Congressional Record: September 30, 2004 (Senate)
Page S10000-S10050
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE REFORM ACT
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, we are now going to resume
consideration of S. 2845. Senator Lieberman and I, along with the two
leaders, encourage Members to come forward with their amendments. The
leaders are determined that we will finish this bill very early next
week. In order to do so, we need the cooperation of all Senators who
have filed amendments, and we encourage them to bring them forward.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Amendment No. 3797
Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Madam President, I rise today to speak on what
I consider to be one of the most important areas of intelligence
reform, and then I will offer an amendment to help advance that
position.
Over the last several weeks, I have been making a series of
statements on various aspects of intelligence reform. In my recent
statements, I have discussed the history of the U.S. intelligence
community, the community's failure to adapt to changing conditions
since the end of the Cold War, the unfortunate reluctance of both the
Congress and the administration to tackle these much needed and long-
reported necessary reforms, the shape that I believe our reform should
take, and the danger that excessive Government secrecy poses to our
national security.
I have also expressed my gratitude to the independent 9/11 Commission
and its predecessors for the work they have done in analyzing the
strengths and weaknesses of the American intelligence community and
offering recommendations as to how these weaknesses can be remedied.
Today, I also thank several of my colleagues for the work they have
done in providing the groundwork for this legislation and moving it
substantially toward fruition. Senators Collins and Lieberman have put
a substantial amount of work into crafting meaningful bipartisan
intelligence reform legislation that seeks to correct current failings.
They and their staffs should be commended for that effort.
In addition, Senators McCain and Roberts have stepped forward with
very thoughtful proposals for reform, and as we work to fine-tune the
Collins-Lieberman bill, their proposals will be an excellent source of
ideas and alternatives.
We all owe our gratitude to the other members of the Governmental
Affairs and Intelligence Committees, especially Vice Chairman
Rockefeller on the Intelligence Committee, and their respective staff
members for all the contributions they have made to the debate over the
direction of intelligence reform.
I spoke last week about the direction in which I thought we should
move with these reforms and the shape these reforms should take. I
would now like to discuss in more detail how we might accomplish that
within this legislation.
I will offer an amendment which I hope will be a contribution to
achieving these goals. First some background.
Our national intelligence community currently resembles our military
as it looked prior to 1947. It is made up of a number of agencies that
originated at different times and with different structures, with
shared common goals, but frequently found they had difficulty working
with one another because of their different histories, different
cultures, different bureaucratic structures, and different priorities.
That would have also been a definition for the American military pre-
1947.
In that year, at the urging of President Harry Truman, Congress
passed the National Security Act, which brought together all of the
components of the military. There had been a Secretary of the Navy,
there had been a Secretary of War, sometimes referred to as the
Secretary of the Army, and there certainly would have been a Secretary
of the Air Force had the National Security Act not intervened. This new
legislation created for the first time a civilian leader at the top and
uniformed service chiefs reporting to that leader.
This was an important reform, but it did not end all the rivalries
and competition for actions and spending resources within the military.
There were a series of events that occurred in the late 1970s and early
1980s which dramatized these continuing weaknesses. We were unable to
rescue hostages who had been taken in Tehran. We were unable to avoid
the massacre of over 200 American marines in barracks in Beirut by
Hezbollah, and there were a series of missteps on the small island of
Grenada. Reviewing all of these issues, in 1986, it was becoming
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apparent that though all the services reported to a single departmental
head, they still had many problems communicating with one another and
working effectively together.
As it had in 1947, Congress again stepped forward with the Goldwater-
Nichols Act, which decentralized the military establishment. Control
over military operations moved from the Pentagon to several joint
commands, each responsible for a different geographic area of the
world. As a result, the U.S. military has become more effective than
ever before.
Given that our international intelligence community is currently in a
pre-1947 state, our challenge now is to enact both the equivalence of
the National Security Act of 1947 and the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986
at the same time. In other words, we must centralize authority and then
immediately commence the process of decentralizing the bureaucracy.
We waited 39 years between the National Security Act and Goldwater-
Nichols. We cannot afford to wait 39 years between the action we will
hopefully take this year and the time we will begin to decentralize the
intelligence bureaucracies. It is essential that this legislation
create a strong director of national intelligence and also lay out the
best possible structure for intelligence collection and analysis.
In my view and in the view of many others, our intelligence community
would be most effective if it were organized around the mission-based
model that brings personnel from different agencies and specialties
together to focus on whatever intelligence missions the national
director deems to be most important.
In a recent publication called ``Intelligence Matters,'' I state:
This may seem counterintuitive, but for us to deal with
this decentralization, we must first centralize. Since their
inception, the agencies that make up our foreign intelligence
community have focused on assignments like the collection of
signals or visual images. While each agency focuses on its
own responsibilities, the larger realities--like the changed
nature of the enemy--go unattended. They are nobody's
business.
The structure we have before us today gives us an opportunity to
place those large issues of adaptation to new threats in an appropriate
structure.
The director will be responsible for giving the centers their
missions and assigning them the personnel and resources they need to do
their job.
He or she can then be held accountable for the centers' performance
and accomplishments.
This model was previously suggested by the 9/11 Commission.
In the conclusion of its report, it discusses the structural problems
that currently plague our intelligence community, and suggest that
significant changes must be made in order to achieve unity of effort
among the community's various agencies.
The Commission report recommends that a national center for
counterterrorism be established, and I am pleased that President Bush
has endorsed the creation of such a center, and it is contained in the
legislation before us today.
This center will bring together personnel from a variety of
disciplines and specialties from across the intelligence community to
focus on the problem of international terrorism.
By bringing them all together and placing them on the same staff, we
can overcome the bureaucratic and sociological barriers that have
sometimes prevented them from being effective.
This will also help us use our intelligence resources more
efficiently by ensuring that different agencies are not doing redundant
work on the same threat.
In addition to a national counterterrorism center, the Commission
also recommends that other centers be created to focus on different
global challenges, such as nuclear proliferation, international drug
trafficking, or particular rogue states such as North Korea, and Iran.
These centers would be able to bring together personnel in the same
manner as the Counterterrorism Center, allowing us to be more efficient
and effective in intelligence gathering and analysis.
The Commission recommended that management of these centers should be
one of the director's primary responsibilities. Their recommendation
states:
The current position of Director of Central Intelligence
should be replaced by a National Intelligence Director with
two main areas of responsibility: (1) to oversee national
intelligence centers on specific subjects of interests across
the U.S. government and (2) to manage the national
intelligence program and oversee the agencies that contribute
to it.
The national director must be given the flexibility to create,
reorganize or even disband these centers as needed, just as the
Secretary of Defense has the authority to shift the responsibility of
the unified commands.
For instance, Syria and Lebanon were once included in the European
Command, but as the international situation changed, it became more
appropriate to move them to Central Command, which already included
their Middle Eastern neighbors.
A second instance is the Caribbean region, which was previously
included in the Atlantic Command and has since been moved to the
Southern Command, which includes the rest of Latin America.
Congress had empowered the Secretary of Defense to make these
decisions while maintaining its constitutional responsibility for
oversight and appropriations.
This wise allocation of authority has enabled the Department of
Defense to do what the intelligence community has been unable to do;
that is to respond to changing conditions in a swift and decisive
manner.
The authors of Goldwater-Nichols gave the Secretary of Defense the
necessary level of flexibility and adaptability by not writing into law
which commands should be created and what countries they should
include.
Instead, we empowered the Secretary to establish or alter the unified
commands as circumstances dictate.
The current version of the Collions-Lieberman bill includes language
to establish national intelligence centers, in accordance with the 9/11
Commission's recommendations.
This is obviously a significant step in the right direction.
However, I believe that is necessary to make some modifications to
the language in order to clarify the purpose of the centers and to
ensure that the national intelligence director has the authority needed
to manage them effectively.
Some of the provisions that we need to be aware of and include in the
final version of this legislation as it relates to national
intelligence centers are these:
First, we should include language making clear that the mission of
the national intelligence centers is to focus on specific threats.
In keeping with the Commission's recommendation, this would mean that
some centers might focus on specific countries or regions, while others
would focus on global problems such as nuclear proliferation.
Second, we must make the national intelligence centers the focal
point of intelligence gathering and analysis for their particular area
of focus.
The centers should develop a strategy for the collection and analysis
of intelligence regarding their area of focus and draw upon the
resources of the various intelligence agencies to implement this
strategy.
To give an example of how this might work, imagine that the national
director believes that we need a focus on counterproliferation of
nuclear weapons, and surely we do.
In a very important recent book, ``Nuclear Terrorism,'' by Graham
Allison, it is pointed out that there are two important truths as it
relates to nuclear terrorism. The first is that it is inevitable that
nuclear weapons will come into the hands of terrorists who will use
them against us. The second truth is that inevitability is preventable.
Professor Allison points out a number of steps that must be taken in
order to avoid the inevitable. Many of those relate to the intelligence
community's role. Professor Allison makes a number of suggestions as to
what reforms are required in order to avoid a nuclear weapon in the
hands of a terrorist who is destined to use it against the people of
the United States.
Just to summarize his points:
First, American intelligence must move beyond its Cold War mindset.
This legislation will help us achieve that goal.
Second, the United States must cultivate long-term strategic
relationships with foreign intelligence agencies. I believe having a
strong director
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of national intelligence will contribute to that objective.
Third, the American intelligence community must enhance its data-
mining efforts to process, analyze, and disseminate open sources of
intelligence. This legislation provides a heightened awareness of the
value and the credibility of open source information, that is
information that is available, other than through clandestine means.
Finally and above all, intelligence assessments must be credible.
I believe this provision for the establishment of national
intelligence centers will make a dramatic contribution toward enhancing
the credibility of U.S. intelligence.
The fact that we are creating within this legislation one national
intelligence center, that for counterterrorism, and leaving the
creation of the other centers up to the discretion of the national
intelligence director is essentially an accident of history. The 9/11
attacks were the use of conventional weapons--fire and gasoline--in a
nonconventional manner--large airplanes flying into large buildings.
If the attacks of 9/11 had taken another form, such as a cargo
container which was loaded at a distant point and arrived in the Port
of New York and was unloaded, and a week later found itself in downtown
Chicago, and because that container, in addition to its commercial
cargo, also carried a dirty nuclear bomb, and that bomb, were it to be
detonated, we would have had an event multiple times of what, in fact,
happened on 9/11. And I can assure you that the center would have been
written into this legislation and would have been the center on the
avoidance of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
We are about to give that authority to the director of intelligence.
I believe we should give it to him with as close as possible the same
authority and the same capability as we are statutorily giving to the
center on terrorism. That is what this amendment attempts to do.
Finally, we must ensure that our national intelligence community is
constantly adapting in response to changes in the world around us.
Unfortunately, our intelligence community, since its inception in that
same National Security Act of 1947, has had difficulty adapting to
changed circumstances. It had that difficulty in the 1950s. It has had
that difficulty since the last of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s
through the early 1990s. Our intelligence agencies were slow in
shifting their focus from the Soviet Union to the more diffuse threat
such as terrorism, weapons proliferation, and rogue states.
As former CIA Director James Woolsey put it:
It was as if we had been struggling with a dragon for 45
years and finally defeated it . . . and then found ourselves
in the jungle with a lot of poisonous snakes. The snakes were
harder to keep track of than the dragon.
The national director should be required to frequently review the
mission and areas of responsibility of the intelligence centers, so
that we do not waste time staring at the dragon which we have already
slain.
He must also have the ability to create new centers rapidly, so that
they are not slow to react to the appearance of snakes.
The amendment I am offering would modify the very instructive
policies in the Collins-Lieberman bill to lay the groundwork for
reforms recommended by the 9/11 Commission, and ensure that the
national director has sufficient authority to carry them out.
Madam President and colleagues, I draw your attention to the fact
that I have discussed this amendment with Governor Kean and with former
Congressman Lee Hamilton, the distinguished Chair of the 9/11
Commission. And I am pleased they have responded enthusiastically.
I have received a letter from Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton
which includes this statement:
The importance of integrated, all-source analysis cannot be
overstated. Without it, it is not possible to ``connect the
dots.'' No one competent today holds all of the relevant
information. Our view is it is imperative to have unity of
effort across the intelligence community.
Therefore, we strongly endorse the creation of national
intelligence centers on specific subjects of interest across
the U.S. Government. Clearly, with regard to the high
priority of counterterrorism, the centers should be the
intelligence entity inside the national counterterrorism
center . . . we have proposed. Other national intelligence
centers--for instance, on counter-proliferation, crime and
narcotics, the Middle East, Russia and China--could be
created based on the President and National Security
Council's determination of need.
The letter concludes:
A true sharing of all relevant information among analysts,
and the creation of national intelligence centers offering
the best advice and analysis to the President--together with
the continued independence of State, Treasury, Energy and
Defense Department analytical units--provides a better way to
foster competitive analysis than does the status quo.
To keep the country secure, we believe the government must
build the intelligence capabilities it will need for the
broad range of national security challenges in the decades
ahead.
We have the opportunity to take a step which will fundamentally
enhance the security of the people of America not only against the
threat that we know today, not only against the dragons with which we
are currently grappling, but with those poisonous snakes that may not
be so obvious, the poisonous snakes which may be hiding just beyond the
horizon.
The national intelligence centers will be a key to our ability to do
for intelligence what Goldwater-Nichols did in 1986 for our military.
I urge my colleagues to seriously consider and to adopt these
amendments to the excellent legislation which is before us today.
I ask unanimous consent that the letter from Governor Kean and
Congressman Hamilton be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
September 27, 2004.
Hon. Bob Graham.
Dear Senator Graham: Thank you for your question about the
9/11 Commission's proposal to establish national intelligence
centers. The Commission made 41 recommendations that we
believe will significantly improve the security and safety of
all Americans. All of the recommendations are, in our
estimation, important.
We see a particular need for creating national intelligence
centers. We have reviewed your suggest amendment on the topic
of national intelligence centers. The language seems
constructive, and consistent with our proposed approach. As
far as how to proceed, we leave the tactics of floor
consideration to you and the bill managers.
In our investigation of the 9/11 attacks, we learned that
the national security institutions of the U.S. government are
still the institutions constructed to fight the Cold War.
National intelligence is still organized around the
collection disciplines of the home agencies, not the joint
mission.
The importance of integrated, all-source analysis cannot be
overstated. Without it, it is not possible to ``connect the
dots.'' No one component today holds all the relevant
information. Our view is that it is imperative to have unity
of effort across the intelligence community.
Therefore, we strongly endorse the creation of national
intelligence centers on specific subjects of interest across
the U.S. government. Clearly, with regard to the high
priority of counterterrorism, the center--should be the
intelligence entity (formerly the Terrorist Threat
Integration Center) inside the National Counterterrorism
Center we have proposed. Other national intelligence
centers--for instance, on counterproliferation, crime and
narcotics, the Middle East, Russia, and China--could be
created based on the President and National Security
Council's determination of need. These centers will draw from
the talent of the individual agencies and become truly
national intelligence centers on their respective issues.
The National Intelligence Director that we have proposed
would oversee the national intelligence centers to provide
all-source analysis and plan intelligence operations for the
whole government on major problems. Under our proposals, the
National Intelligence Director would retain the present
Director of Central Intelligence's role as the principal
intelligence adviser to the president. We hope the president
will come to look directly to the directors of the national
intelligence centers to provide all-source analysis in their
areas of responsibility.
A true sharing of all relevant information among analysts,
and the creation of national intelligence centers offering
their best advice and analysis to the president--together
with the continued independence of State, Treasury, Energy
and Defense Department analytical units--provides a better
way to foster competitive analysis than does the status quo.
To keep the country secure, we believe the government must
build the intelligence capabilities it will need for the
broad range of national security challenges in the decades
ahead. National intelligence centers should be among those
capabilities.
We deeply appreciate your interest in the Commission's
recommendations, and we look
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forward to working with you on the national intelligence
centers proposal, as well as on our other recommendations.
Very respectfully,
Tom Kean.
Lee Hamilton.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I wonder if I could, through you, ask
the distinguished Senator from Arkansas if he is going to comment on
Senator Graham's amendment.
Mr. PRYOR. No. I was going to comment on an amendment that we
adopted.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, after Senator Pryor comments, I will
be glad to speak for Senator Graham.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I rise today with a note of
encouragement; that is, one of the things I have noticed through the
committee process, and certainly on the Senate floor, is how
bipartisan--or maybe in a better sense of the word, nonpartisan--this
debate has been. I think the Senate is very committed to following up
on the 9/11 recommendations in the 9/11 report. I think we are
approaching this in a way that is very constructive and very positive,
and which we all hope and pray in the long term is very effective for
our national security and for our intelligence.
I know there are a number of amendments that we have still pending. I
don't know exactly what is going to be offered or what will be agreed
to, but my plan is to listen very carefully to all of those amendments.
I think they all have value. I may vote against some of them;
nonetheless, I think it is important that we have this discussion, have
this debate, and show our leadership for this Nation on this very
issue.
There are two Members, two really great leaders, I wish to commend;
that is, Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman. They have done a
fantastic job and have demonstrated the patience of Job through this
process in their determination and commitment. They are a prime example
of how this Senate can work and should work and how great things can be
accomplished by working together.
I think it is incumbent for us as a Senate and as a Congress to
provide the tools and the structure that we need in our intelligence
community to connect the dots.
I think the 9/11 Commission said this in a number of ways in a number
of cases. But at one point, the 9/11 Commission report said:
Of all our recommendations, strengthening congressional
oversight may be among the most difficult and important.
I know because I have talked to many of my colleagues on both sides
of the aisle that this body is committed to reforming itself when it
comes to intelligence issues.
Let me read, if I may, from the report one short paragraph found on
page 105 of the 9/11 Commission Report. It says:
Fourth, the oversight function of Congress has diminished
over time. In recent years, traditional review of the
administration of programs and the implementation of laws has
been replaced by ``a focus on personal investigations,
possible scandals, and issues designed to generate media
attention.'' The unglamorous but essential work of oversight
has been neglected, and few members past or present believe
it is performed well. DCI Tenet told us: ``We ran from threat
to threat to threat. . . . [T]here was not a system in place
to say, `You got to go back and do this and this and this.'
'' Not just the DCI but the entire executive branch needed
help from Congress in addressing the questions of
counterterrorism strategy and policy, looking past day-to-day
concerns. Members of Congress, however, also found their time
spent on such everyday matters, or in looking back to
investigate mistakes, and often missed the big questions--as
did the executive branch. Staff tended as well to focus on
parochial considerations, seeking to add or cut funding for
individual (often small) programs, instead of emphasizing
comprehensive oversight projects.
Madam President, my hope is when we finish this bill--it looks as
though next week, realistically at this point--we will then turn to the
work of reforming congressional oversight. Members on both sides of the
aisle are very committed to doing that.
Let me speak for a moment or two about an amendment I was able to
tack on in committee. Again, I thank the leadership in the committee
but also thank the entire committee because in the end, after we
explained this and worked through this and walked through this, we
decided this was an amendment that should be added to the bill, and it
currently is in the proposed legislation.
Basically, one thing the 9/11 Commission Report said is we need to
have a way to evaluate our intelligence structures. It is important as
we pass this reform legislation, the most significant reform of
intelligence since 1947, to build into it some sort of look-back
provision. That is what we have tried to do with my amendment. I am
glad the committee has agreed with this and has been able to go along
with this.
Basically, it requires the GAO to give a report in 2 years, an
independent objective look at what we have done--have we been
successful? Have we failed? Do we need to take away a little bit here
or add a little bit there? But an independent evaluation, nonpartisan
look at exactly what we have done to make sure it is working. It is too
important to not get it right the first time.
For example, the 9/11 Commission found a need-to-know culture of
information protection rather than a need-to-share culture of
integration. The GAO review can indicate whether adequate mechanisms
have been put in place to change this culture and be more productive
and better, long term, for U.S. intelligence.
I thank the committee for its hard work. I thank the two leaders for
their hard work. I thank this entire body for approaching this
challenge in a very nonpartisan way.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I commend the Senator from Arkansas for
the diligence with which he approached the hearings throughout the
August recess and the writing of this important legislation. I very
much appreciate the comments of the Senator from Arkansas. He is always
generous to me, as well as to the ranking member. We would be remiss if
we did not thank him for his contributions to this bill. He was
terrific about redoing his schedule throughout the August recess to
participate in our numerous hearings. He was instrumental in drafting
provisions of the bill including the requirement for the GAO report. I
recognize his hard work and leadership and thank him for his kind
comments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Amendment No. 3797
Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I send to the desk the amendment
consistent with the statement I have just made and ask for its
immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending amendment is set aside.
The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Florida [Mr. Graham] proposes an amendment
numbered 3797.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To improve the authorities with respect to the national
intelligence centers)
On page 94, line 14, insert before the period the
following: ``, whether expressed in terms of geographic
region, in terms of function, or in other terms''.
On page 95, line 3, insert after the period the following:
``Each notice on a center shall set forth the mission of such
center, the area of intelligence responsibility of such
center, and the proposed structure of such center.''.
On page 96, line 7, insert ``of the center and the
personnel of the center'' after ``control''.
On page 96, between lines 8 and 9, insert the following:
(5) If the Director of a national intelligence center
determines at any time that the authority, direction, and
control of the Director over the center is insufficient to
accomplish the mission of the center, the Director shall
promptly notify the National Intelligence Director of that
determination.
On page 97, between lines 2 and 3, insert the following:
(5) develop and unify strategy for the collection and
analysis of all-source intelligence;
(6) integrate intelligence collection and analysis, both
inside and outside the United States;
(7) at the discretion of the NID develop interagency plans
for the collection of all-source intelligence, which plans
shall--
(A) involve more than one department, agency, or element of
the executive branch (unless otherwise directed by the
President); and
[[Page S10004]]
(B) include the mission, objectives to be achieved, courses
of action, parameters for such courses of action,
coordination of agencies intelligence collection activities,
recommendations for intelligence collection plans, and
assignment of departmental or agency responsibilities;
(4) ensure that the collection of all-source intelligence
and the conduct of operations are informed by the analysis of
all-source intelligence; and
On page 99, between lines 20 and 21, insert the following:
(g) Review and Modification of Centers.--(1) Not less often
than once each year, the National Intelligence Director shall
review the area of intelligence responsibility assigned to
each national intelligence center under this section in order
to determine whether or not such area of responsibility
continues to meet intelligence priorities established by the
National Security Council.
(2) Not less often than once each year, the National
Intelligence Director shall review the staffing and
management of each national intelligence center under this
section in order to determine whether or not such staffing or
management remains appropriate for the accomplishment of the
mission of such center.
(3) The National Intelligence Director may at any time
recommend to the President a modification of the area of
intelligence responsibility assigned to a national
intelligence center under this section. The National
Intelligence Director shall make any such recommendation
through, and with the approval of, the National Security
Council.
(h) Separate Budget Account.--The National Intelligence
Director shall, in accordance with procedures to be issued by
the Director in consultation with the congressional
intelligence committees, include in the National Intelligence
Program budget a separate line item for each national
intelligence center under this section.
On page 99, line 21, strike ``(g)'' and insert ``(i)''.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I thank our distinguished colleague
from Florida, Senator Graham, for introducing this amendment that
clarifies the role of the national intelligence centers that the NID is
empowered to create under our bill.
Senator Graham, as former chair of the Intelligence Committee, and
having just published a book on intelligence, provides this body with a
very important perspective in this debate. His amendment strengthens
the role of the national intelligence centers by placing them on par
with the National Counterterrorism Center. This amendment provides much
needed flexibility to the national intelligence director in
establishing the centers. It allows the director to establish criteria
for the centers to focus on vital areas of expertise.
The amendment also directs the national intelligence director to
provide an annual report to Congress on the responsibilities of each of
the centers that are created. This is an important aspect of this
amendment. We can no longer afford to maintain the same percentage of
Russian linguists today, for example, as we had during the Cold War. We
have new wars, new challenges, new threats, and they demand new
capabilities and responses as the 9/11 Commission Report indicated.
This amendment is well within the intent of the 9/11 Commission
Report and recommendations as is evident by the letter that the Senator
has from the chairman and vice chairman of the committee. I endorse the
amendment on my side. I am happy to accept it. I thank the Senator for
working closely with us.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise to support the amendment, as
well, and to thank Senator Graham for the characteristic thoughtfulness
he brought to this matter and the very constructive additions this
amendment makes to the bill and to clarify the authority and the
importance of these centers.
This is one of the central contributions of this legislation and
derivatively of the 9/11 Commission Report. It grows out of the
outrageous failure to share information prior to September 11 that the
9/11 Commission Report documents in riveting detail.
As the Chair knows, we would establish on the passage of this, a
national counter terrorism center to focus all of our efforts from all
agencies--unity of effort, joint command operations, et cetera--in the
fight against terrorism. We also take this basic idea and say to the
national intelligence director, you can set up other centers to deal
with other particular problems--maybe a specific threat like weapons of
mass destruction or nuclear proliferation specifically or a country or
subgroup that may be threatening--the United States, set up a center on
North Korea or Iran--and you would guarantee, thereby, in these other
centers that all the arms of our Government would know what the others
would be doing, would be sharing intelligence and analysis of
intelligence through these centers, being able to plan joint operations
for the collection of intelligence, very critically important to inform
the President and the officers of our Government how to deal with these
crisis. Senator Graham's amendment makes clear how important these
centers are that the NID can create.
I stress, also, the centers are not permanent. They are part of the
vision that comes out of the 9/11 Commission Report. The Collins-
Lieberman bill before the Senate now is about modern management, 21st
century management. If there is a problem, create a center with all
your best people around the table planning how to collect and analyze
intelligence about the problem, advise the President, Secretary of
State, Secretary of Defense, whomever. Once that problem is resolved,
that center can and should be terminated. That is the kind of
flexibility involved.
Senator Graham, as Senator Collins has said, is building on an
extraordinary record of experience and very constructive leadership,
outspoken, appropriately outspoken leadership in the area of
intelligence, and has given us the benefit of that experience with this
amendment. I thank him for it. I am happy to accept the amendment on
our side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ensign). The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on this
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The amendment (No. 3797) was agreed to.
Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I extend my deepest gratitude
to Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman and also my appreciation for
the Senators' kind remarks.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. It is deserved.
I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the
table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 3801
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we lay aside the
pending business so I may offer an amendment which is at the desk.
Before I finish, I want to say this on behalf of Senator Chambliss
and myself. My intention is to speak on it now, then come back to it--
pursuant to an agreement that will be worked out with the managers of
the bill--sometime early tomorrow afternoon, and people who are opposed
to it will have been able to come to the floor and debate it. So we
will talk on it right now for a little while, but the purpose for
proceeding now is to get it pending so we can later reach an agreement
and set it for debate at a later time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl], for himself, Mr.
Chambliss, and Mr. Domenici, proposes an amendment numbered
3801.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To modify the privacy and civil liberties oversight)
On page 52, strike beginning with line 21 through page 56,
line 8.
On page 154, strike beginning with line 8 through page 160,
line 11 and insert the following:
(d) Functions.--
(1) Advice and counsel on policy development and
implementation.--The Board shall--
(A) review proposed legislation, regulations, and policies
related to efforts to protect the Nation from terrorism,
including the development and adoption of information sharing
guidelines under section 205(g);
(B) review the implementation of new and existing
legislation, regulations, and policies related to efforts to
protect the Nation from
[[Page S10005]]
terrorism, including the implementation of information
sharing guidelines under section 205(g); and
(C) advise the President and the departments, agencies, and
elements of the executive branch to ensure that privacy and
civil liberties are appropriately considered in the
development and implementation of such legislation,
regulations, policies, and guidelines.
(2) Oversight.--The Board shall continually review--
(A) the regulations, policies, and procedures, and the
implementation of the regulations, policies, and procedures,
of the departments, agencies, and elements of the executive
branch to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are
protected;
(B) the information sharing practices of the departments,
agencies, and elements of the executive branch to determine
whether they appropriately protect privacy and civil
liberties and adhere to the information sharing guidelines
prescribed under section 205(g) and to other governing laws,
regulations, and policies regarding privacy and civil
liberties; and
(C) other actions by the executive branch related to
efforts to protect the Nation from terrorism to determine
whether such actions--
(i) appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties; and
(ii) are consistent with governing laws, regulations, and
policies regarding privacy and civil liberties.
(3) Testimony.--The Members of the Board shall appear and
testify before Congress upon request.
(e) Reports.--
(1) In general.--The Board shall periodically submit, not
less than semiannually, reports--
(A)(i) to the appropriate committees of Congress, including
the Committees on the Judiciary of the Senate and the House
of Representatives, the Committee on Governmental Affairs of
the Senate, the Committee on Government Reform of the House
of Representatives, the Select Committee on Intelligence of
the Senate, and the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence of the House of Representatives; and
(ii) to the President; and
(B) which shall be in unclassified form to the greatest
extent possible, with a classified annex where necessary.
(2) Contents.--Not less than 2 reports submitted each year
under paragraph (1)(B) shall include--
(A) a description of the major activities of the Board
during the preceding period; and
(B) information on the findings, conclusions, and
recommendations of the Board resulting from its advice and
oversight functions under subsection (d).
(f) Access to Information.--
(1) Authorization.--If determined by the Board to be
necessary to carry out its responsibilities under this
section, the Board is authorized to--
(A) have access from any department, agency, or element of
the executive branch, or any Federal officer or employee, to
all relevant records, reports, audits, reviews, documents,
papers, recommendations, or other relevant material,
including classified information consistent with applicable
law;
(B) interview, take statements from, or take public
testimony from personnel of any department, agency, or
element of the executive branch, or any Federal officer or
employee; and
(C) request information or assistance from any State,
tribal, or local government.
(2) Agency cooperation.--Whenever information or assistance
requested under subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) is,
in the judgment of the Board, unreasonably refused or not
provided, the Board may submit a request directly to the head
of the department, agency, or element concerned.
On page 164, strike beginning with line 21 through page
170, line 8.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, neither the 9/11 Commission nor the Senate
Intelligence Committee, nor anyone else that I am aware of, has said
the problem leading up to the attack of 9/11 was due to too much
intelligence. The problem, obviously, arose because we didn't have
enough intelligence. We could not gather enough information in a timely
way to put together all of the possibilities--some say connect the
dots--in order to predict that a particular kind of attack was going to
occur on that day.
We have had a lot of good, constructive suggestions from the 9/11
Commission, from the Senate Intelligence Committee, from the
administration, from the work of the Governmental Affairs Committee,
and from other commissions in trying to understand why we didn't have
enough intelligence and why we could not put all of this together. Many
of the recommendations of the Commission and the legislative solutions
in the proposed bill try to correct that problem of not having enough
good intelligence.
None of the problems identified suggested that we had too much
intelligence and the problem was that people's civil liberties were
somehow being jeopardized, or that their privacy rights were being
jeopardized. Nobody has ever said that was a problem.
Subsequent to 9/11, we passed the PATRIOT Act. It has been signed
into law and most law enforcement officials, the administration, and
others argue persuasively, I think, that it has done a lot to help them
win the war on terror by collecting additional intelligence. Some have
concerns about some of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act with respect
to civil liberties or privacy rights. But those are issues that have
come up subsequent to 9/11.
My point is that the problem before 9/11 was not having too much
intelligence and that jeopardized people's privacy or civil rights.
Therefore, it comes as a great surprise to me that there is such a huge
emphasis in the committee bill on privacy, civil rights, on having an
ombudsman to protect people's rights, on having such an emphasis within
the national intelligence directorate on these subjects, having a
special board that would look into it, with subpoena powers, outside
the intelligence community, and so on. It is my considered judgment,
having served on the committee for 8 years, and having heard testimony
from a great many people, including Richard Clark, by the way, who
testified that risk aversion was one of the key problems leading up to
9/11--it is my judgment that the overkill of all of these provisions in
the bill is a fatal flaw in this legislation, which must be corrected,
or else what we would have done is to rearrange the bureaucracy here,
putting a person in charge as the national intelligence director and
making some other changes but crippling his effort and the efforts of
the intelligence collection gatherers, analysts, and others in their
ability to protect us by gathering intelligence.
Risk aversion, which is a big problem today, will be a huge problem
in the future because, in addition to the people today who are looking
over the shoulders of the intelligence community, we will have a whole
array of new entities with great powers looking over their shoulder;
and all of the effort that we are going through to try to begin saying
that people should think outside the box, should be bold, innovative,
and imaginative, that we need more human intelligence, and that those
human intelligence agents are going to do things to gather more
intelligence--we should have people who are willing to think outside
the box. All of that is going to be significantly jeopardized because
of the risk aversion that will be blanketed over all of the community
with all of these different entities saying, wait a minute, we
understand you are trying to collect intelligence, but we have people's
civil rights and privacy rights and all the rest to be concerned about
as well.
Of course those are legitimate concerns. That is why we have entities
today that help to ensure that privacy and civil rights are not
jeopardized. It is enough. This bill creates so many new opportunities
for people who object to intelligence gathering and analysis in the way
we know it needs to be done that they are going to be able to ball up
forever any ability to get meaningful intelligence if we are not
careful about how we construct this bill.
Let me tell you a little bit about what I am talking about. Here is a
bit of background. Risk aversion--we understand what it means. It was
testified to by people such as Richard Clark and others before the
Intelligence Committee as the mindset which exists if you do anything
out of the ordinary, if you go against the grain, if you collect by
unorthodox measures, if you analyze intelligence in a way that might be
contrary to the superiors above you in the organization, or to what
somebody in Congress or somebody else wants to see, or if the actions
that you take have some degree of risk associated with them--either
political risk or legal risk, or certainly operational risk in terms of
casualties and the like--therefore, because of all of these things
there is an aversion to taking those risks.
Government employees who have a career, who have their retirement in
mind, and who want to continue to work with the agency want to be sure
they are able to continue their careers, do their jobs, and not,
because they perhaps work outside of the box, be penalized for doing
that.
Agent Rowling of the FBI talked about this in her inability to get
the FBI to act on a warrant request she
[[Page S10006]]
sought to look into Zacarias Moussaoui's computers. One of the reasons
they didn't act was out of a ``political correctness''--their term, not
mine--that concerned them about the view that it would look like they
were going after somebody on the basis of racial profiling, or some
kind of profiling, rather than because they were under suspicion of
committing a crime.
This is the kind of risk aversion that everybody agreed was part of
the problem with the intelligence gathering and analysis prior to
September 11. How do you make that situation worse? You do it by adding
new layers of people who are second-guessing these intelligence agents
and analysts. There are enough people second-guessing them already,
imposing the legal and political layer or filter of approval of the
actions of the people in the field. But what the bill does is to create
whole new layers.
First, it follows a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission to create
some kind of outside board, but goes far beyond the 9/11 Commission
recommendations in empowering this board with subpoena power, literally
the authority of this outside board, that is not within the
intelligence community at all, a citizen board, to haul in any agent
anywhere in the world and grill him about what he did or did not do or
what he concluded or did not conclude, with no guidance whatsoever.
This is a recipe for disaster.
In addition, as if that were not enough, of the six assistant
directors of the national intelligence directorate, fully a third of
them, two out of the six, have nothing to do with intelligence
collection or analysis; they are the privacy and civil rights division.
First, one wonders why those are not the same thing and, second, why
you would have to have two out of the six directorates specifically
charged with this responsibility. We already have an inspector general
whose responsibilities include any situation in which an agent or
agency went beyond legal authority or beyond other appropriate
authority in the conduct of his or her business. But in addition to the
inspector general, in addition to the officers who currently exist in
each of the agencies of the intelligence community--virtually all of
them--to deal with privacy and civil rights concerns--these already
exist--we create two new directorates with this legislation: this
outside civilian board and an ombudsman.
In looking through the ombudsman's responsibilities, for example,
pity the poor intelligence agent who raises a question that causes this
ombudsman to have to question him.
This is not even to get into the congressional oversight which we
want to enhance. Our working group, which is developing the
improvements to the Intelligence Committee operation, will be soon, I
think, be making a recommendation to the body, either in conjunction
with the underlying bill or as an amendment to it, that will also fold
in enhanced congressional oversight.
We want enhanced congressional oversight, but it is a double-edged
sword because it has been abused in the past and can be abused in the
future.
When Members have not intelligence as their first priority but
questioning somebody within the intelligence community, they can be
pretty hard on the intelligence community. We can go all the way to the
Church Commission in 1976 to see what kind of damage that can do. So we
need to be careful about this congressional oversight, but it is going
to be enhanced. We are going to improve our ability to oversee the
intelligence community.
In addition to the offices that exist today, and in addition to the
inspector general, and in addition to the enhanced congressional
oversight, we are creating two more directorates, an outside board, and
an ombudsman, all of whom have essentially the same general
responsibility of questioning whether the intelligence agents,
agencies, analysts, and others are doing their job properly. Then we
will ask ourselves why we could not get anybody to think outside the
box, to be forward leaning, to try to be aggressive in collecting
intelligence, why everybody was meekly following a very single straight
line.
The fact that we are creating a national intelligence director
creates a bit of a problem in this regard in the first place because
instead of having a wider array of entities involved, each with their
own points of view, sort of the devil's advocate concept recommended by
many, including the 9/11 Commission, to get out of a single-channel
orientation group-think, we are making the problem worse, in my view,
by creating this single national intelligence director.
If you want a career in the agency, you better not run afoul of what
the director wants and what his views are. That is the reality of
bureaucracy, and it exists in every agency of the Government, not just
the intelligence community. But in the intelligence community, it is
particularly important because we want people who are willing to
question, to go against the grain, to disagree with their boss, to take
a risk.
