Congressional Record: February 5, 2004 (Senate)
Page S603-S608
THE NEED FOR INTELLIGENCE REFORM, PART III
Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, during this week, I have
spoken--and this will be the third statement--about the need to reform
our Nation's intelligence agencies. I have suggested that the horrific
acts of September 11, 2001--acts which killed nearly 3,000 Americans in
New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania--could have been avoided if our
intelligence agencies had been more organized and more focused in
dealing with the threat of international terrorism. These conclusions
were largely the result of the work of the House-Senate joint inquiry
on September 11, 2001. This bicameral, bipartisan committee finished
its investigation on December 20, 2002, and filed its report. In that
report, it concluded there were a number of problems with our existing
intelligence networks and it made 19 recommendations of how to fix
those problems.
Repairing the flaws in our intelligence community is a matter of
national security, a matter of the highest importance and urgency. As
we are now learning in the context of the war with Iraq and Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, policymakers cannot make wise
decisions affecting the security of American people without timely,
accurate, credible information, and tough-minded, independent analysis,
and will use that information to shape the judgments of the President
and other decisionmakers, not to validate previously held opinions. If
we fail to accurately perceive future threats, we will be poorly
prepared to respond to them. If we do not perceive current threats
accurately, then our response may be either inadequate or excessive.
Whether restraining the development of proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction or interdicting terrorists, now, more than ever,
intelligence matters. If there is another terrorist attack on American
soil, the American people will demand to know what the Congress, what
the President, what other governmental institutions learned from the
September 11 attacks, and now the prewar intelligence in Iraq, and how
that information was used to protect them. There will be no avoidance
of accountability for the next attack, either for Congress or the
President. We must take our responsibility seriously.
Further, we must recognize that every day needed intelligence reforms
are delayed is a day of unnecessary risk for the American people.
Unfortunately, with regard to the recommendations of the joint inquiry
committee, very little has been accomplished to date. In my two
previous statements, I discussed the status of these recommendations
dealing with the intelligence community reform and specific responses
to terrorism. I particularly commend Senator Dianne Feinstein for her
leading role in the area of reorganization of the intelligence
community.
Today I will turn to two additional areas of particular concern: the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the application of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which governs the use of
electronic eavesdropping on foreign nationals in the United States.
Here, I particularly recognize the contributions of Senators DeWine,
Durbin, Edwards, and Kyl to this section of our report.
We know now the FBI did not have or did not give adequate attention
and resources to the problem of terrorism prior to September 11, 2001.
For the FBI, terrorism was a lesser priority and its personnel did not
understand the FISA and therefore did not use effectively its available
investigative authority. Important information was not shared with
other agencies, was not shared even within the various branches of the
FBI itself. During the summer of 2001, separate parts of the FBI had
information that could have been used to disrupt or destroy al-Qaida's
hijacking plot, but that information was never collectively analyzed.
For example, what agents in Minnesota knew about Zacaria Moussaoui,
the so-called twentieth hijacker who was taken into custody in August
of that year, is he was studying to fly commercial airlines but was
disinterested in either taking them off or landing them. Meanwhile, a
Phoenix field agent of the FBI had become suspicious of radical
Islamists who were also learning to fly airplanes. An agent in San
Diego was working with an informant who knew at least two of the
hijackers. The informant was aware that one of the future hijackers was
moving to Arizona with a fellow terrorist--again to attend flight
school.
If these agents had been aware of each other's activities or if the
analysts at FBI headquarters had connected these geographically
separate events, portions of the September 11 plot might well have been
uncovered and disrupted. Unfortunately, the FBI lacked the sufficient
number of analysts to process all the relevant information, and
barriers to sharing information prevented agents from learning about
each other's activities, even though both the Phoenix memo which
expressed concern that bin Laden was sending young recruits to the
United States for pilot training and the
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Moussaoui investigation were handled by the same unit at FBI
headquarters.
Furthermore, although existing laws gave FBI agents the authority to
pursue these leads, individual agents were in some cases unaware of
their powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and this
confusion prevented them from pursuing aggressively potentially helpful
lines of investigation.
With these facts in mind, the joint inquiry made four recommendations
related to the FBI and FISA which I will now discuss.
Recommendation No. 6 calls for the FBI to improve its domestic
intelligence capability as fully and as quickly as possible and to
establish clear counterterrorism priorities for the agency to follow.
