has not had a hearing
before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
This is an issue which now sits upon the shoulders of the Congress.
If we fail to act, we will be held accountable when the next
preventable terrorist act occurs.
Another important recommendation was No. 11, which called for the
recruitment and development of greater numbers of quality intelligence
personnel. Obviously, the need for more counterterrorism training is a
major part of this recommendation, as is the need for more linguists
and an expanded intelligence community reserve corps that could provide
relevant expertise when special circumstances arise.
The committee also recommends an expansion of education grant
programs, such as the national security education program. Included
among the suggestions for improving the workforce was one calling for
legislation that instills the concept of jointness or interoperability
among the various agencies. This is similar to the 1986 Goldwater-
Nichols Act, which applied the concept of jointness to the military.
One way jointness has been instilled in the military is by having
service members serve tours of duty with another service or in a
multiservice command. This reform is widely recognized as having
substantially improved our military's ability to fight and win wars, as
was so dramatically demonstrated in Iraq.
In the intelligence community, there is too much isolation among
intelligence agencies and between those agencies and the users of
intelligence. As an example, the intelligence community, having
examined the likely means of attack by al-Qaida, identified hijacking
of commercial airliners to be used as weapons of mass destruction as a
particularly significant part of the arsenal of al-Qaida. However, the
Federal Aviation Administration was not notified of this new form of
threat. Therefore, the training and protocols of flight crews had been
to not attempt to resist hijackers but, rather, to succumb until the
plane was on the ground and then let other law enforcement and
professionals attempt to negotiate with the hijackers, and that was the
form of action that was still in place on September 11.
Possibly, had the FAA been aware of this new threat of taking command
of a plane not for economic or political purposes but to use it as a
weapon, airlines would have been better prepared to deal with this
particular generation of hijackers. We need our intelligence community
to substantially improve its capability in the same way that the
military has.
By working and training on a joint basis, intelligence agencies can
conserve resources and help personnel gain an appreciation for a wider
variety of intelligence-gathering tactics and techniques. If this
recommendation had been implemented earlier, it could have reduced our
vulnerability.
Our joint inquiry found that a shortage of staff was a near universal
problem for intelligence agencies before 9/11. For instance, at the
CIA's counterterrorism center, employees were required to work
extremely long hours with no relief. Overworking these critical
personnel made them less effective and lowered their morale to the
point where retention had become a problem. Problems similar to that of
the CIA's counterterrorism center existed at the FBI, the National
Security Agency, and the shortage of Arabic linguists at the National
Security Agency became especially pronounced. Linguists continue to be
in short supply, in part because qualified linguists cannot be trained
overnight.
Counterterrorism training has been stepped up in other areas, but
raising our capabilities to an adequate level will still require more
personnel with enhanced and expanded training.
The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 included
pilot programs for training students who will form the future of the
intelligence community.
No legislation regarding jointness has yet been passed despite the
clear, positive results achieved by previous efforts in similar and
relevant parts of the Federal Government.
The joint terrorism task forces set up by the FBI have had some
success in bringing together officials from different agencies. It was
one of these groups which was responsible for the capture of Zaccaria
Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. If more of these task forces
had been set up before 2001, and if those that did exist had all the
personnel they needed to be effective, we can only imagine what might
have been accomplished, what might have been prevented.
Recommendation No. 12 regards our national intelligence budget and
suggests several measures to ensure our investments in intelligence
provide maximum benefits. It calls for more flexibility in the budget
to be accompanied by greater oversight and raises the idea of a cost-
benefit analysis by an independent agency.
It also urges the President and the Congress to develop a budget that
includes a sustained, long-term investment in counterterrorism to
replace the unpredictable funding stream that currently exists.
Providing the intelligence community with an adequate level of base
funding would obviously increase budget stability and assist in long-
term planning.
Contrary to that, for the past several years, counterterrorism
programs have been funded primarily through supplemental appropriations
which were often in response to a specific event, such as the September
11 tragedy, and therefore the supplemental appropriations varied
greatly from one year to the next.
Intelligence officials who were interviewed by our joint inquiry were
understandably critical of this system since it makes it more difficult
to plan sustainable counterterrorism programs. This dynamic still
persists, despite its obvious flaws, despite its obvious contribution
to the increased--the unnecessarily increased--vulnerability of the
American people.