If we look back at President Clinton's directives to the intelligence
community, he tried to be forward leaning, especially with regard to
al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. To paraphrase, in effect what he said is
we have to do everything we can to try to get these guys. Repeatedly,
efforts were made to bring to his attention operations that would
either improve our intelligence or operationally deal with al-Qaida and
Osama bin Laden. They were shot down by the Pentagon, by the Secretary
of State, by the National Security Adviser, by the lawyers, by the
intelligence community itself, the Director of the CIA. Every time we
tried to do something, almost, somebody said this is too risky; we
cannot do it. That was why the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence
Committee, and many other observers have said we have to get out of
this stultifying risk-aversion environment where people are afraid that
somebody is looking over their shoulder and is going to jump on them if
they do anything that is the least bit out of the ordinary or risky. We
have to have the out of the ordinary and risky if we are ever going to
defeat this very unconventional enemy.
What does the bill do? It does not try to solve the problem; it makes
it far worse. The purpose of our amendment is to say we will follow the
9/11 Commission recommendation and set up this outside commission, but
for Heaven's sake, let's not give it the kind of subpoena power--
Congress already has that, the inspector general already has the
ability to look into all of these things. We do not need an outside
board of five, or whatever, people accountable to nobody with the
ability to totally disrupt what the intelligence community is doing.
It is fine to report to Congress, to analyze what they think the
situation is and let us know what their concerns are. But that is far
different from operationally getting right down into the bowels of the
organization with hands that can extract anything, classified or not,
subpoena anybody, whether in Afghanistan or Langley or wherever, and
publicly question what is being done.
That is the first part of the amendment.
The second part of the amendment is to say we do not need all these
new entities given the fact we already have existing civil rights and
privacy controls. I do not want to be misunderstood. It would be very
easy to characterize or mischaracterize what we are trying to do by
saying these are people who do not care anything about civil rights;
these are people who want the agency to run roughshod over American
civil rights, and people can get pretty revved up about that very
quickly.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The folks who are
understandably going to put a high priority on protecting civil rights
need to balance their legitimate concerns about civil rights with a
concern about the lives of American citizens, to balance the
legislation that is supposed to help fix the problem in such a way that
we do not put so many constraints on our intelligence community that it
can't do its job.
One of the biggest problems identified, this problem of risk
aversion, will be horribly exacerbated if we simply blindly follow the
recommendation of those who brought this bill to the floor--and I
understand there were a lot of compromises made in order to get
unanimous approval out of the committee, but sometimes getting
unanimous approval is the wrong goal.
[[Page S10007]]
Sometimes you need to make tough choices and you need to reject
proposals that are offered by people who then agree to vote for the
overall bill if they get their amendment in the bill. That is what
happened with this bill, and there are too many little amendments that
got in which, when added up, are going to create a huge problem with
our intelligence community with respect to this issue of risk aversion.
I cannot stress strongly enough, and this will be my final point, our
goal ought to be to improve our intelligence collection, to improve
human intelligence, to improve analysis, to foster a sense within this
community that they do not have to just follow the narrow channel of
group-think that was criticized so strongly by the 9/11 Commission,
that they do not have to feel risk averse, that they can take a chance
sometimes because we need people to be imaginative and innovative and
think about possibilities that before 9/11 we could not have even
dreamed of.
I know now some people like to go back and ask: Why did you not think
up the fact that people could fly planes into these buildings? Well,
one reason was because as soon as one starts thinking about those kinds
of things, somebody is going to come down on them like a ton of bricks
and say: Get back to your job and stay within the channel here. We do
not have time for that kind of fantasizing. You are living in a fantasy
world.
We have to have people who are willing to ask these tough questions
and think in ways that they are not going to get slapped down when they
do. The sure recipe, the prescription for that occurring is by piling
on layer upon layer of outside groups, ombudsmen, civil rights, privacy
divisions, all of these groups that are duplicative of what we already
have, to call into question what our agents and analysts are doing.
There is simply no need to have so many people performing the same
task, which, in any event, does not add to intelligence, but, by its
very nature, is designed to restrict intelligence activity. Surely, we
can protect civil liberties and privacy without setting up a situation
in which it is going to be incredibly difficult for the intelligence
community to effectively perform its mission.
After all, our chief objective is to make it easier to predict and
prevent a terrorist attack, not more difficult.
Excessive oversight will result in our intelligence officers being
more cautious than they should be, and deter them from taking the risks
that may be necessary to keep our country safe.
Indeed, an aversion to taking risks, even when they should be taken,
already plagues our intelligence community. Time and time again, this
has contributed to intelligence failures, most recently, of course, 9/
11 and the intelligence community's claims about Saddam's weapons of
mass destruction.
There are numerous reasons for this culture of risk aversion--unclear
authorities, legal restrictions, and excessive oversight are among
them.
The deterioration of our intelligence community's clandestine service
offers a good example.
According to the 9/11 Commission's report, James Pavitt, the head of
the CIA's Directorate of Operations, recalled that covert action had
gotten the clandestine service into trouble in the past, and he had no
desire to see it happen again.
The ``trouble'' he referred to was at least partly the result of the
1973 Church Committee hearings in Congress. Added to that were the
restrictive guidelines promulgated by then-CIA Director John Deutch in
1995, which severely limited the ability of CIA case officers to meet
with and recruit foreign nationals who may have been involved in
dubious activities or have blood on their hands.
The end result was out intelligence community's inability to
penetrate al-Qaida's command structure. Before 9/11, we had not one
source inside that command structure. Unclear authorities, excessive
oversight, and burdensome restrictions prevented our people on the
ground from being effective.
I recognize that privacy and civil liberties are substantively
entirely different matters. However, the end result of unnecessary
bureaucracy, restrictions, and excessive oversight will be the same. We
will cultivate a culture within the intelligence community that makes
it less likely that people will be willing to do the jobs we are asking
them to do, and more likely that they will want to ``play it safe.''
My amendment would very simply delete sections 126 and 127, which
require officers for privacy and civil liberties with the National
Intelligence Authority; it would strike section 212, requiring privacy
and civil liberties officers with a long list of Executive Branch
departments and agencies; and it would modify the Privacy and Civil
Liberties Oversight Board established by section 211.
The National Intelligence Authority does not need three individuals
assigned to the same task. The IG of the National Intelligence
Authority will be in place to ensure privacy and civil liberties
receive adequate attention and oversight.
Similarly, it is redundant to require privacy and civil liberties
officers within almost every national-security related department and
agency.
My amendment would retain the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight
Board, as the 9/11 Commission recommended. However, it would limit
Board's ability to interfere in the activities of relevant departments
and agencies.
I hope that Members will support this amendment. It follows the 9/11
Commission's recommendations with respect to privacy and civil
liberties, and ensures adequate oversight and protections, but does so
without hamstringing the community.
I urge my colleagues when we debate this amendment further tomorrow
to please read the bill, look at the relevant portions of the 9/11
Commission recommendations, look at the testimony of those who have
raised this kind of question and ask whether the bill as presented is
not a little bit out of balance--I contend a great deal out of balance.
I do not cast any aspersions on the people who worked so hard to
bring this bill to the Senate floor. There are not enough compliments
for the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Connecticut for the
hard work they have done and all of the others who have worked so hard
on it. This is not in any way meant as personal criticism, but I fear
if we do not very carefully analyze this and try to correct it--and
remember, that was part of what this was all about: let's get the bill
to the floor; we can always make corrections here. This is the time to
do it. We have not written a bill on the floor for a long time, but
this is too important not to take the time to do right.
I urge my colleagues, let us not make the mistake of rushing forward
with this, putting a rubberstamp on the committee's bill because we
have to do something before we leave on October 8. We will spend years
ruing the day we took this kind of action if we are not careful about
what we do.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending
amendment of Senator Kyl be laid aside for purposes of proposing
additional amendments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 3806
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain], for himself, and Mr.
Lieberman, proposes an amendment numbered 3806.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To improve the transition between Presidential
administrations)
At the end of the bill, add the following:
TITLE __--PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION
SEC. __01. PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION.
(a) Services Provided President-Elect.--Section 3 of the
Presidential Transition Act of 1963 (3 U.S.C. 102 note) is
amended--
(1) by adding after subsection (a)(8)(A)(iv) the following:
``(v) Activities under this paragraph shall include the
preparation of a detailed classified, compartmented summary
by the relevant outgoing executive branch officials of
specific operational threats to national security; major
military or covert operations;
[[Page S10008]]
and pending decisions on possible uses of military force.
This summary shall be provided to the President-elect as soon
as possible after the date of the general elections held to
determine the electors of President and Vice President under
section 1 or 2 of title 3, United States Code.'';
(2) by redesignating subsection (f) as subsection (g); and
(3) by adding after subsection (e) the following:
``(f)(1) The President-elect should submit to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation or other appropriate agency and then,
upon taking effect and designation, to the agency designated
by the President under section 115(b) of the National
Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, the names of candidates for
high level national security positions through the level of
undersecretary of cabinet departments as soon as possible
after the date of the general elections held to determine the
electors of President and Vice President under section 1 or 2
of title 3, United States Code.
``(2) The responsible agency or agencies shall undertake
and complete as expeditiously as possible the background
investigations necessary to provide appropriate security
clearances to the individuals who are candidates described
under paragraph (1) before the date of the inauguration of
the President-elect as President and the inauguration of the
Vice-President-elect as Vice President.''.
(b) Sense of the Senate Regarding Expedited Consideration
of National Security Nominees.--It is the sense of the Senate
that--
(1) the President-elect should submit the nominations of
candidates for high-level national security positions,
through the level of undersecretary of cabinet departments,
to the Senate by the date of the inauguration of the
President-elect as President; and
(2) for all such national security nominees received by the
date of inauguration, the Senate committees to which these
nominations are referred should, to the fullest extent
possible, complete their consideration of these nominations,
and, if such nominations are reported by the committees, the
full Senate should vote to confirm or reject these
nominations, within 30 days of their submission.
(c) Security Clearances for Transition Team Members.--
(1) Definition.--In this section, the term ``major party''
shall have the meaning given under section 9002(6) of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
(2) In general.--Each major party candidate for President
may submit, before the date of the general election, requests
for security clearances for prospective transition team
members who will have a need for access to classified
information to carry out their responsibilities as members of
the President-elect's transition team.
(3) Completion date.--Necessary background investigations
and eligibility determinations to permit appropriate
prospective transition team members to have access to
classified information shall be completed, to the fullest
extent practicable, by the day after the date of the general
election.
(d) Effective Date.--Notwithstanding section 341, this
section and the amendments made by this section shall take
effect on the date of enactment of this Act.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as I believe most of my colleagues know,
Senator Lieberman and I made a commitment to the families and the 9/11
Commission that we would ensure that all of their 41 recommendations
were considered one way or another in this legislation. Because of the
lack of scope of the Governmental Affairs Committee, there were several
recommendations which were not considered.
Senator Lieberman and I have already proposed and had adopted several
amendments addressing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. There
are three remaining issues. One of them is noncontroversial, which I
will be proposing at this time and would hope would be voice voted
since it is noncontroversial. Then there are two additional amendments
concerning two additional recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Both
of those are controversial, so I would propose those amendments and
then ask that they be set aside after they are placed for
consideration. Then they would be disposed of after debate, discussion,
or however the managers would like to dispose of those additional two
amendments.
I hope I made myself somewhat coherent in that explanation.
The amendment that is at the desk addresses the 9/11 Commission's
recommendation to improve the transitions between administrations. It
is nearly identical to title IV of the 9/11 Commission Report
Implementation Act, which we introduced on September 7, except that it
does not include the security clearance-related provisions that were
adopted by the Governmental Affairs Committee and are already in the
underlying bill, S. 2845.
The Commission report states:
Since a catastrophic attack could occur with little or no
notice, we should minimize as much as possible the disruption
of national security policymaking during the change of
administrations by accelerating the process for national
security appointments. We think the process could be improved
significantly so transitions can work more effectively and
allow new officials to assume their new responsibilities as
quickly as possible.
As recommended by the Commission, this amendment is designed to help
ensure an incoming President-elect has his or her national security
team in place during a transition between administrations. The
amendment would direct the outgoing administration to provide the
President-elect, as soon as possible after the general election, a
detailed, highly classified summary of current threats to the national
security, major military and covert operations, and pending decisions
on possible uses of military force.
It also provides that the President-elect should submit to the agency
responsible for background checks the names of possible candidates for
high-level national security positions as soon as possible after the
date of the Presidential election. In turn, it requires that agency to
undertake and complete, to the fullest extent possible, the background
investigations necessary to provide appropriate security clearances to
these individuals by the date of inauguration.
Finally, it urges the Senate to consider the nominations of top
national security appointees as soon as possible, preferably within 30
days of the submission of a nominee.
As the chairman of a committee which has responsibility for the
confirmation of many Presidential nominees, I assure my colleagues that
I consider the Senate's advise and consent responsibilities to be very
important. This amendment is not proposing that we shirk our duties in
any way but that we act in the most efficient manner possible to
thoroughly review the nominees to national security-related positions
and allow for their confirmation so they can carry out the very
important duties to which they are charged.
I recognize that some, including administration officials, would
prefer that we go further. It has been suggested and I believe the
House bill even proposes that if the Senate has not voted to confirm a
nominee within 30 days after the nominee's name has been submitted, the
President alone should have the power to make that appointment. I, for
one, cannot support such a proposal, and I doubt that it would have the
support of the majority of Members in this body.
Let me also point out that this amendment does not include the
Commission's recommendations that the Senate should not require
confirmation of such national security executive appointees below
executive level 3. One of the reasons our amendment does not address
that particular proposal is that upon review of such positions, we
learned that it would eliminate the Senate's advise and consent duties
for many important security positions that we believe merit the
Senate's action. Executive level 4 includes all of the Assistant
Secretary positions, many of which one would argue are important
national security-related positions. Examples of these positions
include the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat
Reduction, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Affairs, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force
Management Policy, and others.
We believe that instead of removing the Senate's advise and consent
obligations, a better approach would be for the Senate to fulfill its
obligation in as expeditious a manner as possible. We hope this body
will make a greater effort to hold confirmation hearings and report
those national security-related nominations to the full Senate for
swift consideration. To help spur swift Senate consideration, this
amendment includes a sense of the Senate urging the President-elect to
submit the nominations for high-level national security positions to
the Senate by the date of the inauguration. It also calls for Senate
committees to hold nomination hearings and consider these nominations
to the fullest extent within 30 days of their submission.
The amendment before the Senate is but one proposal that we need to
move
[[Page S10009]]
forward. The more critical proposal which we still need to act on is
congressional reorganization and oversight over intelligence and
homeland security. As the Commission very directly pointed out, not
only are Government agency reforms needed, so too are institutional
reforms within Congress. The Commission went so far as to call
congressional oversight as ``dysfunctional.''
I remain hopeful that the bipartisan working group tasked by the
leadership to develop a proposal for congressional restructuring will
be successful. We owe it to the American public to fulfill our
collective responsibilities. These are not normal times. We are at war.
I just want to say again, as a member of the Armed Services
Committee, I have seen particularly the Defense Department, as well as
other national-security-related positions, literally vacant for months
and months and months. This is really not an acceptable situation, and
it has grown worse and worse. Background security checks have
lengthened in their time. The Senate doesn't get moving until a couple
of months after we are in session. It is not fair. It is not fair to
the nominees, it is not fair to the country, it certainly is not fair
to the Departments that are deprived of the services of a new
President's team. So I hope we will support this amendment.
I do not believe there is any controversy, so I ask for a voice vote
before I move to a second amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment? The
Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am proud to be a cosponsor of this
amendment with Senator McCain. This, again, is part of our attempt to
implement through legislation as many of the recommendations of the 9/
11 Commission Report as we possibly can.
This is a critical one. The Commission made a finding not usually
focused on, as part of its work, that there is a danger because of the
slowness of the transition from one administration to the next that
America will be vulnerable. We have an enemy out there, a terrorist
enemy, that follows this kind of information. I don't make a causal
statement now, but the fact is that it was in 1993, the first year of
the Clinton administration, when the World Trade Center was first
attacked by terrorists with a truck bomb. And it was 2001, of course,
when the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and other targets were attacked,
in the first year of the Bush administration.
These are very good recommendations. I do want to point out simply
that the underlying bill incorporates a related recommendation by the
Commission to consolidate security clearance investigations in one
agency and encourage reciprocity among agencies with respect to those
clearances, which should help streamline what is now a frustratingly
Balkanized system for determining who can have access to sensitive
information.
This is very constructive. I do not believe it is controversial at
all.
To reiterate, this amendment will help ensure that our vital national
security capabilities do not suffer undue disruption during a
presidential transition.
The 9/11 Commission recommended several measures to provide a swift
hand-off between incoming and outgoing national security teams during a
change in presidential administrations, and this amendment reflects
those recommendations.
First, it directs the outgoing administration to provide the
President-elect with a detailed, classified summary of critical
operational threats, including major military or covert operations and
pending decisions on the use of military force. The most important
member of the national security apparatus is the Commander in Chief.
This provision will help the President-elect begin focusing on these
issues, and considering any imminent high stakes decisions that might
need to be made, well in advance of the day he or she takes office.
The amendment also includes several measures to help assure that the
President-elect will have a qualified team of national security
advisors in place early in the new administration and who are able to
hit the ground running.
It calls on the President-Elect to submit the names of likely high
level national security personnel for security clearances as soon as
possible after the election, and directs the appropriate Federal agency
or agencies to complete the necessary investigations for those
clearances as quickly as possible, preferably before the inauguration.
The amendment also urges the administration to submit nominees for
the top national security positions by Inauguration Day and, if it does
so, urges the Senate to act on those nominations within 30 days
wherever possible. I think this language is a useful reminder to both
the executive branch and the Senate that we should act to fill these
positions with all deliberate speed--mindful that delay has costs, but
dedicated as well to careful selection and review of nominees for these
sensitive positions.
Finally, the amendment would allow major party candidates to seek
security clearances for prospective transaction team members prior to
the election, with the goal of having those clearances available the
day after the election.
I should note that the underlying bill already incorporates a related
recommendation by the Commission to consolidate security clearance
investigations in one agency and encourage reciprocity among agencies
with respect to clearances. This should help streamline what is now a
frustratingly balkanized system for determining who can have access to
sensitive information.
We do not include the Commission's recommendation to eliminate Senate
confirmation for national security nominees below the Executive
Schedule III pay grade. This category would include many Assistant
Secretaries with critical policymaking responsibilities. Given the need
for strong Congressional oversight of the intelligence community and
other national security operations, it does not seem wise to remove
this important layer of Congressional review and accountability.
I believe this amendment helps ensure that we do not loosen our
footing in the war on terriorism at moments of presidential transition.
I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I join Senator Lieberman in commending
Senator McCain for offering this amendment. It would make several
changes to the Presidential transition process, changes that are
consistent with the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
The Governmental Affairs Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Voinovich,
held a hearing on this issue at which two of the Commissioners, Fred
Fielding and Jamie Gorelick, discussed how the current transition
process does not serve our country well in the handing over, the
transitioning of important national security decisions from one
administration to another. One reason is that it is such a slow process
to get the new administration's team in place.
I believe this amendment would greatly improve the process. I know of
no opposition to it. I urge adoption of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on amendment? If not,
the question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The amendment (No. 3806) was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Amendment No. 3807
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask
for its immediate consideration.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain] proposes an amendment
numbered 3807.
Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be
dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in Today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, this amendment may be subject to more
debate and discussion and may require a recorded vote. I intend to
propose this amendment, discuss it, and recognize that there will be
further discussion about this amendment.
This amendment addresses the terrorist travel and screening sections
of the 9/11 Commission report. Contained in this amendment are the
recommendations found on pages 383-390
[[Page S10010]]
of the 9/11 Commission report. The text of this amendment is nearly
identical to Title VI of S. 2774, which was introduced September 7.
In addition to working with the Commission on this amendment, Senator
Lieberman and I have sought the advice and counsel from as broad a
range of interested parties as possible. Meetings have been held to
address the concerns of many of the interested groups. While some may
prefer that we do not address these provisions, that is simply not an
option. We must act one way or the other on all of the recommendations
in the Commission report.
Despite the hard work by the people at the Department of Homeland
Security, it is apparent that our Government has just begun to carry
out some of the reforms necessary to prevent terrorists from entering
our country. Much remains to be done to target terrorist travel,
combine our multiple screening systems and ensure that identification
documents used to enter this country or to be used as feeder documents
are trustworthy.
Additionally, more must be done to improve the training we provide to
our immigration and consular officers. These people represent the first
line of defense in the security of our borders. We must ensure that
these officers have access to the best training, technology and
information available.
According to the Commission Report:
Better technology and training to detect terrorist travel
documents are the most important immediate steps to reduce
America's vulnerability to clandestine entry.
By restricting terrorist access to travel documents, we increase the
difficulty to travel into the United States. Our legislation aims to
address this pressing issue by requiring the Secretary of Homeland
Security to work with multiple Government agencies to develop a unified
strategy for combining terrorist travel intelligence, operations and
law enforcement into a cohesive effort to intercept terrorists, find
terrorist facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility domestically
and internationally. All agencies responsible for guarding our Nation
against terrorist attack must be on the same page in our approach to
keeping terrorists out.
In order to efficiently screen those entering the United States, the
multiple terrorist screening systems already in place must be
integrated. Our legislation would require the Secretary of Homeland
Security to develop a comprehensive screening system that brings
together an integrated network of screening points that includes the
Nation's border security systems, transportation system, and critical
infrastructure and facilities. The Department of Homeland Security will
begin to address this issue as they carry out the orders given in HSPD-
11; however, our amendment represents a more comprehensive approach to
uniting our various screening systems.
Fundamental to increasing the security of our borders is the quick
and full implementation of US VISIT. I, like many of my colleagues,
have been troubled by the pace in which this system has been rolled
out. This legislation requires the Department of Homeland Security to
develop and implement a plan for the accelerated and full
implementation of the US VISIT system. Additionally, the amendment
directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to implement a single,
consolidated program designed to expedite the travel of previously
screened travelers across the borders of the United States.
Lastly, this amendment would implement 9/11 Commission's
recommendation that the Federal Government set standards for the
issuance of birth certificates, driver's licenses, and other sources of
identification. It has been well documented that many of the hijackers
and their associates used counterfeit social security numbers and other
fraudulent documents to obtain legal driver's licenses or State-issued
ID cards--or were able to simply but fake ID's--which they then used to
open bank accounts, rent cars, board airplanes, and attend flight
schools. The ease with which these basic documents of American life can
be counterfeited or obtained fraudulently is clearly a gaping hole in
homeland security.
Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, at least half the
States have passed legislation to tighten up their eligibility
requirements and procedures for issuing driver's licenses and State ID
cards. These initiatives are commendable and have improved security,
but the report of the 9/11 Commission, and numerous reports by Federal
agencies and other organizations have all concluded that additional
measures must be taken to improve the security of driver's licenses and
other forms of identification.
One study deserves special note. Over a 10-month period in 2002 and
2003, the Government Accountability Office--GAO--conducted an
undercover investigation of State driver's license practices and
procedures, visiting seven States--Arizona, New York, Michigan, South
Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, California and the District of Columbia.
In every jurisdiction, GAO investigators were able to obtain a driver's
license or State-issued ID using fraudulent documents, including fake
birth certificates and fake licenses from other States.
Our amendment would require birth certificates and driver's licenses
to meet new minimum Federal standards in order to be accepted by a
Federal agency for any official purpose. Minimum standards would be
established for proof and verification of identity by the applicant,
and to make the documents themselves more resistant to counterfeiting
and tampering. The amendment also would require minimum standards for
the processing of applications to address a widely recognized and
growing problem of fraud within the offices that issue licenses and
birth certificates, including the Arizona Department of
Transportation's Motor Vehicle Division. The amendment would authorize
grants to the States to assist them in meeting the new standards and to
help States computerize and match their birth and death records.
To improve the security of social security numbers, the amendment
would restrict the number of replacement cards that can be issued to an
individual; require verification of records used to obtain an original
social security card; and add death, fraud, and work authorization
indicators to the social security number verification system. DHS and
the Social Security Administration would also be tasked to take other
steps to safeguard social security cards from counterfeiting and
tampering, and increase enforcement against the fraudulent use of
social security cards.
Today, incredibly, the Social Security Administration will issue any
individual up to 52 replacement cards a year, a practice GAO has cited
as increasing the potential for misuse and fraud. Roughly two-thirds of
the 12.4 million social security cards issued by SSA in 2002 were
replacement cards. I am also incredulous that the system SSA uses to
verify social security numbers does not include notations for death,
fraud, or work authorization. Employers often use the system to verify
the social security number of new employees. Because there is no
notation on the records for death, a social security number for a
decreased individual used fraudulently by another person will be
verified as valid.
This amendment would not mandate a national ID card. It would not
infringe upon the right of the States to determine who can get a
driver's license. It would not establish a national database with
information on all drivers. And it would prohibit the establishment of
a single design for driver's licenses and birth certificates. We
believe it fulfills the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission without
trampling on States' rights, privacy, or civil liberties.
We must face the fact, however, that rightly or wrongly, the driver's
license is the basic form of ID in the United States. We use it to
board airplanes, to purchase alcohol and cigarettes, to cash checks,
and for a host of other purposes. We cannot ignore that the security of
driver's licenses and State-issued ID cards affect homeland security.
And we cannot ignore that driver's licenses can and indeed have been
used as an enabler for terrorism. There is a legitimate Federal role in
establishing minimum standards for these documents.
As the 9/11 Commission noted in its report, ``At many entry points to
vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources
of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are
who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists.''
Making these documents more
[[Page S10011]]
secure will help make our country more secure, and help prevent another
terrorist attack on our country.
In closing, this amendment was carefully crafted to translate the
commission recommendations into legislative language. I applaud the
work of the commission and fully believe that the reforms they suggest
in this section of their report will go a long way towards increasing
the security and safety of all Americans.
The Commission released their report in late July. Their
recommendations are taking on a life of their own. The Commission
report is the No. 1 nonfiction bestseller on both the New York Times
and the Washington Post bestsellers list. The public is taking their
recommendations very seriously, and so too should we. The people will
hold us accountable for our failure if we don't enact these
recommendations.
I would like to point out a couple of additional facts.
Today, each State has a different set of requirements for driver's
licenses. Some States allow more than 30 different documents to be used
by applicants as proof of identity. How in the world can an employee at
the department of motor vehicles be expected to verify the authenticity
of the applicant?
I am amazed what some States will accept as proof of identity in
supporting documents. For example, one State allows a picture from a
high school yearbook to be used as one form of identification. Another
State allows the school report card to be used as long as it is less
than 1 year old. A third allows a snowmobile permit to be used as a
form of identification. Several States allow permits for concealed
weapons to be used in getting a driver's license. One State still has
licenses without a photograph of the license holder.
I recognize that we are on very interesting ground on this issue. On
the one hand, we are trying to balance people's civil liberties. We are
trying to make sure everyone has a right to privacy. We are trying to
make sure there is no national database which would be used to follow
people around the country. At the same time, if someone can
fraudulently obtain a driver's license and that driver's license is
used in obtaining access to places where acts of terror can be
committed, we have to try to see that does not happen.
What we have done with this amendment is try to carefully balance the
requirement for some better way of assuring identity and at the same
time not infringe on Americans' civil liberties. That is why I believe
this amendment probably will be the subject of some debate and
discussion and will probably require a recorded vote.
If somebody has a better idea, I would like very much to hear it, but
I do not know that there is a better idea. We have done extensive
research, have had extensive discussions and an extensive amount of
investigation building on the 9/11 Commission's findings and
recommendations.
It seems to me that this is a reasonable approach. But to have the
status quo in America where people can easily and fraudulently acquire
identification which allows them then to be able to commit acts of
sabotage, espionage, or terror and risk the lives of others is not a
status quo by which I think we can abide.
I thank my colleagues for their consideration. I look forward to the
debate.
If the distinguished manager would perhaps illuminate as to how she
would like to handle this particular amendment, I would be agreeable to
whatever the manager's procedure would be.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, once again, I thank the Senator from
Arizona for bringing up another series of recommendations made by the
9/11 Commission.
This is a very broad amendment. There is much in it which I support,
and I agree with the Senator that there is a significant problem with
fraudulent documents, including driver's licenses. Nevertheless,
several groups, including the National Governors Association, the
National Council of State Legislatures, and the American Civil
Liberties Union, have expressed concerns regarding the degree to which
some of the provisions in this amendment would infringe on the powers
traditionally exercised by the States to set standards in the area of
driver's licenses, for example. Therefore, I would like to suggest to
the Senator that we continue working on these issues to see if we can
resolve some of these concerns and that we set this amendment aside for
the time being to allow for that.
Mr. McCAIN. I thank the manager. At this time I will not be proposing
a further amendment.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I could get the attention of the manager
of the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Maine yield the floor?
Ms. COLLINS. I yield the floor temporarily.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have a number of Members in and out of
the Chamber who want to know when they can offer amendments and/or
speak. Senator Cornyn is here, Senator Feinstein, Senator Lautenberg is
here. I wonder if at least for these three can we get a queue set up so
they will know when they can be expected to speak.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I suggest, based on the conversations I
have had with all who are present in the Senate now, we first yield to
the Senator from California, who is going to discuss her proposal while
we are continuing to work at the staff level on the language of her
amendment; that we then go to the Senator from Texas, who has two
amendments he would like to discuss--again, we are still working with
the Senator from Texas--and we then proceed to the amendment Senator
Lautenberg has proposed.
Mr. REID. If I could be recognized to further this dialog, I wonder
if we could then have a consent agreement that the Senator from
California be recognized for 10 minutes, the Senator from Texas be
recognized on his two amendments for no more than 15 minutes, and the
Senator from New Jersey would be recognized after that.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from California be
recognized for 10 minutes; following that, the Senator from Texas be
recognized for 15 minutes; and Senator Lautenberg be recognized for 15
minutes to offer his amendment.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, that unanimous consent agreement would
work well from my perspective.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. COLLINS. We will now then go to the Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Amendment No. 3718
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and ranking
member of the committee. I have indicated I am withdrawing one
amendment, No. 3719, which clarifies the tactical intelligence part of
the bill. I don't believe that is necessary. It has been withdrawn. I
am also withdrawing amendment No. 3715 to strike the prohibition on co-
location.
At this time I call up and then set aside amendment No. 3718.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein] proposes an
amendment numbered 3718.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment
be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To improve the intelligence functions of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation)
On page 4, line 4, insert ``foreign intelligence'' after
``means''.
On page 4, strike lines 5 through 16 and insert the
following:
(2) The term ``foreign intelligence'' means information
gathered, and activities conducted, relating to the
capabilities, intentions, or activities of foreign
governments or elements thereof, foreign organizations, or
foreign persons, or international terrorist activities.
(3) The term ``counterintelligence'' means--
(A) foreign intelligence gathered, and activities
conducted, to protect against espionage, other intelligence
activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted by or on
behalf of foreign governments or elements thereof, foreign
organizations, or foreign persons, or international terrorist
activities; and
(B) information gathered, and activities conducted, to
prevent the interference by or disruption of foreign
intelligence activities of the United States by foreign
government or elements thereof, foreign organizations, or
foreign persons, or international terrorists.
On page 6, line 12, strike ``counterintelligence or''.
[[Page S10012]]
On page 7, beginning on line 5, strike ``the Office of
Intelligence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation'' and
insert ``the Directorate of Intelligence of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation''.
On page 8, between lines 6 and 7, insert the following:
(8) The term ``counterespionage'' means counterintelligence
designed to detect, destroy, neutralize, exploit, or prevent
espionage activities though identification, penetration,
deception, and prosecution (in accordance with the criminal
law) of individuals, groups, or organizations conducting, or
suspected of conducting, espionage activities.
(9) The term ``intelligence operation'' means activities
conducted to facilitate the gathering of foreign intelligence
or the conduct of covert action (as that term is defined in
section 503(e) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50
U.S.C. 413b(e)).
(10) The term ``collection and analysis requirements''
means any subject, whether general or specific, upon which
there is a need for the collection of intelligence
information or the production of intelligence.
(11) The term ``collection and analysis tasking'' means the
assignment or direction of an individual or activity to
perform in a specified way to achieve an intelligence
objective or goal.
(12) The term ``certified intelligence officer'' means a
professional employee of an element of the intelligence
community engaged in intelligence activities who meets
standards and qualifications set by the National Intelligence
Director.
On page 120, beginning on line 17, strike ``, subject to
the direction and control of the President,''.
On page 123, between lines 6 and 7, insert the following:
(e) Discharge of Improvements.--(1) The Director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation shall carry out subsections
(b) through (d) through the Executive Assistant Director of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation for Intelligence or such
other official as the Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation designates as the head of the Directorate of
Intelligence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(2) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
shall carry out subsections (b) through (d) under the joint
direction, supervision, and control of the Attorney General
and the National Intelligence Director.
(3) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
shall report to both the Attorney General and the National
Intelligence Director regarding the activities of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation under subsections (b) through (d).
On page 123, line 7, strike ``(e)'' and insert ``(f)''.
On page 123, line 17, strike ``(f)'' and insert ``(g)''.
On page 126, between lines 20 and 21, insert the following:
SEC. 206. DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU
OF INVESTIGATION.
(a) Directorate of Intelligence of Federal Bureau of
Investigation.--The element of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation known as of the date of the enactment of this
Act is hereby redesignated as the Directorate of Intelligence
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(b) Head of Directorate.--The head of the Directorate of
Intelligence shall be the Executive Assistant Director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation for Intelligence or such
other official within the Federal Bureau of Investigation as
the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall
designate.
(c) Responsibilities.--The Directorate of Intelligence
shall be responsible for the following:
(1) The discharge by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of
all national intelligence programs, projects, and activities
of the Bureau.
(2) The discharge by the Bureau of the requirements in
section 105B of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C.
403-5b).
(3) The oversight of Bureau field intelligence operations.
(4) Human source development and management by the Bureau.
(5) Collection by the Bureau against nationally-determined
intelligence requirements.
(6) Language services.
(7) Strategic analysis.
(8) Intelligence program and budget management.
(9) The intelligence workforce.
(10) Any other responsibilities specified by the Director
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or specified by law.
(d) Staff.--The Directorate of Intelligence shall consist
of such staff as the Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation considers appropriate for the activities of the
Directorate.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I reiterate my strong support for this bill and the
balance that has been struck by the committee in the drafting of this
bill. It strikes the right balance. I am pleased to be an original
cosponsor.
In my remarks on Monday, I mentioned I was going to be submitting an
amendment concerning the relationship between the FBI foreign
intelligence functions and the national intelligence director. I thank
both the majority and the ranking member staff for working with my
staff to work out this amendment. It will be worked out and it will be
the chairman's intent to present this amendment for unanimous consent.
However, I will clearly state the intent of the amendment. The FBI
functions as part of the intelligence community in the gathering,
analyzing, and disseminating of information about the plans,
intentions, and capabilities of our foreign enemies, including, most
importantly, counter-terrorists. That effort, in my view, should be
under the overall supervision of the national intelligence director.
Let me be clear, though, this amendment does not mean the national
intelligence director should run or control operations inside the
United States. When the FBI, under the operational control of the FBI
director and the Attorney General, works as a foreign intelligence
agency, it should do so as part of that community under the general
guidance of the national intelligence director.
An excellent example of this issue is now part of the extensive
record of structural intelligence failure prior to the September 11
attacks, the way the intelligence community handled, or I should say
mishandled, the so-called Phoenix document information and the
Moussaoui information. Here we had in two different places FBI agents
acquiring factual information which is of clear foreign intelligence
value: that foreign individuals, associated with foreign terrorist
organizations, may have been learning to fly passenger planes. At the
very same time, the rest of the intelligence community had information
that al-Qaida was preparing to strike against the United States and
also that there had been past consideration of the use of airplanes in
an attack methodology.
Putting together these two disparate pieces of information is the
business of an effective intelligence community. But it did not happen,
in part, I believe, because the FBI part of the communication was not
linked up with the Central Intelligence Agency and the National
Security Agency parts of the community.
The bill before the Senate goes far toward remedying this by placing
the FBI foreign intelligence elements under the overall supervision of
the national intelligence director. I am concerned the bill presently
contains ambiguities that, if left in, will cause confusion in the
future. That is because the bill incorporates, with no change, current
law which defines the role of the FBI intelligence activities. However,
that law is confusing, it is internally inconsistent, and I believe it
is the source of many of the problems which beset the FBI as part of
the intelligence community.
This amendment does three basic things to fix this. I want the record
to reflect that. It clarifies critical definitions in the law. It makes
a small alteration in the current law to make clear that the term of
art ``counterintelligence'' is a subset of foreign intelligence, not an
alternative to foreign intelligence.
Second, it makes clear that when the FBI is engaged in law
enforcement, it is not part of the national intelligence program or
under the NID supervision, but removes the word ``counterintelligence''
from this so-called carve-out language. This is critical because this
language in existing law was the confusing foundation upon which much
of the wall between the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community
was built.
This amendment creates a directorate of intelligence in the FBI. As
written presently, the bill places the activities of the Office of
Intelligence of the FBI clearly within the national intelligence
program. This is good, but because the Office of Intelligence has no
statutory basis, it could be rendered useless in the future if that
office is removed or changed by a future FBI director.
This amendment renames the office the Directorate of Intelligence and
gives it a clear basis in law.
Finally, this amendment introduces some clarifying language to ensure
that the section governing ``FBI improvements'' is read to ensure that
these improvements come as part of a larger, coordinated effort, led by
the national intelligence director to improve the standards and
practices of the entire intelligence community.
It does this by ensuring that the FBI Director's improvement program
is
[[Page S10013]]
guided by the national intelligence director. And it defines a
``certified intelligence officer''--that is a term introduced for the
first time in the underlying bill--to make sure that ``certification''
means meeting intelligence community standards, developed by the
national intelligence director.
The bottom line is that the FBI's intelligence functions must be part
of a larger effort, guided by a strong leader, and linked carefully
with all the other agencies and Departments in the intelligence
community.