Specific areas for improvement are mentioned, including the need to
improve analytical capability, the need to disseminate intelligence
information within the FBI and among Government agencies, the need to
improve knowledge of national security laws, the need to hire more
personnel with linguistic skills, and the need to fix persistent
information technology problems.
Our joint inquiry report gives a thorough explanation of why each of
these improvements is necessary. In the years leading up to September
11, the FBI was faced with a shortage of counterterrorism personnel
partly due to a lack of overall resources, partly because
counterterrorism priorities were not clearly established or followed.
In particular, the number of qualified intelligence analysts was at a
critically low level. This is the reason the memo from the FBI agent in
the Phoenix field office did not generate any further discussion or
analysis and is also the reason no one at the FBI headquarters was able
to connect the dots and see that information collected by the FBI in
California, in Minnesota, in Arizona was all related to a larger
terrorist plot. The analyst shortage was compounded by outdated
information technologies and the lack of a good counterterrorism
database which made it difficult for analysts to assess and organize
crucial information.
Prior to September 11, the FBI also had a severe shortage of
linguists. For example, 35 percent of all materials collected by the
FBI in the Arabic language were not even reviewed because there were
not enough persons within the FBI to translate that material. This one
fact may have deprived the Bureau of potentially valuable terrorist-
related intelligence which could have avoided September 11. Even in
those cases where the Bureau did collect and identify information on
terrorist activity, it failed to share that information with other
agencies, both inside and outside the intelligence community.
For example, if the Federal Aviation Authority had been told in
August of 2001 that the FBI had identified a potential airline suicide
hijacker in Minnesota, the FAA would have had at least the opportunity
to increase security precautions on domestic flights such as by
reinforcing the doors between the cockpit and the passenger cabin.
Tragically, this did not happen.
I am pleased to report some improvement has been made in these
problem areas. In 2003, the Bureau developed a strategic plan outlining
its top counterterrorism priorities. It has also increased hiring and
training and many agents have been permanently reassigned to high
priority areas. However, while hiring and training have increased, the
General Accounting Office has suggested the FBI continues to lack fully
adequate analytical capability and that the Bureau continues to face a
shortage of linguists and information technology personnel as well as
administrative staff.
Even more troubling is the fact that officials in Federal agencies,
State governments, and local levels continue to report they do not
consider the current information-sharing system to be effective. With
few exceptions, these individuals say they are not receiving all the
information they need to fulfill their responsibilities as the front
line of our war against terrorism.
In some cases this is because information is simply not available.
But too often it is because of institutional practices that prevent
important information from being shared. Even when information is
disseminated, officials at all three levels report that it is
frequently inaccurate, irrelevant, and not received in a timely
fashion.
This situation is made worse by the fact that none of these problems
are new. In the year 2000, two separate commissions on national
security pointed to these same weaknesses within the FBI and urged that
they be corrected.
The National Commission on Terrorism, also known as the Bremer
commission, issued its report in June of 2000, and the Advisory Panel
to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving
Weapons of Mass Destruction, known as the Gilmore commission, issued
its second report the following December.
Both commissions stated that the FBI needed to improve its analytical
capability and disseminate information in a more timely manner inside
and outside the Bureau.
The two commissions also suggested that FISA gave the FBI more
investigative powers than were currently being used, and the Gilmore
commission suggested that this was due to misunderstanding and
confusion regarding the law. The Bremer commission also called
attention to the shortage of skilled linguists within the agency, which
is a problem that we still face today.
Since September 11, FBI Director Mueller has initiated a serious and
sustained effort to reform and reshape the FBI to fight terrorism.
Progress has been made. However, much is left to be done.
One particular area of concern is the information technology systems
at the FBI. The computer and communication systems at the FBI have been
notoriously outdated.
I recall a meeting at one of our CIA stations in the Middle East
during which the agency personnel pleaded with the Members of Congress
who were present to push the FBI toward adopting computer systems that
would be compatible with the CIA's so that basic information could be
shared.
A recent report by the General Accounting Office on this subject is
highly critical of the FBI's attempts to improve its information
technology systems. As we saw in our investigation of the September 11
attacks, the best work of skilled agents is wasted if they cannot
communicate it to those who will use it. We cannot rest until we are
certain the FBI has made all the changes it so desperately needs.
Recommendation No. 7 advises the Congress and the administration to
evaluate and consider changes to the domestic intelligence sector.