There have been significant increases in our intelligence budget, but
in 2003, a substantial portion of our counterterrorism budget still
came from supplemental appropriations.
Another problem with the intelligence budget is the way it is tied to
the Defense Department's budget. During the 1990s, we made significant
cuts to the Defense Department budget, and the intelligence budget was
cut proportionately.
While the end of the cold war meant we could reduce the size of our
Armed Forces, intelligence requirements actually increased due to the
diversification of the threat. In addition, greater budget stability in
our efforts to fight terrorism would be better served by greater budget
flexibility. It is currently quite difficult for intelligence officials
to shift resources from one priority to the other as circumstances
require. Even small adjustments require prolonged formalized approvals.
For instance, a number of CIA officials were aware of the need for
more agents in Afghanistan prior to 2001 but were unable to reassign
resources away from other priorities. The Director of the National
Security Agency has discussed similar problems. The 2004 Intelligence
Authorization Act permits the
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Director of Central Intelligence to authorize the employment of
additional civilian personnel if he believes this is necessary.
This is a small step in the right direction, but more flexibility is
still needed. This flexibility must be accompanied by increased
congressional oversight.
It became apparent during the course of our joint inquiry that the
intelligence community does not have a clear idea of how much money it
spends on counterterrorism, and accounting methods vary among the
different agencies.
In light of this, it seems appropriate that a cost-benefit analysis
from an outside agency would be very helpful, but so far no real
efforts have been made to undertake such a step.
Recommendation No. 15 suggests that the President and the Congress
evaluate and consider revising the intelligence classification process.
This task would pursue the twin goals of expanding access to important
information and assuring that classified intelligence information is
not disclosed inappropriately.
The current system of intelligence classification is not the result
of a thoughtful, open debate, but is, rather, the product of a series
of Executive orders rooted in cold war mentality and issued with little
or no consultation of Congress.
Many people with extensive knowledge of the system have suggested
there is a tendency toward too much secrecy and that this has had a
predictably negative effect on the flow of information.
There was an interesting column recently in the New York Times
talking about one of the core problems within the Government of Saddam
Hussein prior to the war, and that was that all parts of that society
practiced secrecy and deception; that the army deceived Saddam Hussein
as to just what it was doing to prepare for war; scientists deceived
Saddam Hussein as to the state of their development of weapons of mass
destruction; Saddam Hussein attempted to fool the people of Iraq, and
our intelligence agencies were fooled by all of the above.
Allowing an increase in a curtain of secrecy to fall over the
information of our United States agencies will have the same effect the
veil of secrecy did in Iraq, and that is to make us less secure, more
vulnerable because we have not shared information in a way that can
increase our security.
By treating so much of this information as treasure to be guarded,
intelligence agencies can actually reduce the information's usefulness.
By reducing biases toward excessive secrecy, Congress and the President
can help make sure more information gets to the people who need it,
particularly those such as first responders, local government, law
enforcement officials, and Federal agencies, such as the Federal
Aviation Agency.
There is a suspicion among many Americans--and I believe it is
justified--that classification is being used to shield politically
embarrassing information from public scrutiny, as was the case with the
information on the role of foreign governments in the September 11
attack.
Unfortunately, little progress has been made so far in the task of
reviewing the use of classified information, particularly in the area
of intelligence. The Intelligence Authorization Act requires the
President to report on the barriers to sharing classified information.
Congress has not yet given serious consideration to this important
topic.
Another very important recommendation issued by the joint committee,
which has also been largely ignored, is recommendation No. 16, which
calls for a new standard of accountability in the intelligence
community. Given the continued and increasing use of intelligence
information in our national policymaking, whether it is to fight
terrorism, to determine the true capability of a potential adversary,
or to reduce the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, it is
critically important that we have accountability mechanisms in place
that review intelligence agencies' failures in order to learn from
those mistakes. To date, no personnel in intelligence or other affected
agencies has been sanctioned as a result of the tragedy of September
11.
It is also true that no one has been sanctioned for the apparently
incorrect intelligence assessments upon which the case to go to war in
Iraq was predicated. Weapons of mass destruction alleged to exist in
Iraq have not been found and, according to David Kay, our lead
investigator, it is unlikely they will ever be found. This raises in
stark terms the responsibility of the President to determine who is
accountable for intelligence failures and what should be the
appropriate sanction of those responsible.