There are still two parts of this amendment that are being worked out
by staff. I appreciate their hard work very much and thank them. I also
would like to thank the chair and the ranking member for their
cooperation. I am very hopeful this amendment can later be adopted by
unanimous consent.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3718 be set
aside for the present time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank both managers of the bill, the
chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee and the ranking member,
Senator Lieberman, for the great work they are doing on this bill. I
know it is not easy, but it is vital that we achieve the kinds of
reforms the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence and others, over the years, have said would help make our
Nation stronger.
Yesterday, I proposed an amendment to this bill which dealt with a
relatively narrow area but one I think is certainly relevant to what
the 9/11 Commission recommended and, indeed, to the ultimate purpose of
making America a safer place. Unfortunately, it is one that tends to be
overlooked. That does not have to do with our physical security,
potential cause of death and injury to the American people on our own
soil but, rather, a body blow to our economic security.
Indeed, one of the consequences of 9/11 was not just the terrible
loss of life and injury but also the disruption to our economy, which
resulted in chaos and many people being laid off work because of the
economic disruption.
This amendment had to do with cyber-security. I know it is something
we do not think about very much but, indeed, now that we are so
dependent upon computers for our way of life, to enhance our
productivity, to communicate with one another, to do business, we
somehow perhaps take for granted that they will always be secure. And
particularly when it comes to our water utilities, our communications
systems, our transportation systems, and financial networks, there is a
very real danger that cyber-terrorists, those who would try to attack
and dismantle and disrupt our financial, transportation,
communications, and utility networks could wreak a terrible blow to the
American economy.
Now, my interest in this subject dates back several years to when I
convened a panel in Texas, the State Infrastructure Protection Advisory
Committee, as attorney general. We met hundreds of hours with both
private and public sector participants, as well as people in the
academic community, to try to figure out what we could do, No. 1, to
identify what the problem was, and what we could do to make it better.
Well, what we found is that in many instances because of liability
concerns, because of concerns about trying to achieve and maintain
public confidence in one's business or product, that the private sector
was much better prepared than the Government was for cyber-attacks.
I am pleased to say that Congress has begun to work to address this
critical need for security in our computer networks by passing the
Federal Information Security Management Act, or FISMA. Its purpose is
to improve the information security of our computer networks and
support Federal agencies by requiring top-to-bottom agency planning for
information security and compliance with mandatory standards and
benchmarks developed by the National Institute of Standards and
Technology.
FISMA also requires Federal agencies to conduct an annual evaluation
of their computer security programs and to submit an effectiveness
report to the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB.
For several years, the House Government Reform Subcommittee, chaired
by Congressman Adam Putnam, the Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census Subcommittee, has been
working with the General Accounting Office to produce a report card for
24 Federal agencies to see how well they are complying with
congressional intent as expressed in FISMA, the Federal Information
Security Management Act.
What I would like to show you, Mr. President and my colleagues, is
the report card that has been generated because I think it is
indicative of the problems we have had and, indeed, the problems we
still have, and how modest our improvement has been.
Indeed, you can see from this chart showing the Federal computer
security report card, issued on December 9, 2003, that overall
Governmentwide, Government agencies, when it came to security of their
computer systems, got a D, not a grade any one of us would be proud to
take home. But I must say, as bad as a D is, in 2003, it is better than
the F that many agencies got in 2002, before Congress began to get
involved in trying to upgrade the security of our computer networks.
But you can see, some of these agencies have improved from an F to a
D. Indeed, the Department of Defense in 2002 had an F. In 2003, it got
a D. The Small Business Administration went from an F to a C-. But we
have some--the Department of the Interior, the Department of
Agriculture, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the
Department of State--that in 2002 got an F and in 2003 got an F.
So I am not sure Congress is as successful as we should be or as we
would like to be in getting the attention of the people who work in
those agencies and who should be committed to carrying out this
information security provision and protecting our Government computer
systems from the potential of cyber-attack and the potential disruption
to our economy.
But I want to say in conclusion on that matter how much I appreciate
the willingness of the Senator from Maine, the distinguished chair of
the Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Senator from Connecticut,
the distinguished ranking member of that committee, to work with us and
consider this amendment and, indeed, to agree that the amendment should
go forward because I think this is an easily overlooked but,
nevertheless, a very important part of our security.
Mr. President, I have two other amendments that have not yet been
filed that I will obviously not call up but I would like to just
preview for my colleagues. I have talked, also, to the chairman of the
bill and the ranking member. We are going to continue to work with them
and their staffs to try to make sure these matters can be worked out,
if that is at all possible, much in the same manner we worked out this
cyber-security provision.
These matters have to do with other recommendations of the 9/11
Commission. Here again, the job that is before us is vast, indeed, as
reflected by the 41 different recommendations of the 9/11 Commission
and the need for intelligence reform reflected in the bill before us.
But perhaps it is because of the perspective I have as a Senator from
the State of Texas, which has the longest border of any State with the
country of Mexico--and, of course, beyond Mexico on to Central America
and South America--the source of many concerns relative to human
smuggling and to enforcement of our immigration and other laws related
to those issues.
First, we intend to offer an amendment to increase the penalties that
can be assessed upon a successful prosecution for the crime of human
smuggling. As the 9/11 Commission said: There is evidence to suggest
that, since 1999, human smugglers have facilitated the travel of
terrorists associated with more than a dozen extremist groups and that
human smugglers clearly have the credentials necessary to aid terrorist
travel. They also noted that many countries, because of their lack of
security, make human smuggling an attractive avenue for terrorists in
need of travel facilitation.
[[Page S10014]]
In terms of our southern border, Under Secretary of the Department of
Homeland Security Asa Hutchinson has told me and others that there is
no documented instance of a terrorist actually coming across our
southern border, but the truth is, it is very porous. If the motivation
is high enough and the price is right, the same person who can be
smuggled across the border for economic reasons because they want to
come to work in this country outside of our laws, someone from a
country other than Mexico, perhaps an Islamic extremist, somebody who
wanted to take advantage of that porous border would, indeed, hire a
human smuggler to bring them across our southern border into the United
States and do us harm.
It is important that our Federal policy and our criminal laws reflect
both the strongest possible concern about this issue and express the
will of Congress that human smugglers will be punished in a way
commensurate with the threat they pose to the American people.
The truth is, we cannot ignore this issue and believe that it is just
related to people who want to come here and work. Money talks. And
where human smugglers exist, they will go to the highest bidder to
deliver their services in a way that could indeed deliver terrorists on
to our soil. That relates to one amendment on which we will continue to
work with the distinguished chairman and ranking member and their
staffs to see if we can work out an agreement.
The next amendment relates to another provision in the 9/11
Commission report. The Commission, under the subheading ``Immigration
Law and Enforcement,'' said:
There is a growing role for state and local law enforcement
agencies. They need more training and work with federal
agencies so they can cooperate more effectively with those
federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects.
Again, on page 383 of the 9/11 Commission report, the Commission
said:
The challenge for national security in an age of terrorism
is to prevent the very few people who may pose overwhelming
risks from entering or remaining in the United States
undetected.
This amendment, which we intend to file and call up later--and we
will continue to work with the managers of the bill on it--has to do
with the authority of State and local law enforcement authorities to
detain a certain narrow class of persons who are illegally in the
country. Those relate to what I would think are three noncontroversial
categories: Those who are absconders--in other words, 80,000 felons who
are in the country illegally and running from justice. We don't have
the capacity to know exactly where they are now because we have,
unfortunately, ignored the crisis in our immigration enforcement for
many years.
Indeed, more than that, there are approximately, according to some
guesses, between 300,000 and 400,000 people under final orders of
deportation in the United States, and we simply don't have the Federal
authorities sufficient to locate them and enforce final orders of
deportation.
This bill would narrowly address those who are under final orders of
removal, those who have signed voluntary departure agreements, and
those who have revoked visas. It would not, as some previous
legislation that has been filed both here and in the House, offer an
opportunity for local and State law enforcement officials to enforce a
whole broad range of our immigration laws. This relates to a narrow
group who are absconders from justice, including convicted felons and
others, and reaffirms the authority of State and local law enforcement
both to enforce those violations in the normal course of carrying out
their duties and will make sure that we get the army of additional law
enforcement authorities to assist the current Federal authorities who
are mainly located along our border region when it comes to our border
security and homeland security interests.
Finally, this bill would direct the Department of Homeland Security
to take custody within 48 hours of these persons so detained by State
or local officials or else pay the locality to detain these particular
class of aliens. Currently, the process is that once someone has been
identified and perhaps detained for a violation of one of a host of our
immigration laws, the common practice is to tell them to come back for
a future hearing for deportation. It is no surprise to any of us that
about 90 percent of them melt into the landscape and are never heard
from again.
Simply put, we need to have law enforcement authorities at all
levels--national, State, and local--join forces, as the 9/11 Commission
recommended, to deal with this certain narrow class of people who are
under final orders of deportation from our country, those who have
signed voluntary departure agreements, and those who have had their
visas revoked. These are people who have exercised any right they may
have to due process and should have no further recourse.
I look forward to working with the manager and the ranking member and
their staffs to try to see if we can work this out.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his
comments. We look forward to working with him on his two additional
amendments. We were pleased to be able to pass his first amendment to
this bill last night. We appreciate his cooperation.
In consultation with the Senator from Nevada, the Democratic whip, I
ask unanimous consent that the consent request previously entered into
be altered so that Senator Byrd would be recognized for up to 25
minutes prior to Senator Lautenberg offering his amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, Senator Byrd likely will not use that much
time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from West Virginia.
People Deserve the Truth
Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. I also thank the distinguished Senator,
Ms. Collins, and our distinguished whip, Mr. Reid, who is always to be
found on the floor or near it, always ready to assist us, any of us on
both sides of the aisle. I thank the distinguished manager of the bill
on this side of the aisle for his diligence, for his hard work always
in his committee and outside his committee. He is ever ready.
Mr. President, I take the floor on a point of personal privilege on
behalf of the people of West Virginia.
Growing up, we all heard the legend--which was probably mythical--of
young George Washington. As the story goes, his father, after seeing a
tree chopped down on their land, approached young George and asked if
he was responsible. The story continues that the boy responded:
``Father, I cannot tell a lie. I cut down that cherry tree.''
The boy who grew up to be President knew the value of truth.
Unfortunately, however, when it comes to Presidential politics these
days, telling the truth is seriously out of style.
That point was brought home sharply to me last weekend when I
traveled to West Virginia, where I learned of a scurrilous campaign
being waged in West Virginia to scare voters--think of it--to scare
West Virginia voters into registering and voting Republican.
Incredibly, the weapon being brandished is the Holy Bible itself. If
ever there were one book that should never be used for political gain,
if ever there were one book that should never be the subject of lies
and deception, it is the Bible, which I hold in my hand.
Over my 52 years of serving in the Congress, there have been
occasions--few in number--when I brought the Holy Bible on the floor of
the body in which I have spoken. I don't claim to be a minister. I
would not be worthy of that title. But this is the Holy Bible. It is
the King James version, first published in 1611 under the reign of King
James I. I will only read this Bible at my house; I don't read any
other Bible. Again I say, if ever there were a book that should never,
ever be used for political gain, that should not be the subject of
deception on the part of politicians, or anybody else, it is the Bible.
Yet that is exactly what is happening today. I found, last weekend,
that it was happening in West Virginia. I read somewhere that it was
also happening in Arkansas.
Two weeks ago, the Republican National Committee sent a mass mailing
[[Page S10015]]
to West Virginia suggesting that liberals--in other words, everyone but
Republicans, I suppose--are out to ban the Bible. Get that: Out to ban
the Bible. Can you imagine? They are out to ban the Bible. What a
ridiculous claim. It is foolish on its face; it is absolutely
ridiculous on its face. It is a flatout, no-doubt-about-it, silly,
juvenile, sophomoric charge. The Republican National Committee is
spreading this tripe--it is putrid, this tripe--to smear Democrats. The
President ought to demand that the Republican National Committee
apologize to the people of West Virginia.
The hypocrisy of the Republican National Committee's desperation
tactic is an insult--an insult--to the intelligence of voters in my
State. The ninth of the Ten Commandments, passed down from God to
Moses, states:
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
What could be more false? What could be more false than an
advertisement implying that so-called liberals want to ban the Bible? I
never knew I was a liberal. When I came to this Senate, I was to the
right of Barry Goldwater, and I always considered myself to be a
conservative in most things--certainly most things, other than matters
affecting the economy. The political hacks behind that blasphemous
flyer should be required to reread the Book of Exodus. There is no free
pass from the Commandments in an election year. They are still there.
There is no waiving of the Commandments in an election year.
All West Virginians, from the northern tip of the State to the
southern tip, from the east to the west, should be insulted by such
dirty tricks on the part of the Republican National Committee. Paid
henchmen who talk about Democratic politicians who are eager to ban the
Bible obviously must think that West Virginians are gullible, ignorant
fools. They must think that West Virginians just bounced off the turnip
truck. They must think that spreading nonsense about banning the Bible
is a sure-fire way to get votes in an election year. But the people of
West Virginia are smarter than that. We are not country bumpkins who
will swallow whatever garbage some high-priced political consultant
makes up. West Virginians are smarter than that, and they deserve an
apology from the Republican National Committee for this insulting
mailing.
Here it is. Take a look at this. Those of you who are viewing this
Senate floor through those electronic lenses, look at this: ``The
Bible, banned. This will be West Virginia.''
I suppose the same flyer was used in Arkansas, with a few words
changed from West Virginia. Here it is again: ``if you don't vote--if
you stay away from the polls--the Bible, banned.''
Such tripe. That is what West Virginians think of that. As a Senator,
I am appalled by the Republican National Committee's utter ignorance of
the Constitution.
I am appalled, let me say it again, by the Republican National
Committee's utter ignorance of this Constitution, the Constitution of
the United States, which I hold in my hand. Our Constitution--let me
say to the people of West Virginia and the people of Arkansas--our
Constitution protects this Bible. So never fear, never fear that the
Bible will be banned.
The first amendment begins:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . .
And yet this flier, paid for by the Republican National Committee,
features a picture of the Bible, just as I have shown Senators--let me
show it again--with the word ``banned'' across its cover. The people of
West Virginia should not have to put up with such trash. It is a crass
insult to the people and to their faith.
Iraq
But false claims seem to be the modus operandi in politics these
days. The truth gets tailored to fit the occasion. Nowhere is this more
evident than on the subject of Iraq. Whether it be weapons of mass
destruction or an imminent threat or mushroom clouds, the reason for
the war changes faster than the weather. Talk about flip-flops. There
you have it.
The White House said that our troops would be welcomed with flowers,
and yet our soldiers saw mortar attacks and suicide bombings. The White
House said the world would be with us in the war and the reconstruction
in Iraq, but the coalition of the willing was never that large and has
become the coalition of the wilting. How can the American people trust
a White House that cannot get its stories straight? The flipping and
the flopping from this slippery fish crowd is a sight to behold.
Even now, the White House is trying desperately to portray Iraq as a
nation that is getting back on its feet. Listen to the September 29
Washington Post. The headline: ``Growing Pessimism on Iraq. Doubts
Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies.''
Let me read just the first few paragraphs:
A growing number of career professionals within national
security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much
worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is
being expressed in public by top Bush administration
officials, according to former and current government
officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence
officials at the CIA and the Departments of State and
Defense.
While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals,
officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the
CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer
corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread
than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.
People at the CIA ``are mad at the policy in Iraq because
it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and
deeper and deeper,'' said one former intelligence officer who
maintains contact with CIA officials. ``There's no obvious
way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed
state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak
governments.''
Yesterday's New York Times reports--what I just read was from
yesterday's Washington Post--yesterday's New York Times reports that
there have been 2,300 attacks by insurgents. They have been directed
against civilians and military targets in Iraq in a pattern that
sprawls over nearly every major population center outside the Kurdish
north.
So there you have it--an average of 80 attacks against our forces
each day. The situation in Iraq is far more dire and the future far
more uncertain than White House officials are ever going to admit, and
so the lives of America's sons and daughters are on the line in Iraq,
and still we hear happy talk about success right over the horizon.
Misleading scenarios about Iraq or ludicrous nonsense about banning
the Bible insult the values and the intelligence of West Virginians and
the millions of other Americans who share the beliefs of West
Virginians. Such stuff must not be tolerated. The people of this
country know about honesty, and they must start demanding it from their
leaders.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
West Virginia for his remarks today. I have tremendous respect for his
belief and his knowledge of the Constitution. I share that belief and I
only hope my knowledge can at some time reach the level his is in terms
of understanding and being able to expound on the Constitution that is
such a treasure and a blessing for this country.
More importantly, I share in his belief and his execution in the
teachings of the Bible. Like the Senator from West Virginia, I try very
hard each and every day to follow the Ten Commandments, which are a
cornerstone in the faith that we both practice in our Christian
religion. I try hard to witness my faith each and every day in my
actions and in my words. Among the Commandments, ``thou shalt not bear
false witness'' is one I work desperately on. In our modern language,
we know it as ``do not tell lies,'' something we were taught by our
parents and we were taught by our faith.
Now, I have not been in public service nearly as long as the Senator
from West Virginia, but I have been around long enough to know that
people say things in campaigns that come awfully close to breaking that
Commandment. I have learned to turn the other cheek and brush aside the
little white lies of political commercials and direct mail pieces. I do
not know if brushing aside and turning that cheek at this juncture is
the most appropriate thing to do, because I think we find ourselves at
a time when that has definitely been taken to the extreme.
The mailing the Republican National Committee sent to the people
living in my home State of Arkansas, as well as
[[Page S10016]]
those in the State of West Virginia, goes beyond any political smear I
have witnessed. I hope my colleagues in this great body, as members of
that committee, would denounce such abusive action because I think it
is completely inappropriate. To insinuate that members of the
Democratic Party, simply because they are Democrats, would ban the
Bible is absolutely absurd. It is outrageous, and it is outrageous that
we in this Nation would stand for that.
I am a Democrat. I was raised in a Democratic family. But I also grew
up with the opportunity and encouragement to find my own belief and to
reach out and find out, Who am I? What do I stand for? What is it that
I want to contribute to this great world?
I realized, not only as a Democrat but at a very early age, that I
was first and foremost a Christian. I take that very seriously. I take
my witness and my commitment to my faith as a part of my everyday walk.
I try hard to walk my talk each and every day. I fight hard, both
personally and professionally, every day to fulfill my witness to my
faith, to care for those who are less fortunate than I am, to reach out
and be kind to those who need kindness, to be able to look beyond the
cover of what I might see in someone and look for the best of what God
created in that human being as well.
I know that we are all a part of God's creation on this Earth. I know
that my God is a loving God, one who believes in me and who wants
everyone in this body to reach their potential. But I also know,
through my faith, that reaching that potential means being able to have
that same kind of unconditional Christian love for my fellow man.
It is amazing to me that we would see such action, such assumption,
and such disregard for the intelligence of the people of our States.
My faith has always been an important part of my life because I was
raised in a Christian family, with parents who had strong principles,
who had tremendous love, and continue to, and an ability to share with
me what that love could produce in my life if I, too, were willing to
share it with others.
I worked as a youth group director while I was in college. I taught
Sunday school while I worked here on the Hill as a staffer--in
Washington, DC. I contribute time to homeless shelters here in DC, and
at home, working with the Red Cross through many kinds of devastating
natural disasters in my home State--finding incredible opportunities
where I could provide that love and that assistance to my fellow man.
My husband Steve and I make sure our family is regularly at church,
whether we are here in the Washington area or at home in Arkansas with
our family. There is rarely a meal that goes by in my home where we
don't all join hands and say a prayer of thanksgiving and gratefulness
for all of the many blessings in our life. We end each day saying
prayers with our boys when they are tucked into bed. We talk about the
day's events and how, through those prayers, we can ask for the
assistance for others and to improve ourselves and provide the
unbelievable talents God has given us to be a great part of making this
world a better place.
I am not the only one, as a member of my political party, whose faith
is important to them. There are other members of my political party who
are of other faiths who take their faith very seriously. There are
other Christians in my political party who take their faith very
seriously and act it as a real part of their everyday life.
It is unbelievable to me that the Republican Party would try to claim
that members of my party would want to ban the Bible. What do they base
that on? Where is their credibility to say that? What evidence is there
that would lead them to say that and to use that in such an
important part of what we stand for in this Nation, the political
process of being able to elect our leaders? I don't know. I don't know
where that comes from.
The Senator from Massachusetts, who is running for President, has
told the American people that his faith is important to him as well. He
says he is a man of God, and I believe him. Unlike some other political
candidates, he has not sought to gain political advantage by boasting
of his faith or wearing it on his sleeve, but I do believe his actions
in defending so many of his fellow men, children, low-income families,
the elderly, are certainly clear examples of how important his
responsibility to his faith is to him.
Maybe he was raised in a region of the country where people are not
so outspoken about their faith, just as they are more reserved in most
other aspects of their lives. I was raised in the South where we love
to talk about it, where it is an important part of who we are and we
want to talk about it, where we like to hug and we like to be close.
There is no doubt that there are differences in the regions of our
country in how we express things. Sometimes my colleagues say I even
need a translator because my accent is so thick. There is nothing wrong
with the differences in the regions of this country. There is nothing
wrong in the different ways we choose to show our faith. But there is
something deeply wrong with people using the political process to
accuse people of not being true to their faith.
The man from Massachusetts, maybe he is quiet, but less visible
expressions of faith do not warrant such judgmental political
statements from the Republican Party. I hope, I hope deeply, that the
Republican Party, which has produced this pamphlet that was so well
described by my colleague from West Virginia--I hope there will be an
apology for their claims that Democrats want to ban the Bible and the
inferences that Democrats, for some reason, cannot have a faith as
close or as deeply held as the other party. I find that to be the pit,
the absolute bottom of what is wrong in the political process.
I thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to come to the Senate
floor and, even as a southerner, express something that maybe I am not
as well equipped to express as others, but I promise you, it is not
less heartfelt than any other Christian Member of this body.
I yield the floor.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
Arkansas and tell her, I, No. 1, never have any trouble understanding
her, and, No. 2, I always enjoy giving her a hug.
Mrs. LINCOLN. I thank my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from New
Jersey is recognized for 15 minutes.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I thank our esteemed friend and colleague, the Senator
from West Virginia, for his words--always words of wisdom and words of
rage when he sees such an affront to the basic tenets of our society.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, what is the pending question? Do we
have an amendment pending?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is an amendment pending.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside
the pending amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 3802
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3802 and ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Lautenberg], for himself,
Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Feingold, and Mr. Corzine, proposes an
amendment numbered 3802.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To stop corporations from financing terrorism)
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. TERRORIST FINANCING.
(a) Clarification of Certain Actions Under IEEPA.--In any
case in which the President takes action under the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701
et seq.) to prohibit a United States person from engaging in
transactions with a foreign country, where a determination
has been made by the Secretary of State that the government
of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of
international terrorism, such action shall apply
[[Page S10017]]
to any foreign subsidiaries or affiliate, including any
permanent foreign establishment of that United States person,
that is controlled in fact by that United States person.
(b) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Controlled in fact.--The term ``is controlled in fact''
includes--
(A) in the case of a corporation, holds at least 50 percent
(by vote or value) of the capital structure of the
corporation; and
(B) in the case of any other kind of legal entity, holds
interests representing at least 50 percent of the capital
structure of the entity.
(2) United states person.--The term ``United States
person'' includes any United States citizen, permanent
resident alien, entity organized under the law of the United
States (including foreign branches), wherever located, or any
other person in the United States.
(c) Applicability.--
(1) In general.--In any case in which the President has
taken action under the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act and such action is in effect on the date of
enactment of this Act, the provisions of subsection (a) shall
not apply to a United States person (or other person) if such
person divests or terminates its business with the government
or person identified by such action within 90 days after the
date of enactment of this Act.
(2) Actions after date of enactment.--In any case in which
the President takes action under the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act on or after the date of enactment of this
Act, the provisions of subsection (a) shall not apply to a
United States person (or other person) if such person divests
or terminates its business with the government or person
identified by such action within 90 days after the date of
such action.
SEC. __. NOTIFICATION OF CONGRESS OF TERMINATION OF
INVESTIGATION BY OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS
CONTROL.
(a) Notification Requirement.--The Office of Federal
Procurement Policy Act (41 U.S.C. 403 et seq.) is amended by
adding at the end the following new section:
``Sec. 42. Notification of Congress of termination of investigation by
Office of Foreign Assets Control.''.
``The Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control
shall notify Congress upon the termination of any
investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the
Department of the Treasury if any sanction is imposed by the
Director of such office as a result of the investigation.''.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I offer an amendment to this
intelligence reform bill because I think it is consistent with the
mission of that bill. There has been a lot of work and a lot of debate
about the bill, and I personally am supporting it, but I offer an
amendment to do something we very much intend to have happen, and that
is to shut down the source of revenue for terrorist organizations.
The 9/11 Commission report talks about the critical issue of
terrorist financing because as President Bush has said, money is the
lifeblood of terrorist operations.
Amazingly, some of our very own corporations help provide revenue
indirectly to terrorists by doing business with state sponsors of
terrorism. My amendment would close the loophole in the law that allows
this to happen, thereby cutting off a major source of revenue for
terrorists.
As the 9/11 Commission stated:
Vigorous efforts to track terrorists' financing must remain
front and center in the U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
We took pains to check with the Parliamentarian about the
germaneness, the relevance of our amendment, and it was confirmed that
this would be relevant.
We need to starve the terrorists at the source and that is why our
sanctions program in law is so critical, but now we know a loophole in
the law exists that enables companies to do business with Iran, which
openly boasts about its support for Hamas and Islamic jihad.
Iran also funded the 1983 terror attack in Beirut that killed 241
U.S. Marines; 241 of our finest young people killed by Iranian terror,
and yet we are permitting U.S. corporations to provide revenue flows to
the Iranian Government. We have to put a stop to it as quickly as we
can.
How do companies get around terrorist sanction laws? It is a fairly
simple process. They simply establish a foreign subsidiary and run
their Iranian operations. It is demonstrated on this chart which says
that U.S. corporations have subsidiaries all over the place and that is
common in our economic and business structure. Once a foreign
subsidiary is created, then people can do business with Iran or other
rogue nations, people who are determined to kill our citizens, can do
business with them and provide services--intentionally, I do not
believe--but nevertheless to people like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is a
terrible thing to recognize that American companies can be providing
sustenance to countries that support terrorism actively.
Our American sanctions law prohibits American companies from doing
business with Iran, but the law does not mention an American company's
foreign subsidiaries. As long as a loophole like this is in place, our
terrorist sanction laws are considerably diminished in their force.
After brutally murdering 241 of our young marines in their sleep in
Beirut in 1983, an Iranian-backed terrorist killed two American women
whom we show in these photos. Look at these young faces. They are
people at the dawn of life. Sara Duker was a constituent of mine, a 22-
year-old from the town of Teaneck, NJ. She was a summa cum laude
graduate of Barnard College. Sara was killed with her fiance when the
bus she was riding in in Jerusalem in 1996 was blown up by Hamas. An
American court confirmed that Iran was responsible and assets were
seized to try and provide compensation to the families.
Hamas receives its funding and support from the Iranian Government
and that is why this attempt to sequester assets was done.
Last year, Abigail Litle, a 14-year-old Christian missionary
originally from New Hampshire, was riding home from school in Haifa,
Israel, when her bus exploded as a result of a suicide bomb. That
attack killed 15 people and was directly linked to terrorists funded by
Syria and Iran.
I was in Iran with several other Senators and we talked to the
President of the country about supporting terrorism. He denied any
suggestion that they might be operating out of his country, but the
Israelis last week apparently took an action to eliminate the head of
one of the terrorist organizations who was clearly functioning there.
We have to worry about these countries and we cannot give them any
latitude, any encouragement to continue with their killing ways. We
also have to worry about providing revenue to Iran because of its well-
known desire to build a nuclear bomb and other weapons of mass
destruction.
The 9/11 Commission concluded:
Preventing the proliferation of [WMD] warrants a maximum
effort.
Certainly, ``maximum'' includes providing funding for some of these
firms. So allowing U.S. companies to provide revenue to rogue WMD
programs is clearly not a maximum effort.
Some people think this is an isolated problem, but it is not.
According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, there are
large numbers of companies doing business with Iran and other sponsors
of terror.
Iran sponsors terrorism, period. The terror they help fund has killed
hundreds of Americans. Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and
yet U.S. companies are using a loophole in the law in order to do
business with the Iranian Government. It is wrong. It is not illegal
yet, but this amendment would change it. I am sure when my colleagues
examine what we are talking about, they will consider joining us, I
hope, enthusiastically.
It is inexcusable for American companies to engage in any business
that provides revenue, any business practice that provides revenues to
terrorism. We have to stop it. We have a chance to do that with this
amendment. I remind our distinguished colleague, the chairperson of the
committee, that she supported this amendment before and I hope she will
once again support the amendment and let all of us close the terror
funding loophole.
I yield the floor.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Iraq
Mr. REED. Mr. President, we are today, in this country, convulsed by
the situation in Iraq. It is an extraordinary crisis. It is taxing our
men and women in uniform, and it is certainly taxing our resolve.
I think one of the problems is that the administration has not
focused on the reality on the ground, what is really happening on the
ground. They are
[[Page S10018]]
hoping, but hope is not a substitute for planning; hope is not a
substitute for a very candid and hard look at the situation on the
ground. The reality is that there is widespread violence and
instability throughout Iraq.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that
over the past 30 days more than 2,300 attacks by insurgents
have been directed against civilians and military targets in
Iraq in a pattern that sprawls over nearly every major
population center outside the Kurdish north, according to the
comprehensive data compiled by a private security company
with access to military intelligence reports and its own
network of Iraqi informants.
You would think, given this information, that the administration
would begin to reflect on the difficult circumstances on the ground,
but that is not the case. They continue to pursue both policies and
rhetoric which suggest that all is not well yet it is quickly getting
there.
But there is something else they have done which I think is
startling, and that is in a related story in the Washington Post,
information such as what I just quoted, that data from private security
companies is not being recognized and evaluated. It is being
suppressed.
According to today's Washington Post, the
USAID said this week that it would restrict distribution of
reports by Kroll Security International showing the number of
daily attacks by insurgents in Iraq has increased.
On Monday, the Washington Post published a front-page story
saying that the Kroll report suggests a broad and
intensifying campaign of insurgent violence. A USAID official
sent an e-mail to congressional aides stating: This is the
last Kroll report to come in. After the Washington Post
story, they shut it down in order to regroup. I will let you
know when it restarts.
If we don't have accurate information, if we are not able to tell
difficult truth one to another, we will never be able to effectively
design a policy for Iraq.
It is concerning to me that the administration would try to respond
to the facts by suppressing the facts, but that is just one example of
what is going on.
I know this. The country, with some exception, is wracked by
violence. The Kurds in the north have had a semiautonomous region for
many years. It is under our informal protection and formal protection.
That is a part of the country where there is a certain stability, but
there is political tension building there because the Kurdish sense of
autonomy will invariably clash with the need to create a central
government in Iraq.
The focal point of that clash could be the oil around Kirkuk, which
is the second biggest source of oil for the country of Iraq. Those oil
fields could be in jeopardy as a pawn, if you will, in a struggle
between the Kurds asserting their autonomy and the central government
trying to maintain its authority.
We also understand clearly that Sunni provinces have ``no-enter
zones''--areas in which the United States cannot even send its troops
today successfully. One of these areas is Ramadi.
According, again, to a story in the Los Angeles Times on September
28:
The erosion of order in Ramadi illustrates the success of
the insurgents' methods and the serious problems facing the
interim government and its U.S. backers in maintaining
stability in Iraq. It also threatens to thwart plans for a
national election in January. . . . An election that omits
key population centers in the so-called Sunni Triangle
region would have greatly diminished credibility.
In Fallujah, there are similar situations where there are areas we
cannot enter. In the Shia South, there is the instability principally
generated by Sadr, the young cleric who has defied the central
government and also the U.S. repeatedly.
We generally see the violence in Iraq as a function of attacks
against our troops, but when we do that we miss a very important
reality; that is, this violence is only a small portion of the violence
that the Iraqi people feel each day--not from terrorists but from
robbers, burglars, rapists, and murderers.
In June, a poll was conducted. They asked the Iraqi people to list
their top three priorities. Fighting crime represented one of the top
three priorities of 92.8 percent of the people of Iraq. Stopping
attacks on coalition forces represented a top priority of 17.5 percent
of the people of Iraq. On a daily basis, we are seeing not just attacks
against coalition forces and security forces of Iraq, we are seeing a
situation in many places which is beyond chaotic to the point which the
Iraqi people are quickly beginning to assume that we not only are
occupying but we are inept occupiers. We cannot even provide the level
of stability that they enjoyed previously. They have already decided we
are occupiers. They have decided we must go.
The struggle now politically, I think, is you have to recognize that
in this type of conflict it is essentially a political struggle. We can
win tactical victories one after another--and we will--but unless we
create a political dynamic which will coalesce support around the new
Iraqi Government and coalesce cooperation with us, our efforts
tactically will be marginal.
What is happening, though, politically in Iraq now is the fact that
each of these groups and subgroups have one eye on the current
situation, our presence there, but their other focus is on what happens
when we go. Will they be in power? Will they survive? Will they
succeed? That creates a dynamic that is very difficult for us and very
difficult for stability in Iraq.
How did we get there?
It is in some respects a triumph, as I said before, of hope over
history, of ideology, of political calculation, arrogance in some
cases, ignorance that has led us to enter the country ill prepared.
There is a litany of mistakes that are quite obvious: No real plans
for stabilization and reconstruction in Iraq. We should have sensed
that.
I can recall in the fall of 2003 and in succeeding days and months
leading up to the attack last year where we had a situation where we
were trying to get information about stabilization. We didn't have
that. We did not have that information.
In addition, there were insufficient forces to stabilize Iraq and we
were left unprotected for weeks and months, which today has led to a
proliferation of weapons in Iraq, IEDs particularly, the improvised
explosive devices that are bedeviling our forces. We cannot secure
those. We could not secure the borders. We need more troops.
There was a failure to secure multinational support, not only in the
sense of getting the good will, good wishes, and support of the
international community, but particular failures.
We were not able to convince the Turkish Government to allow the use
of Turkey as a point of entry into Iraq. The Fourth Infantry Division,
poised to move through Turkey, to attack in the north, to roll up and
envelop all of the Iraqi forces to the north, was rerouted to the south
because of that lack of cooperation. The consequence on the ground was
literally thousands of Iraqi soldiers were never effectively contested.
They gave up, they disappeared, and apparently reformed as insurgents.
That is another example of the lack of international cooperation that
could have materially assisted us.
We made a significant error in disbanding the Iraqi Army. Rather than
disbanding the army, we should have marched them back to their barracks
and tried at that point to see if we could, through some type of
vetting of officers and senior enlisted people, or some procedure, get
them to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. They
are part of the problem today. Many of these insurgent leaders, I
believe, have roots going back to the army and the military force
structure, the security forces of Iraq.
Then we conducted a de-Baathification program that applied across the
board. We put that in the hands of Chalabi and others who had no real
legitimacy in the country. As a result, for months and months and
months we prevented teachers and professionals from working. It did not
help in terms of getting schools going quickly. It certainly created
this atmosphere among the Sunni community that they were going to
effectively be marginalized as people and as citizens of Iraq. That
process was a mistake.
Part of that, as I mentioned, was putting misplaced reliance on
Chalabi and his colleagues. I recall he sat as a guest of the First
Lady at this year's State of the Union speech, yet today is accused of
cooperating and perhaps spying for the Iranians. That has been a
mistake.
[[Page S10019]]
The CPA, Coalition Provisional Authority, turned out to be not up to
the great task with which they were entrusted. The administration
rejected the traditional agencies of the State Department and their
divisions who have experience in stabilization operations in terms of
political governments, reconstruction, economic development, and put
together an ad hoc group of people who were the architects of what was
a lost year of progress that we should have been making with respect to
Iraq.
And, of course, there was the failure to recognize this insurgency.
We all recall Secretary Rumsfeld's remarks about a few dead-enders. It
was much more than a few dead-enders. It has metastasized into a
virulent and effective force attacking our troops on a daily basis and
attacking the citizens of Iraq.
There was a failure then simply to read the intelligence. We are
debating this intelligence bill today because we have to create--
indeed, it is necessary to create--an intelligence system that is more
effective. Let me point to an intelligence success. This was the
national intelligence estimate. According to a report in the New York
Times,
The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for
President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence
Council, an independent group that advises the Director of
Central Intelligence. The assessments predicted that an
American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for
political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi
society prone to violent internal conflict.
Very perceptive. It was disregarded by the administration, and I
think disregarded for several reasons. They had a view, which was not
substantiated by the facts, that we would be greeted with open arms.
Principals in the administration said that.
As we debate this intelligence reform, we also have to understand it
is not just producing good intelligence; it is having leaders who
understand and use that intelligence wisely.
Then one of the most critical issues is that we have wasted a year to
train Iraqi security forces. I can recall, as many of my colleagues
recall, being briefed over the past many months. It seemed each
briefing would contain another pie chart showing the growing, growing
Iraqi security forces and the diminishing United States involvement.
All of that was an illusion. These forces were untrained, ill equipped,
unprepared. It took us a year to recognize that and we are only
beginning now to recognize what we have to do to ensure that Iraqi
security forces can, in fact, provide for the security of their
country.
Part of it was a result of the notion that we could do it ourselves,
that this was just a few diehards, as Secretary Rumsfeld said, that we
could root them out and we could deal with them with the coalition
forces. Then it was reluctance to develop an Iraqi security force
because of the fear that they would become another power player in the
very complicated politics of Iraq where it seems the only institutions
that have any type of strength and coherence are the mosques or the
militias, and they sometimes overlap. So for all these reasons, despite
the evidence of growing instability, despite the proliferation of
crime, we have just gotten down to begin to train an effective Iraqi
security force of police, army, national guard, and special operations.