In the short term, our national security interests are best served by
taking actions to improve the capabilities of the FBI. However, over
the long term, we must decide on the best way to organize our domestic
intelligence agencies and consider serious restructuring if we conclude
that the current structure is inadequate to serve our national security
interests.
The joint inquiry recommended that FISA be included in this review.
This recommendation reflects concerns that the FBI, which is primarily
a law enforcement organization, is inherently ill-suited to the
challenge of domestic intelligence gathering.
While the agency has done a commendable job carrying out its law
enforcement missions, preventing attacks before they occur requires an
approach very different from finding and punishing criminals after they
have acted. Throughout its history, the FBI's focus has been on
investigating crime and arresting criminals rather than preventing
crime.
The lapses that preceded 9/11 may therefore be in part the
consequence of requiring the same agency to carry out two very
different functions. One example of this tendency of the FBI is how it
defines investigatory targets. It tends to do so in terms of those that
are likely to result in a prosecution as opposed to those that pose the
greatest threat.
I recall during one of our Senate Intelligence Committee hearings a
senior FBI official was asked to provide an estimate of the number of
suspected terrorists within a specific region of the country. He
responded by giving us the number of open investigative files at a
certain field office--clearly a law enforcement methodology rather than
the approach that an intelligence agency would take. I would note that
none of the 19 hijackers of September 11 had an open FBI file that
would have
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marked them as a suspected terrorist in our midst.
Our recommendations on the FBI consisted of three parts: First, we
said in the short term we should do everything possible to strengthen
the capability of the FBI to fight the war on terror. The FBI is all we
have at the present time, and we need to make it as effective as
possible.
Second, we need to conduct an open debate on the type of domestic
intelligence that we as a nation want and need. We can look to other
nations for models which are based on the perceived threat within the
borders of each of those nations. They range from the extremely high
level of surveillance that the Israeli Government exercises to protect
its citizens from internal terrorist threats to the resistance to
scrutiny of private citizens in certain regions of Germany.
Third, we need to evaluate the enhanced capability of the FBI against
the model that we establish as our desired end state, and then
determine if our security needs could be better met by creating a
separate domestic intelligence agency, leaving the FBI to focus on law
enforcement priorities. That model exists in Great Britain, where
Scotland Yard, like the FBI, handles national domestic law enforcement
matters, but there is a separate agency, the MI5, which performs
domestic intelligence gathering.
To date, no changes have been made to FISA since we issued our
report, nor has the larger debate regarding the structure of our
domestic intelligence community taken place.
Our joint committee called for Congress to request a report from the
administration regarding the structure of our domestic intelligence
program. So far, no action has been taken on this recommendation.
Recommendation No. 8 calls for the Attorney General and the FBI to
assure that the FBI uses its powers effectively and disseminates
information quickly. In particular, it calls for FBI personnel to
receive in-depth training on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
and to implement a plan to use FISA to assess the threat of terrorist
groups within the United States. It specifically refers to the need to
identify whether and how any of these groups receive funding or support
from foreign governments.
The need for clearer guidelines and better training regarding the
FISA was made abundantly clear during the FBI's investigation of
Zacharias Moussaoui. Agents in Minnesota correctly suspected that he
was involved in a hijacking plot, but even after he was detained by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agents concluded that FISA
did not give them the authority to search his belongings since it was
not established that Moussaoui was acting as an agent of a foreign
power.
This conclusion was incorrect under the FISA law. It demonstrates the
significant confusion and ambiguity that has developed surrounding the
use of FISA and that reform is important and urgent.
FISA is also one of the best tools we have for tracking terrorist
funding. However, it is not always used to its fullest potential. For
example, the chief of the FBI's Financial Crimes Section told our
committee that if asked, he would have been able to locate hijackers
Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mindhar by tracking credit card and
banking transactions. These same powers could have been used by the FBI
to track foreign sources of terrorist funding, with the aim of cutting
off funds for terrorists and attacking these sources of funding
directly.
The FBI has made significant progress in increasing awareness and
knowledge of FISA. The Attorney General has issued new guidelines
regarding terrorist investigations, and both current personnel and new
hires are now receiving training on these guidelines.
Unfortunately, the Bureau has not made very good progress identifying
foreign sources of funding for terrorist groups within the United
States.