It is as though the chairman of the steamship company that owned the
Titanic put all of the blame for the tragedy on the iceberg and
declared that was the end of it; the captain of the ship would be let
off scot-free.
At the same time, it is unclear if any rewards or recognitions have
been given for outstanding performance in the intelligence community,
outstanding performance such as that of those who contributed to the
capture of Saddam Hussein.
If we want our intelligence agencies to be as good as they can be and
they must and should be, then we must assure that they have systems in
place to reward exceptional performance and to deal with bad
performance appropriately. Currently, there are no systems performing
this function and all attempts to bring accountability to our
intelligence-gathering programs have been made in an ad hoc manner. We
must demand that the intelligence community establish standards of
accountability since reliable intelligence is critical to our security
as citizens and our credibility as a nation.
The last recommendation I would like to address today is No. 17. This
calls for the removal of inappropriate and obsolete barriers between
intelligence and law enforcement agencies engaged in counterterrorism.
It advises the administration to report to Congress regarding the
removal of these barriers so that Congress can take whatever
legislative actions are appropriate.
Our joint inquiry found that the various agencies engaged in
counterterrorism have been surprisingly reluctant to share information
with each other. Example: In the months before the September 11 attack,
the CIA was aware of two terrorists associated with al-Qaida, Khalid
al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. These two terrorists had attended a
planning session in Malaysia, a session at which both the attack on the
USS Cole, which was to occur in November of 2000, and the attack on the
World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the failed effort that ended in a
field in Pennsylvania had been discussed.
Both of these terrorists attended a planning conference for purposes
of proceeding with those two terrorist attacks, and then acquired visas
for travel to the United States, because the CIA had not informed law
enforcement or border protection agencies of the threat posed by these
individuals. The FBI and other agencies did not seem to have received
this information which could have helped disrupt the 9/11 attack.
Similarly, the FBI prevented its agents from participating in an
effort to track down these terrorists on the grounds that this was not
a job for criminal investigators. The FBI was reluctant to share
information regarding counterterrorism because of concerns about legal
barriers preventing collaboration between intelligence and law
enforcement agencies. These concerns sprang partly from an overly
restrictive Department of Justice policy and partly
from misunderstanding among agents regarding the law. Sharing of
intelligence information with law enforcement agencies was seen as
particularly difficult, almost taboo. This was a clear contradiction of
the law that existed prior to September 11.
Legal considerations also seem to have impaired information sharing
by the National Security Agency and the CIA as well. However, these
agencies, particularly the CIA, were also motivated by an overly
zealous desire to protect sources. While protecting sources and methods
is certainly an important goal, these sources and methods are not very
useful if we cannot effectively use the information they provide to us.
From a legislative point of view, significant progress has been made
in this area. Congress has passed legislation removing legal
restrictions regarding
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the sharing of intelligence information. Agency heads have updated
obsolete and inappropriate guidelines. Intelligence community personnel
now seem to have a much clearer picture of what methods and actions are
available to them.
Unfortunately, while the legislative barriers to information sharing
have been removed, the fact is that effective information sharing is
still not taking place between intelligence and law enforcement, and
this is a special problem between Federal intelligence and law
enforcement agencies and State and local law enforcement.
I frequently hear complaints that agency culture, habit, and inertia,
have preserved problems that should have been solved, making this yet
another area in which the lessons of 9/11 have not been learned and not
been applied effectively.
September 11 was a wake-up call. It alerted us to the fact that our
intelligence agencies were not performing at the level required during
this era of terrorism. We have just received our first report card. The
report card is to tell us how well we have done since September 11 in
applying lessons learned to the greater protection of the American
people. We have received a grade of F. The false assertion of large
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq demonstrates that we
have not yet made the reforms to our intelligence agencies that are
required.
The next report card will come when we have the next intelligence
failure. The President and the Congress will both be held accountable
if we have not acted on these necessary reforms to protect the safety
of the people of America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
Florida for his extraordinarily enlightening and very helpful
discussion in this series of speeches he is giving this week. I think
we would all do well not only to listen but to read and to thoughtfully
consider much of what he has shared with us. He speaks with experience
and extraordinary credibility, and I applaud him for taking the time
and making the effort that he has to bring this important issue before
us in a meaningful way.
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