That is a year wasted, a year that should not have been wasted. The
signs were quite clear.
Indeed, even as we focus on this, there have been reports in the
press that General Petraeus, who has been put in charge of this
operation, has not yet received his full complement of American
personnel to help, another example of a delayed reaction, a reaction
based upon hopes that did not materialize. While those hopes were
bandied about here in Washington, the situation got much worse.
All of this leads to an Iraq today that is imposing extraordinary
costs on this country. One of the most obvious and poignant costs is
the loss from American fighting men and women in battle: 1,054 soldiers
have been killed and 7,532 soldiers wounded, who have served this
country with great fidelity and great courage. Their families deserve
our profound respect. We owe them, and we owe their colleagues who
still fight, more wisdom and more truth.
That is why it is particularly frustrating to see this example of a
reaction where, when the facts are uncomfortable, those facts are
suppressed. That is not appropriate given the sacrifices we have seen.
The costs to our Army, particularly, are significant. Personnel
costs. We all understand there were misgivings about the full size of
the force being deployed. When General Shinseki was asked, he did not
volunteer, about the size of the force needed, he said, ``something on
the order of several hundred thousand soldiers,'' and was immediately
castigated by Secretary Rumsfeld, saying this estimate was ``far from
the mark,'' and Secretary Wolfowitz, who called the estimate
``outlandish.''
Then in his few remaining days in the Army, General Shinseki was
personally shunned by the leadership and made to feel entirely
uncomfortable--and I am being very polite. He did not deserve that.
This is a professional soldier who was asked his honest opinion and he
gave it. I wish there were more folks like him in uniform. Certainly
the comments of Secretary Wolfowitz and Secretary Rumsfeld were very
far off the mark. We have over 100,000 troops in place. They probably
will be there for years. There is a strong sign that we need more.
This is a great stress on our military, 17 months after President
Bush declared the end of major combat operations, with over 138,000
troops still stationed in Iraq. They are there because of a patchwork
of different policies the Department of Defense has had to undertake
because they do not have sufficient soldiers. Approximately 16,000
active-duty soldiers have already had two tours in Iraq and if they
stay in the service longer, they will have another. In order to keep
the strength up, they have resorted to stop-loss orders, essentially
telling a soldier, once your unit has been alerted, you are there until
the unit returns home, even if you can leave the service in that
interim. In the words of some, it is a ``backdoor draft.''
Since September 11, DOD has announced six stop-loss policies for the
Army, two for the Navy, five for the Air Force, and two for the Marine
Corps. Only the Army still has a stop-loss policy in place. That is
another way in which to create soldiers by means other than a strictly
voluntary approach.
One of the greatest burdens falls on the Guard and Reserves. Today,
we cannot continue our mission without the brave men and women of our
Army and Air Force Guard and Reserve units. We are asking them to go
way above and beyond the call of duty.
Since September 11, 2001, 422,950 members of the Reserve component
have been mobilized; 51 percent of the Army Guard and 31 percent of the
Air Guard. The average duty days have climbed as a result. Guard and
Reserve men and women are now serving, on average, about 120 days a
year. In fact, back in 2002, it was only 80, and before that it was
much less.
We are looking at a situation which the GAO described as fraught with
consequences. In their words:
DOD policies were not developed within the context of an
overall strategic framework. . . . Consequently the policies
underwent numerous changes as DOD strove to meet current
requirements. These policy changes created uncertainties for
reserve component members concerning the likelihood of their
mobilization, the length of their overseas rotations and the
types of missions that they would be asked to perform. It
remains to be seen how these uncertainties will affect
recruiting, retention and the long term viability of the
reserve components.
We have already seen the National Guard report that they have not
been able to meet their recruiting objectives for the most current
year. So the evidence is beginning to accumulate.
This operation tempo will mean more and more pressure on the military
forces, particularly land forces, and, as a result, you will see the
stress even more, in recruiting and retention, challenging our military
leaders. We need more troops, I believe, as an initial response to the
situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world. We should do that
honestly and directly. We should not rely upon supplemental
appropriations. We should not rely on emergency authorizations for
additional troops. We should increase the end strength of the Army and
provide for the payment of that end strength through the regular budget
process, not by supplementals.
[[Page S10020]]
Senator Hagel and I offered an amendment to do this last October. In
March, again, Senator Hagel, joined by Senator McCain and I, introduced
a bill that would increase the Army end strength by 30,000 troops. In
May, we together offered an amendment to the fiscal year 2005 Defense
authorization bill to increase the size of the Army by 20,000
personnel, a figure the Army says it could absorb in an efficient way
in 1 year. This was accepted by the Senate, and it is now in conference
with the House.
One point I should make, though, is that, once again, the
administration insisted--even though they oppose the end strength--if
it was to be put in the bill, it still had to be paid for by emergency
funds. That is not the right way to do this. We have to make sure we
have a suitably sized Army.
This is not a spike. This is not a temporary situation. Every time
the President speaks, he talks about staying the course, our long-term
commitment to Iraq. That is not a temporary promise, I do not think. I
think that requires a permanent fix to the size of our Army and to our
Marine Corps.
Now, one of the things that has happened since our debate on the
floor is that the Defense Science Board, a panel of experts appointed
by Secretary Rumsfeld himself, stated: ``Current and projected force
structure will not sustain our current and projected global
stabilization commitments.'' There are ``inadequate total numbers'' of
troops and a ``lack of long term endurance.''
That is the conclusion of experts who have studied this issue, who
have looked at all the things the Army is doing through modularity,
through technical improvements and technological innovations to
minimize the need for additional troops, and they have concluded, as a
result of the study requested by the Secretary of Defense, that we need
more troops.
It is not only troops. We also need equipment. The Army has sustained
$2.439 billion in equipment battle losses in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Presently, the Army has an unfunded requirement for $1.322 billion for
munitions.
Last year, the Army spent $4 billion on equipment reconstitution--
resetting it, repairing it, and getting it ready to go again.
The Marine Corps expects to need over $1 billion to reconstitute
equipment next year.
The GAO reports that since September 11, the Army Guard has
transferred 22,000 pieces of equipment from nondeploying units to units
deployed in Iraq. What we have is a huge reshuffling going on, as units
back in the United States take their equipment and give it out to units
that are deploying forward. It leaves these units back in the United
States without equipment. If they are called upon to perform a mission,
another international mission, a homeland security mission, or a
mission involving a natural disaster, where are they going to get the
equipment they deployed overseas? How are they going to be affected?
In addition to the National Guard and Reserves, the Active Army is
resetting itself under new battle formations, modularity, which is a
concept that I think is ingenious, a concept that should be supported.
But as they are doing this, they too are shuffling equipment about.
There are some units that are not yet up to speed with all their
equipment. They will have it, I am sure, before they are deployed
overseas, but it is another example of the turmoil in terms of
equipment we are seeing within the military.
In order to respond accurately, correctly, and directly to the
situation in Iraq, we have to increase our Army, I believe, and make
sure they have the resources to have the equipment they need to do the
job.
Now, the funding for our operations in Iraq has been primarily
through supplementals. In the past 17 months, President Bush has
requested and Congress has appropriated $187 billion for the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan. For comparison, the budgets for the Department of
Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of
Education, and the Department of Interior total $163 billion. So we
have been spending in Iraq more money than we allow for discretionary
spending for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services,
Education, and Interior.
The last supplemental, for $25 billion, was passed in May 2004. At
that time, the administration said they would not need the funding
until January or February of next year, 2005. Yet it has been reported
this week that $2 billion of this fund has already been used, showing
the huge, huge pressure, the huge cost of our operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Last week, President Bush announced he plans to divert nearly $3.5
billion from Iraqi water, power, and other reconstruction projects to
security, another indication, I think, that the security situation is
in very difficult circumstances.
We have been funding these operations with supplementals. But we
cannot continue to do that because there will be a point, I believe, at
which the American people will be very concerned, when each year we are
forced to vote on $60, $70, $80 billion of supplemental funding for
Iraq and Afghanistan. We know this effort is going to take many, many
years. People talk about it as a generational struggle, and I think
that is right. We have to prepare for that struggle, but we cannot do
it in ad hoc supplemental budgeting.
We also have seen, of course, the terrible incidents of abuse in Abu
Ghraib, with too few troops in that prison to do the job, ill-trained
troops in that prison to do the job, but it is not just those troops. I
think it is wrong simply to single out people we know from photographs
who have done despicable things. They will be punished. They are being
punished. We have a responsibility to look not only at the young
soldiers, but the leadership, the chain of command, the policies they
adopted or did not adopt, the confusion they created and did not
resolve. We have had several investigations so far. Each one goes a
little bit down the road but then seems to stop.
We waited, frankly, for months for the report of General Fay and
General Jones, thinking this would be the final authoritative report
that would look from the level of three star and four star all the way
down. It turns out that for one of the most significant issues, the
issue of ghost detainees--those individuals who were not properly
recorded by the authorities when they came into our custody--General
Jones and Fay had no real answers because they didn't get any
cooperation from the Central Intelligence Agency. Now we have another
investigation presumably conducted by the IG and the Department of
Defense. This is not the way to get to the core of what happened. It
might be an effective way of postponing real review and investigation,
but it is not the way to get the answers.
These answers are important, not simply because of individual
culpability of soldiers up and down the ranks, but because we have to
have a military force that understands that they are subject to the
laws, that it is not optional for leaders to ignore some or modify them
at will. This is the very challenging situation, but it is an example,
once again, of the lack of preparedness, the lack of sufficient
personnel, and the lack of clear guidance that has plagued our
operations in Iraq from the beginning.
I have spent a great deal of time talking about Iraq. The interesting
thing in some respects is what we are not talking about. We are not
talking about North Korea. But just this week on Monday, at the United
Nations, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon said North Korea had been
left with ``no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent''
because of U.S. policies that he said were designed to eliminate his
country. He stated:
We have already made clear that we have already reprocessed
8,000 wasted fuel rods and transformed them into arms.
Reprocessing 8,000 rods would extract enough plutonium for as many as
eight nuclear warheads. Here is a situation where, as we focused on
Iraq, we have sat by as the North Koreans blatantly and boldly opened
up the cans in which IAEA sealed the rods and, according to their
comments, have reprocessed this material into nuclear weapons. One of
the worst possible situations, a nuclear-armed North Korea, may have
evolved. We are at this point taking troops out of South Korea to
fulfill our requirements in Iraq. What signal does that send to the
North Koreans?
It is not a question of deterrence. We have the capability of
deterring the
[[Page S10021]]
North Koreans from coming south. But it certainly is not aiding us in
what ultimately must be our objective of disarming North Korea,
hopefully through peaceful means and through negotiations, not just our
efforts alone but the world community, because the great fear that we
all have, that transcends the current struggle in Iraq, is that
terrorists will obtain nuclear material and nuclear weapons.
Here we have a situation where over the last several months the North
Koreans have finally said: We have them. Part of our lack of response
is an internal debate within the administration that has been going on
for months, if not years: Do you negotiate, which means some type of
arrangement between the world and North Korea, or do you once again
embark on a regime change operation? The difference over the last
several months is the growing realization that Iraq has put so much
stress on our military forces, that in the event of a need to disarm
North Korea, there would be far fewer forces to draw on. So that is
another huge cost of our involvement in Iraq.
Then add another development: The Iranians continue to insist they
have every right to a full, complete nuclear fuel cycle. Of course, the
concern--not just of the United States but the international
community--is that if they achieve that cycle, they will be able to
obtain material with which to construct a nuclear weapon.
Despite their protestations that that is not their objective, there
is a growing suggestion, if not conclusive evidence, that certainly
that possibility might exist. And once again, what are we doing? Why
have we not focused attention on Iran in a more meaningful and decisive
way?
One has to question a strategy that has led us into Iraq, to the
instability, to the costs, to the lost opportunity, when there appear
to be much more serious threats abroad.
We have an opportunity to be much more candid, much more truthful
about what is going on. That is an opportunity I would hope the
administration would embrace because unless we operate with the facts
and unless we operate with the reality of the situation, there will be
no way we can effectively plan to deal with the threats we face.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The Senator from Illinois is
recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before initiating my remarks, let me
express the admiration and respect I have for the chairman of this
committee, Senator Collins of Maine, as well as the ranking Democrat,
Senator Lieberman of Connecticut. What they have presented to the
Senate is an extraordinary work product, if one considers the fact that
we first received the 9/11 Commission report on July 22, and a mere 8
or 9 weeks later we are on the floor of the Senate considering landmark
legislation. The first reaction of anyone who listens to those dates
would be that they must be acting in haste.
The fact is that no sooner did Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman
receive this report than they announced they would take it extremely
seriously and they would do some things unprecedented around this
institution to try to move the legislation on a timely basis. It meant
asking Senators to return in the month of August, a month when we are
usually either back in our States or vacationing with our families, to
come back and to have a series of hearings, starting with Governor Kean
and Congressman Hamilton, Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission, and
then a long series of many scores of witnesses who came and talked to
us about aspects of this report.
They followed those hearings in August and early September with a
markup last week which I attended as a member of the committee, a
markup which considered 33 different amendments. Those were serious
amendments, complicated amendments. Each one of them tested us to think
long and hard about the 9/11 Commission report as well as the bill that
is before us.
The interesting thing about the amendments that were considered is
that when all was said and done--some had been adopted, some had been
defeated--not a single amendment passed or was defeated on a partisan
rollcall.
It wasn't Republicans versus Democrats. That is a good sign. It shows
we took to this task in a bipartisan fashion and made concessions to
try to find solutions.
I, frankly, do not disparage debate on the Senate floor. It is an
important part of what we do. Even heated debate I find informative and
sometimes entertaining. But this morning at the town meeting which I
had with Senator Fitzgerald, a constituent from Illinois came up and
said: Why do you argue so much? Why don't you just get together, the
two political parties, and solve the problems?
I understand that sentiment. And though our arguments and debate may
sound adolescent or a waste of time, they are, in fact, the noise of
democracy. The debate in our committee, the Governmental Affairs
Committee, which led to the adoption of some amendments and rejection
of some amendments, led to a good bipartisan work product which we
bring to the Senate floor today. I am proud to support it and proud to
be a cosponsor.
There are two parts of it in which I take particular pride. One
relates to the civil liberties board. The civil liberties board was an
idea of the 9/11 Commission. They understood, as I think all of us do,
that historically when the United States was concerned about security
issues and safety issues, those were the moments when our Government
asked for more power to protect America, usually at the expense of
individual rights and liberties. It is a delicate balance and delicate
negotiation between security and liberty.
Again, after 9/11, the first invasion in the continental United
States since the British stormed this building in the War of 1812,
after that our Government came and asked for more authority to go after
the terrorists and to protect our Nation. On a bipartisan basis we gave
that authority to the Government.
We understood that it was a risky decision. We were enacting the
PATRIOT Act at a time of high emotion, when we were still very mindful
of the tragedy of 9/11 and the thousands of innocent Americans killed,
as well as their families who were grieving. We gave that authority to
our Government and said we will put a time limit on some of these new
powers and we will revisit them in the future to see if we have gone
too far.
At every step of the way, we want to balance the security of this
country and the liberty of Americans, and not to go too far in giving
powers to Government at the expense of the rights and freedoms that we
enjoy and which make us America. This civil liberties board, proposed
by the 9/11 Commission, was consistent with that value. On a bipartisan
basis, the Commission came and said, create within the executive branch
a civil liberties board; this civil liberties board will be a guardian,
if you will, of the basic rights of Americans. It will measure the
policies and activities of our intelligence community and report
regularly, on a public basis, as to whether there has been a Government
effort that has gone too far.
I am not sure there is another board like this in any other part of
our Government, but I applaud the 9/11 Commission for suggesting it. I
certainly applaud Chairman Collins and Senator Lieberman for
incorporating the original civil liberties board in this legislation
and accepting several amendments that I offered, which I think make the
board even more independent and worthy of the duties that are entrusted
to it.
Senator Kyl of Arizona came to the floor this morning and suggested
amendment No. 3801. It is an amendment to the civil liberties board
section. In my estimation, it would really undermine the effectiveness
of this civil liberties board.
The Senator from Arizona said Chairman Collins and Senator Lieberman
failed to make tough choices, in his words, because they were trying to
win unanimous approval of the bill. It is true the bill was reported
unanimously from the committee; despite reservations of some members,
we all came together to report it out. I disagree with the Senator's
premise that this unanimous vote was at the expense of making hard
choices. Trust me, hard choices were made on almost every page of this
lengthy legislation. There is nothing wrong with trying to work
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together in a bipartisan fashion. I think Senator Collins and Senator
Lieberman did just that. They made some of the toughest choices.
This legislation would authorize the most significant reorganization
of our intelligence community in 50 years. I believe this legislation
will save lives.
In his remarks on the amendment, Senator Kyl of Arizona suggested
those who were concerned about our fundamental constitutional rights
need to balance our concerns with concerns about the lives of American
citizens. If that is the premise of his position, I don't quarrel with
it. It is always a balance. If you give the Government too much
authority to make us safe and take away from individuals the basic
rights of our country, then what do we have left? When it is all over,
those unique American values have not been protected. Rather, they have
been taken by the Government. So we always want to make sure we have
enough authority in the Government to protect us, but not too much.
That is what this legislation does.
One of the issues we weighed heavily was how to fight the war on
terrorism, while protecting basic liberties. The American people expect
no less.
Let me quote from the 9/11 Commission when they addressed this issue:
While protecting our homeland, Americans should be mindful
of threats to vital personal and civil liberties. This
balancing is no easy task, but we must constantly strive to
keep it right.
The 9/11 Commission recommended this board and, following their
recommendation, the legislation included it.
In fact, the Commission has already endorsed the board created by
this bill. Commissioner Slade Gorton, a former Republican Senator from
the State of Washington, and a member of the 9/11 Commission, and
Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic appointee to the Commission, told the
House Government Reform Committee:
A civil liberties board of the kind we recommend can be
found in the Collins-Lieberman bill in the Senate.
Those were the words of two commissioners. If nothing else, it is a
seal of approval of what we offer on the floor today.
I am not surprised that there is some opposition to the board, as
there is some opposition to other provisions in the bill. The board is
a new entity, and many of us are trying to understand exactly what it
would do. But I urge my colleagues to read carefully what we have
achieved with this board. It is an integral part of intelligence
reform. It is independent. Those who serve on the board will be
nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and have fixed
terms.
In addition, there is a requirement for public reporting. So what the
board discovers will not be kept deep in some file or on some computer
in an intelligence agency, but will be reported to the public through
Members of Congress and their committees.
The board will help to ensure that a powerful consolidated
intelligence community does not violate privacy and civil liberties. I
am afraid the Kyl amendment will upset this delicate balance. I want to
speak about three problems associated with that amendment.
Number one, very wisely, Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman
included in their bill a standard of review for the civil liberties
board. I think you need to give the board guidelines as they review
government actions. The board is to determine, under current language,
whether Government power actually materially enhances security, whether
there is adequate supervision of the use of the power to ensure
protection of civil liberties, and whether there are adequate
guidelines and oversight to properly confine its use.
Where did we find this particular approach? We found it in the 9/11
Commission report.
Frankly, I cannot understand Senator Kyl's amendment on this issue.
He wants to take out the 9/11 Commission's standard of review. Should
Congress not give this guidance to the board? Shouldn't the members of
the civil liberties board understand their charge and responsibility?
Can it be stated more simply and clearly than in the language I just
read from the 9/11 Commission report? Taking away the standard of
review is to leave the board with no guidance from Congress. That is an
abdication of responsibility.
Secondly, the bill gives the board the authority to obtain the
information they need to determine whether the Government is violating
civil liberties. If somebody outside the Government refuses to provide
information, the board would have the power to issue a subpoena to
obtain it.
That is common sense. An investigative body doesn't have much
authority in this society if it cannot, in compelling circumstances,
subpoena materials it needs.
It is not unusual to give this subpoena authority to a federal
commission or board. Let me name a few of the Federal agencies with
similar authority: National Labor Relations Board, Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, Federal Trade Commission, and Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission.
The Senator from Arizona, in speaking to his amendment this morning,
suggested this subpoena authority would give the power to the board to
``haul in any agent anywhere in the world and drill him.'' I am afraid
that statement is not accurate. The subpoena authority in this bill is
a narrow one. It only applies to people outside the Government. So for
the Senator from Arizona to argue that we are going to call in an
intelligence agent before the board and drill him is to overlook the
obvious: The subpoena authority in the bill only applies outside of the
Government.
The obvious question is, why do you need subpoena authority outside
of the Government? Here are two specific examples: First, the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal. Implicated in that scandal were private
contractors hired by our Government to interrogate prisoners.
Information they generated might be the domain and property of these
private companies. If the civil liberties board wanted to look into
prisoner abuse and the companies refused to provide that information
voluntarily, they would need a subpoena. That is why this subpoena
power is in the bill.
In addition, if our Government engages in a cooperative agreement to
obtain data from a private company to protect America from a terrorist
attack, materials possessed by that private company would not be
reviewable, except on a voluntary basis, by the civil liberties board,
unless they had subpoena power. Senator Kyl wants to take away that
subpoena power. In doing that, he will tie the hands of this board when
it comes to gathering the necessary information to meet its
responsibility.
The other thing the Kyl amendment addresses is the section of the
bill entitled ``Informing the Public,'' which requires this civil
liberties board to share information about its work with the public.
This is a good thing, from my point of view. It is a healthy aspect of
the bill. We make provisions so that if the Board is dealing with
classified information, there is no requirement to disclose it.
Otherwise, we say the civil liberties board should inform the public
about their work.
So if the Government has gone too far, there is a public report that
could be reviewed to understand how the civil liberties board reached
its conclusion.
The Kyl amendment would delete this section from the bill so that the
board would not be required to inform the public about its activities.
This directly contradicts the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
As Commissioners Gordon and Ben-Veniste told the House Government
Reform Committee:
Such a board should be transparent, making regular reports
to Congress and the American public.
I think sunshine is a great disinfectant, and I think the fact that
this information will be made public is a further incentive for those
in our Government not to abuse their power. In the name of protecting
America, they should not destroy America's values and America's
freedoms in a way that jeopardizes what is truly the character of this
Nation.
I think the Kyl amendment, in those three instances, not only
violates the spirit of the 9/11 Commission Report but directly violates
language in the 9/11 Commission Report that has guided this committee
in the creation of this bill.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.
In addition, Mr. President, I wish to speak for a moment to another
provision in this bill that is near and dear to
[[Page S10023]]
me. As I mentioned earlier, when we went through the lengthy hearings
on this legislation, there were many things that motivated us--this
great Commission report on a bipartisan basis, the need to protect
America as effectively as possible and as quickly as possible--but
there was another factor.
At many of our hearings, in fact, even appearing as witnesses, were
the survivors in the 9/11 families, the men and women who lost a loved
one in the tragedy of 9/11. I want to take a moment and salute them.
They gave of their time and their lives. They made a commitment to make
certain that those they love did not die in vain. They came to this
committee and asked us to do our part, and we did. I think this
committee was faithful to its charge: to follow the 9/11 Commission and
to come up with a reasonable change in reforming our intelligence
community.
Why is reform necessary? It almost goes without saying. We found in
the 9/11 Commission Report ample evidence that our intelligence
community failed us before September 11. In the Senate Intelligence
Committee on which I serve, we took a review of the intelligence
leading up to the invasion of Iraq. As hard as it is to believe, with
the millions of dollars and thousands of conscientious people involved,
the intelligence gathering before the invasion of Iraq was in many
respects just plain wrong.
The American people, and many Members of Congress, were convinced
that we needed to invade Iraq because of charges that there were
weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons programs, linkage with al-
Qaida--things that turned out to be patently wrong. The intelligence
failed us.
In one celebrated book, an author wrote that the head of the Central
Intelligence Agency, in response to the President's question, Are you
sure there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? is reported to have
said: It's a slam dunk. He said with some certainty the weapons of mass
destruction were there. When we arrived, they could not be found.
We understand the gravity of the threat of terrorism. Those of us who
remember 9/11 and understand the seriousness of this threat want to get
it right, and intelligence is truly our first line of defense. But I
have to tell my colleagues that the 9/11 Commission Report kept
returning to one basic and recurring theme when it came to improving
intelligence and making America safe.
Let me show my colleagues what they said because I think it
demonstrates in a few words why this section of the bill is so
important to me and why I am glad it is part of our work effort.
The 9/11 Commission Report said:
The biggest impediment to all-source analysis--to a greater
likelihood of connecting the dots--is the human or
systemic resistance to sharing information.
And that turned out to be a major obstacle.
We have a weak system for processing and using the information that
we need to make America safe, and the Commission pointed that out. I
have said this before on the Senate floor, and it bears repeating, that
those who think our information technology was adequate to the task on
9/11 should consider the following.
The computer system at the FBI, the premier law enforcement agency in
America on 9/11/2001, did not have e-mail within their system, had no
access to the Internet, was unable to sort and trace by more than a
one-word reference, and when they finally came up with the photographs
of the 19 terrorists on September 11, the computer system of the FBI
was incapable of sending a photograph over its computer system. They
had to overnight the photographs to their regional offices.
That, to me, is as solid a condemnation of the computer system at the
FBI as anything I read. That is a fact. And if you wonder why we failed
to gather information, to process it, analyze it, and use it
effectively, that is what it comes down to.
On July 10, 2001, an FBI agent in the Phoenix field office sent a
memo to FBI headquarters and to two agents on the international
terrorism squads in the New York field office advising of the
``possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden'' to send
students to the United States to attend civil aviation schools. The
date of that memo is July 10, 2001. The agent based his theory on the
``inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest''
attending such schools in Arizona.
The agent made four recommendations to the FBI. The agent recommended
that we compile a list of civil aviation schools, establish a liaison
with those schools, discuss the theories about bin Laden with the
intelligence community, and seek authority to obtain visa information
on persons applying to flight schools. This was July 10, 2001. Those
were the recommendations in the FBI memo.
The flare went off. The notice was there. Something needed to be
done. His memo was forwarded to one field office. Managers of the bin
Laden unit and the radical fundamentalist unit at FBI headquarters were
addressees but did not even see the memo until after September 11. No
managers at headquarters saw the memo before September 11. The New York
field office took no action. It was not shared outside the FBI.
As its author told the 9/11 Commission, the Phoenix memo was not an
alert about suicide pilots. His worry was more about a Pan Am 103
scenario in which explosives were placed on aircraft. Because it was
not shared, because it was not processed, we find ourselves in
situations more vulnerable.
Mr. President, let me give another illustration of why this
information sharing is so important.
The 9/11 Commission Report tells us that on August 15, 2001, the
Minneapolis FBI field office initiated an intelligence investigation of
Zacarias Moussaoui, a name well known to us now. This man entered the
country on February 23, 2001, began flight lessons at a flight school
in Oklahoma City, and began flight training at Pan American flight
training school in Minneapolis on August 13. Mr. Moussaoui had none of
the usual qualifications for flight training on Pan Am's Boeing 747
flight simulators.
Contrary to popular belief, he did not say he was not interested in
learning how to take off or land. Instead, he stood out because, with
little knowledge of flying, he wanted to learn how to take off and land
a Boeing 747. The FBI agent who handled the case in conjunction with
the INS representative on the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force
suspected Moussaoui of wanting to hijack airplanes. This is August 15,
2001.
If these respective agencies had the benefit of the Phoenix memo,
brought it together with this information about Mr. Moussaoui, wheels
would have started to turn and dots would have been connected. But,
sadly, that information was not shared.
I can go through other illustrations about why we need to share
information when it comes to ships coming into the United States using
the Great Lakes, which are near and dear to me as a Senator
representing the great State of Illinois, and the city of Chicago, and
how we can use existing information technology to link up facts and
draw good conclusions to protect America.
Sadly, what we have found, despite the passage of 3 years since 9/11,
is we still have not figured out how to make critical information in
our Government computers and other systems of records compatible and
combat terrorism with that new information.
In a statement before the House Government Reform Committee last
month, James Dempsey, executive director for the Center for Democracy
and Technology, a nonprofit public interest group, validated my
concern. He wrote:
To date, however, the government still does not have a
dynamic, decentralized network for sharing and analysis of
information.
He goes on with a much longer statement, but to think that 3 years
after 9/11, after the omissions, errors, and shortcomings which I have
pointed out, we still do not have a dynamic decentralized method for
sharing and analyzing information, which is one of the key elements in
the 9/11 Commission Report.
A case in point I frequently cite is the chronic delays in
integrating FBI and Border Patrol fingerprint databases. This problem
goes back at least 6 years, where the agencies have been unable to work
out the transfer of information. In March of this year, the
[[Page S10024]]
Justice Department's Inspector General reported it will take at least 4
more years to combine fingerprint systems. In other words, fingerprints
collected at the border cannot be checked against fingerprints at the
FBI in an integrated fashion so that a suspect at the border can be
found to have been someone with a criminal record or a history which
gives us caution and pause. How can we be any safer if that basic
technology cannot be in place? Six years we failed to come up with it.
The estimate is another 4 years is needed before it might happen.
The FBI fingerprint database contains about 43 million ten-finger
sets of known criminals' prints; the Border Patrol's separate
fingerprint system, about 6 million two-finger sets of prints. One has
to ask, at some point in time, did anyone think that both agencies
should collect the same number of fingerprints from each person? Today
it is much different. They did not integrate their effort because they
were not going to integrate their information. Not integrating that
information does not make us any safer.
For well over 2 years I have urged that we do something significant
and historic to address this failure of our information-sharing system.
I refer back to GEN Leslie Groves, who was authorized and empowered by
President Franklin Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor to start what was then
known as the Manhattan Project.
General Groves understood the possibilities of an atom bomb. At that
point, there had been a cursory and casual inquiry into how it might be
weaponized. After Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt said: We need to
get serious. We need to develop these atom bombs. He said to General
Groves: Turn to the private sector, turn to Government, turn to
academia, bring them all together, and do it in a hurry. We may need
this atom bomb to end this war.
That is how the Manhattan Project was born. I have argued for quite
some time now that if General Groves could accomplish that historic
task in 1,000 days, we can in even less time see dramatic progress in
developing the information technology we need as a Nation. I am sad to
remind my colleagues in the Senate, it has been over 1,000 days since
September 11, and reports from agencies across the board tell us we
have not done that.
The Commission offers two key recommendations for achieving this
unity of effort in sharing information. First, information procedures
should provide incentives for sharing to restore a better balance
between security and shared knowledge. Second, the President should
lead the Governmentwide effort to bring the major national security
institutions into the information revolution.
This is from the 9/11 Commission Report:
He should coordinate the resolution of the legal, policy
and technical issues across the agencies to create a
``trusted information network.''
We understand that without this sharing of information we cannot be
safer as a nation. No agency can do this alone. They have to cooperate
with one another. Throughout the eight hearings of the Governmental
Affairs Committee conducted over the past 9 weeks, I have urged that we
make revolutionary change in information sharing an essential element.
I will tell my colleagues what section 206 of this bill, which
comprises a large portion of the bill, does. We set forth precise and
prudent directives for implementing a trusted information-sharing
network. The President is directed to establish this network. The
network is to be an environment consisting of policies and technology
designed to facilitate and promote sharing. It is modeled on the
comprehensive proposal by the Markle Foundation Task Force on National
Security in the Information Age, which I would like to salute as
another major factor in the development of this section of the bill, as
well as the 9/11 Commission Report.
The network must have certain attributes. This network of information
must be a decentralized, distributed, and coordinated environment;
built upon existing systems' capabilities currently in use across the
Government; utilize the industry's best practices, including minimizing
the centralization of data and seeking to use common tools and
capabilities whenever possible. I want to dwell on this for one moment.
Some of the critics have the wrong notion that we are trying to
create a massive Government database. That is not what this bill sets
out to do. What it sets out to do is to share the information to solve
problems, to alert America to threats to our security. It is not a
massive Government database.
Employ an information access management approach that controls access
to data rather than just networks; facilitate sharing of information;
provide directory services for locating information; and incorporate
protections for privacy and civil liberties. This is another one that
is absolutely essential. We want to have this information collected,
processed, analyzed, and shared every step of the way.
Through the civil liberties board and express language in this
legislation, we are mindful that we do not want to compromise the
liberties and freedoms of Americans unless there is an absolute need to
protect our lives and our security.
Guidelines must be issued. Requirements satisfying governing the
collection, sharing, and use of information have to be made known so
that this will be an item that is followed very closely.
Let me say what the network is not. Describing what the network is is
only half of the issue. First and foremost, the network called for in
this bill is not a centralized, consolidated system or database.
Furthermore, it is not a mere network; it is a capability. It does not
move data from current systems. It does not require all new systems. It
is a means to make information in existing legacy systems sharable to
authorized users. It is not based on any one architecture or platform.
It does not require one encryption standard. It does not contemplate or
require broad distribution of personally identifiable information. It
does not remove authorization and access control from existing
processes. It is not limited to supporting just the IC. It does not
require next-generation technology to implement.
I see other Members have come to the floor of the Senate to address
aspect of this bill, and I have spoken for a little over 30 minutes. I
want to give them a chance to express their feelings. I will return to
this issue next week.
I hope colleagues on both sides of the aisle will understand that
this historic bill includes in it what I consider to be some of the
most important weapons and important tools for protecting America
against another terrorist attack. We have to be creative, which the 9/
11 Commission Report admonishes us to do, but we also have to use
information in sensible, thoughtful ways to make us safer.
A large section of this bill is directed towards that information
sharing. I tried to engage the Senate in this debate when we created
the Department of Homeland Security, but the time was not right.
Everybody nodded in agreement, but I could not get anything done on the
bill. Thank goodness this bill on the future of the intelligence
community is different, and thank goodness on a bipartisan basis we
have come to understand and believe that if we follow the 9/11
Commission Report, with trusted information sharing, America will be
safer.
I thank Chairman Collins and Senator Lieberman for providing this
section in the bill. I look forward to working with them on the passage
of this important legislation.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record an
additional illustration on information sharing.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Illustration No. 3 Ship in U.S. Waters
Of course, representing Chicago and Lake Michigan, I
understand the importance of port security. Take a ship
entering the U.S. waters that comes down the St. Lawrence
Seaway. It comes into the Great Lakes.
What happens? Four agencies of the Federal Government
collect information on that ship. One agency determines
whether the ship is carrying contraband. Another Federal
agency checks whether the ship has paid its tariffs and fees.
Another agency determines whether the ship and its crew
comply with immigration law. And another agency checks for
adherence to health and safety regulations. One ship, four
different Federal agencies.
Much of this information will end up in separate data
systems. One of those, a $1.3
[[Page S10025]]
billion Customs Services project known as the automated
commercial environment, is an import processing system.
Another, the student exchange and visitor information system,
is being developed by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement within Homeland Security. Other border protection
is held on databases held by the Coast Guard and by the
Department of Agriculture.
The Transportation Security Administration also will
collect and hold relevant information in its systems.
Consider how many different agencies are concerned about the
one ship that we might fear may be bringing the wrong people
with the wrong cargo to threaten the United States.
None of these information systems are designed to
communicate with one another. How in the world can we assure
the American people of their safety when we are ignoring the
most basic requirement--that these agencies--both people and
technology--work together and share information? Don't we
want to make certain that the FBI and the CIA had access to
that information? In addition, the NSA, DoD, Department of
Defense, State Department, State and local officials, all of
them could benefit by having access to that information.
Observation: The information sharing environment of the
Network would facilitate full and timely information access
and exchange of the disparate information housed in each of
the data systems. The Network would allow information to
remain where it is created, but using standards, guidelines,
and rules to be developed, make it share-able and accessible
to authorized Network participants.
Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his
terrific contributions to this bill. He was the individual who brought
to the committee's attention the woefully deficient information systems
that have hindered the war against terrorism.
I remember how shocked I was at our first hearing, when the Senator
from Illinois described the FBI being unable to transmit pictures of
the 9/11 terrorists to its field offices. He also told us the FBI did
not have the capacity to transmit fingerprints to the Border Patrol.
Those underscored, in a way that few have been able to do, the lack of
an adequate, integrated communications network within the Federal
Government.
We worked very closely with the Senator from Illinois on this section
of the bill. It incorporates his thoughts, his language, and it is his
leadership that is behind those important provisions. So I salute him
for being out in front on this issue and helping us come up with
provisions that I think are going to make a real difference.
I salute and thank the Senator from Illinois.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, even I want to thank the Senator from
Illinois, a dear friend, a great colleague. He has made a very
substantial contribution to this bill.
Senator Durbin has a quality of service in the Senate that I have
noted in some of the best colleagues with whom I have had the honor to
serve. He thinks about matters, focuses on a problem, comes up with a
solution, and he doesn't let it go until he gets it done. He saw a real
problem here which others have seen but, frankly, have not focused on
or grabbed ahold of as much, which is the woeful, outrageous,
infuriating inability, up until this time, of our Government to put the
best information technology at the disposal of those who are working to
protect us.
The terrorists have figured this out. We all know about the
opportunities for cyberterrorism. If you look at the number of hits
that are made on even Defense Department sites, you can see the
potential. We are beginning to have a very good capacity to launch our
own offensives here, but this is about something else. This is just
taking information, which is a key to protecting ourselves in the age
of terrorism, and moving it quickly to the places it can do the most
good. Talk about connecting the dots.
Anyway, Senator Durbin is really singlehandedly responsible for this
substantial title of the bill. I thank him very much for his
contribution. It is part of why this bill is going to make a real
difference in protecting the security of the American people.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Amendment No. 3823
Ms. COLLINS. I know Senator Conrad is waiting to have a colloquy with
the managers of the bill. I do have an amendment that I think I can
dispose of very quickly. I ask unanimous consent that the pending
amendment be set aside. On behalf of Senator Voinovich, I send an
amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Maine (Ms. Collins), for Mr. Voinovich,
proposes an amendment numbered 3823.