As an example, as I emphasized in my previous statements, the joint
inquiry uncovered significant evidence of foreign government
involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and raised the possibility that
foreign governments continue to provide support to terrorist groups
within the United States.
In spite of this alarming assessment, the FBI has not even developed
an effective plan to assess the threat of foreign funding for terrorist
groups, let alone combat this threat.
The USA PATRIOT Act and subsequent modifications have given the
Bureau expanded access to banking and financial records, but it has
been widely noted that terrorist groups use alternative methods of
collecting, moving, and storing their money.
These methods include illegal drugs and other contraband; shipment of
gems and other commodities; informal financial networks, such as the
hawala system; and nontransparent organizations, such as charities and
religious organizations.
The FBI, which is responsible for leading these investigations into
terrorist financing, has acknowledged it does not systematically
collect and analyze data on alternative financing mechanisms. Unless
al-Qaida develops a policy of transferring money entirely by ATMs, the
FBI's current investigatory methods are unlikely to be very effective.
The final recommendation of this report is No. 9, which urges the
House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to evaluate the
FISA, and all modifying legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act, to
ensure that our legal system adequately addresses current and future
terrorist threats. These House and Senate committees have effectively
begun to follow through on this task, and I am confident they will
continue to do so.
This last report is one bright spot on an otherwise disappointing
report card.
In evaluating the status of the joint inquiry's recommendations, I
have tried to give due attention to those areas in which progress has
been made. However, we must not ignore those shortcomings that remain,
particularly when so many of them are of such a serious nature. We must
overcome bureaucratic inertia and organizational difficulties to fix
these problems in an effective and expeditious manner. We must not
continue to be a slave to the status quo. Our national security and the
well-being of the American people demand nothing less, as does the
memory of nearly 3,000 innocent American lives lost on September 11,
2001.
I ask unanimous consent that the recommendations of the Joint Inquiry
Committee, as adopted on December 10, 2002, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Recommendations--December 10, 2002
Since the National Security Act's establishment of the
Director of Central Intelligence and the Central Intelligence
Agency in 1947, numerous independent commissions, experts,
and legislative initiatives have examined the growth and
performance of the U.S. Intelligence Community. While those
efforts generated numerous proposals for reform over the
years, some of the most significant proposals have not been
implemented, particularly in the areas of organization and
structure. These Committees believe that the cataclysmic
events of September 11, 2001 provide a unique and compelling
mandate for strong leadership and constructive change
throughout the Intelligence Community. With that in mind, and
based on the work of this Joint Inquiry, the committees
recommend the following:
1. Congress should amend the National Security Act of 1947
to create and sufficiently staff a statutory Director of
National Intelligence who shall be the President's principal
advisor on intelligence and shall have the full range of
management, budgetary and personnel responsibilities needed
to make the entire U.S. Intelligence Community operate as a
coherent whole. These responsibilities should include:
Establishment and enforcement of consistent priorities for
the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence
throughout the Intelligence Community; setting of policy and
the ability to move personnel between elements of the
Intelligence Community; review, approval, modification, and
primary management and oversight of the execution of
Intelligence Community budgets; review, approval
modification, and primary management and oversight of the
execution of Intelligence Community personnel and resource
allocations; review, approval, modification, and primary
management and oversight of the execution of Intelligence
Community research and development efforts; review, approval,
and coordination of relationships between the Intelligence
Community agencies and foreign intelligence and law
enforcement services; and exercise of statutory authority to
insure that Intelligence Community agencies and components
fully comply with Community-wide policy, management,
spending, and administrative guidance and priorities.
The Director of National Intelligence should be a Cabinet
level position, appointed
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by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. Congress
and the President should also work to insure that the
Director of National Intelligence effectively exercises these
authorities.
To insure focused and consistent Intelligence Community
leadership, Congress should require that no person may
simultaneously serve as both the Director of National
Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, or as the director of any other specific intelligence
agency.
2. Current efforts by the National Security Council to
examine and revamp existing intelligence priorities should be
expedited, given the immediate need for clear guidance in
intelligence and counterterrorism efforts. The President
should take action to ensure that clear, consistent, and
current priorities are established and enforced throughout
the Intelligence Community. Once established, these
priorities should be reviewed and updated on at least an
annual basis to ensure that the allocation of Intelligence
Community resources reflects and effectively addresses the
continually evolving threat environment. Finally, the
establishment of Intelligence Community priorities, and
the justification for such priorities, should be reported
to both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on an
annual basis.
