National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004-Continued
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE REFORM ACT OF 2004-CONTINUED
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment which I cosponsored with Senator McCain. This is the first of several he and I will be introducing, along with other Members, which would implement recommendations of the 9/11 Commission not included in the underlying bill that Senator Collins and I have introduced which focuses on intelligence reform.
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment of Senator Hutchison. I thank her for proposing it. She was ahead of her time because she has been on this case, along with members of the Commerce Committee, at least since March of last year, when the bill came out of the Commerce Committee; in fact, the Senate passed this bill unanimously in May of 2003.
Unfortunately, there has been no action that meets up with this bill in the House. So Senator Hutchison is quite right to introduce this as an amendment to our underlying reform of the intelligence community. This is directly relevant to the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that "major vulnerability still exists in cargo and general aviation security. These, together within adequate screening and access controls, continue to present aviation security challenges." That comes from the 9/11 Commission.
The Commission concluded that we are safer than we were on September 11, 2001, but we are not yet safe. This underlying bill is aimed at reforming our intelligence community so we will be safe, so we can see the threats coming at us, hear them, and stop them before the terrorists are able to strike, but also that we may adopt other provisions of the 9/11 Commission report.
Senator McCain and I introduced an amendment that was the first to pass a short while ago. I hope this amendment will pass as well, because it tightens existing weaknesses, loopholes in the screening of cargo transported in passenger aircraft, opening up a vulnerability that we all fear terrorists may exploit to strike at us.
I thank the Senator from Texas for not only being foresighted last year in seeing this weakness in our defenses to terrorism but for coming forth and introducing this amendment. It will strengthen the bill Senator Collins and I and other members of the Governmental Affairs Committee have brought out and, therefore, I urge its adoption.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, if I might say a word before that and then I will be happy to yield the floor to Senator Nelson. Maybe I should yield to the chairman who will probably say the same thing I will be saying.
I am very grateful to the Senate majority leader and to the Senate Democratic leader for this agreement and for the pace they are setting for consideration of this bill on a bipartisan basis. These are not ordinary times. This is not ordinary legislation. It goes to the heart of our security. We want to have thoughtful debate.
The chairman of the committee, Senator Collins, and I found in the committee that when we let some time for debate occur, people came to very thoughtful conclusions, totally without regard to party. The votes on all the amendments went all around the lot. I think people ultimately felt good about the process.
By setting these deadlines now for amendments to be noticed and then filed, we are going to expedite exactly that kind of thoughtful consideration so we can get this done with the same feeling of, well, confidence that we are doing the right thing. We are not only doing something we need to do quickly, but we are doing it the right way. So I thank the majority leader and Senator Daschle for their help on that matter and the help they have given to Senator Collins and me.
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, with great respect for Senator Specter, friend and colleague, I rise to oppose this amendment.
I want to say that Senator Specter has been a very constructive member of the Governmental Affairs Committee, not just on this matter but on so many others that come before the committee. He has contributed substantially to the strength of the bill that is before the Senate that Senator Collins and I have offered. He and I talked quite seriously about this earlier in the year, and ultimately my conclusion was that it would construct a bridge too far.
We have a crisis, which the 9/11 Commission documents, which is that we have an intelligence community, as we discussed yesterday and showed on the graphs, without a leader, without anyone in charge. It is so frustrating to the point of being infuriating to read the lengthy narrative at the beginning of the 9/11 Report to see documented the failure to connect the dots. The cases that Senator Specter mentioned-one agency knowing something, not telling it to another agency, which might well have either kept out some of the terrorists who struck us on September 11-should have-or would have opened our eyes to the plot that was being hatched that FBI agents came face to face with, this is a system, the American intelligence community, without a leader.
The most urgent recommendation, according to Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton, that the Commission makes to us is to create a strong national intelligence director and then, right alongside that, a strong counterterrorism center-connect the dots. We have done this. Senator Collins documented the various powers we have given to the national intelligence director.
First, this has been a recommendation of commission after commission. Going back to the late 1940s, when the National Security Act was adopted and the Central Intelligence Agency was created, post Second World War, there was the creation of the Director of Central Intelligence who was supposed to be not just the head of the CIA but the overseer of our entire intelligence community. The position was taken but hamstrung. It was not given the power. The DCI was the same person as the head of the CIA. That contributed to the community being without a leader.
In this bill we separate these two positions. We create the overarching national intelligence director, separate from the head of the CIA, and we give that national intelligence director real budget authority, personnel authority and tasking, assignment coordinating authority, which we are convinced will make us a lot safer and stronger against the threat of terrorism here at home and against Americans and others throughout the world.
The Specter amendment goes further than that and would provide that not only would the national intelligence director in the underlying bill direct, oversee, and execute the budgets of these agencies, but he or she would also supervise, direct, and control their day-to-day operations. That approach would create a department in everything but name and put the national intelligence director in charge of multiple agencies on a day-to-day basis.
One of the witnesses before our committee was Philip Zelikow, Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. We asked Dr. Zelikow: Did the Commission consider creating a department of intelligence, giving the national intelligence director the powers that the Specter amendment would give?