Ms. COLLINS. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To improve the financial disclosure process under the Ethics
in Government Act of 1978)
At the appropriate place insert the following:
SEC. __. FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE AND RECORDS.
(a) Study.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Office of Government Ethics shall
submit to Congress a report--
(1) evaluating the financial disclosure process for
employees of the executive branch of Government; and
(2) making recommendations for improving that process.
(b) Transmittal of Record Relating to Presidentially
Appointed Positions to Presidential Candidates.--
(1) Definition.--In this section, the term ``major party''
has the meaning given that term under section 9002(6) of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
(2) Transmittal.--
(A) In general.--Not later than 15 days after the date on
which a major party nominates a candidate for President, the
Office of Personnel Management shall transmit an electronic
record to that candidate on Presidentially appointed
positions.
(B) Other candidates.--After making transmittals under
subparagraph (A), the Office of Personnel Management may
transmit an electronic record on Presidentially appointed
positions to any other candidate for President.
(3) Content.--The record transmitted under this subsection
shall provide--
(A) all positions which are appointed by the President,
including the title and description of the duties of each
position;
(B) the name of each person holding a position described
under subparagraph (A);
(C) any vacancy in the positions described under
subparagraph (A), and the period of time any such position
has been vacant;
(D) the date on which an appointment made after the
applicable Presidential election for any position described
under subparagraph (A) is necessary to ensure effective
operation of the Government; and
(E) any other information that the Office of Personnel
Management determines is useful in making appointments.
(c) Reduction of Positions Requiring Appointment With
Senate Confirmation.--
(1) Definition.--In this subsection, the term ``agency''
means an Executive agency as defined under section 105 of
title 5, United States Code.
(2) Reduction plan.--
(A) In general.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the head of each agency shall submit a
Presidential appointment reduction plan to--
(i) the President;
(ii) the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate;
and
(iii) the Committee on Government Reform of the House of
Representatives.
(B) Content.--The plan under this paragraph shall provide
for the reduction of--
(i) the number of positions within that agency that require
an appointment by the President, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate; and
(ii) the number of levels of such positions within that
agency.
(d) Office of Government Ethics Review of Conflict of
Interest Law.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Director of the Office of
Government Ethics, in consultation with the Attorney General
of the United States, shall conduct a comprehensive review of
conflict of interest laws relating to Federal employment and
submit a report to--
(A) the President;
(B) the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate;
(C) the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate;
(D) the Committee on Government Reform of the House of
Representatives; and
(E) the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of
Representatives.
(2) Content.--The report under this subsection shall--
(A) examine all Federal criminal conflict of interest laws
relating to Federal employment, including the relevant
provisions of chapter 11 of title 18, United States Code; and
(B) related civil conflict of interest laws, including
regulations promulgated under
[[Page S10026]]
section 402 of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C.
App.).
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I know the Presiding Officer has a great
interest in the issue that we are about to briefly discuss. The
amendment of Senator Voinovich would require the Office of Government
Ethics to report to Congress on recommendations for streamlining the
financial disclosure forms for the executive branch. In addition, the
amendment would require each executive branch agency to examine the
number of positions requiring Senate confirmation. It would ask the
Office of Government Ethics to conduct a comprehensive review of the
Government's conflict of interest laws, and it would require the Office
of Personnel Management to provide Presidential candidates with a list
of all appointed positions within 15 days of their party's nomination.
This amendment is based on legislation that was favorably reported by
the committee during the last Congress.
The 9/11 Commission recommended that the Senate should not require
confirmation of appointees within the national security team below
level 3 of the executive schedule. The Voinovich amendment lays the
groundwork for this recommendation by requiring the executive branch to
identify which positions could be eliminated from the confirmation
process.
Review of that information by all Senate committees will help those
of us in the Senate make a more informed and thoughtful decision on
reducing specific positions that now require confirmation.
The financial disclosure requirements have been in effect for almost
25 years. Unfortunately, in some cases, they have deterred very good
people from serving in the Federal Government. I hope this will lead to
more effective, more efficient, and simpler requirements so it no
longer will deter potential nominees from serving, or force them to go
through great expense in order to comply with overly burdensome laws
and regulations.
Again, this proposal is very consistent with the recommendations made
by the 9/11 Commission and I urge acceptance of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the chairman of
our committee in urging acceptance of this amendment. I thank Senator
Voinovich and the occupant of the chair, the distinguished Senator from
Tennessee, for their work on this issue.
This is a topic we have been talking about in the Congress for a long
time. The occupant of the chair, having been vetted, considered, and
confirmed for a Cabinet position in the past, knows the difficulties he
and others have faced in fulfilling all those obligations, well beyond
what most would deem to be reasonable.
What motivates this now is an extra dimension of concern. The
September 11 Commission made it very clear that a catastrophic attack
might well be more likely to occur during the transition from one
administration to the other. Therefore, the Commission recommended that
we should do anything we could reasonably think of that would speed up
the process of filling national security positions in our Government.
Earlier today, I am pleased to say, the Senate adopted an amendment
that Senator McCain and I and others introduced to accomplish some of
those specific recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. This amendment
builds on that, goes beyond it, and makes the bill stronger by helping
an incoming administration fill a wide range of its appointive
positions more promptly, in some cases, doing what is just plain
logical: requiring the OPM, Office of Personnel Management, to send
information to Presidential candidates 15 days after they are
nominated; describing positions that must be filled in the new
administration. This would not only allow time to prepare it, it would
create a sense of optimism and fantasy in the minds of candidates
nominated as to what they would do when they were elected. The
amendment also calls for reports that will help us and the President to
consider ways to further improve and streamline the process of getting
officials appointed and put into place.
It is a very good amendment. It builds on some substantial
contributions Senator Voinovich made to the bill in committee. I am
pleased to urge its adoption.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment?
If there is no further debate, without objection the amendment is
agreed to.
The amendment (No. 3823) was agreed to.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I come to the floor to ask a number of
questions of my colleagues who are managing the bill. I have very high
regard for the chairperson, Senator Collins. I have worked with her on
other matters and found that she is an extremely able and diligent
Member. I admire the way she has handled this legislation. I have
watched the process as it went through the committee. I am not on the
committee but I watched as it was being televised. I thought it was a
very professional process.
I also have very high regard for the Senator from Connecticut, Mr.
Lieberman. I am not on the relevant committees. I am not on the
Intelligence Committee. I am not on the Defense Committee. I am on the
Budget Committee and the Finance Committee and deal with these issues
from a budget point of view and financing point of view.
With that said, I come to the floor to ask a series of questions. I
want to indicate that I have with me charts that were prepared by the
office of Senator Lieberman to talk about what the structure currently
is and what this legislation would do to change it and to raise a
number of concerns that I have about that change.
First, I think we should indicate the problem we are confronting with
the American intelligence community, where there is a lack of
coordination and communication, which has been clearly outlined in a
series of hearings and a series of reports, including the report by the
9/11 Commission, including the report by the Intelligence Committee,
including the work of the very able chairman, the Senator from Maine,
all that has been laid across the record very clearly.
This chart from the office of Senator Lieberman shows the
organization of the intelligence community as it is, with the President
and the National Security Council overseeing the various agencies of
Government, including the Director of Central Intelligence, the
Secretary of Defense, but has within it the National Security Agency,
the National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency, the National
Reconnaissance Office, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the
Military Services and Combatant Commands. The large majority of the
funding of the intelligence community is in the Department of Defense.
I think maybe that is too little understood by the general public.
But that is fact. The large majority of the funding is not at the
Central Intelligence Agency. I think people in the United States
probably assume that is the case; it is not. The vast majority of the
funding for intelligence operations is within the Department of
Defense.
Other agencies that have a significant role, of course, are the
Attorney General's office, because he oversees the FBI, and the FBI has
responsibility for intelligence operations within the United States.
Then we have the Secretary of Homeland Security within which we have
the Information, Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Director and
the Coast Guard intelligence. The Secretary of State has the Bureau of
Intelligence and Research, and the Secretary of Treasury has an
intelligence branch, as does the Secretary of Energy.
The problem with this structure, which has been pointed out
repeatedly, is that these are a series of stovepipes, basically leading
only to the White House. There is nobody that is in overall
coordination and direction of these various intelligence agencies. And
the idea has been to have a national intelligence director that would
have responsibility to coordinate and communicate with respect to these
various agencies.
So the proposal before us is to create a national intelligence
director with these other various agencies already
[[Page S10027]]
existing reporting to the national intelligence director, so there is
someone in a position to coordinate and ultimately communicate what
intelligence agencies are finding.
Let me just say that I thought that what was going to happen with the
national intelligence director is that funds were going to be brought
together and we would not have the continuing existence of all of these
other agencies.
That is really what I want to ask the managers about. The concern
that I have is if we have a failure of communication and coordination,
especially between the FBI and the CIA, how does adding another entity,
how does adding another player improve the chances for coordination and
communication?
Let me say that I was trained in business management. My career
before I came here was to manage organizations. My experience has been
the more layers, the less communication, the more inefficient the
communication.
When this was first outlined and I found out that the CIA is still
going to exist, I must say I was taken aback. I was surprised by that.
I thought the Central Intelligence Agency would become the new
intelligence, with a new national intelligence director. Therefore, we
wouldn't be adding another player to the mix, but we would be putting
somebody in a position of authority so that we could hold them
accountable.
The concern I have is instead of that, we have maintained a Central
Intelligence Agency and all of the other intelligence agencies we had
before, and added a national intelligence director.
The fundamental concern I have and the question I have is, Why has
the committee concluded that this is the right way to proceed? Why
wouldn't it be better by joining the function, reducing the number of
players, reducing the number of boxes on the organizational chart,
instead of adding a layer?
I would be quick to say I think you need to have a national
intelligence director, somebody who is in overall coordination and
control because before we did not have that.
That is really the question I came to the floor this afternoon to
query the chairman and ranking member about.
I would be happy to yield so they might respond.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota
for his questions. I want to assure him, first, there will be no rental
charges for the charts that were a joint product of Senator Collins's
and my office.
To very briefly give the background, most immediately from the 9/11
Commission Report, when we said here repeatedly, and Lee Hamilton said
during the course of our hearings during the investigation about how 9/
11 happened, the Commissioners very often would say, Who is in charge?
The answer more often than not was: No one. They concluded it was an
organization without a head. That explained why the CIA would have
information and not share it with the Immigration and Naturalization
Service about people they would want to keep out of the country, or the
FBI would have information and not share it with the CIA.
The result was we are athletes--a homelier analogy--that the American
intelligence community is like a football team with a lot of very good
players but no quarterback. So they are kind of doing their own thing;
some of them sometimes seem to be in another stadium and we are not
getting the benefit of the billions of dollars that we are investing.
The Commission recommended that we put someone in charge as a
national intelligence director.
Right now, the President is at the top on the chart. The President
can't exercise day-to-day control over the intelligence community.
Incidentally, this was the report of the 9/11 Commission. Most
immediately, it was essentially the recommendation of the Joint
Intelligence Committee of the Congress, and in the recent past created
a national intelligence director. The Scowcroft report--though we have
not seen it--everybody knows that it says there has to be a national
intelligence director. In fact, these recommendations go way back to
1947 when the National Security Act was passed post-Second World War
and the CIA was officially created. Here is part of the problem. This
is part of what I want to answer about the question.
Part of the problem that all of these groups found was that the
Director of Central Intelligence--as that position exists today, which
was the same person as the Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency--effectively became only the Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency. That is part of why nobody was really directly
overhead.
As we can see in the first chart, the director of the Central
Intelligence Agency is over the CIA. The major recommendation was we
have to separate those two, have a separate CIA Director, and then the
national intelligence director who will be over all those stovepipes.
How will he or she break them up? Two things. First, and this goes on
from Colin Powell and others, we said the existing DCI was supposed to
oversee the whole intelligence operation. We gave them some power but
did not get them budget power. As my friend from North Dakota said, 80
percent of the budget for intelligence goes through the Department of
Defense.
In an episode that Senator Collins and I were struck by in the 9/11
report, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, in 1998, after a
series of al-Qaida attacks, sends out a directive--then classified, now
public--to the agencies under him and says, war has been declared
against us by these terrorists: They hit the World Trade Center in 1993
with the bomb, they went after the embassies in Africa, et cetera. This
is a declaration of war by us and the American intelligence community
against al-Qaida, a war on terrorism. And no one responded. No one did
anything because he is a general without authority.
It is the old biblical line, at the sound of the trumpet, be
uncertain who will follow into battle and, unfortunately, here, one of
the elements of a certain trumpet in the Washington bureaucracy is
money, budget authority. So no one did anything.
When the Commission asked one of the heads of the boxes on the chart,
Why didn't you respond to George Tenet, he said, We didn't think we had
to; we thought that was a memo.
Separate CIA from the Director so he is not responsible only for that
agency but everyone in the community, with the budget authority to
enforce decisions, with transfer authority for personnel within the
intelligence community and, one of the most important, form the budget.
Do not let other agencies do it. Actually do the budget.
The Senator from North Dakota is one of the Senate's experts on
budgeting, one who worries most about whether we are getting taxpayers
their money's worth. Billions of dollars--it is a classified number, so
I cannot state it--but billions go into intelligence every year.
One of my hopes, because we do not talk about it much, we talk about
connecting the dot, the national intelligence director will, one, be a
tough budget official; two, make sure we get our money's worth; and
third, more budget authority and oversight over the constituents. And,
too, maybe decide this box under me is getting more money in terms of
the current threat to America than it should, but this one is not
getting enough; I have to move this money around.
One more point. A critical element under the national intelligence
director to help him or her connect the dots is the National
Counterterrorist Center. The other centers he can create for separate
problems such as nuclear proliferation or separate geographic public
areas like Iran and North Korea. This is the place where he will bring
together as never before all the constituent parts of the intelligence
community. They will sit down. He can transfer people to those centers.
He can give them assignments. Most of all, he can make sure they will
pool their collection of intelligence, their analysis of intelligence
and, very importantly, since they are around the table--they are
talking with one another, they see the problem, they have an idea from
the best intelligence, signal intelligence, imagery from the satellites
we have, human intelligence from people on the ground--they will do
some joint operational planning as to how to deal with the problem. How
do we get bin Laden? Or if there is a terrorist cell in America, what
is the best way to pool our resources to get them? We put somebody in
charge and we give them real authority.
[[Page S10028]]
Incidentally, there will be amendments introduced, or already have
been, that will come to a vote in the next 2 or 3 days aimed at cutting
away at that power. I say, with all respect, probably folks worried
about the Department of Defense losing some authority--Senator Collins
and I are both on the Armed Services Committee. We have a deep
commitment to the warfighters. We are confident this structure will
actually give better intelligence to the warfighters.
That is my answer to your question.
Mr. CONRAD. Might I ask a followup question, because the Senator
referenced these earlier reports going all the way back from 50 years
ago. I fully support the concept of a national intelligence director.
My concern is how we are implementing it. Did the earlier reports,
including the most recent from the Intelligence Committees, from the 9/
11 Commission, contemplate with the creation of a national intelligence
director we would still have a Central Intelligence Agency?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. They did. Interesting question. As a matter of fact,
this was a real priority for the 9/11 Commission, that we separate the
CIA from the national intelligence director. The point is that the CIA
is only one element of the remarkable assets we have in our
intelligence community, including the so-called signal intelligence,
the imagery from the satellites we have, the work coordinating domestic
and foreign. Because the terrorists do not separate between domestic
and foreign, now for the FBI it is made statutory under the bill
creating a new directorate of intelligence, counterterrorism, working
with the CIA under the national intelligence director. So the answer is
yes.
In fact, my understanding of the original proposal for the National
Security Act post-World War II was there be a separate national
intelligence director overlooking a whole community and a separate CIA.
Folks in the military community were able to blend the two and
diminish--here in Congress we were worried about this--and diminish and
separate the power of the DCI. We look back now, and the 9/11
Commission certainly did, and say that was part of the problem. They
created the vulnerabilities and weaknesses and openings the terrorists
took advantage of on September 11.
Mr. CONRAD. One additional question, if I could, on the budget
authority inherent in this plan. I indicated the vast majority of
resources actually go to the Department of Defense and the various
intelligence operations within the Department of Defense. The Senator
from Connecticut indicated it was as much as 80 percent.
In terms of management of an operation, are we going to be left with
a circumstance in which 80 percent of the funding is at the Department
of Defense? And if so, how do we avoid a circumstance in which the tail
is wagging the dog? That is, typically one finds in organizations that
initiative and power follows money. If there is at the top a relatively
weak national intelligence director, with most of the functions and
resources in a subordinate agency, that creates its own management
challenges.
I am interested to know what the concept is with respect to budget
authority. Who will have that overall authority over resources?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. He is
absolutely right in his statement.
We heard from witness after witness in our committee's deliberations
in August and into September that probably worse than the status quo--
which is bad, without leadership--would be to create a national
intelligence director and not give him the power to direct. This may be
an old quote my friend is familiar with, but former CIA Director Jim
Woolsey said: In Washington, there is a different definition of the
golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.
We are making sure the national intelligence director has the gold,
which is to say the budget authority, both to formulate the budget for
this entire community of national intelligence--the so-called tactical
military intelligence budget--that stays with the Department of
Defense.
But while I cannot say the specific percentage, I will tell you under
our proposal--again this is classified, but well over 50 percent of the
budget authority will now go from the Department of Defense to the
national intelligence director. So that position will have that budget
authority in two ways. The first is to formulate the budget. Again,
this is a very important colloquy because we are going to see some
amendments that are intended to reduce the authority of the national
intelligence director over budget to say he basically has to accept the
budget proposals of the constituent agencies. That is not so in our
bill.
The second very important point: Right now the budget for the
intelligence agencies goes to the Department of Defense. Even for the
CIA it goes to the Department of Defense, then to the CIA. In our
proposal, the money goes to the national intelligence director and then
that position parcels it out to the others.
Mr. CONRAD. Might I just conclude on that point, and then I am
finished. I know there are other Senators waiting. I waited to have
this opportunity because I think this is very important. These are
questions I am getting.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Sure.
Mr. CONRAD. In my position on the Budget Committee, people are asking
me, how is this money going to be controlled? People are given
responsibility. Do they have authority?
The final question I have with respect to the Department of Defense
is, we heard the other day from the Secretary of Defense, Secretary
Rumsfeld, who has a very strong management background. He expressed
great concern, and I think it is a concern that absolutely deserves
full consideration. His great concern, as I heard it the other day in
our briefing, was that he is going to have a separation of
responsibility from authority; that is, resources that are currently
under his control and direction are going to move up the line to the
national intelligence director. He and the warfighters have a
fundamental responsibility and need for intelligence. He is concerned,
with the separation of these resources--as the Senator describes, much
of the budget moving from the Department of Defense level up to the
national intelligence director--that he not be shortchanged and that
his combatant commanders not be shortchanged of the resources they need
to make tactical and strategic decisions.
This is my final question: What is the response of the leadership of
the committee to his concerns?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. President, I will begin, and if the Senator from Maine wants to
get into this, I would welcome her doing so.
First, I would say, again, Senator Collins and I are members of the
Armed Services Committee of the Senate. If we felt there was the
remotest possibility this proposal of ours would shortchange the
warfighters, we would not make it. And believe me, it does not.
A couple things to say: First, we make a distinction in this bill
between the tactical military budget on one hand and the national
intelligence budget on the other. The tactical military budget--
intelligence officials who are working for individual services; Army,
Navy, combatant commanders working on joint programs within the
military for more than one service--that money all stays with the
Department of Defense. But the national intelligence assets, which are
used, let's say, for satellites--which are clearly used by the military
but also provide information that is critically important for the
Department of Homeland Security or the State Department in advising the
President on critical foreign policy decisions--that is under the
national intelligence director, as it should be.
The fact is, a lot of this is worked out in a consulting, consensus
way. But we want to just raise that national interest here. The
military will always be a priority customer of the intelligence
community, but it is not the only customer. The President of the United
States is the most important recipient of intelligence. The Secretary
of State is very important; now the Secretary of Homeland Security.
I believe we have struck exactly a balance here in making sure the
warfighter is well supported. We had very interesting testimony, which
I can share with my friend, from two generals who are heads of two of
the
[[Page S10029]]
constituent national intelligence agencies. They said to us they
believe this proposal establishing a national intelligence director
would be an improvement and be an improvement from the point of view of
their agencies because it ended the ambiguity that exists now which
they think is not good for their agencies and ultimately not good for
the military.
I wonder if the Senator from Maine wants to get into this and answer
some of the very good questions my friend from North Dakota has asked.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the Senator from
North Dakota for the thought he has given to this issue. I know he has
a great interest in management structures, in making sure we have the
most efficient structure possible to serve the taxpayers. So I very
much appreciate the spirit with which he has raised these questions.
I want to make three concluding points to emphasize some of the
points already made by my colleague from Connecticut.
First, it was evident as we studied this issue and read the 9/11
Commission Report that the current system does not foster the kind of
communication and cooperation we desperately need. It is a series of
stovepipes with no one having the ability to make the final decisions,
to resolve conflicts, to move resources and people where they are most
needed. You cannot go to the President of the United States on
everything.
I have seen that firsthand in the staffing of the Terrorist Threat
Integration Center where the Director feels he needs more resources,
other decisions have been made by various agency heads, and there is no
one to step in and set the priorities, move the people, and direct the
resources. I think our bill really changes that.
Like Senator Lieberman, I was struck by Director Tenet's 12/98 memo
in which he does this call to be at war and that all resources should
be marshaled, and virtually nothing happened. That will change under
our structure. There will be accountability under our structure because
people will know who is in charge and whose call it is, and that is the
national intelligence director. Our organization
enhances accountability, cooperation, coordination, communication, and,
most of all, results.
Second, the 9/11 Commission considered doing the kind of structure
you have raised questions about. Essentially, that would be creating a
department of intelligence. You would take all of these units out of
the other agencies and do a brandnew department. And it felt--and I
agree--that would be too disruptive, particularly at a time when we are
at war; that it would be expensive, it would be complicated, it would
take a long time to put into effect.
We have seen that with the Department of Homeland Security. That has
been a massive undertaking. I am very proud of the leadership of
Secretary Ridge and Admiral Loy, but it has not been without its
growing pains. We just could not afford that kind of disruption right
now.
Third would be the reaction of DOD if we took all of those entities
out and put them in a new department. There was testimony of a former
head of the Defense Intelligence Agency at a hearing on the House side
in August. He said if you pulled those agencies, like the National
Security Agency, the DIA, the NGA, the NRO--those that serve DOD and
other consumers--if you pulled them out, you would see DOD re-creating
within the Department new entities to replace those if you severed that
link and transferred them. To quote William Odom, ``You're just going
to end up with a big mess'' if you do that. That is why we came up with
this structure.
Mr. CONRAD. The last reference of winding up ``with a big mess,''
whose quote is that?
Ms. COLLINS. William Odom, who is a former head of DIA. So we felt
the case was very persuasive for the kind of organizational structure
we came up with. That was recommended by the 9/11 Commission.
Having said that, I am sure it is not perfect. I am sure we are going
to learn from it. That is why we have reports required back to Congress
after a year's time and by the General Accounting Office Accountability
Office in 2 year's time, because we want to make sure we get this
right.
I think we have struck the right balance in the organizational
structure we propose.
Mr. CONRAD. Let me conclude on this note: The thing I am most
concerned about is having an entirely separate Central Intelligence
Agency and an office of national intelligence director. The thing that
I have a difficult time understanding is how that is not going to
create its own turf battles, its own communications problems. I hope I
am proved wrong by this, but it is the one thing I looked at and I was
surprised by and, I must say, I wondered about.
I read the reports on the difficulties we had with the coordination
between the CIA and the FBI and their turf battles and their
unwillingness to share information. When we preserve the Central
Intelligence Agency and create an office of national intelligence
director and we still have, of course, the FBI's Office of
Intelligence, I wonder whether we don't wind up with more turf battles.
I know the intention is to avoid that and to appropriately create a
place that will coordinate all the work of the intelligence community.
My great management concern is that we will wind up with additional
turf battles. I hope that is not the case. I am glad the reviews are
built in because I think that is important. I wanted to express these
concerns publicly. I wanted to raise these issues and have a chance for
the managers to fully respond.
I very much thank the chairman and the Senator from Connecticut.
Ms. COLLINS. I thank the Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I know Members are eager for us to vote
on Senator Lautenberg's amendment, which I believe is the pending
amendment. I hope to conclude the debate on that shortly and move to
table his amendment. Senator Stevens is in the Chamber and would like
to lay down a couple of amendments. I will delay the debate on the
Lautenberg amendment until after Senator Stevens.
I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so
Senator Stevens may offer his amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Alaska.
Amendment No. 3839
(Purpose: To strike section 201, relating to public
disclosure of intelligence funding)
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have filed a series of amendments. I
would like to address the one on disclosure of intelligence funding.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Alaska [Mr. Stevens], for himself, Mr.
Warner, and Mr. Inouye, proposes an amendment numbered 3839.
On page 115, strike line 13 and all that follows through
page 116, line 23.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I direct the attention of the Senate to
page 115. This is title II. It pertains to the amounts to be disclosed.
It deals with amounts authorized and appropriated in each fiscal year.
My amendment follows the recommendation of the administration and, I
might add, the intelligence community to think twice before we do this.
It may be that we will want to do this after the NID comes into being
and we all have a better knowledge of how these funds are going to be
handled.
This amendment would require a further study of the disclosure of
funds that are provided for intelligence programs. The basic need for
this amendment rests on the testimony of the Acting Director of Central
Intelligence John McLaughlin before the Governmental Affairs Committee.
He said:
I would not go so far as to declassify the numbers for the
individual agencies. I think that gives too much opportunity
for adversaries to understand how we are moving our money
from year to year from technical programs to human source
collection and to other objectives.
In the administration's statement of policy, the administration is
also concerned that the committee bill mandates disclosure of sensitive
information about the intelligence budget. The
[[Page S10030]]
legislation should not compel disclosure, including to the Nation's
enemies in war, of the amounts requested by the President and the
amounts provided for the conduct of the Nation's intelligence
activities.
I understand that the committee intends to comply with the
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission with regard to this. But I think
it is time we slow down a little bit and respond at least in part to
some of the comments of those people who have spent their lifetimes now
in our intelligence service.
I can tell you that I have not spent my whole lifetime there, but I
have spent some 30 years now in terms of watching over the Defense
Appropriations Committee and being part of it at least. In terms of
being chairman and ranking member, it has been now 23 years. This
concerns me greatly because one of the problems of the appropriators is
to find ways to have an honest budget but to put the money where the
enemies of this country, those who want to do us harm, do not know what
our emphasis is way out into the future.
I remember when we started transitioning to electronic intelligence
and how we traveled from place to place to look at these new satellites
and the things they were going to do and got briefings on capacities.
Those were developed over a series of years, and they got more
complicated as they went along. But the money that was involved was
substantial.
To have a disclosure of ``we are engaging in an entirely new effort
in intelligence'' would be highly unwise.
I quote from the second page of the administration statement:
The Administration is also concerned that the Committee
bill mandates disclosure of sensitive information about the
intelligence budget. The legislation should not compel
disclosure, including to the Nation's enemies in war, of the
amounts requested by the President, and provided by the
Congress, for the conduct of the Nation's intelligence
activities.
I am deeply concerned about some of the problems of how we find a way
to maintain the secrets of this country with regard to what we are
doing in terms of human intelligence. We are building up human
intelligence at the same time as we are changing the utilization of the
electronic concept of intelligence. And while I believe the time may
come when we can find a way to disclose certain portions of the budget,
I have a real resistance to this proposal that says:
Congress shall disclose . . . for each fiscal year after
fiscal year 2005 the aggregate amount of funds authorized to
be appropriated, and the aggregate amount of funds
appropriated by Congress for such fiscal year for the
National Intelligence Program.
Then it directs the study of disclosure of additional information. We
are certainly not opposed to the study. It is the mandate beginning in
2005. We are going to start, for the fiscal year 2006, disclosing these
amounts at a time when there is great change in the intelligence
community. The whole structure of the intelligence community will be
changed by this bill. To start disclosing where money is going is to
tell the enemies of this country where our emphasis for the future is.
It is the future I am concerned about in terms of disclosure.
In the future we set up reserve accounts, and I will be talking about
some of those soon. But if we set up reserve accounts, the reserves are
classified as reserves because that is where they get the money for
innovation and new developments. We don't have to disclose it. We don't
have to tell them: Yes, we are going to build new satellites or we are
going to build other devices that can listen to transmissions in the
air and on the land and under sea.
We have a lot of secrets in this country. They are all related to
intelligence. Let me repeat that. Every one of our secrets is related
to intelligence. They are highly classified. Many of them are known
only to the President and a close circle. Part of that circle includes
Members of Congress who deal with the very high-level, classified
programs of the intelligence services.
I urge that the Senate listen to us and listen to the administration
and to those who have been involved in these activities. Again, I call
to the attention of the Senate that when we returned and found there
were a whole series of people who had not been heard on their
viewpoints--they wanted to express their concerns--we held a hearing
and listened to the intelligence people, who had great, distinguished
records in the past. We listened to Secretary Kissinger and a whole
series of people who wore our uniform and have been the top officers of
our military. To a person, they do not believe we should move this fast
on this disclosure item.
Let us have the study. We are entirely in favor of the study. But to
mandate the disclosure in the bill we will prepare in 2005, I think, is
much too early, in view of the changes taking place in the area of
intelligence. This is where we are going to start to see if there is
any reaction to those who have had experience in the area, to the
President, and to those who have reviewed the whole thing. Is the
Senate going to listen to these people with some experience and say,
OK, let's study it, but not make the judgment first and then study it?
This disclosure in the next fiscal year is wrong, until we know what
the policies of the NID are and what are going to be the policies of
Congress and how we are going to handle this appropriation. It appears
to me that the result of this bill will be to fractionalize the
intelligence appropriation, anyway. Part of it is going to go to the
Department of Defense; part will be split up into several agencies
within the NID.
I think we ought to know first what we are doing before we decide
what we are going to disclose so we can maintain the secrecy that is
required in order to prepare for the future. This is not something to
correct mistakes of the past; this is something to prevent making
mistakes in the future.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I have enormous respect for the Senator
from Alaska. He is an extraordinary Senator, with many years of
experience. I do want to assure the Senator from Alaska that, contrary
to the implication in his statement, the committee did not adopt the
recommendation of the 9/11 Commission to declassify the aggregate
budget totals of all the agencies that make up the national
intelligence program. We did not adopt that recommendation of the 9/11
Commission because, based on our hearings and the testimony of our
witnesses, we concluded that that goes too far and might well reveal
information that would be helpful to those who would do us harm.
The only declassification in the Collins-Lieberman bill is the top
line aggregate amount for the entire national intelligence program. It
does not declassify the specific appropriations amount distributed to
agencies such as the National Security Agency, or the Defense
Intelligence Agency, or the CIA, even though the 9/11 Commission
recommended declassification at that level.
Declassification, the top line, only that aggregate figure which has
been estimated in the newspapers many, many times, I believe, will
improve congressional and public oversight of the intelligence budget.
It will help us with better decisionmaking on resource distribution,
and it will make the structure and the management of the intelligence
community more transparent.
We asked our witnesses, including the Acting Director of the CIA,
John McLaughlin, his views. And he, like most of our other expert
witnesses, told us that as long as the specifics of the intelligence
budget remain classified, there was no harm to national security to
declassify just that top line aggregate amount.
I think we struck the right balance in this regard. What we did is we
included a study asking the national intelligence director to report
back to us--to the Congress--on whether further declassification was
appropriate. But the only step we took was that top line aggregate
amount. If you don't declassify that in order to have a separate
appropriation, then you end up, I fear, with the status quo--the money
going through DOD accounts once again. That greatly weakens the budget
authority of the national intelligence director.
Again, I have enormous respect for the Senator from Alaska. I wanted
to make clear what our bill does and what it doesn't do, because I
think we have reached the right decision.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the chairman yield for a question?
[[Page S10031]]
Ms. COLLINS. Yes.
Mr. STEVENS. I am looking at the bill. The bill says the President
shall disclose to the public for each fiscal year after fiscal year
2005 the aggregate amount of funds authorized and appropriated for the
national intelligence program. Then I go back to the page 6 for the
definition of national intelligence programs. It says:
Refers to all national intelligence programs, projects, and
activities of the elements of the intelligence community;
Includes all programs, projects, and activities (whether or
not pertaining to national intelligence) of the National
Intelligence Authority, the Central Intelligence Agency, the
National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-
Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the
Office of Intelligence of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and the Office of Information Analysis of the
Department of Homeland Security.
That involves five different bills in the appropriations process. We
currently put in any one of those five bills a portion of the
clandestine activities we are financing with these moneys. So what you
are going to tell us is, we no longer can use any portion of those
because we are going to disclose the whole amount in every one of those
bills.
Listen to me. You have not lived with how we have financed the
intelligence community. The money is not disclosed. It is put in parts
of the budget and you don't know where it is. It rests with Senator
Inouye and me, to be honest about it, and we make sure that is what it
is. Maybe four people in the House and Senate know where this is. You
are telling us to disclose it, without regard to where we put that
money--disclose the money that is in each account and it goes into five
separate bills. I say that is wrong. Wait until the NID comes into
office and have him tell us how we can disclose what should be
disclosed to the public. The public should not ask us to disclose this
very classified, secret information to protect the future of the
country through clandestine activities and acquisitions.
I ask the question, does the Senator understand what her bill does?
It will disclose the aggregate amount of funds--disclose them all,
including the very, very top secret items, which probably three or four
people in the White House, a few people in the CIA, or the DIA, and
maybe eight people in the Congress would know.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I direct the attention of the Senator
from Alaska to line 16 on page 115, which clearly says that:
The President shall disclose to the public for each fiscal
year after fiscal year 2005 the aggregate amount of
appropriations requested . . . for the National Intelligence
Program.
It does not say that we are requiring disclosure of the
appropriations for the elements that make up the national intelligence
program.
Mr. STEVENS. It says:
The aggregate amount of funds authorized to be
appropriated, and the aggregate amount of funds appropriated,
by Congress for each fiscal year for each element of the
intelligence community.
Both authorized and appropriated. That is on page 116, line 9.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I say respectfully to the Senator from
Alaska that that refers to the study on whether there should be further
declassification. It does not refer to the disclosure. The disclosure
is only--and it is very clearly stated--of the aggregate amount of the
appropriations for the national intelligence program.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, this is a very important discussion
about another critical part of this bill. Obviously, the Senator from
Alaska has had an extraordinary record of leadership in this and so
many areas of the Senate. He knows the subject matter. He has lived
with it a long time. I understand what we are proposing represents
change. He is quite sincerely concerned about it from the point of view
of our national security interests.
I most of all want to assure him we spent a lot of time thinking
about this. We did not just go for the 9/11 Commission recommendation.
The 9/11 Commission recommended that we disclose not only the bottom
line of the national intelligence budget but, in fact, the budget of
every single agency.
Their argument, as I am sure the Senator from Alaska knows, was that,
one, the public has a right to know. Of course, we have to balance it--
what we disclose to our enemies--against national security, but if the
budgets of those constituent agencies were out in the public, then
maybe over the years the public and more Members of Congress might have
decided we were not putting enough money into human intelligence, CIA,
et cetera, and that we were putting too much into signal intelligence
and that we would not have had the shortfall many people think we have
now.
In our committee, Senator Collins and I decided we were not ready to
make that leap of disclosing the budgets of the 15 constituent agencies
of the intelligence community because we thought there was some risk
involved about signaling the movement of our resources to those who
wish us ill.
Incidentally, there were some members of the Commission who felt very
strongly about the disclosure of the budgets of all the agencies,
including some former Members of this Chamber who really feel this was
at the heart of it. We did not think so, and that is why we called for
the study.
We think we have, however, achieved something for asking for the
disclosure of the bottom line because at least that tells the taxpayers
and all the Members of Congress how much money we are spending for
intelligence.
In the course of this investigation, I asked some specific questions,
obviously in closed settings, about the amount of money we are spending
overall and for each individual agency. I was surprised at the answers
I got. I think maybe more Members of Congress should ask those
questions.
But this is what I think we do achieve by having the bottom line
disclosed. We are fulfilling a responsibility to the taxpayers to let
them know how much money we are spending on intelligence because it is
just the bottom line, without giving any particular guidance to our
enemies as to where we are putting that money.
The second point is, one result of this might be when more Members of
Congress and the public see what we are spending on intelligence, which
is so critical in the war on terrorism--intelligence is always critical
in warfare and even more critical today because of the nature of this
enemy which strikes at undefended targets, innocent civilians, and is
crazy enough to blow themselves up.
So the more we can see and hear and know what they are planning, the
more likely we are going to be able to stop them.
One conclusion, I say to my friend from Alaska, might be that Members
of Congress and the public might conclude we are not spending enough on
intelligence if they see the bottom line.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Yes.
Mr. STEVENS. The problem is not that, from my point of view. My
problem is we are going through a transition and saying for the very
first year we are going to be asked to disclose the full amounts
appropriated to the whole intelligence community.
My amendment strikes all of section 201, in effect. I urge, at the
very least, that we strike that provision that requires disclosure in
2005. Let's have the study. I hope the NID will be able to make studies
and get back to us sometime next year. But why put on us the
requirement that we must collate and take all the moneys going to the
intelligence community in 2006 when we are going to be working on that
and, at the same time, he is making his adjustments in the whole
community?