3. The National Security Council, in conjunction with the
Director of National Intelligence, and in consultation with
the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the
Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, should prepare,
for the President's approval, a U.S. government-wide strategy
for combating terrorism, both at home and abroad, including
the growing terrorism threat posed by the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and associated technologies. This
strategy should identify and full engage those foreign
policy, economic, military, intelligence, and law enforcement
elements that are critical to a comprehensive blueprint for
success in the war against terrorism.
As part of that effort, the Director of National
Intelligence shall develop the Intelligence Community
component of the strategy, identifying specific programs and
budgets and including plans to address the threats posed by
Usama Bin Ladin and al Qa'ida, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other
significant terrorist groups. Consistent with applicable law,
the strategy should effectively employ and integrate all
capabilities available to the Intelligence Community against
those threats and should encompass specific efforts to:
Develop human sources to penetrate terrorist organizations
and networks both overseas and within the United States;
fully utilize existing and future technologies to better
exploit terrorist communications; to improve and expand the
use of data mining and other cutting edge analytical tools;
and to develop a multi-level security capability to
facilitate the timely and complete sharing of relevant
intelligence information both within the Intelligence
Community and with other appropriate federal, state, and
local authorities; enhance the depth and quality of domestic
intelligence collection and analysis by, for example,
modernizing current intelligence reporting formats through
the use of existing information technology to emphasize the
existence and the significance of links between new and
previously acquired information; maximize the effective use
of covert action in counterterrorist efforts; develop
programs to deal with financial support for international
terrorism; and facilitate the ability of CIA paramilitary
units and military special operations forces to conduct joint
operations against terrorist targets.
4. The position of National Intelligence Officer for
Terrorism should be created on the National Intelligence
Council and a highly qualified individual appointed to
prepare intelligence estimates on terrorism for the use of
Congress and policymakers in the Executive Branch and to
assist the Intelligence Community in developing a program for
strategic analysis and assessments.
5. Congress and the Administration should ensure the full
development within the Department of Homeland Security of an
effective all-source terrorism information fusion center that
will dramatically improve the focus and quality of
counterterrorism analysis and facilitate the timely
dissemination of relevant intelligence information, both
within and beyond the boundaries of the Intelligence
Community. Congress and the Administration should ensure that
this fusion center has all the authority and the resources
needed to: Have full and timely access to all
counterterrorism-related intelligence information, including
``raw'' supporting data as needed; have the ability to
participate fully in the existing requirements process for
tasking the Intelligence Community to gather information on
foreign individuals, entities and threats; integrate such
information in order to identify and assess the nature and
scope of terrorist threats to the United States in light
of actual and potential vulnerabilities; implement and
fully utilize data mining and other advanced analytical
tools, consistent with applicable law; retain a permanent
staff of experienced and highly skilled analysts,
supplemented on a regular basis by personnel on ``joint
tours'' from the various Intelligence Community agencies;
institute a reporting mechanism that enables analysts at
all the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to post
lead information for use by analysts at other agencies
without waiting for dissemination of a formal report;
maintain excellence and creativity in staff analytic
skills through regular use of analysis and language
training programs; and establish and sustain effective
channels for the exchange of counterterrorism-related
information with federal agencies outside the Intelligence
Community as well as with state and local authorities.
6. Given the FBI's history of repeated shortcomings within
its current responsibility for domestic intelligence, and in
the face of grave and immediate threats to our homeland, the
FBI should strengthen and improve its domestic capability as
fully and expeditiously as possible by immediately
instituting measures to: Strengthen counterterrorism as a
national FBI program by clearly designating national
counterterrorism priorities and enforcing field office
adherence to those priorities; establish and sustain
independent career tracks within the FBI that recognize and
provide incentives for demonstrated skills and performance of
counterterrorism agents and analysts; significantly improve
strategic analytical capabilities by assuring the
qualification, training, and independence of analysts,
coupled with sufficient access to necessary information and
resources; establish a strong reports officer cadre at FBI
Headquarters and field offices to facilitate timely
dissemination of intelligence from agents to analysts within
the FBI and other agencies within the Intelligence Community;
implement training for agents in the effective use of
analysts and analysis in their work; expand and sustain the
recruitment of agents and analysts with the linguistic skills
needed in counterterrorism efforts; increase substantially
efforts to penetrate terrorist organizations operating in the
United States through all available means of collection;
improve the national security law training of FBI personnel;
implement mechanisms to maximize the exchange of
counterterrorism-related information between the FBI and
other federal, state and local agencies; and finally solve
the FBI's persistent and incapacitating information
technology problems.
