Hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee - The Nomination of Michael Leiter to be Director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
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SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Leiter.
I'd like to follow up on questions that you've been asked by Vice Chairman Dodd and by Senator Wyden relating to the whole question of ideological engagement -- what you referred to as "draining the swamp of ideology." And I couldn't agree with you more that we can attack with kinetic means and should and must attack with kinetic means certain individuals and certain structures. But if the purpose of the whole exercise is simply to have others come up and replace them and you haven't won the underlying battle, you really aren't making the kind of progress that the country needs.
And I see your initiative as a correct one. I see it as a bold one. And I look at you as an individual reporting to the Director of National Intelligence, which is an agency still sort of seeking to find its way administratively, and on something like this, probably having to bump into not only CIA and various components of Defense and the State Department and USAID within State and Homeland Security perhaps -- who knows who all you all have to be involved with
From a point of view of administering that purpose, do you have the clout that you need to even convene people, let alone get direction? What would be the primary motivating administrative force behind this effort, if it's not yourselves and your organization? And if it is yourself and your organization, how do you compete among bigger, stronger, closer-to-the-president entities that you would seek to bend to your will?
MR. LEITER: Senator, thank you for the question. I do want to clarify. Although on the analytic front, for ideological engagement, I report to Director McConnell, for this planning and coordination of the war of ideas, in fact, I report to the president directly.
And in that regard, what I require and what I so far have gotten over the past five to six months is a strong hand from the National and Homeland Security Councils, because in that coordination of those, if I may, the big dogs, I need a National and Homeland Security Council and a White House that is supportive of our efforts to force them together to get that message out and coordinate. I have thus far had that, and in the process I have been assured that I will continue to have that. And the authority that we were given came directly from the principals' committee.
SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Well, that's very good to hear. I appreciate it. That's more than I thought you'd been given, and I was worried that you were getting off on a mission from which some people never return --
MR. LEITER: Senator --
SEN. WHITEHOUSE: -- to have the bureaucratic support behind them to make it happen.
MR. LEITER: And Senator, I don't want to underestimate the challenge there. The challenge remains, and it's a significant challenge. And I do think there was great wisdom, from my perspective, in having a dual reporting chain. Although it is complicated, I think a dual reporting chain -- the DNI on intelligence and the president on strategic planning -- is critical.
SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Mr. Chairman, I don't have further questions. I am supportive of this nominee and hope that he can be confirmed rapidly.
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