My effort is to protect the clandestine amounts, protect the amounts
that are necessary for security. Why can we not at least agree to make
it just the study? We all agree on the study. Maybe the Commission is
right, and the Senator from Connecticut is wrong and I am wrong. Why
don't we have the study and find out what the NID people think is right
and then let us act on 2006?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Alaska, it is
impossible that he and I can both be wrong.
Mr. STEVENS. We have been there before.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. We have been there before.
Listen, because of who you are and what you stand for, Senator
Collins
[[Page S10032]]
and I will certainly think about this. We think we have struck a good
balance in just asking for disclosure of the bottom line, no details,
beginning public consideration of what we are spending on intelligence,
and this study we ask for in 180 days, 6 months, and then we can make
some judgments beyond that.
I yield the floor. I thank the Senator. This is an important
discussion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I believe I am a cosponsor of the
amendment.
Mr. STEVENS. Yes, Mr. President, the Senator is, along with Senator
Inouye.
Mr. WARNER. This is a debate we had many years on the floor of the
Senate. It has been a debate we have talked about so many times, and
there has been a consistency in the voting in the Senate to recognize
the wisdom not to release the budgets.
As yet, with all due respect to our managers and others, I have not
heard an absolutely convincing argument to turn back at least several
decades that this has been an issue of debate on this floor. What is it
in the public interest or, most importantly, our national security
interests that requires us at this time to reverse positions that have
been taken by this Chamber, together with the other body, over the
period of several decades that I have been privileged to serve here?
My concern is that this world today is so rapidly changing, and with
the advancement of electronics and so many devices to determine what we
in an open society are doing, why put the roadmap on the table for all
to begin to search?
It has been my experience that if you put out half a loaf, it will be
followed by a request to get the other half of the loaf. Were this
provision to prevail, we would be back here in a very short time, some
colleagues with the best of intentions, saying: Why don't you put it
all out? Why should we have any of it secret? That, coupled with the
fact I have in my lifetime never seen a period where there is greater
uncertainty about the security of this country--because of the
progression of weapons of mass destruction, because of the progression
of terrorism, and the proliferation of individuals who are willing to
give up their lives to do harm in this country and other parts of the
world--I just do not think at this point in time, without following, I
think, the sage advice of our distinguished President pro tempore, we
need to reverse what this Chamber has considered and decided upon year
after year that I have been here.
So I urge colleagues to support the amendment of the senior Senator
from Alaska. I intend to strongly do so.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I heard the last part of the comments of
the Senator from Connecticut. I suggest we put this aside and see if we
can come to some conclusion.
The Senator makes a good suggestion of putting a time limit on the
study and getting us to the point where we might be able to follow this
suggestion by the fiscal year 2006 bill. That bill will, in all
probability, move through the Congress, I would say, by the May, June,
and July timeframe. With the 180 days, I am afraid the Senator may be
referring to the start of the fiscal year. That bill goes through the
House and Senate. These are the first bills--Defense and Homeland
Security, and Intelligence. Obviously; It is going to be in the first
three without any question.
So the 180 days is going to be June, and this bill will be moving
through the House before that time.
We probably could catch it before they finish in terms of if there is
a recommendation we need, but I would urge my colleagues to consider
repealing the requirement for disclosure and say that we urge the NID
to give us the earliest possible date for that disclosure, when it
could be done in the national interest.
We are putting a lot of control and power in this person. Let's have
him tell us when and if it should happen rather than direct it now.
Make the study and leave it up to him to recommend to us, at least to
what extent we should disclose, commencing in fiscal year 2006.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I want to read a few sentences from the
9/11 Commission Report on page 416 which I think are relevant. It says:
. . . Opponents of declassification argue that America's
enemies could learn about intelligence capabilities by
tracking the top-line appropriations figure. Yet the top-line
figure by itself provides little insight into U.S.
intelligence sources and methods. . . .
Here is a point that one of the members of the Commission, again a
former member of this body, made from the 9/11 Commission Report.
The U.S. Government readily provides copious information
about spending on its military forces, including military
intelligence. The intelligence community should not be
subject to that much disclosure. But when even aggregate
categorical numbers remain hidden, it is hard to judge
priorities and foster accountability.
That is in defense of disclosing the 15 individual agency budgets.
I say to the Senator from Alaska, who knows this better than I--and I
am honored to serve on the authorizing Armed Services Committee--we
give a fair amount of detail of the budget in terms of military
programs.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Yes.
Mr. STEVENS. Unfortunately, that is not a part of the report. That is
a comment after the recommendation. It sort of demonstrates the extent
of the knowledge they had about what they were dealing with in the
recommendations, because that is not true. We do not disclose the
amount we appropriate for defense intelligence. We disclose the amount
in the budget that we support defense intelligence agencies with pay,
facilities, and offices, but the amounts of their programs are not
disclosed.
What I am saying to the Senator is, as we approach this, I think
there is a growing desire to know how much money we are spending. The
Senator may be right. Maybe people want us to spend more. I have wanted
to spend more for a long time.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I know that is true.
Mr. STEVENS. The problem is people ought to know what they are
talking about before they change the system. In these budgets are both
moneys for acquisition and for salaries, and somewhere in there is some
money that everybody knows, in the intelligence community, where it is
and what it is for.
In the Defense authorization bill there is a classified portion of
that budget.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Sure.
Mr. STEVENS. I am not even sure, other than the chairman and ranking
member, if the Senator knows what is in there. I am saying so
apologetically, but the system that requires secrecy in this country on
some things is kept secret. This disclosure prematurely might trigger
someone saying ``watch that'' in answering the question, and that would
be bad because if they answer the question about what they knew was in
there, that would disclose what they did not know was in there.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. A final response on this point. The Senator from
Alaska says correctly if one looks at the overall budget of a given
military agency, it does not tell what they are spending on different
programs. So I want to assure the Senator from Alaska that under the
committee's proposal, not only do we not talk about what is being spent
on specific programs and specific intelligence agencies, we do not talk
about what is being spent in those agencies. We talk about the one
number, the conglomerate bottom line or top-line number, and I think
that only gives a general idea of what we are investing in
intelligence, far from any specific information about what we are
investing in particular kinds of intelligence, signal, human, image,
let alone specific programs.
I would not do this if I thought it would jeopardize our national
security. In fact, that is why we did not call, as the Commission
requested, for disclosure of individual agency budgets because we
worried it might, and that is why we are asking for a report from the
national intelligence director.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I will quote Acting CIA Director John
McLaughlin from our September 8 hearing on this very issue. He said:
[[Page S10033]]
If there is a separate appropriation for the foreign
intelligence program, the national intelligence program, as
distinct from the current arrangement where that
appropriation is buried in the larger Defense Department
bill, I think it would make some sense to declassify the
overall number for the foreign intelligence program.
That was typical of our witnesses.
I also note that the top line has been made public on occasion in the
past. It was made public in 1997 and 1998 by the DCI.
At this point there are numerous Senators who are asking what the
plan is for today and who are trying to catch planes. I ask for the
regular order with respect to Lautenberg amendment No. 3802, and I ask
unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes on each side prior to a
motion to table the amendment. I further ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. STEVENS. Reserving the right to object, it is my understanding
that that would set aside the pending amendment and take up that
procedure. We would come back to this amendment. Or is there another
amendment in the queue by regular order?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no other amendment in the queue by
regular order.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending
amendment be set aside so I can call up my amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 3795
Mr. HOLLINGS. I call up my amendment numbered 3795.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hollings] proposes an
amendment numbered 3795.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To propose a substitute.)
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
following:
SECTION 1. NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COORDINATOR.
(a) National Intelligence Coordinator.--There is a National
Intelligence Coordinator who shall be appointed by the
President.
(b) Responsibility.--Subject to the direction and control
of the President, the National Intelligence Coordinator shall
have the responsibility for coordinating the performance of
all intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the
United States Government, whether such activities are foreign
or domestic.
(c) Availability of Funds.--Funds shall be available to the
National Intelligence Coordinator for the performance of the
responsibility of the Coordinator under subsection (b) in the
manner provided by law or as directed by the President.
(d) Membership on National Security Council.--The National
Intelligence Coordinator shall be a member of the National
Security Council.
(e) Support.--(1) Any official, office, program, project,
or activity of the Central Intelligence Agency as of the date
of the enactment of this Act that supports the Director of
Central Intelligence in the performance of responsibilities
and authorities as the head of the intelligence community
shall, after that date, support the National Intelligence
Coordination in the performance of the responsibility of the
Coordinator under subsection (b).
(2) Any powers and authorities of the Director of Central
Intelligence under statute, Executive order, regulation, or
otherwise as of the date of the enactment of this Act that
relate to the performance by the Director of responsibilities
and authorities as the head of the intelligence community
shall, after that date, have no further force and effect.
(f) Accountability.--The National Intelligence Coordinator
shall report directly to the President regarding the
performance of the responsibility of the Coordinator under
subsection (b), and shall be accountable to the President
regarding the performance of such responsibility.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I support the Hollings-Stevens
amendment, numbered 3795. My amendment strikes and replaces the
underlying bill with language creating a national intelligence
coordinator, or NIC. Important work since September 11th of the 9/11
Commission, numerous Senate committees and others has convinced all of
us that we must enact intelligence reform. I am impressed by the
efforts of my friends Senators Collins and Lieberman, and others, who
have used their considerable skills to implement most of the
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. But I worry that the Senate is
moving ahead with enormous restructuring, when we could address the
main problem more immediately. 9/11 was clearly an intelligence
failure, and we must act now to fix the most glaring problem--the lack
of an intelligence coordinator.
My amendment fixes this most obvious, most severe problem with our
intelligence structure by creating a national intelligence coordinator,
or NIC. It will be the NIC's responsibility to sift through the work of
all of our intelligence entities, both foreign, domestic and military
and keep the President abreast of the intelligence community's findings
in a coordinated, complete way. As it exists, the intelligence
community's communications with the President cannot help but be
haphazard. The President needs to have the huge volumes of intelligence
information coordinated by someone he trusts, so he can make informed
policy judgments. Thus, my amendment allows the President to select an
intelligence coordinator as a member of the National Security Council,
not subject to Senate approval. Just as President Bush has Karl Rove,
whom he trusts and who coordinates the political intelligence
throughout this Administration, the President needs a Karl Rove for
national security intelligence.
This NIC will need sufficient staff and resources. So my amendment
assigns to the NIC in his or her role as coordinator of intelligence
activities, the staff and resources currently assigned to the Director
of Central Intelligence, or DCI, that is now employed in the
performance of his role as coordinator of the intelligence community,
which he is not doing.
Many of the dozens of provisions in Collins-Lieberman would likely
improve our system of intelligence. The Senate should study each of
these provisions carefully, and enact the best of these provisions
after such consideration. My amendment fixes the main problem in the
meantime--the lack of a coordinator.
Collins-Lieberman creates a National Intelligence Director, or NID,
and gives that person considerable power over budgets and personnel.
The NID will control a new national counterterrorism center, and
generally manage the intelligence community. The bill is problematic
because the NID will wield unheard of influence over work of the
intelligence entities, before that work even gets done. This is
groupthink--personnel from 15 agencies work to get the Director the
answers they know he wants. Personnel will neglect intelligence that
takes them in directions they know the NID opposes. Reform should
encourage more creativity, not less; more diversity within the
intelligence community, not less. These agencies each do different
things well--we need to take advantage of differentiation, not squelch
it under the NID.
The national intelligence coordinator created by my amendment is
unlikely to lead to this problem of Groupthink. The NIC will not
control personnel and budget decisions. He will not have the power to
fire people in other agencies that he disagrees with, or promote only
people who share his worldview. He will not be able to manipulate
policy direction of intelligence agencies and centers we may create.
The NIC will coordinate, not meddle in the work itself. The 9/11
Commission decided that part of the reason the 9/11 plot was successful
is the lack of creativity in our intelligence community. Stopping
complicated terror plots before they happen requires flourishing
intelligence diversity, and Collins-Lieberman will undermine diversity
by concentrating intelligence output in one manager--the NID. We don't
need a Director of Intelligence. We need a coordinator. We need to
change the NID to NIC, the ``D'' to ``C''.
I would like to address concerns I have with the underlying bill
related to Defense. In deciding what to do with
[[Page S10034]]
the Department of Defense's control over most intelligence dollars,
Collins-Lieberman splits the baby. The bill transfers control over the
budgets and some personnel decisions of the National Security Agency,
the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the National
Reconnaissance Office, from the Secretary of Defense to the NID without
transferring control of the agencies themselves to the NID. The NID
will develop and present the President with an annual budget request
for these and other intelligence programs. It is unclear whether the
Secretary of Defense or the NID will control the actual payroll. Under
Collins-Lieberman, ``tactical'' military intelligence and the Defense
Intelligence Agency will remain under the DOD. But the bill does not
define ``tactical.'' Obviously, DOD will seek to define that term
broadly, and the NID will seek to define it narrowly. I understand
Senator Feinstein may offer an amendment that would define ``tactical''
and provide some clarity, but even if that amendment is enacted, the
battle will be waged over how to interpret the Feinstein definition of
``tactical.'' My friends Senators Specter, Roberts, Shelby, DeWine,
Bond, Wyden, Bayh and others already think the NID should have even
more control over agencies currently within the DOD than the Collins-
Lieberman bill would allow, but their amendment failed.
In short, there is confusion over what Collins-Lieberman transfers
from the DOD to the NID and what it does not transfer. There is
confusion over what ought to be placed underneath the NID, and what
stays with the DOD. There is confusion over how budget, personnel and
other types of authority can be bifurcated and trifurcated. This is a
time for clarity, not confusion. The NID will also receive the
appropriation for these and other intelligence programs, and in
Collins-Lieberman the NID can transfer funds from one office to another
as the Director sees fit. If the underlying bill is enacted as it is
currently written, I forecast open warfare between the Secretary of
Defense and the NID. Especially during a time of war, DOD will insist
on funding defense/military-related intelligence work its way. This
kind of turf war is bad for the country, and we should not enact
intelligence that we can see is likely to pit the Secretary of Defense
against the NID. If this painful transition needs to occur, we should
at least consider waiting until after combat operations in Iraq have
ended.
I am also concerned about some potential problems with the underlying
bill's blurring of domestic and foreign intelligence. While I support
the concept of fusing foreign and domestic intelligence, because that
is what modern investigating and technology requires, this is a very
sensitive and tricky area. Our Nation's history of domestic covert
governmental operations shows the need to be careful here. Collins-
Lieberman places the FBI's domestic counterterrorism activities and
those of the CIA and DOD under the NID. But it does not address
problems with locating domestic covert operations outside the FBI. The
NID would have the power to ask the CIA or DOD to engage in such covert
domestic operations. Our current governmental arrangements keep the CIA
from participating in domestic intelligence activities, yet none of
this would apply to the NID. Who is to say that the NID will not begin
using the CIA to conduct extensive covert domestic activities? This new
role for the CIA may actually be appropriate, but we have to be careful
to draw rules for CIA domestic conduct that respect our Bill of Rights
and other basic traditions. Using agencies other than the FBI for these
domestic tasks also removes the Attorney General from its supervisory
function. The Department of Justice is qualified to make difficult Bill
of Rights judgments, but these other agencies may not be. These other
agencies may not even be inclined to exercise restraint when they are
investigating Americans. We could ruin cases against suspected domestic
terrorists, because our intelligence operatives do not conduct their
investigations according to constitutional requirements, and the cases
get thrown out. And unless the stovepipes we hear so much about are
eradicated immediately under this bill, which seems unrealistic, we may
even have multiple agencies conducting duplicate investigations against
American citizens, trampling all over each other and the law.
Collins-Lieberman also enacts the largest ever surveillance
intelligence network, which can be data-mined by personnel in various
levels of government. Senator Stevens and others point out that we do
not even have the technology to meld all this intelligence in one
database. While coordinating information among agencies is laudable, it
is unclear that Collins-Lieberman addresses dangerous side effects of a
new network database. Collins-Lieberman directs the White House to
violate privacy protections, but of the three branches, the executive
branch has the least incentive to balance individual rights concerns.
Congress never held any hearings to address the civil liberties
problems with such a network, or with turning over to the White House
power to write privacy guidelines. Administration guidelines and a
civil liberties board, contained in the bill, are not as likely to
strike the correct balance over privacy issues as Congressional
oversight and public debate would. At the very least, we need committee
hearings to consider the consequences to our civil liberties of
enacting a national network database.
At this time I would like to say a few words about this underlying
bill's possible impact on a couple of our intelligence agencies.
Because of the bill's considerable scope, I will only raise a few of
the potential problems with the bill's agency reforms. The bill hampers
the FBI Director's ability to manage the FBI. The bill creates
conflicting reporting requirements for the FBI's Executive Assistant
Director for Intelligence, making her responsible to the FBI Director
and the NID. She will support not only the FBI's counterterrorism and
counterintelligence programs, under the NID, but also the FBI's
criminal and cyber missions, which are not under the NID. The bill
provides no clear way to separate FBI criminal investigations from its
intelligence work. I would not want to be the Executive Assistant
Director of Intelligence under this structure--with dueling bosses and
duplicative reporting requirements. Also, will the National Security
Council's role be weakened by the creation of a separate board chaired
by the NID? Will the NID be allowed to deny the Secretary of State and
other cabinet-level Secretaries personnel decision-making over their
own subordinates? I understand Collins-Lieberman will give the NID
authority over analysis. Where does this leave CIA analysts? The bill
does not address what the new role for CIA analysts will be. Have these
matters been worked out, or even discussed in a public forum? I have
focused on several agencies I am particularly acquainted with through
my experience on the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations
Subcommittee. I am sure my colleagues are raising similar problems with
reforming the agencies under their Committees' jurisdictions, and I
encourage them to come forward and help us understand these important
issues.
Mr. President, I'd like to say a few words about policy too. This
administration is extremely reticent to spend money in Afghanistan, and
it was trying to funnel to Iraq funds Congress allocated for
Afghanistan long before the President started the Iraq war. Collins-
Lieberman empowers the NID to transfer funds and personnel directed by
Congress from one agency to another. For example, this body may
substantially increase U.S. assistance to Afghanistan--I understand
Senators McCain and Lieberman have advocated just such an increase. If
we add funds for Afghanistan onto this bill, the NID could scrap the
funds for Afghanistan and transfer them to fund a new operation in
Syria or Iran. The NID would have a responsibility to inform Congress
that he had moved this money, but these funds would be moved
nonetheless. It is Congress's duty to allocate such funds. Empowering
the NID to override Congress's funding priorities is bound to lead the
NID to undermine Congress's powers, and instead use shift funds
allocated by Congress to advance the administration's agenda.
As we consider this bill under great political pressure and with the
election looming, we have considerable analogous precedent to
reference. Recent hasty Congressional enactments of Homeland Security
legislation and the Patriot Act show the need for more
[[Page S10035]]
measured action. Collins-Lieberman is thrown together in a matter of
weeks. Surely most of us agree that at least some of its provisions are
problematic. Much of the conversation I have heard on the floor this
week sounds more like campaigning than legislating. The White House
identifies problems throughout Collins-Lieberman--will the House
version appeal more to the White House? A hastily thrown together
conference resolving differences in the House and Senate versions will
not be conducive to finding and fixing these inevitable problems. My
friend Senator Stevens says, ``Do no harm''. Whatever comes back from
conference will have a tremendous head of steam behind it. By acting
too fast on Collins-Lieberman, the Senate may get stuck with House
provisions in a conference report that are unpalatable. Once reform is
enacted, fixing missteps is extremely difficult. Experiences of
homeland security legislation, passed right before an election, and the
Patriot Act, prove that hasty restructuring results in confusion,
mistakes and paralysis.
I conclude by asking my colleagues to support my amendment. Let's act
now and enact my amendment, which fixes the main problem of the lack of
a coordinator, and then let's continue to act as we learn. Let's sift
through the litany of approaches being advanced by my colleagues in the
underlying bill, and the rival approaches being advocated by others
both within this body and outside it. My amendment starts us on the
right track to improving our intelligence structure, and it avoids the
potential to start us on the wrong track.
I appreciate the outstanding work Senator Collins and Senator
Lieberman have done and thank them for that. They met over the break in
August and worked around the clock to produce a product so we could get
something done before we leave in time for the elections in November.
However, in those pressures of time, they have come out with a
product that needs many more hearings, more deliberation, and more
consideration. In essence, they have a national intelligence director
who directs and manages. Immediately that raised the red flag for this
particular Senator.
When I say ``raised the red flag for this particular Senator,'' let
me tell of an experience. It was 50 years ago we had the Hoover
Commission Task Force investigating the intelligence activities of this
Nation. We had the McCarthy days, McCarthy charging there were
Communist spies and agents within the State Department, within the
Defense Department, within the executive branch, and everywhere
throughout the Government. President Eisenhower appointed the Doolittle
Commission and they came out with what was considered generally in the
Congress as a whitewash. The White House and Congress got together and
agreed efforts should be conducted to reorganize the executive branch,
thus, President Hoover's commission came to be.
A task force was headed by General Mark Clark. I served as one of
those members of the task force investigating the CIA, the FBI, the
Army, Navy, air intelligence, Secret Service, Q clearance, atomic
energy intelligence, and on down the list. We spent some 2 years. After
hearings and consideration of the generally speaking minute
intelligence information at that time--I say ``minute'' for the simple
reason that the intelligence information now correlated by the various
entities and departments and agencies is like drinking water out of a
fire hydrant. You have much, much greater volume. But even then we
found the need for a coordinator.
I can see Allen Dulles of the Central Intelligence Agency. Director
Dulles of the CIA said, I have my hands full trying to get the work
done properly of the CIA, much less as the head of intelligence
activities in the Government, namely the coordinator of all
intelligence, the centralizer of all intelligence. That is why it was
called the Central Intelligence Agency. He said, I have too much work
to do. What we need is one single intelligence coordinator to
coordinate all of it--my work, the FBI, Defense Department, military.
In those days all we had was foreign intelligence and military to
bother with. We did not have terrorism threats and counterterrorism
within the continental limits. Now we have heaped upon the
responsibilities of the intelligence community all kinds of duties that
need further deliberation and estimation because, as I say, the
director of the national intelligence, when they said ``direct,'' when
they said ``manage,'' I said heavens above, here is a flaw of September
11 intelligence. It was directed. It was managed. Everyone knows that
now after the hearings.
The Vice President had his own little cabal in that Department of
Defense. They had met with the head of the Defense Advisory Council,
Richard Perle, and Scooter Libby and that group. They had submitted to
the country of Israel in 1996--Benjamin Netanyahu was coming in as
Prime Minister, and they submitted at that time that Saddam ought to be
replaced with the Hashemite rule and they wanted to democratize Iraq
back in 1996.
When Netanyahu refused doing that, they came back and organized
themselves into the Project for the New American Century and they have
been pressing forward ever since.
So when you direct and when you manage intelligence, you have a
flawed product. We need coordination. You need to take the best of the
best from the CIA, from the FBI, from the National Security Agency,
from the National Reconnaissance Organization, and all these other
entities and coordinate into a product to give to the President.
Suppose you were President in the next 10 minutes and you heard about
a terrorist threat, not only foreign but domestic. What you would want
in line, you would want a Karl Rove on intelligence. Now, the President
has a Karl Rove on political intelligence. Karl Rove can tell you for
any section of the country what is going on in any particular State. He
has pollsters. He can give a consummate judgment or alternative to the
President to make a judgment. That is fine business. We have that
without legislation.
We need just that in security intelligence--not only foreign, not
only domestic, not only military, but all three--security intelligence
coordinator.
So when I say the national intelligence director directing and
managing, I am saying, here is a flaw of September 11. You know the
group-think policy of the President. If you are directing and managing
intelligence, what you do is go immediately and give that intelligence
to the folks making the Presidential policy and you develop a group-
think and a flawed product.
We do not want, necessarily, a director, certainly with all the
duties that this particular director is burdened with but, rather, we
want a coordinator. He should be or she should be in the National
Security Council, appointed by the President, without confirmation by
the Senate. You have to have your own person in there. And you have to
not have him or her running over to several committees in the Senate
and several committees in the House testifying about this management,
this direction, this decision, this or that policy. He will have his
hands full just with what the President wants.
Necessarily, we transfer those coordination responsibilities from the
CIA over to this national intelligence coordinator. This is a short,
two-page amendment by Senator Stevens, Senator Inouye, Senator Cochran,
and myself. This was worked out this afternoon. I was trying to listen
to the debate, and the more I listened, the more it impressed me that
we needed much more deliberate work and consideration, and not the
crunch of a national election to get all of us out of town and do
something. So we are trying to respond to that edict of ``don't just
stand there, do something.'' I am afraid we are going to enact the
``Alka Seltzer'' intelligence bill: I don't believe we passed the whole
thing.
Look what it does. It directs and manages, but what intelligence is
under the Department of Defense and what intelligence is under the
national intelligence director. I searched and I found conflicts
throughout the particular Collins-Lieberman measure, especially during
a time of war. I can tell you, you are going to find all kinds of
conflicts there. There are conflicts going on right now with the war in
Iraq and the Secretary of Defense saying he is not going to stand for
it. The national intelligence director has the defense intelligence
budget, but then the
[[Page S10036]]
secretary of intelligence has the defense intelligence function and
responsibility. And the Secretary of Defense does not have budget
control over what he has responsibility. And then there is the ``ying''
and the ``yang'' of defense intelligence versus tactical intelligence.
And I have listened to some, the distinguished Senator from California
and others, on what they consider tactical intelligence.
On civil liberties, there are real grave concerns there because there
is within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that investigates crimes
and protects civil liberties, a culture, a paradigm, and a discipline.
The Justice Department has developed that over the years of different
FBI Directors. Now, with respect to the national intelligence director,
he can direct covert activity to be taken on by the FBI with none of
that discipline and none of those checks and balances.
You have heard the distinguished Senator from Alaska with respect to
the national intelligence director's transfer of funds, not only the
reporting of funds. I can tell you now that will never happen where you
can transfer funds because the Appropriations Committee has that
responsibility.
I can go down the different disclosure of funds and various other
things. What I want to emphasize is that I am not trying to disparage
any of the wonderful work being done by our Governmental Operations
Committee. They have a product out here now that we can develop and
work upon and iron out the differences. But it should not be under the
pressure that we are in and having passed ipso facto the Collins-
Lieberman bill. You would not satisfy the problem of 9/11, and that is
coordination.
You need the President's man or woman in that National Security
Council, auditing, gaining, and getting. And mind you me, don't worry
about getting it, now that you have a coordinator sitting there with
the President. For example, that Arizona flight school information that
did not get through the FBI to the coordinator, because they did not
have one, is excused. That Minnesota terrorist who did not want to land
the plane, all he wanted to do was fly it into a building; that came to
the CIA but did not get to the White House. Known terrorists came into
the country, passed the Immigration department, and the Naturalization
Service. That did not get to the Director.
But mind you me, if you have a coordinator, and the information of
that importance does not get through to that coordinator, the opposite
is going to be true. Rather than the old days when you held within your
particular department or agency your intelligence and your information,
and you did not tell the FBI, and the FBI did not tell the CIA, here
you are going to try to regurgitate and spit up and throw out and
report to that coordinator. Because if he does not get it at the White
House level, heads are going to roll.
So we have changed the culture and discipline by having one
coordinator. That is all you need. We can go home and know that the job
is done. The FBI is working. The CIA is working. The National Security
Agency now knows not to wait until tomorrow to translate their go
signal. As they went into the World Trade Towers, they were a day late
in translating documents.
We can go home and know that the President is equipped with a
coordinator. And immediately, if I am running the CIA or FBI, I am
going to start getting my information out rather than hiding it. That
is the real difficulty: The dots were there, but the dots were not
joined. With the Collins-Lieberman bill what you are instituting and
legislating into law is the flaw of 9/11. You have a director of
intelligence. You have a manager of intelligence. And that is how they
got into the World Trade towers and into the Pentagon. It was managed.
I can see the President on October 7, 2002, in Cincinnati. ``Facing
clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait until the smoking gun is a
mushroom cloud,'' he said. Seven days later I voted for the authority
to go to the war when the President asked--I did not sit on the
Intelligence Committee. When my Commander in Chief says: ``Facing clear
evidence of peril, we cannot wait until the smoking gun is a mushroom
cloud,'' I voted aye. Then I found out there weren't no smoking guns,
there were no mushroom clouds, there were no facilities, there were no
weapons, there were no terrorist threats. But that is another argument.
I am trying to get something done where we in good conscience can
protect our national security, protect us against domestic terrorism.
And we can fix this bill.
Now, let me add one little thing. I don't know whether Senator
Stevens, my dear colleague, or Senator Inouye or Senator Cochran wants
to talk. But I would agree, I don't need, unless I am questioned,
another 10 minutes. And I know they have amendments of their own. So I
would agree to a time limit on either side if the distinguished
managers of the bill are trying to get to a vote.
Ms. COLLINS. How much more time does the Senator from South Carolina
believe he would require?
Mr. HOLLINGS. Let me reserve 10 minutes. I don't know if I will use
it.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator
from South Carolina be accorded up to 10 minutes more for his debate,
and then that Senator Lieberman and I have up to 10 minutes for us to
use in opposition to the Hollings amendment. Then it is my intention to
move to table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I will use just 1 minute for the
Hollings-Stevens-Inouye-Cochran amendment. It is my policy, and it is
not to be treated casually. It is to be treated seriously because what
we are going through is this exercise here. And if you had the Collins-
Lieberman bill up, I would vote to get it to the House and let them try
to hammer it out. They don't have the coordinator.
I was just about to say, the reason they didn't have that coordinator
is that the 9/11 Commission is even Stephen, Republican-Democrat. And
they wanted to have a unanimous report, and I agree with that. So they
didn't hammer and zero in or bull's-eye the real need and the real
fault of 9/11. They didn't join the dots. They didn't have a
coordinator. And if they were going to come out on that unanimously,
they would have found fault at the White House level. It is just as
simple as that.
I know another time in the history of this Government where we knew
full well that President Reagan knew about the Contras, at least I was
convinced so. But you couldn't report it. You couldn't say it. You
couldn't do it for the simple reason that these so-called commissions
that are now sanctified are really politically balanced, and they leave
out the necessary one. In this particular instance, we need a
coordinator. You can get all of the directors. You can get all of the
budgets. You can get all hammered out about the Defense Department.
Just leave it all alone or put it all through. And you haven't
satisfied and gotten a coordinator at the National Security Council.
We had that amendment early on last year, and the vote was 49 to 48.
We put him on. I had that amendment up. It was a partisan vote.
Now I have worked yesterday and today to explain it to colleagues on
the other side of the aisle, and it is bipartisan by the most
responsible of Senators other than myself. I hope we don't treat it
casually as something to be tabled and walk away and say: Let's have
another amendment. We don't want to vote on Friday. Let's get some
votes.
We are all thinking about procedure and not thinking about the
country. We are all thinking about the campaign and not the country.
I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the amendment offered by the Senator from
South Carolina eviscerates the underlying bill. I want to be very clear
about that. His amendment takes a radically different approach to
intelligence reform. The Hollings amendment creates a national
intelligence coordinator and transfers to this individual the
responsibility and authority that the Director of Central Intelligence
now has as head of the intelligence community. The DCI would remain as
head of the CIA and principal adviser to the President.
This approach is completely contrary to the recommendations of the 9/
11
[[Page S10037]]
Commission. It is completely contrary to the report of the
congressional joint inquiry. It is completely contrary to numerous
government and private sector reports over the past five decades.
The Hollings amendment gives the national intelligence coordinator
the responsibility to manage the intelligence community but does not
give that individual any additional authority to allow him to
accomplish that task. The Hollings amendment also provides that except
as otherwise provided by law, the national intelligence coordinator
shall not be accountable to Congress regarding the performance of the
responsibility of the coordinator. It is difficult to imagine why we
would establish such a position with a list of legally defined
responsibilities and authorities currently in the National Security Act
of 1947, very important responsibilities and authorities which affected
the security and the liberty of the American people, and then
specifically provide that this individual is not accountable to
Congress.
I am strongly opposed to this amendment. It guts the entire Collins-
Lieberman bill. I urge my colleagues to defeat it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the Hollings
amendment. The Senator from South Carolina raised a question: Who cares
about the country? Who is putting the country's interests and security
first?
I assure him that Senator Collins and I, the members of our committee
from both parties, care about the country, care about the security of
the country, worry about the imminence of a terrorist attack, read the
reports, came in in July and August and September, worked real hard to
produce this proposal.
Talk about treating something casually, the amendment of the Senator
from South Carolina would casually eliminate all our work and that of
the 9/11 Commission and a series of commissions going back to 1947,
when the National Security Act was adopted, recommending a strong
national intelligence director.
What you are doing is creating a position that is cosmetic, that has
no teeth to it, and will not be able to do what we need to do. It will
bring us back to where we were before September 11, with no one in
charge and, even worse, the appearance of someone in charge.
Witness after witness--people no one would treat casually,
Secretaries of State, heads of the intelligence community, the past
three or four of those people said: The worst thing you can do is to
create a position and not give that position the authority to direct
the intelligence community.
With all respect, that is what the amendment of the Senator from
South Carolina is doing.
Secretary Powell said to us on September 13 of this year at a
hearing:
A [Director of Central Intelligence] was there before, but
the DCI did not have that kind of authority. And in this
town, it's budget authority that counts. Can you move the
money? Can you set standards for people? The [national
intelligence director]--
The one created in our bill--
will have all of that, and so I think this is a far more
powerful player. And that will help the State Department.
Stansfield Turner, CIA Director under President Carter, told us on
August 16:
I think it's empowering somebody to run a $40 billion a
year . . . operation. And we just don't have that. And we
need to have a CEO. So the real issue is just how much
authority to give that CEO and still protect the Department
of Defense. And I, as a military officer, would err on the
side of giving it to the national intelligence director.
That is what we do.
With all respect, not casually, we have built in a lot of time and
effort that this committee put in over a period of time on a totally
bipartisan basis. This amendment would take us back to where we were
when we were struck on September 11, 2001. I don't want to go back
there, and that is why I oppose this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Well, two points quickly: I don't go back to 1947, but
I go back to 1953 and 1954 under the Hoover Commission. And I would
refer you to that report. They ask for a national intelligence
coordinator. Allen Dulles would say--he was directing Central
Intelligence--you can run the National Security Agency, you over at the
Department of Defense, and you can direct and manage military
intelligence and these different departments. But take those cold
turkey facts of intelligence and information and have them
coordinated--not superduper $40 billion. It sounds pretty on paper, but
I can tell you right now, that is what was wrong with 9/11. The
intelligence was directed, was managed.
Why do you think the head of the CIA hammered and slammed his fist on
the desk of the President and said, Slam dunk, Mr. President, we got
all the information you need on weapons of mass destruction, when he
didn't even have an agent in downtown Baghdad. We were about to invade
Iraq, and we had not an agent. That was the same director who was the
staff director before Gulf Storm and Senator Bill Cohen and I came back
to be briefed on Iraq and Baghdad, against Saddam. And George Tenet,
the staff director at that time, said: Gentlemen, we don't have an
agent in Baghdad. We don't have one in Iraq. We will have to call over
to the Defense Department. Here, 11 years later, we still don't have
somebody down there. Now we have operative agents and everything else
trying to manage elections and what have you. So the idea is to
coordinate impartial, objective intelligence facts, not manage
intelligence.
Secondly, the Congress stays out of it, Senator Collins, most
respectfully. The Congress stays out of the affairs of Condoleezza
Rice. She is the National Security Adviser. We don't call her up willy-
nilly before 15 different committees here on the Hill and say testify
here and there. You don't want that. If you are the President, you want
it coordinated subject to you. That is what you need. You don't call
Karl Rove up here and ask him about political intelligence; you have
him working around the clock. He has us Democrats on the run.
I want the same kind of job done in domestic intelligence, foreign
intelligence, and military intelligence. I want it coordinated for the
President so the buck doesn't stop here because the dots were not
joined. Now we are about to join the dots in this amendment. Of all
people, they say let's don't join them, let's just manage; and we have
$40 billion or $30 billion, whatever it is, and we are going to manage
indirectly and we are going to screw up the Defense Department, the
FBI, civil rights, and everything else, in the head-on rush we have
here this afternoon.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I move to table the Hollings amendment
and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Domenici), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kyl), and the Senator from
Arizona (Mr. McCain) are necessarily absent.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Akaka), the
Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator from California (Mrs.
Boxer), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards), the Senator from
Florida (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), the
Senator from Georgia (Mr. Miller), and the Senator from Florida (Mr.
Nelson), are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 82, nays 7, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 193 Leg.]
YEAS--82
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Bingaman
Bond
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Campbell
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Clinton
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Cornyn
Corzine
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
[[Page S10038]]
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
McConnell
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Voinovich
Warner
Wyden
NAYS--7
Burns
Byrd
Cochran
Hollings
Inouye
Sessions
Stevens
NOT VOTING--11
Akaka
Biden
Boxer
Domenici
Edwards
Graham (FL)
Kerry
Kyl
McCain
Miller
Nelson (FL)
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The Senator from Maine.
Amendment No. 3802
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I move to table the Lautenberg amendment
and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a
sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Domenici), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kyl), the Senator from Arizona
(Mr. McCain) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback) are
necessarily absent.
I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from Kansas
(Mr. Brownback) would vote ``yea.''
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Akaka), the
Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator from California (Mrs.
Boxer), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Edwards), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) and
the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 47, nays 41, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 194 Leg.]
YEAS--47
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Bennett
Bond
Bunning
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Chambliss
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Dole
Ensign
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
McConnell
Miller
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Stevens
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Voinovich
Warner
NAYS--41
Baucus
Bayh
Bingaman
Breaux
Byrd
Cantwell
Carper
Clinton
Conrad
Corzine
Daschle
Dayton
Dodd
Dorgan
Feingold
Feinstein
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Wyden
NOT VOTING--12
Akaka
Biden
Boxer
Brownback
Domenici
Durbin
Edwards
Graham (FL)
Kerry
Kyl
McCain
Nelson (FL)
The motion was agreed to.