7. Congress and the Administration should carefully
consider how best to structure and manage U.S. domestic
intelligence responsibilities. Congress should review the
scope of domestic intelligence authorities to determine their
adequacy in pursuing counterterrorism at home and ensuring
the protection of privacy and other rights guaranteed under
the Constitution. This review should include, for example,
such questions as whether the range of persons subject to
searches and surveillances authorized under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) should be expanded.
Based on their oversight responsibilities, the Intelligence
and Judiciary Committees of the Congress, as appropriate,
should consider promptly, in consultation with the
Administration, whether the FBI should continue to perform
the domestic intelligence functions of the United States
Government or whether legislation is necessary to remedy this
problem, including the possibility of creating a new agency
to perform those functions.
Congress should require that the new Director of National
Intelligence, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of the
Department of Homeland Security report to the President and
the Congress on a date certain concerning: The FBI's progress
since September 11, 2001 in implementing the reforms required
to conduct an effective domestic intelligence program,
including the measures recommended above; the experience of
other democratic nations in organizing the conduct of
domestic intelligence; the specific manner in which a new
domestic intelligence service could be established in the
United States, recognizing the need to enhance national
security while fully protecting civil liberties; and their
recommendations on how to best fulfill the nation's need for
an effective domestic intelligence capability, including
necessary legislation.
8. The Attorney General and the Director of the FBI should
take action necessary to ensure that: The office of
Intelligence Policy and Review and other Department of
Justice components provide in-depth training to the FBI and
other members of the Intelligence Community regarding the use
of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to
address terrorist threats to the United States; the FBI
disseminates results of searches and surveillances authorized
under FISA to appropriate personnel within the FBI and the
Intelligence Community on a timely basis so they may be used
for analysis and operations that address terrorist threats to
the United States; and the FBI develops and implements a plan
to use authorities provided by FISA to assess the threat of
international terrorist groups within the United States
fully, including the extent to which such groups are funded
or otherwise supported by foreign governments.
9. The House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary
Committees should continue to examine the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act and its implementation
thoroughly, particularly with respect to changes made as a
result of the USA PATRIOT Act and the subsequent decision of
the United States Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, to
determine whether its provisions adequately address present
and emerging terrorist threats to the United States.
Legislation should be proposed by those Committees to remedy
any deficiencies identified as a result of that review.
10. The Director of the National Security Agency should
present to the Director of National Intelligence and the
Secretary of Defense by June 30, 2003, and report to the
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House and Senate Intelligence Committees, a detailed plan
that: Describes solutions for the technological challenges
for signals intelligence; requires a review, on a quarterly
basis, of the goals, products to be delivered, funding levels
and schedules for every technology development program;
ensures strict accounting for program expenditures; within
their jurisdiction as established by current law, makes NSA a
full collaborating partner with the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the war on
terrorism, including fully integrating the collection and
analytic capabilities of NSA, CIA, and the FBI; and makes
recommendations for legislation needed to facilitate these
goals.
In evaluating the plan, the Committees should also consider
issues pertaining to whether civilians should be appointed to
the position of Director of the National Security Agency and
whether the term of service for the position should be longer
than it has been in the recent past.
11. Recognizing that the Intelligence Community's employees
remain its greatest resource, the Director of National
Intelligence should require that measures be implemented to
greatly enhance the recruitment and development of a
workforce with the intelligence skills and expertise needed
for success in counterterrorist efforts, including: The
agencies of the Intelligence Community should act promptly to
expand and improve counterterrorism training programs within
the Community, insuring coverage of such critical areas as
information sharing among law enforcement and intelligence
personnel; language capabilities; the use of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act; and watchlisting; the
Intelligence Community should build on the provisions of the
Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003 regarding
the development of language capabilities, including the Act's
requirement for a report on the feasibility of establishing a
Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps, and implement expeditiously
measures to identify and recruit linguists outside the
Community whose abilities are relevant to the needs of
counterterrorism; the existing Intelligence Community Reserve
Corps should be expanded to ensure the use of relevant
personnel and expertise from outside the Community as special
needs arise; Congress should consider enacting legislation,
modeled on the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, to instill the
concept of ``jointness'' throughout the Intelligence
Community. By emphasizing such things as joint education, a
joint career specialty, increased authority for regional
commanders, and joint exercises, that Act greatly enhanced
the joint warfighting capabilities of the individual military
services. Legislation to instill similar concepts throughout
the Intelligence Community could help improve management of
Community resources and priorities and insure a far more
effective ``team'' effort by all the intelligence agencies.