Dr. Zelikow said: Yes, the Commission considered creating such a department but decided against it on several bases.
And they are the bases of my opposition to the Specter amendment. First, the current job that the Director of Central Intelligence had-which was CIA Director, director of presumably the overall intelligence community and principle intelligence adviser to the President-was in itself more than one person could do. To give powers to the national intelligence director for day-to-day operations of the agencies under his or her control would again give more authority, more responsibility than the Commission decided was appropriate and manageable.
The Commission also opted for what they considered to be a more modern management approach. They didn't want to create another big Federal bureaucracy; they wanted to create, really patterned after some very large and very successful private corporations in this country, a central management system, strong as our national intelligence director would be, with budget, personnel, tasking authority, but not top heavy, agile, and not in response or in charge of the day-to-day decisions of all of the agencies under that position. That is what we have in the approach we are taking in this bill.
Senator Collins said some people will say-and you will hear of amendments on this floor, as the debate goes on, from Members and those outside the Chamber who feel the bill Senator Collins and I have put before the Senate gives the national intelligence director too much power. They will try to strip away that power or fuzz it up so that it is not clear and the status quo can remain. There will be plenty of opportunity to argue against that when those amendments are filed.
But here we are in the middle of a war on terrorism, struck as we were on September 11, under a continuing threat of attack, alerts all over, particularly in Washington and New York-real concern-and to do what looks like protecting the status quo of the particular authority of existing agencies doesn't make sense. There will be those who feel our bill goes too far.
I don't mean to put words into Senator Specter's mouth because he is very eloquent, but this amendment suggests we have not gone far enough. The Commission deliberately decided not to take the National Security Agency, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and National Reconnaissance Organization out of the Department of Defense. The Commission was concerned, Dr. Zelikow said, about the balance between national and departmental guidance, and they didn't want to tilt the balance too far away from defense. The Commission's executive director portrayed the Commission's idea of a lean, creative command center this way:
Since terrorism poses such a revolutionary challenge to old ways of executive management in our national security bureaucracy, counterterrorism requires an innovative response.
I believe the underlying bill does exactly that: real authority, decisionmaking authority, but lean and, may I add, mean, because the people who are threatening us are very mean.
The other thing the kind of structure we have created does is make it harder for the problems that many in the Senate and Committee on Intelligence cited in its report on prewar intelligence are worried about, which is group-think. There is an increased danger that persons at the top of the daily operations of the organizations-there is a danger that you will begin to have not the competition of ideas we want to see in our intelligence community and that we feel strongly will be encouraged by the national intelligence director we are creating by the language in the bill, the focus on independence and objectivity of intelligence and by the national counterterrorism center, which is ultimately the place where everybody who knows anything about a particular problem-in this case terrorism-and maybe the director will create other centers on weapons of mass destruction for particularly problematic countries like Iran or North Korea. Everybody in the Government who knows anything about that will sit down together to share what they have collected in the way of intelligence, share their analysis of it, and then plan jointly on how to stop it, how to deal with the threat represented by those situations.
So I believe Senator Specter's intentions are very good, and I admire him for them. But I think at this moment they are a bridge too far, both in the substance of where he would take us and also, frankly, in terms of the probability of any such measure passing Congress. There is an urgency to our deliberations, as we have said over and over again. I think if we reach too far, we may end up with nothing and nothing maintains the status quo, which failed us on September 11 and will fail us again unless we act.
I oppose the amendment. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for not more than 1 minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I rise to support Senator HUTCHISON's amendment. It really strengthens the basic bill that we brought before the Chamber. It would reorganize our intelligence community to better deal with the threat of terrorism. We want this core proposal to be a vehicle for responding to the other recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and to close as many of the points of vulnerability that we have in America to terrorists as we possibly can.
The Commission said major vulnerabilities still exist in cargo and general aviation security. This amendment would go a long way toward ending those vulnerabilities. I thank the Senator from Texas, and I urge adoption of the amendment.
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Warner, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, which the chairman of our committee and this ranking member are privileged to serve on, for his statement, his reference to sections of statute that could be compromised and indeed overridden if this amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania were adopted.
I thought that the colloquy between Senator Warner and Senator Collins was very illuminating. I hope our colleagues had a chance to listen to it because it did, I believe, ultimately explain why this is a bridge too far, a motto from the Second World War, where the troops were sent to take one bridge too far-I have the feeling that Senator Warner is going to know the background of this "bridge too far" reference-too far to hold the bridge and, as a result, the overall effort collapsed.
I am afraid this stretches too far and it weighs down the reforms we are trying to make. I believe the colloquy between Senator Warner and Senator Collins is a great argument for the balance we have struck. We leave the line authority over these national intelligence agencies with the Defense Department. Without going into details-because it is classified-thousands of men and women in uniform serve in these agencies. So we want to leave that line authority with the Secretary of Defense but create a reporting authority to the national intelligence director because the NID will oversee the entire intelligence community.