Ms. COLLINS. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. SANTORUM. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Amendment No. 3819
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay the pending
business aside and call up amendment No. 3819.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Ensign], for himself, Mr. Kyl,
Mr. Chambliss, Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Grassley, and Mr. Sessions,
proposes an amendment numbered 3819.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To require the Secretary of State to increase the number of
consular officers, clarify the responsibilities and functions of
consular officers, and require the Secretary of Homeland Security to
increase the number of border patrol agents and customs enforcement
investigators)
At the end, add the following:
TITLE IV--OTHER MATTERS
SEC. 401. RESPONSIBILITIES AND FUNCTIONS OF CONSULAR
OFFICERS.
(a) Increased Number of Consular Officers.--The Secretary
of State, in each of fiscal years 2006 through 2009, may
increase by 150 the number of positions for consular officers
above the number of such positions for which funds were
allotted for the preceding fiscal year.
(b) Limitation on Use of Foreign Nationals for Visa
Screening.--
(1) Immigrant visas.--Subsection (b) of section 222 of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1202) is amended by
adding at the end the following: ``All immigrant visa
applications shall be reviewed and adjudicated by a consular
officer.''.
(2) Nonimmigrant visas.--Subsection (d) of such section is
amended by adding at the end the following: ``All
nonimmigrant visa applications shall be reviewed and
adjudicated by a consular officer.''.
(c) Training for Consular Officers in Detection of
Fraudulent Documents.--Section 305(a) of the Enhanced Border
Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 (8 U.S.C. 1734(a))
is amended by adding at the end the following: ``As part of
the consular training provided to such officers by the
Secretary of State, such officers shall also receive training
in detecting fraudulent documents and general document
forensics and shall be required as part of such training to
work with immigration officers conducting inspections of
applicants for admission into the United States at ports of
entry.''.
(d) Assignment of Anti-Fraud Specialists.--
(1) Survey regarding document fraud.--The Secretary of
State, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland
Security, shall conduct a survey of each diplomatic and
consular post at which visas are issued to assess the extent
to which fraudulent documents are presented by visa
applicants to consular officers at such posts.
(2) Placement of specialist.--Not later than July 31, 2005,
the Secretary of State shall, in coordination with the
Secretary of Homeland Security, identify 100 of such posts
that experience the greatest frequency of presentation of
fraudulent documents by visa applicants. The Secretary of
State shall place in each such post at least one full-time
anti-fraud specialist employed by the Department of State to
assist the consular officers at each such post in the
detection of such fraud.
SEC. 402. INCREASE IN FULL-TIME BORDER PATROL AGENTS.
The Secretary of Homeland Security, in each of fiscal years
2006 through 2010, shall increase by not less than 2,000 the
number of positions for full-time active duty border patrol
agents within the Department of Homeland Security above the
number of such positions for which funds were allotted for
the preceding fiscal year.
SEC. 403. INCREASE IN FULL-TIME IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS
ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATORS.
The Secretary of Homeland Security, in each of fiscal years
2006 through 2010, shall increase by not less than 800 the
number of positions for full-time active duty investigators
within the Department of Homeland Security investigating
violations of immigration laws (as defined in section
101(a)(17) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C.
1101(a)(17)) above the number of such positions for which
funds were allotted for the preceding fiscal year. At least
half of these additional investigators shall be designated to
investigate potential violations of section 274A of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C 25 1324a). Each
State shall be allotted at least 3 of these additional
investigators.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Amendment No. 3815
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
pending amendment be laid aside and call up amendment No. 3815, which
is at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Rockefeller], for
himself, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Roberts, and Ms. Mikulski,
proposes an amendment numbered 3815.
The amendment is as follows:
[[Page S10039]]
(Purpose: To improve and provide for the review of intelligence
estimate and products)
On page 17, between lines 19 and 20, insert the following:
(11) direct an element or elements of the intelligence
community to conduct competitive analysis of analytic
products, particularly products having national importance;
(12) implement policies and procedures to encourage sound
analytic methods and tradecraft throughout the elements of
the intelligence community and to ensure that the elements of
the intelligence community regularly conduct competitive
analysis of analytic products, whether such products are
produced by or disseminated to such elements;
On page 17, line 20, strike ``(11)'' and insert ``(13)''.
On page 17, line 22, strike ``(12)'' and insert ``(14)''.
On page 18, line 1, strike ``(13)'' and insert ``(15)''.
On page 18, line 4, strike ``(14)'' and insert ``(16)''.
On page 18, line 7, strike ``(15)'' and insert ``(17)''.
On page 18, line 14, strike ``(16)'' and insert ``(18)''.
On page 18, line 17, strike ``(17)'' and insert ``(19)''.
On page 18, line 20, strike ``(18)'' and insert ``(20)''.
On page 19, line 5, strike ``(19)'' and insert ``(21)''.
On page 19, line 7, strike ``(20)'' and insert ``(22)''.
On page 31, line 1, strike ``112(a)(16)'' and insert
``112(a)(18)''.
On page 49, line 13, insert ``, and each other National
Intelligence Council product'' after ``paragraph (1)''.
On page 49, line 15, insert ``or product'' after
``estimate''.
On page 49, line 17, insert ``or product'' after
``estimate''.
On page 49, line 19, insert ``or product'' after
``estimate''.
On page 49, line 22, strike ``such estimate and such
estimate'' and insert ``such estimate or product and such
estimate or product, as the case may be''.
On page 49, line 24, insert ``or product'' after
``estimate''.
On page 51, between lines 5 and 6, insert the following:
(i) National Intelligence Council Product.--For purposes of
this section, the term ``National Intelligence Council
product'' includes a National Intelligence Estimate and any
other intelligence community assessment that sets forth the
judgment of the intelligence community as a whole on a matter
covered by such product.
On page 56, line 20, strike ``(15) and (16)'' and insert
``(17) and (18)''.
On page 87, line 16, strike ``and'' at the end.
On page 87, between lines 16 and 17, insert the following:
(D) conduct, or recomend to the National Intelligence
Director to direct an element or elements of the intelligence
community to conduct, competitive analyses of intelligence
products relating to suspected terrorists, their
organizations, and their capabilities, plans, and intentions,
particularly products having national importance;
(E) implement policies and procedures to encourage
coordination by all elements of the intelligence community
that conduct analysis of intelligence regarding terrorism of
all Directorate products of national importance and, as
appropriate, other products, before their final
dissemination; and
On page 87, line 17, strike ``(D)'' and insert ``(F)''.
On page 96, line 16, strike ``foreign''.
On page 100, between lines 3 and 4, insert the following:
SEC. 145. OFFICE OF ALTERNATIVE ANALYSIS.
(a) Office of Alternative Analysis.--There is within the
National Intelligence Authority an Office of Alternative
Analysis.
(b) Head of Office.--The National Intelligence Director
shall appoint the head of the Office of Alternative Analysis.
(c) Independence of Office.--The National Intelligence
Director shall take appropriate actions to ensure the
independence of the Office of Alternative Analysis in its
activities under this section.
(d) Function of Office.--(1) The Office of Alternative
Analysis shall subject each National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE), before the completion of such estimate, to a thorough
examination of all facts, assumptions, analytic methods, and
judgments utilized in or underlying any analysis, estimation,
plan, evaluation, or recommendation contained in such
estimate.
(2)(A) The Office may also subject any other intelligence
estimate, brief, survey, assessment, or report designated by
the National Intelligence Director to a thorough examination
as described in paragraph (1).
(B) Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment
of this Act, the Director shall submit to the congressional
intelligence committees a report on the estimates, briefs,
surveys, assessments or reports, if any, designated by the
Director under subparagraph (A).
(3)(A) The purpose of an evaluation of an estimate or
document under this subsection shall be to provide an
independent analysis of any underlying facts, assumptions,
and recommendations contained in such estimate or document
and to present alternative conclusions, if any, arising from
such facts or assumptions or with respect to such
recommendations.
(B) In order to meet the purpose set forth in subparagraph
(A), the Office shall, unless otherwise directed by the
President, have access to all analytic products, field
reports, and raw intelligence of any element of the
intelligence community and such other reports and information
as the Director considers appropriate.
(4) The evaluation of an estimate or document under this
subsection shall be known as a ``OAA analysis'' of such
estimate or document.
(5) Each estimate or document covered by an evaluation
under this subsection shall include an appendix that contains
the findings and conclusions of the Office with respect to
the estimate or document, as the case may be, based upon the
evaluation of the estimate or document, as the case may be,
by the Office under this subsection.
(6) The results of each evaluation of an estimate or
document under this subsection shall be submitted to the
congressional intelligence committees.
On page 194, line 9, strike ``112(a)(11)'' and insert
``112(a)(14)''.
On page 195, line 16, strike ``112(a)(11)'' and insert
``112(a)(14)''.
On page 195, line 23, strike ``112(a)(11)'' and insert
``112(a)(14)''.
On page 196, line 7, strike ``112(a)(11)'' and insert
``112(a)(14)''.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I rise to offer, along with Senator
Hutchison, and also Senator Roberts and Senator Mikulski, this
amendment. I will explain it in further detail. But the main objective
of our amendment is to institutionalize much needed reform, based upon
our recent experience, which is, namely, the practice of alternative
analysis, or, as we say, ``red teaming,'' in the production of
significant intelligence assessments.
As to this Rockefeller-Hutchison amendment, I am very pleased to say
I believe the distinguished chair and ranking member of the Committee
on Governmental Affairs have indicated their support for this
amendment--that is my hope--and that, therefore, the amendment will be
accepted by them and supported, obviously, by our colleagues without
the need for a vote.
Section 123 of the Collins-Lieberman bill provides for placement of
the National Intelligence Council within the office of the national
intelligence director. The Council is currently under the Director of
Central Intelligence.
As the Senate Intelligence Committee report on prewar intelligence on
Iraq explains, National Intelligence Estimates are the intelligence
community's most authoritative written judgments--they are the golden
standard--on national security issues.
The Collins-Lieberman bill reforms the work of the National
Intelligence Council, based in significant part on the findings of the
Intelligence Committee's Iraq review.
Importantly, it requires the National Intelligence Estimates to
distinguish between the intelligence underlying estimates and the
judgments of analysts about the intelligence itself. The bill also
requires that the estimates describe the quality and reliability of the
intelligence underlying the analytical judgments, present and explain
alternative conclusions, and characterize any uncertainties. Our
amendment builds upon this important reform in two ways.
First, our amendment applies these reforms not only to National
Intelligence Estimates, to which they are currently limited, but also
to other analytical products of the National Intelligence Council,
which is the senior group made up of intelligence people and people
from public and private sectors--the senior group.
Second, our amendment will institutionalize a method of ensuring that
an alternative analysis is used in the preparation of National
Intelligence Estimates and is available to policymakers reviewing the
estimates so they get the full picture.
It does this by providing for the establishment within the national
intelligence authority of an office of alternative analysis, whose head
will be appointed by the national intelligence director. The national
intelligence director is required to ensure the independence of the
office of alternative analysis. The unit is directed to review every
National Intelligence Estimate, and any other intelligence report
designated pursuant to guidelines established by the director.
The important purpose of the Rockefeller-Hutchison bill is the
following: To thoroughly examine all facts, all assumptions, analytical
methods, and judgments used in the estimate--in other words, the
ability to question, to
[[Page S10040]]
be a contrarian, to dig deeper, to ask questions that otherwise and
heretofore have not been asked. To make sure that the alternative
analysis is available to policymakers, our amendment also requires that
each National Intelligence Estimate or other product that is subject to
an alternative analysis include the alternative analysis in its
appendix.
While our Intelligence Committee's Iraq review did not include
committee recommendations, I can assure our colleagues of the
widespread support within our committee of the importance of
alternative analysis or ``red teaming'' as it is called informally. It
remains important for the body of the National Intelligence Estimate to
state dissent from within the intelligence community. But beyond that,
it is vital for a dedicated group of analysts to examine all aspects of
an estimate--data, assumptions, analytic methods, and judgments.
The ultimate objective is to enable the National Intelligence Council
personnel, the national intelligence director, and the executive and
legislative branch policymakers to appraise the intelligence
community's analysis on matters central to our national security.
I would like to express my special appreciation to Senator Hutchison
who has been working on this for a long time and had a similar
amendment. Our staffs worked flawlessly together. Senator Roberts,
chairman of the full Intelligence Committee, also had a related
amendment making it clear that the national intelligence director is
responsible for ensuring competitive analysis throughout the
intelligence community. I thank both Senators for their contribution.
I also wish to express my appreciation to Congresswoman Jane Harman
for developing in the House an alternative analysis proposal from which
we have benefited preparing this amendment.
I hope the Rockefeller-Hutchison amendment is acceptable.
I yield to the distinguished Senator from the State of Texas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank Senator Rockefeller for
working with me on this amendment. We had very similar amendments that
both of us filed independently and our staffs got together with the
distinguished chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator
Collins, and the ranking member, Senator Lieberman, and I think we have
come up with a comprehensive approach to competitive analysis. It is
something the majority of people who have served on the Intelligence
Committee know is desperately needed. Particularly as we are
consolidating agencies and trying to make our agencies mesh better
together. It is very important that we keep the competition of ideas,
challenge assumptions, and ensure a forum is provided for alternative
ideas and recommendations. The end result is an office which will
perform what many refer to as ``red teaming'' that is so important to
an effective intelligence network.
When Dr. Henry Kissinger testified before the Appropriations
Committee, of which I am a member, he said, particularly with the
consolidation of intelligence oversight, you have to make sure that you
have some way of finding out if there were different conclusions
reached with the same or even other extraneous material.
We had the challenge of making sure that the competition of ideas was
not lost. I believe the Rockefeller-Hutchison amendment does exactly
that.
I thank the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Rockefeller. I appreciate
Senator Roberts also working with us on this, and Senator Mikulski.
Senator Kyl was interested in this as well. Everyone came together, and
I think the result will be an office which is able to quickly adapt to
terrorist threats. It will be an office of alternative intelligence
analysis that will be able to challenge the assumptions and make sure
that our highest policymakers, including the President of the United
States, have access to this alternative analysis so that he will be
able to make the very best decisions.
I thank the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the
committee. I thank Senator Rockefeller. I think we have a wonderful
approach, a wonderful amendment that will add greatly to the bill and
the goal we are all trying to reach of a quality intelligence product
with which our President and our Secretary of State, Secretary of
Defense can make decisions.
I yield the floor and urge adoption of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I commend Senator Rockefeller and Senator
Hutchison for their amendment to improve the quality of intelligence
analysis by creating a red team. Both of them talked to me very early
on about the need for this improvement in our bill. Senator Roberts and
Senator Mikulski have also been very interested in this issue. I am
very pleased they have been able to come together. They have produced
an excellent amendment that will improve the quality of intelligence
analysis.
I also urge adoption of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank our colleagues from West
Virginia, Texas, and Kansas for this amendment. It has been a priority
of our focus, Senator Collins and mine and the committee, to make sure
that intelligence is not only coordinated by the national intelligence
director and the dots are connected, but that intelligence be high
quality and objective and subjected to the competition of ideas. This
amendment makes that basic approach even stronger.
I thank our friends for all they have done. Senator Rockefeller,
again, if I haven't said it on the floor, has been a tremendous
contributor to our effort. I thank him for all the support he has
given.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on amendment No. 3815?
If not, without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
The amendment (No. 3815) was agreed to.
Amendment No. 3942
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I have an amendment which I send to the
desk at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is
set aside.
Without objection, the amendment is in order, and the clerk will
report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Lieberman], for himself,
Mr. McCain, and Mr. Bayh, proposes an amendment numbered
3942.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise with Senator McCain to offer
this amendment that takes the fight against terrorism right to where
they live--right to their front lines.
This amendment says we will identify terrorist havens and--working
with our allies--we will break them up and keep them on the run.
They will have no peace, no rest, no time to settle in and plot
destruction.
This amendment also says we will attack and cut their most vital
supply line--the disaffected young who serve as recruits.
We will do this by showing the Muslim world--especially the young--
that we believe in and can help them achieve their dreams of living in
a 21st century world that still respects the tenets of Islam.
These goals are a challenge. But if we succeed--and we must--this
generation will see the calls to jihad fade and the global chorus
celebrating our shared humanity and peaceful futures grow.
Let us start with the challenge of eliminating terrorist sanctuaries
and their sense of safety.
As the 9/11 Commission reported, terrorist cells stretch from
Afghanistan right into the major cities of Europe. And as 9/11 proved,
into the United States as well.
To fight and win this war, we need to identify these pockets of
terrorist sanctuaries and, working with other nations, develop
strategies that in the words of the Commission:
Keep possible terrorists insecure and on the run using all
instruments of national power.
[[Page S10041]]
The Commission did identify specific countries where we should
concentrate our immediate efforts and I would like to focus on two of
them.
One is Afghanistan. This almost goes without saying.
This is where al-Qaida trained its killers. This is where the 9/11
plot was hatched. This is where the tyrannical Taliban rulers enslaved
an entire nation except for those who plotted global destruction.
This amendment says that Congress needs to authorize the aid and
support necessary for the entire Afghan nation to finally realize its
freedom, which is so close but still so fragile.
At this stage, half measures in Afghanistan are the same as throwing
a five-foot rope to someone drowning 10 feet away. We can't let that
happen.
Another country identified by the Commission was Pakistan.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Pakistani government made the
choice to stand with us in the fight against terrorism at great risk to
the stability of the nation and the lives of its leaders.
We have no choice but to stand by them.
Pakistan may be an imperfect ally at times. But they have been a
loyal ally--committing troops on their own frontiers to hunt down al-
Qaida fighters and denying them safe bases.
This amendment says we not only need to maintain our current
financial support of Pakistan, but let the Pakistanis know we are
making a long-term commitment to the future of their nation.
They need to know they have our support for as long as they remain
true to their goals of defeating domestic extremists, promoting a civil
society and preserving the hope of Pakistani democracy that can become
another beacon for the Muslin world in the years to come.
Just imagine if one of the outcomes of the global war against
terrorism was stable democracies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.
This goal is within our grasp. It is within our means. Only our
vision can fail us now.
And vision--long-term vision--is what we will need to fulfill the
second part of the strategy outlined in this amendment.
We must win over the minds of the Muslim world, especially the young,
by reaching out and talking to them in ways we never have before.
Let me pose a question the 9/11 Commission asked.
How can a man hiding in a cave be communicating more effectively with
the Muslim world than the nation that invented mass media and the
Internet?
The 9/11 Commission report said:
To Muslim parents, terrorists like bin Laden have nothing
to offer their children but visions of violence and death.
America and its friends have a crucial advantage. We can
offer these parents a vision that gives their children a
better future.
But it doesn't matter if we don't effectively communicate that
vision.
This amendment says we must improve our mass communications efforts
with the Muslim world through sustained and well-funded broadcast
efforts on satellite television and radio.
That is a good start. But this can't just be an air war. Minds are
won over more by actions than words.
And this amendment looks to engage the minds of Muslim youth by
rebuilding scholarship, student exchange and library programs.
It also calls for establishing an International Youth Opportunity
Fund--that other nations would be asked to contribute to--that would
help build and operate primary and secondary schools in Muslim nations
committed to public education.
Why do this? Because most of these nations are too poor to pay for
public education.
Instead, students attend Madrassahs that far too often are classrooms
where hatred is taught and bigotry affirmed.
Consider this: In Karachi, Pakistan, 200,000 students attend
Madrassahs; 200,000 in one city alone. Multiply that over the entire
Muslim world. We can't possibly keep up with those numbers year after
year.
The challenges ahead of us are daunting. But with this amendment we
say that we are ready and willing to go to the front lines of the
terrorist world and take away the sanctuaries where they hide--and take
back the minds that they steal.
This is another in a series of amendments that Senator McCain and I
have offered to carry out the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
This one has to do with recommendations they have made with regard to
foreign policy. It has been cleared on both sides. I urge its adoption.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
If not, without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
The amendment (No. 3942) was agreed to.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
Amendment No. 3781, As Modified
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to turn to the
consideration of amendment No. 3781 which is pending at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it will be the pending
business.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I send to the desk a modification of the
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modification or has
the modification been cleared by the leader?
Mr. WARNER. My understanding is the modification is accepted by the
managers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is so modified.
The amendment, as modified, is as follows:
On page 119, strike lines 16 through 18 and insert: ``The
National Intelligence Director shall convene regular meetings
of the Joint Intelligence Community Council.''.
``(e) Advice and Opinions of Members Other Than Chairman.--
(1) A member of the Joint Intelligence Community Council
(other than the Chairman) may submit to the Chairman advice
or an opinion in disagreement with, or advice or an opinion
in addition to, the advice presented by the National
Intelligence Director to the President or the National
Security Council, in the role of the Chairman as Chairman of
the Joint Intelligence Community Council. If a member submits
such advice or opinion, the Chairman shall present the advice
or opinion of such member at the same time the Chairman
presents the advice of the Chairman to the President or the
National Security Council, as the case may be.
``(2) The Chairman shall establish procedures to ensure
that the presentation of the advice of the Chairman to the
President or the National Security Council is not unduly
delayed by reason of the submission of the individual advice
or opinion of another member of the Council.
``(f) Recommendations to Congress.--Any member of the Joint
Intelligence Community Council may make such recommendations
to Congress relating to the intelligence community as such
member considers appropriate.''.
Mr. WARNER. Let me explain the modification. The original text
required that the national intelligence director, in his capacity as
chairman of the to-be-created joint intelligence community council that
was part of the President's message, originally I had it that he would
have monthly meetings of the council or meetings upon the request of
the members of the council. But I think it more appropriate that that
be modified, which has now been done, such that the amendment will
read: Strike that paragraph and in its place put the national
intelligence director shall convene regular meetings of the joint
intelligence community council. And then I will address the balance of
the amendment.
It has been my concern, and I think from a fair reading of the 9/11
Commission report, that we have to keep the views of those individuals
primarily responsible for the collection, dissemination, and analysis
of intelligence, those individuals who are on, incidentally, the
council, who are your principal Cabinet officers--and that is the
Secretaries of State, Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, Treasury, and
the Attorney General--those individuals from time to time could develop
positions regarding an intelligence issue which are at variance with
the national intelligence director.
That collection of Cabinet officers is a vast array of individuals
who will be working on issues of intelligence, collaborating with other
agencies. From time to time, I am of the opinion that one or more of
the members of the council might well have opinions that are at
variance with the national intelligence director, and that when the
national intelligence director goes to brief the President, there
should be an obligation in law--I feel that strongly
[[Page S10042]]
about it--that those opinions at variance with the national
intelligence director must be given to the President and such others
who may be in attendance at the time the national intelligence director
presents his or, as the case may be, her viewpoint.
The strength of our intelligence system has to be predicated on
competition of thinking. I have always liked the word that the 9/11
Commission seized upon, ``imagination.'' It seems to me that type of
competition and imagination is likely to develop better if we have the
certainty that the viewpoints the President receives from the national
intelligence director are not held by one or more of the members of
that council, but that the President will receive the benefit of the
other viewpoints. I think that system has to be made and put into law.
It is so vitally important because, for example, as a member of the
Intelligence Committee, when we examined, in extensive hearings
conducted by Chairman Roberts and Vice Chairman Rockefeller, the issue
of weapons of mass destruction--and the conclusion that is being
reached is that there was a substantial variance between the
intelligence opinions and what is evolving as the actual, factual
situation--it appears that the caveats were not given the proper
emphasis by people, from the President on down, as they reviewed the
work of the various intelligence-collecting agencies.
For example, the CIA had its position. From time to time, the
Department of Energy had opinions at variance with the CIA. At times,
there were opinions of the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, which
were at variance with the opinions of other departments and agencies. I
think it is essential. Those caveats, in the case of weapons of mass
destruction--I will use the phrase that they were not given the
emphasis that was needed. That is a whole chapter. It is all laid out
in a very extensive report developed by the Intelligence Committee,
which is now public record.
This amendment, hopefully, will go a long way to ensure that diverse
opinions will be given to our President. That is the thrust of it. It
is patterned after the Goldwater-Nichols Act--a piece of legislation on
which I was privileged to have a very active role, enacted by the
Congress in the late 1980s--which organized some elements of the
Department of Defense and, most specifically, the joint staff.
Mr. President, the act said that when the Chairman of the Joint Staff
meets with the President of the United States, if there were members of
the Joint Chiefs--i.e., Chief of Staff of the Army, Chief of Naval
Operations, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Commandant of the Marine
Corps--who held opinions at variance with the Chairman, the Chairman
was obligated under law to share those opinions with the President and
such others as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was
addressing. That has been a very effective piece of legislation.
This amendment is patterned almost verbatim after, and consistent
with, the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Frequently, the 9/11 Commission, quite
properly, paid a great deal of respect to that piece of legislation.
In concluding my remarks--and I have worked on this, but I have not
found a solution yet--this Senator is concerned about the future of the
Central Intelligence Agency as an organization and the role of the head
of that agency--now our former distinguished former colleague, Porter
Goss. Therein resides an enormous wealth of professional people in all
the nations of the world, in one way or another, who have come up
through the ranks, training and taking risks, often commensurate with
the risks the men and women of the Armed Forces take, often with long
separations from their families in some of the more difficult posts in
the world. All of that infrastructure is going to remain under the
Director of the CIA, who will now report no longer directly to the
President but to the concept of the new national intelligence director.
That has been decided.
I may eventually come up with the solution. I am trying to figure out
how, if the Director of the CIA has a view that is held strongly, and
it is at variance with the viewpoint of the national intelligence
director, how that view can be properly emphasized and given to the
President and such other persons as the NID will be addressing.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator from Virginia yield for a question?
Mr. WARNER. Yes.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of this amendment. As I
listen to the Senator from Virginia, I wonder, I don't see anything in
this bill that allows the separate agencies to communicate with the
Congress, as they have in the past, such as the CIA and the NRO. They
have all come directly to us. Would your amendment preserve the right
of the people who would disagree with the NID to communicate with the
Congress, as well as the Executive?
Mr. WARNER. Yes. My last section, recommendations to Congress, says:
Any member of the Joint Intelligence Community Council may
make such recommendation to Congress relating to the
intelligence community as such member considers appropriate.
So in this particular law is specific authority for those Cabinet
officers and others to come directly to the Congress. I am glad my
colleague brought that up.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield for another question?
Mr. WARNER. Yes.
Mr. STEVENS. The Senator from Virginia and I both served for a while
in the executive branch. We know Cabinet officers often put down in the
law about who can contact Congress on what. I don't know if it happened
on your watch. It happened on mine.
Mr. WARNER. It happened on mine when I was in the Department of
Defense.
Mr. STEVENS. Some people don't believe this language is necessary.
Would the Senator agree if there is going to be the right to
communicate, to go up the line toward the President or to the Congress,
it has to be in the law? People's rights have to be protected to
contact us?
(Mr. CORNYN assumed the Chair.)
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I think it does, and that is why I have
put in this paragraph, which is very explicit. This paragraph relates
to the members of the Joint Intelligence Community Council, which I
enumerated before as the several Cabinet officers--Secretaries of
State, Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, and the Attorney General.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield once more, I
sort of feel we have to put some meat on the bones of this commission a
little bit as we go along to allow the Secretaries of the whole
community to participate in the process--budget, management, and
oversight. Will not the amendment of the Senator from Virginia
strengthen oversight by giving the people involved in oversight the
chance to hear the dissenting opinions as well as the opinion of the
NID?
Mr. WARNER. The Senator is correct, Mr. President.
Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator.
Mr. WARNER. The Senator is correct.
I yield the floor for a moment for the purpose of receiving the
distinguished chairman's views on this matter.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, let me begin by saying that I very much
appreciate the distinguished Senator from Virginia, the chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, working with Senator Lieberman and me
to modify his amendment so that it is consistent with the goals of our
legislation.
The JICC was suggested by the White House when we drafted our bill. I
view it as an important component of the Collins-Lieberman bill because
it provides a forum for the national intelligence director to solicit
the views of and to receive advice from key Cabinet members on a wide
variety of issues.
It is important for the members of the JICC--the Secretaries of
State, Defense, Homeland Security, and the Attorney General, and other
Departments, Treasury as well--to see the council as a way to
communicate their views freely to the NID to help the NID reach the
right decisions and to be a forum for a wide variety of issues.
It is also important for the NID to remain firmly in control as
chairman of the council, and I believe the modification makes clear
that it is the NID who is the chairman and who will regularly convene
this council.
Senator Warner's amendment, as modified, meets both those goals. It
[[Page S10043]]
strengthens the bill. I can speak on behalf of the ranking member of
the committee in urging its adoption. I thank the Senator again for
working with us.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished friend and
colleague, the manager. Might I solicit her views on the concern I
have--and I have not figured out how to do it. The views of the
Secretaries of State and Defense are very important because they have
their own internal intelligence functions and they are subjected to
this, particularly those two Cabinet officers, on a daily basis.
The Director of the CIA will report to the national intelligence
director. The national intelligence director--I do not know quite what
the infrastructure will be. It is conceived, as the Senator from Maine
said earlier today and several times, that she is not creating a whole
new department. But the CIA Director will remain in charge of what I
say is the most magnificent reservoir of professionals to be found
anywhere in the world. I cannot give, because of classification, the
numbers, but it is in the tens of thousands of these individuals all
over the world. The CIA Director has instantaneous contact with them
and personal association as he travels--or she, as the case may be--
worldwide. It is a network of these intelligence people who have
knowledge that comes back up to the Director. He is hands on. The NID
will not have that hands-on experience, cannot possibly because he has
so much to manage.
One of the reasons for this legislation is to split off the functions
of the former head of the CIA, the Director of the whole Central
Intelligence, and to give those responsibilities, as it relates to the
national collection of the intelligence program, portions of it to the
NID to operate now, leaving the Director of the CIA to manage primarily
that agency.
Supposing the Director of the CIA has a strongly held opinion and
viewpoint which is at variance with the national intelligence director,
but when the national intelligence director goes in to brief the
President and the Security Council, in all likelihood the Director of
the CIA will be at Langley. I am not certain how that varying opinion
is given to the President and the other structure at the White House
and the other Cabinet officers who may be present--for instance, at the
meetings of the council, how that opinion can be expressed. I have not
thought of it. Maybe the chairman and I can work on this in the few
days remaining on this bill. But I am concerned about it.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I would be happy to consult further with
the Senator about his concern in this area. I note that the 9/11
Commission and numerous other commissions have determined that the CIA
Director has too many roles right now; that he has three roles. He is
the principal adviser to the President for intelligence, he is the head
of the CIA, and he is the manager of the intelligence community. There
is widespread consensus that is too much for the CIA Director to have,
so our legislation alters those roles.
The CIA Director would run the CIA. The national intelligence
director would not run the day-to-day operations of the CIA, but the
national intelligence director would become the principal adviser to
the President on intelligence. The national intelligence director would
also be the manager of the national intelligence programs. So we have
defined those roles in that manner, but we have not altered the fact
that the CIA Director would still be a Presidential appointee, he would
still be confirmed by the Senate, and he would still have lots of
access, in my view, just as Cabinet members are always going to be able
to get their views to the President.
I think the structure the Senator has improved, the joint
intelligence community council, strengthens that flow of communication,
but that structure is there. I do not believe that is going to be a
problem.
I also point out to the Senator that the Senator made an excellent
point earlier when he was talking about the need for competitive
analysis for a variety of viewpoints to be presented to the President
and that we did not see that work as well as it should have in recent
cases.
We have put in extensive language in our bill due to amendments
authored by Senator Levin, as well as the work Senator Lieberman and I
and others have done, that makes very clear, for example, that when a
National Intelligence Estimate is produced, that it has to highlight
dissenting views. That does not happen now sufficiently. Often those
dissenting views are hidden away in a footnote when they really should
be up front for us to be aware that there are dissenting views and who
has those dissenting views.
Another example: We require these estimates to have a confidence
level attached to the prevailing view so we will know how much support
that prevailing view has.
So throughout our bill there are requirements to make sure that
dissenting views are heard. Indeed, the Rockefeller-Hutchinson
amendment we just adopted also strengthens that by having the office of
alternative analysis. So I think there are numerous safeguards to make
sure that all voices are heard; that competitive analysis is
strengthened; that dissenting views are highlighted.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, all along I have expressed complete
concurrence in what the Senator has done in this bill to the extent the
Senator and I have looked at various sections. I may have reservations
about others and tomorrow I hope to engage with the Senator on a number
of amendments.
As to the basic charter that the Senator outlined in her opening
remarks, I am not going to at this time in any way indicate an
objection. I just wanted to focus on this one individual, the CIA
Director, who, as the Senator knows, under previous Presidents, and
certainly President Bush, was in his office one way or another almost
every day of the week working with him.
The CIA Director had this--I understand all of these responsibilities
may be too much for one individual and I am not arguing about shifting
that at the moment, but I am talking about this magnificent collection
of individuals--and he is the boss--who take all of these risks
together, collect and analyze and develop opinions and it comes up to
him and he may form a view which is totally opposite to the NID, and
the NID goes into the President. I have guaranteed here that the
Cabinet officers have the right to have their views presented
simultaneously, one view after another, to the President, but I am not
satisfied yet that the views of the CIA Director, which could well be
different than the analysis and conclusion of the NID, would be given
to the President with the weight and sufficiency I think they merit.
Ms. COLLINS. I am certainly open to working with the distinguished
Senator to address his concerns. I believe it would work similarly to
how the views of the head of the NSA, the NRO, the NGA, and DIA get to
the President now through the Secretary of Defense.
Under our bill, the CIA Director clearly reports to the NID, much as
the head of the NSA reports to the Secretary of Defense. Nothing
prevents the CIA Director or the NSA Director from going to the
President, but we have changed the structure.
We are making the NID the principal adviser to the President for
intelligence, but I cannot conceive of a situation where the NID would
not be relying very heavily on the CIA Director for the advice that he
is giving to the President. It would be foolhardy for him not to.
Mr. WARNER. I see the Senator's point. The Senator put out a very
clear example of the NRO, the NSA, the old mapping agency, they report
to the SECDEF--we have just given the SECDEF the right to have his
views presented simultaneously if they are at variance with the NID at
the time he meets with the President. That is not present in the
Central Intelligence Agency. If those views vary, there is no
obligation under the law to see that they are presented simultaneously.
The Senator says she cannot envision how they would not be. Well, it
depends on the human factor, that these two individuals would get along
and have a mutual respect. I can remember in my first term on the
Intelligence Committee, there was a very colorful Director of the CIA,
Mr. Casey. He was an extraordinary man. I remember he used to come in
and testify before the committee. All the members would lean up like
this because they could not understand him, to be honest. He spoke in a
rather unusual way. I think he did that
[[Page S10044]]
to get through his testimony pretty quickly and get out of that hearing
room. I am trying to put a note of humor into some serious things, but
let us hope the Senator is right that as this law goes forward those
individuals entrusted, the NID and CIA Director, can have a mutual
respect and a mutual professional bond that will enable the views of
the CIA Director to be given to the President if they are at variance
with the NID. That is left up to the human quotient. This amendment, if
adopted, puts it in law, not for the CIA Director but for the other
members.
Ms. COLLINS. I say to the distinguished Senator that I think the
analogy is very similar. The Secretary of Defense is not required to
present the views of the NSA to the President. I think this works in a
more collaborative way than we are giving the system credit for.
We have to be careful, while we put in all of these safeguards--and I
support the chairman's amendment--that we do not create a situation
where it is unclear who is the principal adviser to the President. And
that, under our bill, is the national intelligence director.
Mr. WARNER. In no way do I wish to in any way diminish the
significance of the NID that is now being created presumably by law in
the future. I think we have had a healthy discussion. I appreciate the
distinguished manager accepting this amendment, and I will continue to
work on the Director of the CIA issue which I continue to be concerned
about. Maybe as a consequence of this colloquy, those who might be
following it could come up with an idea. I hope they would communicate
it to me or to the distinguished chairman.
If there is no further debate, I ask that the amendment be agreed to.
I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be added as
cosponsors to the amendment: Senators Stevens, Inouye, Talent, Allard,
Dole, Chambliss, Cornyn, Ensign, and Inhofe.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Is there further debate on the amendment?
If not, the question is on agreeing to amendment No. 3781, as
modified.
The amendment (No. 3781), as modified, was agreed to.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Ms. COLLINS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. WARNER. I wish to express my appreciation to the distinguished
manager. I look forward to rejoining her tomorrow. Let us hope that
those amendments that I bring forward largely with my colleague Mr.
Stevens will add to the strength of this bill.
Ms. COLLINS. I thank the Senator from Virginia for his contributions.
It is always a pleasure to work with him, particularly on an issue that
is so important to our Nation's security.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are still on the bill being managed by
Senators Lieberman and Collins?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent to lay aside any pending amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. On behalf of Senator Schumer, I ask unanimous consent it be
in order to call up eight amendments, and after their reporting, they
be set aside. Senator Schumer understands these can be acted upon in
different ways, but we offer those on his behalf. He indicated to me
that a number of these he thinks will be accepted. This gives the staff
a chance to look at them and the manager can tell Senator Schumer which
of those will not be accepted and he can come and debate those.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask the
Democratic whip that those amendments be interspersed with Republican
amendments.
Mr. REID. That is appropriate. I modify my request that that be the
case.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendments Nos. 3887 through 3894, en bloc
Mr. REID. I call up amendments numbered 3887 to 3894, en bloc.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] for Mr. Schumer,
proposes amendments numbered 3887 through 3894, en bloc.
The amendments are as follows:
amendment no. 3887
(Purpose: To amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to
cover individuals, other than United States persons, who engage in
international terrorism without affiliation with an international
terrorist group)
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. AMENDMENTS TO FISA.