The Director of National Intelligence should require more
extensive use of ``joint tours'' for intelligence and
appropriate law enforcement personnel to broaden their
experience and help bridge existing organizational and
cultural divides through service in other agencies. These
joint tours should include not only service at Intelligence
Community agencies, but also service in those agencies that
are users or consumers of intelligence products. Serious
incentives for joint service should be established throughout
the Intelligence Community and personnel should be rewarded
for joint service with career advancement credit at
individual agencies. The Director of National Intelligence
should also require Intelligence Community agencies to
participate in joint exercises; Congress should expand and
improve existing educational grant programs focused on
intelligence-related fields, similar to military
scholarship programs and others that provide financial
assistance in return for a commitment to serve in the
Intelligence Community; and the Intelligence Community
should enhance recruitment of a more ethnically and
culturally diverse workforce and devise a strategy to
capitalize upon the unique cultural and linguistic
capabilities of first-generation Americans, a strategy
designed to utilize their skills to the greatest practical
effect while recognizing the potential counterintelligence
challenges such hiring decisions might pose.
12. Steps should be taken to increase and ensure the
greatest return on this nation's substantial investment in
intelligence, including: The President should submit budget
recommendations, and Congress should enact budget authority,
for sustained, long-term investment in counterterrorism
capabilities that avoid dependence on repeated stop-gap
supplemental appropriations; in making such budget
recommendations, the President should provide for the
consideration of a separate classified Intelligence Community
budget; long-term counterterrorism investment should be
accompanied by sufficient flexibility, subject to
congressional oversight, to enable the Intelligence Community
to rapidly respond to altered or unanticipated needs; the
Director of National Intelligence should insure that
Intelligence Community budgeting practices and procedures are
revised to better identify the levels and nature of
counterterrorism funding within the Community;
counterterrorism funding should be allocated in accordance
with the program requirements of the national
counterterrorism strategy; and due consideration should be
given to directing an outside agency or entity to conduct a
thorough and rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the resources
spent on intelligence.
13. The State Department, in consultation with the
Department of Justice, should review and report to the
President and the Congress by June 30, 2003 on the extent to
which revisions in bilateral and multilateral agreements,
including extradition and mutual assistance treaties, would
strengthen U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The review should
address the degree to which current categories of
extraditable offenses should be expanded to cover offenses,
such as visa and immigration fraud, which may be particularly
useful against terrorists and those who support them.
14. Recognizing the importance of intelligence in this
nation's struggle against terrorism, Congress should maintain
vigorous, informed, and constructive oversight of the
Intelligence Community. To best achieve that goal, the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States should study and make recommendations concerning how
Congress may improve its oversight of the Intelligence
Community, including consideration of such areas as: Changes
in the budgetary process; changes in the rules regarding
membership on the oversight committees; whether oversight
responsibility should be vested in a joint House-Senate
Committee or, as currently exists, in separate Committees
in each house; the extent to which classification
decisions impair congressional oversight; and how
Congressional oversight can best contribute to the
continuing need of the Intelligence Community to evolve
and adapt to changes in the subject matter of intelligence
and the needs of policy makers.
15. The President should review and consider amendments to
the Executive Orders, policies and procedures that govern the
national security classification of intelligence information,
in an effort to expand access to relevant information for
federal agencies outside the Intelligence Community, for
state and local authorities, which are critical to the fight
against terrorism, and for the American public. In addition,
the President and the heads of federal agencies should ensure
that the policies and procedures to protect against the
unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence
information are well understood, fully implemented and
vigorously enforced.
Congress should also review the statutes, policies and
procedures that govern the national security classification
of intelligence information and its protection from
unauthorized disclosure. Among other matters, Congress should
consider the degree to which excessive classification has
been used in the past and the extent to which the emerging
threat environment has greatly increased the need for real-
time sharing of sensitive information. The Director of
National Intelligence, in consultation with the Secretary of
Defense, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland
Security, and the Attorney General, should review and report
to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on proposals
for a new and more realistic approach to the processes and
structures that have governed the designation of sensitive
and classified information. The report should include
proposals to protect against the use of the classification
process as a shield to protect agency self-interest.