This has been a wonderful learning experience for Senator Collins and me. We met with the head of the NSA, General Hayden, and the head of the NGA, General Clapper, and it was fascinating to hear the extent to which they are not only providing day-to-day technical military intelligence to help their personnel in the field at Central Command today, and other commands, but the way in which they are also providing, because of their extraordinary capabilities, daily assistance and intelligence security to law enforcement agencies. That is the balance we tried to strike.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will pose a question to both managers, also members of the Armed Services Committee. As we proceed with this legislation, I am sure you are bearing in mind that we recall the aftermath of the 1991 war in which we participated in liberating Kuwait. You will recall as a member of the committee that General Schwarzkopf came before us at that time as sort of an after-action report. He talked in some detail about what he felt were shortcomings, particularly in the tactical intelligence, as to what he needed as a warfighter, as commander of the forces. That sounded alarms throughout the system. It startled many of us that that shortfall existed to that extent. Immediately the then Secretary of Defense and the successive Secretary of Defense-particularly Secretary Rumsfeld-have done everything possible to
strengthen and remove the weaknesses that were in the system at that time.
As we proceed on this bill, I hope we have been mindful of particular tactical strengths that have been built into the existing system. It would be my fervent hope that nothing in this bill would roll back that progress. I wonder if the managers might address that, since both are members of the Armed Services Committee and have experience with the gulf war and what has been done in the ensuing years.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator for his question, my chairman of the Armed Services Committee. It is an important question, one that Senator Collins and I weighed as we went through this process of accepting the assignment from the bipartisan leadership to consider and recommend to the Senate on the 9/11 Commission Report. We both take not only our responsibility to protect America's security under the Constitution seriously, we take our membership on the Armed Services Committee seriously. We have a purpose here. We want to put somebody in charge. The 9/11 Commission Report says the intelligence community doesn't have a leader. They are not coordinating their effort. As we do that, we said we want to make sure we don't compromise the quality and availability of intelligence to our warfighters. In fact, we believe our proposal not only doesn't compromise the quality of intelligence, but will ultimately improve it because there will be better coordination.
Even from within some of these agencies, national assets under the Defense Department, high officials said to us that they don't benefit, they don't think the military benefits, the warfighters benefit from the current ambiguity. Make those lines clear, and all the customers, if I can use that term, of intelligence will benefit, including the military.
Senator Warner knows that in specific regard to the so-called TIARA, or tactical intelligence budget of the military, that remains totally within the Defense Department, and so do most of the joint military intelligence programs. So the answer is a resounding yes. We understand the uncertainty, the anxiety because of our bill. The 9/11 Commission recommendations represent change. It does take the budget authority and put it under the national intelligence director for national intelligence programs, including these three within the Defense Department. So we understand the anxiety. But we think we put together a balanced system that will not only first provide the No. 1 customer of intelligence, the President of the United States, with the best intelligence, with the coordinated unity of effort that he requires, but do the same for the warfighters. That is our firm belief.
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Mr. WARNER. I am privileged to be in this colloquy with my friends. I would like to have the assurance of the ranking member of the committee that he concurs in the statements just made by our distinguished Chair.
Mr. LIEBERMANN. Mr. President, my reflex is to say I do, but I must say I was distracted for a while, so I do not know everything the Senator said.
Mr. WARNER. The question is the language sent up by the administration did have a breakout of the budget authority as relates to certain parts of the overall programs performed by these combat agencies.
I ask our distinguished manager of the bill whether this language in the communication today which said the administration opposed any amendments, because I proposed to have an amendment tomorrow-it may be opposed by the administration, but I want to make sure that the phrase "full budget authorities" is not amending what they sent up by way of language.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, the sentence is subject to more than one interpretation. So I am not sure what the meaning of it is, but I can assure the Senator about what the intention of the underlying bill is and that is the way in which I look forward to continuing this discussion and debating any amendments the Senator might have.
I found a quote that may be reassuring to the Senator. It is from General Hayden, Director of the National Security Agency, when he testified before the House Select Committee on Intelligence on August 18 of this year about the 9/11 Commission recommendations. He said an empowered national intelligence director, with direct authority over the national agencies, including his own, should not be viewed as diminishing our ability or willingness to fulfill our responsibility as combat support agencies, which I found reassuring. That is certainly our intention and I hope the Senator from Virginia will find that reassuring as well. That, combined with the possibility that the administration might oppose one of the Senator's amendments, I hope will lead the Senator to reconsider.
Mr. WARNER. Well, time will tell. I ask unanimous consent to have printed at this point in the RECORD a copy of the administration-I think the Senator referred to it as a bill although it was never introduced-language they sent up which made a clear reference and distinction to what budget authority was given to the NID and what residual remains in the Secretary of Defense. Am I correct on that?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I have no objection. I think that would be helpful.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, my understanding is, as the Senator said, this is not a complete bill. It was legislative language for parts of what ultimately have been covered in our bill.
Mr. WARNER. Yes.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I have no objection.
Mr. WARNER. It was a communication from the administration-
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Absolutely.
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Briefly, I thank Senator Warner for his statement in opposition to the Specter amendment and for the questions which he raised which I think have been helpful and clarifying. No doubt this discussion will continue in the days ahead.
I thank the Chair.