(a) Treatment of Non-United States Persons who Engage in
International Terrorism Without Affiliation With
International Terrorist Groups.--
(1) In general.--Section 101(b)(1) of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801(b)(1))
is amended by adding at the end the following new
subparagraph:
``(C) engages in international terrorism or activities in
preparation therefor; or''.
(2) Sunset.--The amendment made by paragraph (1) shall
expire on the date that is 5 years after the date of
enactment of this section.
(b) Additional Annual Reporting Requirements Under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.--
(1) Additional reporting requirements.--The Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et
seq.) is amended--
(A) by redesignating--
(i) title VI as title VII; and
(ii) section 601 as section 701; and
(B) by inserting after title V the following new title VI:
``TITLE VI--REPORTING REQUIREMENT
``annual report of the attorney general
``Sec. 601. (a) In addition to the reports required by
sections 107, 108, 306, 406, and 502 in April each year, the
Attorney General shall submit to the appropriate committees
of Congress each year a report setting forth with respect to
the one-year period ending on the date of such report--
``(1) the aggregate number of non-United States persons
targeted for orders issued under this Act, including a break-
down of those targeted for--
``(A) electronic surveillance under section 105;
``(B) physical searches under section 304;
``(C) pen registers under section 402; and
``(D) access to records under section 501;
``(2) the number of individuals covered by an order issued
under this Act who were determined pursuant to activities
authorized by this Act to have acted wholly alone in the
activities covered by such order;
``(3) the number of times that the Attorney General has
authorized that information obtained under this Act may be
used in a criminal proceeding or any information derived
therefrom may be used in a criminal proceeding; and
``(4) in a manner consistent with the protection of the
national security of the United States--
``(A) the portions of the documents and applications filed
with the courts established under section 103 that include
significant construction or interpretation of the provisions
of this Act, not including the facts of any particular
matter, which may be redacted;
``(B) the portions of the opinions and orders of the courts
established under section 103 that include significant
construction or interpretation of the provisions of this Act,
not including the facts of any particular matter, which may
be redacted.
``(b) The first report under this section shall be
submitted not later than six months after the date of the
enactment of this Act. Subsequent reports under this section
shall be submitted annually thereafter.
``(c) In this section, the term `appropriate committees of
Congress' means--
``(1) the Select Committee on Intelligence and the
Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate; and
``(2) the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and
the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of
Representatives.''.
(2) Clerical amendment.--The table of contents for that Act
is amended by striking the items relating to title VI and
inserting the following new items:
``TITLE VI--REPORTING REQUIREMENT
``Sec. 601. Annual report of the Attorney General.
``TITLE VII--EFFECTIVE DATE
``Sec. 701. Effective date.''.
amendment no. 3888
(Purpose: To establish the United States Homeland Security Signal Corps
to ensure proper communications between law enforcement agencies)
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
[[Page S10045]]
SEC. __. U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SIGNAL CORPS.
(a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the ``U.S.
Homeland Security Signal Act of 2004''.
(b) Homeland Security Signal Corps.--
(1) In general.--Title V of the Homeland Security Act of
2002 (6 U.S.C. 311 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end
the following:
``SEC. 510. HOMELAND SECURITY SIGNAL CORPS.
``(a) Establishment.--There is established, within the
Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response, a
Homeland Security Signal Corps (referred to in this section
as the `Signal Corps').
``(b) Personnel.--The Signal Corps shall be comprised of
specially trained police officers, firefighters, emergency
medical technicians, and other emergency personnel.
``(c) Responsibilities.--The Signal Corps shall--
``(1) ensure that first responders can communicate with one
another, mobile command centers, headquarters, and the public
at disaster sites or in the event of a terrorist attack or a
national crisis;
``(2) provide sufficient training and equipment for fire,
police, and medical units to enable those units to deal with
all threats and contingencies in any environment; and
``(3) secure joint-use equipment, such as
telecommunications trucks, that can access surviving
telephone land lines to supplement communications access.
``(d) National Signal Corps Standards.--The Signal Corps
shall establish a set of standard operating procedures, to be
followed by signal corps throughout the United States, that
will ensure that first responders from each Federal, State,
and local agency have the methods and means to communicate
with, or substitute for, first responders from other agencies
in the event of a multi-state terrorist attack or a national
crisis.
``(e) Demonstration Signal Corps.--
``(1) In general.--The Secretary shall establish
demonstration signal corps in New York City, and in the
District of Columbia, consisting of specially trained law
enforcement and other personnel. The New York City Signal
Demonstration Corps shall consist of personnel from the New
York Police Department, the Fire Department of New York, the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and other
appropriate Federal, State, regional, or local personnel. The
District of Columbia Signal Corps shall consist of specially
trained personnel from all appropriate Federal, State,
regional, and local law enforcement personnel in Washington,
D.C., including from the Metropolitan Police Department.
``(2) Responsibilities.--The demonstration signal corps
established under this subsection shall--
``(A) ensure that `best of breed' military communications
technology is identified and secured for first responders;
``(B) ensure communications connectivity between the New
York Police Department, the Fire Department of New York, and
other appropriate Federal, State, regional, and local law
enforcement personnel in the metropolitan New York City area;
``(C) identify the means of communication that work best in
New York's tunnels, skyscrapers, and subways to maintain
communications redundancy;
``(D) ensure communications connectivity between the
Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police Department, and other
appropriate Federal, State, regional, and local law
enforcement personnel in the metropolitan Washington, D.C.
area;
``(E) identify the means of communication that work best in
Washington, D.C.'s office buildings, tunnels, and subway
system to maintain communications redundancy; and
``(F) serve as models for other major metropolitan areas
across the Nation.
``(3) Team captains.--The mayor of New York City and the
District of Columbia shall appoint team captains to command
communications companies drawn from the personnel described
in paragraph (1).
``(4) Technical assistance.--The Signal Corps Headquarters,
located in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, shall provide technical
assistance to the New York City Demonstration Signal Corps.
``(f) Reporting Requirement.--Not later than 1 year after
the date of enactment of this section, and annually
thereafter, the Secretary shall submit a report, to the
Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Committee on
Intelligence of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary
and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the
House of Representatives, which outlines the progress of the
Signal Corps in the preceding year and describes any
problems, issues, or other impediments to effective
communication between first responders in the event of a
terrorist attack or a national crisis.
``(g) Authorization of Appropriations.--
``(1) Demonstration signal corps.--There are authorized to
be appropriated $50,000,000 for fiscal year 2005 to carry out
subsection (e).
``(2) Fiscal years 2006 through 2009.--There are authorized
to be appropriated $100,000,000 for each of the fiscal years
2006 through 2008--
``(A) to create signal corps in high terrorism threat areas
throughout the United States; and
``(B) to carry out the mission of the Signal Corps to
assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies to
effectively communicate with each other during a terrorism
event or a national crisis.''.
(2) Technical amendment.--Section 1(b) of the Homeland
Security Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296) is amended by
inserting after the item relating to section 509 the
following:
``Sec. 510. Homeland Security Signal Corps.''.
amendment no. 3889
(Purpose: To establish a National Commission on the United States-Saudi
Arabia Relationship)
At the appropriate place, insert the following new section:
SEC. __. COMMISSION ON THE UNITED STATES-SAUDI ARABIA
RELATIONSHIP.
(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Despite improvements in counterterrorism cooperation
between the Governments of the United States and Saudi Arabia
following the terrorist attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on
May 12, 2003, the relationship between the United States and
Saudi Arabia continues to be problematic in regard to
combating Islamic extremism.
(2) The Government of Saudi Arabia has not always responded
promptly and fully to United States requests for assistance
in the global war on Islamist terrorism. Examples of this
lack of cooperation have included an unwillingness to provide
the United States Government with access to individuals
wanted for questioning in relation to terrorist acts and to
assist in investigations of terrorist activities.
(3) The state religion of Saudi Arabia, a militant and
exclusionary form of Islam known as Wahhabism, preaches
violence against nonbelievers or infidels and serves as the
religious basis for Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. Through
support for madrassas, mosques, cultural centers, and other
entities Saudi Arabia has actively supported the spread of
this religious sect.
(4) The Secretary of State designated Saudi Arabia a
country of particular concern under section 402(b)(1)(A) of
the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C.
6442(b)(1)(A)) because the Government of Saudi Arabia has
engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, and egregious
violations of religious freedom.
(5) The Department of State's International Religious
Freedom Report for 2004 concluded that religious freedom does
not exist in Saudi Arabia.
(6) The Ambassador-at-large for International Religious
Freedom expressed concern about Saudi Arabia's export of
religious extremism and intolerance to other countries where
religious freedom for Muslims is respected.
(7) Historically, the Government of Saudi Arabia has
allowed financiers of terrorism to operate within its
borders.
(8) The Government of Saudi Arabia stated in February 2004
that it would establish a national commission to combat
terrorist financing within Saudi Arabia, however, it has not
fulfilled that promise.
(9) There have been no reports of the Government of Saudi
Arabia pursuing the arrest, trial, or punishment of
individuals who have provided financial support for terrorist
activities. The laws of Saudi Arabia to combat terrorist
financing have not been fully implemented.
(b) Commission on the United States-Saudi Arabia
Relationship.--
(1) Establishment.--There is established, within the
legislative branch, the National Commission on the United
States-Saudi Arabia Relationship (in this section referred to
as the ``Commission'').
(2) Purposes.--The purposes of the Commission are to
investigate, evaluate, and report on--
(A) the current status and activities of diplomatic
relations between the Government of the United States and the
Government of Saudi Arabia;
(B) the degree of cooperation exhibited by the Government
of Saudi Arabia toward the Government of the United States in
relation to intelligence, security cooperation, and the fight
against Islamist terrorism;
(C) the status of the support provided by the Government of
Saudi Arabia to promote the dissemination of Wahabbism; and
(D) the efforts of the Government of Saudi Arabia to enact
domestic measures to curtail terrorist financing.
(3) Authority.--The Commission is authorized to carry out
purposes described in paragraph (2).
(c) Composition of Commission.--The Commission shall be
composed of 10 members, as follows:
(1) Two members appointed by the President, one of whom the
President shall designate as the chairman of the Commission.
(2) Two members appointed by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives.
(3) Two members appointed by the minority leader of the
House of Representatives.
(4) Two members appointed by the majority leader of the
Senate.
(5) Two members appointed by the minority leader of the
Senate.
(d) Report.--Not later that 270 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Commission shall submit to the
President and Congress a report on the relationship between
the United States and Saudi Arabia. The report shall include
the recommendations of the Commission to--
(1) increase the transparency of diplomatic relations
between the Government of the United States and the
Government of Saudi Arabia;
[[Page S10046]]
(2) improve cooperation between Government of the United
States and the Government of Saudi Arabia in efforts to share
intelligence information related to the war on terror;
(3) curtail the support and dissemination of Wahabbism by
the Government of Saudi Arabia;
(4) enhance the efforts of the Government of Saudi Arabia
to combat terrorist financing;
(5) create a foreign policy strategy for the United States
to improve cooperation with the Government of Saudi Arabia in
the war on terror, including any recommendations regarding
the use of sanctions or other diplomatic measures;
(6) curtail the support or toleration of violations of
religious freedom by the Government of Saudi Arabia; and
(7) encourage the Government of Saudi Arabia to improve the
human rights conditions in Saudi Arabia that have been
identified as poor by the Department of State.
(e) Effective Date.--Notwithstanding section 341 or any
other provision of this Act, this section shall take effect
on the date of the enactment of this Act.
amendment no. 3890
(Purpose: To improve the security of hazardous materials transported by
truck)
At the end, add the following new title:
TITLE IV--SECURITY OF TRUCKS TRANSPORTING HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
SEC. 401. IMPROVEMENTS TO SECURITY OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
TRANSPORTED BY TRUCK.
(a) Plan for Improving Security of Hazardous Materials.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security
shall develop a plan for improving the security of hazardous
materials transported by truck.
(2) Content.--The plan under paragraph (1) shall include--
(A) a plan for tracking such hazardous materials;
(B) a strategy for preventing hijackings of trucks carrying
such materials; and
(C) a proposed mechanism for recovering lost or stolen
trucks carrying such materials.
(b) Increased Inspection of Trucks.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary of Homeland Security shall
require that the number of trucks entering the United States
that are manually searched and screened in fiscal year 2005
is at least twice the number of trucks manually searched and
screened in fiscal year 2004.
(2) Wait times at inspections.--In carrying out this
section, the Secretary shall ensure that the average wait
time for trucks entering the United States does not increase.
(c) Background Checks.--Beginning not later than 3 years
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of
Homeland Security shall require background checks of all
truck drivers with certifications to transport hazardous
materials.
(d) Effective Date.--Notwithstanding section 341 or any
other provision of this Act, this section shall take effect
on the date of enactment of this Act.
amendment no. 3891
(Purpose: To improve rail security)
At the end, add the following new title:
TITLE IV--RAIL SECURITY
SEC. 401. IMPROVEMENTS TO RAIL SECURITY.
(a) Protection of Passenger Areas in Rail Stations.--The
Secretary of Homeland Security shall require that, not later
than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act,
each of the 30 rail stations in the United States with the
highest daily rate of passenger traffic be equipped with a
sufficient number of wall-mounted and ceiling-mounted
radiological, biological, chemical, and explosive detectors
to provide coverage of the entire passenger area of such
station.
(b) Use of Threat Detectors Required on Certain Trains.--
The Secretary of Homeland Security shall require that, not
later than 3 years after the date of the enactment of this
Act, each train traveling through any of the 10 rail stations
in the United States with the highest daily rate of passenger
traffic be equipped with a radiological, biological,
chemical, and explosive detector.
(c) Report on Safety of Passenger Rail Tunnels.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Transportation
shall--
(A) review the safety and security of all passenger rail
tunnels, including in particular the access and egress points
of such tunnels; and
(B) submit to Congress a report on needs for improving the
safety and security of passenger rail tunnels.
(2) Content.--The report under paragraph (1) shall include
recommendations regarding the funding necessary to eliminate
security deficiencies at, and upgrade the safety of,
passenger rail tunnels.
(d) Effective Date.--Notwithstanding section 341 or any
other provision of this Act, this section shall take effect
on the date of enactment of this Act.
amendment no. 3892
(Purpose: To strengthen border security)
At the end, add the following new title:
TITLE IV--STRENGTHENING BORDER SECURITY
SEC. 401. TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS TO CONFIRM IDENTITY.
Section 403(c)(1) of the USA PATRIOT ACT (8 U.S.C. 1379(1))
is amended to read as follows:
``(1) In general.--The Attorney General, the Secretary of
State, and the Secretary of Homeland Security jointly,
through the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), and in consultation with the Secretary of the
Treasury and other Federal law enforcement and intelligence
agencies that the Attorney General, Secretary of State, and
the Secretary of Homeland Security deem appropriate and in
consultation with Congress, shall prior to October 26, 2005,
develop and certify a technology standard, including
appropriate biometric identifier standards for multiple
immutable physical characteristics, such as fingerprints and
eye retinas, that can be used to verify the identity of
persons applying for a United States visa or such persons
seeking to enter the United States pursuant to a visa for the
purposes of conducting background checks, confirming
identity, and ensuring that a person has not received a visa
under a different name.''.
SEC. 402. REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY AND EXIT DOCUMENTS.
(a) In General.--Paragraph (1) of section 303(b) of the
Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 (8
U.S.C. 1732(b)) is amended to read as follows:
``(1) In general.--Not later than October 25, 2005, the
Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary
of Homeland Security shall issue to aliens only machine-
readable, tamper-resistant visas and other travel and entry
documents that use biometric identifiers for multiple
immutable characteristics, such as fingerprints and eye
retinas. The Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and
the Secretary of Homeland Security shall jointly establish
biometric and document identification standards for multiple
immutable physical characteristics, such as fingerprints and
eye retinas, to be employed on such visas and other travel
and entry documents.''.
(b) Consultation Requirements.--Such section is further
amended--
(1) in paragraph (2)(A), by striking ``in consultation with
the Secretary of State'' and inserting ``in consultation with
the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland
Security''; and
(2) in paragraph (2)(B) in the matter preceding clause (i),
by striking ``in consultation with the Secretary of State''
and inserting ``in consultation with the Secretary of State
and the Secretary of Homeland Security''.
(c) Use of Readers and Scanners.--Paragraph (2)(B) of such
section, as amended by subsection (b), is further amended--
(1) by redesignating clauses (i), (ii), and (iii) as (ii),
(iii), and (iv), respectively; and
(2) by inserting before clause (ii), as redesignated by
paragraph (1), the following:
``(i) can authenticate biometric identifiers of multiple
immutable physical characteristics, as such fingerprints and
eye retinas;''.
(d) Certification Requirements.--Subsection (c) of such
section is amended to read as follows:
``(1) In general.--Not later than October 26, 2005, the
government of each country that is designated to participate
in the visa waiver program established under section 217 of
the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1187) shall
certify, as a condition of designation or a continuation of
that designation, that it has a program to issue to its
nationals machine-readable passports that are tamper-
resistant and incorporate biometric and authentication
identifiers of multiple immutable physical characteristics,
such as fingerprints and eye retina scans. This paragraph
shall not be construed to rescind the requirement of
subsections (a)(3) and (c)(2)(B)(i) of section 217 of the
Immigration and Nationality Act.''.
amendment no. 3893
(Purpose: To require inspection of cargo at ports in the United States)
At the end, add the following new title:
TITLE IV--OTHER MATTERS
SEC. 401. CARGO INSPECTION.
(a) Manual Inspection.--Not later than 2 years after the
date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland
Security shall require that the number of containers manually
inspected at ports in the United States is not less than 10
percent of the total number of containers off-loaded at such
ports.
(b) Inspection for Nuclear Materials.--Not later than 2
years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary
of Homeland Security shall require that the number of
containers screened for nuclear or radiological materials is
not less than 100 percent of the total number of containers
off-loaded at ports in the United States.
(c) Inspection for Chemical, Biological, and Explosive
Materials.--Not later than 4 years after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security
shall require that the 10 ports in the United States that
off-load the highest number of containers have the capability
to screen not less than 10 percent of the total number of
containers off-loaded at each such port for chemical,
biological, and explosive materials.
(d) Report.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security
shall submit to Congress a report on port security
technology. Such report shall include--
[[Page S10047]]
(1) a description of the progress made in the research and
development of port security technologies;
(2) a comprehensive schedule detailing the amount of time
necessary to test and install appropriate port security
technologies; and
(3) the total amount of funds necessary to develop,
produce, and install appropriate port security technologies.
(e) Effective Date.--Notwithstanding section 341 or any
other provision of this Act, this section shall take effect
on the date of enactment of this Act.
amendment no. 3894
(Purpose: To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to enhance
cybersecurity, and for other purposes)
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. ENHANCING CYBERSECURITY.
(a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the
``Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity Enhancement
Act of 2004''.
(b) Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity.--
(1) In general.--Subtitle A of title II of the Homeland
Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 121 et seq.) is amended by
adding at the end the following:
``SEC. 203. ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR CYBERSECURITY.
``(a) In General.--There shall be in the Directorate for
Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection a National
Cybersecurity Office headed by an Assistant Secretary for
Cybersecurity (in this section referred to as the `Assistant
Secretary'), who shall assist the Secretary in promoting
cybersecurity for the Nation.
``(b) General Authority.--The Assistant Secretary, subject
to the direction and control of the Secretary, shall have
primary authority within the Department for all
cybersecurity-related critical infrastructure protection
programs of the Department, including with respect to policy
formulation and program management.
``(c) Responsibilities.--The responsibilities of the
Assistant Secretary shall include the following:
``(1) To establish and manage--
``(A) a national cybersecurity response system that
includes the ability to--
``(i) analyze the effect of cybersecurity threat
information on national critical infrastructure; and
``(ii) aid in the detection and warning of attacks on, and
in the restoration of, cybersecurity infrastructure in the
aftermath of such attacks;
``(B) a national cybersecurity threat and vulnerability
reduction program that identifies cybersecurity
vulnerabilities that would have a national effect on critical
infrastructure, performs vulnerability assessments on
information technologies, and coordinates the mitigation of
such vulnerabilities;
``(C) a national cybersecurity awareness and training
program that promotes cybersecurity awareness among the
public and the private sectors and promotes cybersecurity
training and education programs;
``(D) a government cybersecurity program to coordinate and
consult with Federal, State, and local governments to enhance
their cybersecurity programs; and
``(E) a national security and international cybersecurity
cooperation program to help foster Federal efforts to enhance
international cybersecurity awareness and cooperation.
``(2) To coordinate with the private sector on the program
under paragraph (1) as appropriate, and to promote
cybersecurity information sharing, vulnerability assessment,
and threat warning regarding critical infrastructure.
``(3) To coordinate with other directorates and offices
within the Department on the cybersecurity aspects of their
missions.
``(4) To coordinate with the Under Secretary for Emergency
Preparedness and Response to ensure that the National
Response Plan developed pursuant to section 502(6) of the
Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 312(6)) includes
appropriate measures for the recovery of the cybersecurity
elements of critical infrastructure.
``(5) To develop processes for information sharing with the
private sector, consistent with section 214, that--
``(A) promote voluntary cybersecurity best practices,
standards, and benchmarks that are responsive to rapid
technology changes and to the security needs of critical
infrastructure; and
``(B) consider roles of Federal, State, local, and foreign
governments and the private sector, including the insurance
industry and auditors.
``(6) To coordinate with the Chief Information Officer of
the Department in establishing a secure information sharing
architecture and information sharing processes, including
with respect to the Department's operation centers.
``(7) To consult with the Electronic Crimes Task Force of
the United States Secret Service on private sector outreach
and information activities.
``(8) To consult with the Office for Domestic Preparedness
to ensure that realistic cybersecurity scenarios are
incorporated into tabletop and recovery exercises.
``(9) To consult and coordinate, as appropriate, with other
Federal agencies on cybersecurity-related programs, policies,
and operations.
``(10) To consult and coordinate within the Department and,
where appropriate, with other relevant Federal agencies, on
security of digital control systems, such as Supervisory
Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.
``(d) Authority Over the National Communications System.--
The Assistant Secretary shall have primary authority within
the Department over the National Communications System.''.
(2) Clerical amendment.--The table of contents in section
1(b) of such Act is amended by adding at the end of the items
relating to subtitle A of title II the following:
``203. Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity.''.
(c) Cybersecurity Defined.--Section 2 of the Homeland
Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 101) is amended by adding at
the end the following:
``(17)(A) The term `cybersecurity' means the prevention of
damage to, the protection of, and the restoration of
computers, electronic communications systems, electronic
communication services, wire communication, and electronic
communication, including information contained therein, to
ensure its availability, integrity, authentication,
confidentiality, and nonrepudiation.
``(B) In this paragraph--
``(i) each of the terms `damage' and `computer' has the
meaning that term has in section 1030 of title 18, United
States Code; and
``(ii) each of the terms `electronic communications
system', `electronic communication service', `wire
communication', and `electronic communication' has the
meaning that term has in section 2510 of title 18, United
States Code.''.
Mr. REID. While I have the floor, we have a lot more amendments filed
than I ever dreamed. Everyone should understand there will have to be
significant movement on this bill in the next 24 hours in the way of
offering amendments. I hope people offer amendments tomorrow. It will
be terribly embarrassing to the leaders if Monday we have nothing to
vote on. I think that will not be the case, but I think we are to the
point where there may have to be something done to move this along more
quickly than it has been. That may include filing cloture in the next
24 hours.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I appreciate the assistance of the
assistant Democratic leader. I echo his hope that Members will come to
the Chamber tomorrow to offer and debate their amendments. We will
delay the votes on those amendments until Monday, but we have an awful
lot of work to be done. Senator Lieberman and I will be here tomorrow
ready to engage on these amendments. I ask my colleagues to be here as
well and help make progress on this very important bill. We are making
some progress, but we are not making enough progress and we need to
pick up the pace. We need to whittle down that amendment list. We need
to have some of those amendments simply go away. I hope that will
happen.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President. I rise today to address one of the most
timely and sensitive recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the
creation of a civil liberties board to provide checks and balances
against the ``enormous authority'' granted the government by the
people. Critically, the 9/11 Commission concluded: ``We must find ways
of reconciling security with liberty, since the success of one helps
protect the other.''
There is no doubt that such a board is needed given the heightened
civil liberty tensions created by the realities of terrorism and modern
warfare. The tools of the information age include precise data-
gathering, networked databases, and tracking and sensing technologies
impervious to the common eye. As Vice Chairman Hamilton noted, in a
recent Judiciary Committee hearing, as he commented about the security
steps and the technology that are quickly becoming ubiquitous in our
post-9/11 world, these developments are ``an astounding intrusion in
the lives of ordinary Americans that (are) routine today in
government.'' With such powerful tools come heightened responsibility.
We have an obligation to ensure that there are mechanisms in place
that will see to it that this power is subject to appropriate checks
and balances and Congressional oversight. An effective civil liberties
board can provide those checks and contribute to preserving both
liberty and security.
We need a civil liberties board that can think critically and
independently about the policies we implement as a nation and about how
they affect our fundamental rights. The board must be able to
participate in the policymaking
[[Page S10048]]
process, review technology choices and options, peer into various
agencies and assess actions, review classified materials and
investigate concerns. This board must have the versatility to work
closely with government officials, but at the same time it must be
sufficiently independent to assess those government policies without
fear, favor or compromise. Given these significant responsibilities, it
is equally important that the board be accountable to Congress and the
American people.
The civil liberties board outlined in the Collins-Lieberman bill
makes great strides in meeting these goals. It represents a true
bipartisan effort from conception to introduction. I was pleased to
work with these Senators along with Senator Durbin to make this civil
liberties board the kind of board that would honor the 9/11
Commission's intent.
It establishes a bipartisan board that would have access to the
documents and information needed to assess our counterterrorism
policies that affect the vital civil liberties of the American people.
It provides a mechanism for them to work closely with administration
officials, including working with a network of newly created
department-level privacy and civil liberty officers, whose proximity to
decision makers will ensure that these concerns are considered from the
earliest stages of policy formation. It requires the board to report to
Congress on a regular basis, and without compromising classified
information, inform the public about policies that impact their vital
liberties.
Unfortunately, Senator Kyl's amendment No. 3801 attempts to gut the
carefully crafted, bipartisan civil liberty and privacy provisions that
are the hallmark of the Collins-Lieberman bill. It is inconsistent with
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and would undermine the
civil liberties that we cherish.
First, Senator Kyl's amendment attempts to cut off the information
flow that would ensure that the board could accurately, reliably and
effectively advise on the impact of policies on privacy and civil
liberties. It would also eliminate the board's ability to subpoena
people outside of the government who may have important information,
such as private sector data collectors working on behalf of the
government. It would also eliminate the privacy officers, as well as
public hearings and reports to the public.
It is clear that the commission intended for the board to have access
to the information that it needed in order to effectively assess
policy. In a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing, Vice Chairman
Hamilton said, ``The key requirement is that government agencies must
be required to respond to the board.'' He went on to note that the
commission itself had subpoena power, and ``if we had not had it, our
job would have been much, much more difficult.'' I would note that the
Collins-Lieberman bill does not go as far as to mandate subpoena power
over government officials, but rather only over relevant non-government
persons.
Given the secrecy and civil liberty concerns that have been pervasive
in this administration, we should be enhancing information flow and
dialogue, not eliminating it. It is ironic that at the same time that
the administration has been making it more difficult for the public to
learn what government agencies are up to, the government and its
private sector partners have been quietly building more and more
databases to learn and store more information about the American
people.
Second, Senator Kyl's amendment would eliminate a provision that
gives the board important guidance on how to review requests by the
government for new and enhanced powers. This is a critical omission. In
order to balance liberty and security, we need to ensure that the board
will be looking at policies through a prism that would allow for
heightened security protection, while also ensuring that intrusions are
not disproportionate to benefits, or that they would unduly undermine
privacy and civil liberties.
Contrary to assertions that this would be a ``citizen board'' gone
wild that would ``haul any agent in anywhere in the world and grill
him,'' this board would consist of highly accomplished members who have
the appropriate clearance to access classified information, who have
extensive professional expertise on civil liberty and privacy issues,
and who have the knowledge of how to view these concerns in the context
of important anti-terrorism objectives.
It simply cannot be that the government can create and implement
policies that impinge on our liberties without having to account to
anyone. While that may make things convenient or easy, it certainly
does not preserve the ideals of the country we are fighting to protect.
Senator Kyl's amendment is just the latest of recent attempts to
undermine the 9/11 Commission's clear recommendations for an effective
board. The administration recently issued an executive order that
attempted to foist upon us an anemic civil liberties board. I and
several of my colleagues noted in a letter to the President that the
board was not a bipartisan or independent entity. It had no authority
to access information and no accountability. It was housed in the
Department of Justice, and comprised solely of administration officials
from the law enforcement and intelligence communities, precisely the
communities that the board would have an obligation to oversee. It was
the proverbial case of the fox guarding the henhouse. This would not
have resulted in a vigorous consideration of policy that the Commission
intended.
As the Commission noted, the ``burden of proof for retaining a
particular governmental power should be on the Executive, to explain
(a) that the power actually materially enhances security and (b) that
there is adequate supervision of the Executive's use of the powers to
ensure protection of civil liberties. If the power is granted, there
must be adequate guidelines and oversight to properly confine its
use.''
We should be looking for ways to ensure that this burden of proof
will be met, rather than weakening oversight and accountability.
As the 9/11 Commission noted, when it comes to security and civil
liberties, ``while protecting our homeland, Americans should be mindful
of threats to vital personal and civil liberties. This balancing is no
easy task, but we must constantly strive to keep it right.''
Senator Kyl's amendment fails to ``keep it right,'' and I urge that
the Senate honor the spirit of the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission, and reject it.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in 1957, when America was caught off guard
by the Soviet Union's launch of a satellite named Sputnik, Congress
passed a massive education bill, the National Defense Education Act,
which poured federal funds into the study of math, science and
strategic languages like Russian. Thirty-two years later, the Soviet
Union fell. Following the 9/11 attacks and the Commission's report, we
need to rise to the challenge once again. We must intensify the study
of strategic foreign languages, like Arabic, Pashto and Korean.
According to the Department of Education, only 22 of the 1.8 million
American students who graduated from college last year earned degrees
in Arabic. This figure has remained about the same over the last
decade. And as the 9/11 Commission reported, and the Washington Post
and the New York Times reiterated on Tuesday, the lack of qualified
personnel has left hundreds of thousands of pages of intercepted
terrorist communication untranslated.
On page 77 of the Commission's report, the Commission notes the FBI
``lacked sufficient translators proficient in Arabic and other key
languages, resulting in a significant backlog of untranslated
intercepts.'' On page 92, the report adds, ``Very few American colleges
and universities offered programs in Middle Eastern languages or
Islamic studies.'' The 9/11 report also calls for both the CIA and the
FBI to strengthen their language programs and for the FBI to improve
ability to attract candidates with technological skills.
At a hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Oversight of
Government Management Subcommittee on September 14, 9/11 Commissioner
Fred Fielding described the lack of language skills at intelligence
agencies as: ``embarrassing.'' FBI Assistant Director for
Administrative Services Mark Bullock testified that while the agency is
receiving thousands of applicants, the agency has found it ``difficult
hiring agents with language skills, skills in the right languages.''
[[Page S10049]]
We can do better.
The bill we are considering today does address education, but not
completely. This bill calls for better coordination of joint training
among the intelligence agencies and authorizes, but does not direct,
the National Intelligence Director to collaborate with the intelligence
agencies to establish a scholarship program, in which students agree to
work for an agency in exchange for financial assistance with their
education. I commend the managers of the bill for including this
innovative education subsidy-for-service approach. This is an important
mechanism to put in place, although we need to do more to expand
instruction in critical foreign language, particularly in the area of
science and technology. If no one is teaching the classes we need, we
can't improve the pool of qualified applicants from which the
intelligence community can recruit.
The amendment my colleagues from Florida and Hawaii and I sponsored
will expand targeted educational opportunities to promote integration
of intelligence collection and analysis and to prepare intelligence
personnel to work with other agencies.
We ask the National Intelligence Director to assess the current needs
of the intelligence community with respect to language skills;
determine whether the community's needs for critical foreign language
skills and understanding science and technology terms in those
languages are being met; and report to Congress recommendations for
programs to help meet those needs.
In developing its report, the NID is directed to take into account
existing education grant programs through the Departments of Education
and Defense. The first report is due to Congress within one year of
enactment, and then again each year after that.
I thank the Senators from Florida and Hawaii for their willingness to
work together in developing language to strengthen the critical
language education component of the reorganized intelligence community.
And I thank my colleagues from Maine and Connecticut for their
leadership in crafting and managing this important piece of
legislation, which now includes this additional focus on strengthening
necessary language skills in this country.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as I noted on the floor yesterday, the
Senate is now engaged in perhaps the most important debate of the 108th
Congress. Increasing the security of our country against terrorist
attack requires new strategies, new ways of thinking, and new ways of
organizing our Government. That is what this legislative debate is all
about.
Earlier this month, I joined with Senator Lieberman and others in
introducing comprehensive legislation to implement all the 9/11
Commission recommendations. Along with Senator Lieberman, I pledged
that the Commission's recommendations--including the ones not already
addressed in the underlying bill--would be fully debated. Yesterday, we
offered an amendment that was designed to address the Commission's
transportation security-related recommendations. Now we will offer an
amendment that encompasses the Commission's diplomacy, foreign aid, and
military-related recommendations.
I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator
Lieberman, and Senator Bayh, and ask for its immediate consideration.
This amendment is very similar to Title V of S. 2774, the 9/11
Commission Report Implementation Act of 2004, which we introduced
earlier this month. In drafting this amendment, we have worked with the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee to develop consensus language
concerning areas of their jurisdiction, and with the Senate Armed
Services and Banking Committees to develop language for other
provisions.
As the Commission report observed, there were many deficiencies that
led to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Not the least was the
failure of the United States to adapt its foreign policy to address the
changed realities of the post-cold war era. In hindsight, it is evident
that we did not do enough to prevent the creation of terrorist
sanctuaries, encourage the democratization of the Greater Middle East,
and engage countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia in
their battles against fundamentalism.
In light of this realization, the Commission found that no single set
of strategies is sufficient to prevent future terrorist attacks. The
United States must use all of the instruments at our disposal to
counter the short-and long-term threats posed by international
terrorism. For this reason, it is critical to pay due attention to the
role of diplomacy, foreign aid, and the military.
Consistent with the Commission's recommendations, this amendment
requires the executive branch to develop a strategy to address and,
where possible, eliminate terrorist sanctuaries. It renews the U.S.
commitment to Pakistan's future, in light of the critical role that
country plays in the war on terror, and authorizes assistance to
Afghanistan--aid that many of us believe must be increased. The
amendment addresses our relations with Saudi Arabia and suggests
establishing an international contact group to develop a multilateral
counterterrorism strategy.
Our amendment also calls on the U.S. Government to work with our
coalition partners to develop a common approach to the treatment of
detainees, and reiterates standards for the humane treatment of enemy
detainees--standards that our soldiers and officials should have been
following all along. Most of this language was taken directly from the
Senate-passed version of the Department of Defense Authorization bill,
which is now pending in conference. The Senate has already spoken on
this issue once; however, it has yet to be enacted. We must continue
pressing to ensure that America treats individuals in its custody
humanely, as the Commission rightly advocates. As the 9/11 Commission
rightly pointed out, allowing torture of prisoners only makes it more
difficult to build the alliances and support we need to defeat
terrorism. Portrayals of inhumane treatment of captured terrorists
hinder our ability to engage in the wider struggle against them.
Other provisions in this amendment are designed to enhance America's
ability to fight the war of ideas by promoting universal values of
democracy, tolerance, and openness. It authorizes funding for U.S.
broadcasts to Muslim countries, and authorizes an increase in our
education and exchange programs. In addition, it establishes an
International Youth Opportunity Fund that will provide financial
assistance for the improvement of public education in the Middle East.
Finally, the amendment notes that the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction is a grave and gathering threat to this country, and
requires the executive branch to develop a strategy to expand and
strengthen our nonproliferation programs.
This amendment is the next step in fulfilling the mandate of the
9/11 Commission recommendations and ensuring that we orient our
diplomacy, foreign aid, and military programs toward combating
terrorist threats, in both the short and long terms. The provisions in
our amendment are not the only steps that are needed, and there are a
number of other important actions that the executive branch should
undertake in order to fully implement the Commission's recommendations.
But I believe that passing this amendment is a vital and necessary
step.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
AMENDMENT NO. 3771
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, since the Manhattan project, national
laboratory scientists have performed an inherently unique governmental
function of not only designing and producing nuclear weapons, but
analyzing intelligence on foreign nuclear weapons and nuclear
technology.
In performing this governmental function, the national laboratory
scientists have staffed the Joint Atomic Intelligence Committee, which
produces strategic assessments on foreign nuclear weapons programs,
helped produce technical assessments of foreign nuclear weapons, and
provided critical technical support in disabling improvised nuclear
devices, which in today's post-9/11 environment is one of our greatest
fears. In many cases these functions are performed through rotational
assignments to the intelligence community staff.
[[Page S10050]]
The amendment I have offered today, and cosponsored by my colleague
Senator Domenici, preserves this rotational capability in the
intelligence reforms proposed by Senators Collins and Lieberman.
Typically, national laboratory personnel can be detailed to the
intelligence community, or any Federal agency, through the
Intergovernmental Personnel Act. This act permits employees of
federally funded research and development centers, FFRDCs, to act for
set periods of time, as staff of a Government agency.
This amendment does not alter the authorities under the act. What
this amendment does is reinforce the congressional intent, that in
addition to the authorities granted to the National Intelligence
Authority to staff its centers with personnel from other branches of
the Government, that it continue to be able to utilize the unique
capabilities of Department of Energy staff and other FFRDCs.
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