16. Assured standards of accountability are critical to
developing the personal responsibility, urgency, and
diligence which our counterterrorism responsibility requires.
Given the absence of any substantial efforts within the
Intelligence Community to impose accountability in relation
to the events of September 11, 2001, the Director of Central
Intelligence and the heads of Intelligence Community agencies
should require that measures designed to ensure
accountability are implemented throughout the Community. To
underscore the need for accountability: The Director of
Central Intelligence should report to the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees no later than June 30, 2003 as to the
steps taken to implement a system of accountability
throughout the Intelligence Community, to include processes
for identifying poor performance and affixing responsibility
for it, and for recognizing and rewarding excellence in
performance; as part of the confirmation process for
Intelligence Community officials, Congress should require
from those officials an affirmative commitment to the
implementation and use of strong accountability mechanisms
throughout the Intelligence Community; and the Inspectors
General at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of
Defense, the Department of Justice, and the Department of
State should review the factual findings and the record of
this Inquiry and conduct investigations and reviews as
necessary to determine whether and to what extent personnel
at all levels should be held accountable for any omission,
commission, or failure to meet professional standards in
regard to the identification, prevention, or disruption of
terrorist attacks, including the events of September 11,
2001. These reviews should also address those individuals who
performed in a stellar or exceptional manner, and the degree
to which the quality of their performance was rewarded or
otherwise impacted their careers. Based on those
investigations and reviews, agency heads should
take appropriate disciplinary and other action and the
President and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees
should be advised of such action.
17. The Administration should review and report to the
House and Senate Intelligence Committees by June 30, 2003
regarding what
[[Page S608]]
progress has been made in reducing the inappropriate and
obsolete barriers among intelligence and law enforcement
agencies engaged in counterterrorism, what remains to be done
to reduce those barriers, and what legislative actions may be
advisable in that regard. In particular, this report should
address what steps are being taken to insure that perceptions
within the Intelligence Community about the scope and limits
of current law and policy with respect to restrictions on
collection and information sharing are, in fact, accurate and
well-founded.
18. Congress and the Administration should ensure the full
development of a national watchlist center that will be
responsible for coordinating and integrating all terrorist-
related watchlist systems; promoting awareness and use of the
center by all relevant government agencies and elements of
the private sector; and ensuring a consistent and
comprehensive flow of terrorist names into the center from
all relevant points of collection.
19. The Intelligence Community, and particularly the FBI
and the CIA, should aggressively address the possibility that
foreign governments are providing support to or are involved
in terrorist activity targeting the United States and U.S.
interests. State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases
the likelihood of successful and more lethal attacks within
the United States. This issue must be addressed from a
national standpoint and should not be limited in focus by the
geographical and factual boundaries of individual cases. The
FBI and CIA should aggressively and thoroughly pursue related
matters developed through this Joint Inquiry that have been
referred to them for further investigation by these
Committees.
The Intelligence Community should fully inform the House
and Senate Intelligence Committees of significant
developments in these efforts, through regular reports and
additional communications as necessary, and the Committees
should, in turn, exercise vigorous and continuing oversight
of the Community's work in this critically important area.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Kansas is
recognized.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, if I could have the attention of the
Senator from Florida, I thank him for his presentation. Essentially, I
think what the Senator suggested was the Intelligence Committee, which
is the appropriate committee of jurisdiction, have hearings and take a
look at the recommendations he just outlined as a result of the
investigation by the House and Senate on the 9/11 tragedy. As I have
indicated to the Senator before--and he has written me a letter--both
Senator Rockefeller and I think that is most appropriate, and we intend
to hold hearings just as soon as we can get our current inquiry on the
prewar intelligence in Iraq out in a situation where we can present it
to the public. I think the Senator has provided a valuable service.
One of the important aspects when discussing intelligence is not only
to find out the accuracy and timeliness of the prewar intelligence but
also to really get into the recommendations on how we fix things. The
Senator has done us a good service. We will have hearings on these
recommendations.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his comments. I
particularly appreciate his sense of urgency to move forward on these
issues and present to the Senate and the American people a set of
reforms that will give them greater security.
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