Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - The Final Report of the 9/11 Commission

Federal News Service August 10, 2004 Tuesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: THE FINAL REPORT OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA)

WITNESSES: THOMAS KEAN, 9/11 COMMISSION CHAIRMAN; LEE HAMILTON, 9/11 COMMISSION VICE CHAIRMAN

BODY:

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REP. JOHN KLINE (R-MN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today, for your wonderful testimony and a really terrific report.

There's so much here, and I've enjoyed the discussion today. And I was frankly very heartened, in the exchange that we've had about the discussion of intelligence for the warfighter-tactical intelligence, strategic intelligence. I think it's very important that those of us on this committee-that we understand how that's going to work and make certain that we're not damaging that intelligence, because, as we've discussed, sometimes the company commander in the field is getting his intelligence from what we think of as strategic or national assets. So I'm eager to work with my colleagues and you on that.

My time is limited, so I want to try to understand something. We talked about boxes and organization here, and as you-both of you know, that's how government and-how we think here. We have wiring diagrams and organizational boxes. It's very important who reports to who.

And you've talked a great deal about unity of effort, and I agree that that's something we absolutely need. But there's another principle, unity of command, that I'm a little bit unclear about here. In the-one of your recommendations would be that one of the national intelligence director's deputies be the Defense Department's undersecretary for Intelligence. I'm sort of interested who he really works for, or she really works for, who's writing the report, who's responsible for firing them, for promotions and that sort of thing. That's unfortunately sort of how we think around here. How would that work out? Who's the real boss there? Who's in charge?

MR. KEAN: Yeah. That would-he would work for the secretary of Defense, but the appointment would be made with the concurrence of the national director of intelligence.

We understand the importance of an arrangement that serves both the intelligence needs of both the military and the national policy. We believe the proposal, we think, is going to achieve that purpose. But it's three deputies.

REP. KLINE: Right.

MR. KEAN: Deputy for military intelligence is one of them.

REP. KLINE: Okay.

So --

MR. HAMILTON: We do not remove the secretary of Defense from direct, immediate control over the intelligence assets that are necessary for the war fighter. That stays exactly as it is today, and must stay the way it is today.

REP. KLEIN: Right.

MR. HAMILTON: Now, as I suggested a moment ago, I think the questions that have been asked here are helpful to us and causes me to think that we need to refine some of our thinking in this very important area. And we will try to do that. But you're-in many ways you're the experts on it; we are not.

REP. KLEIN: Well, I just think that it is-knowing how people work, if two bosses call a meeting at the same time, which one you go to is sort of a-I understand I'm getting in the weeds, but nevertheless it's important in understanding who really is in charge.

And I was struck, Governor, when you were talking about the DCI. You said he got it and was declaring war on terrorism, and yet he couldn't get other agencies to respond. And you said something I found very interesting: he couldn't even get everybody in the CIA to respond. And it's very clear that there was power there, to use Mr. Hamilton's words, and yet he still couldn't get it done.

So I applaud the work, I'm looking forward to working with you and my colleagues on these recommendations, but you have put forward something that is very hard. And we are dealing with entrenched bureaucracies here that Mr. Weldon mentioned earlier. And it's important that we be clear, at least in my judgment, that we be clear on how this organization is going to be structured so that there's no doubt about sort of who's in charge.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. KEAN: Absolutely right.

MR. HAMILTON: These organizational problems are difficult. Double hatting is not an unusual phenomenon in the government.

REP. KLEIN: Right.

MR. HAMILTON: And it-you're right, it sometimes makes ambiguous the line of command here. And the director of-not the director, but the intelligence secretary, assistant secretary in the Defense Department would be double hatted in a sense. But, he's working principally for the DOD secretary.

REP. KLEIN: Okay. Thank you very much.

And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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