[Senate Hearing 108-724]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-724
ENSURING THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY SUPPORTS HOMELAND DEFENSE AND
DEPARTMENTAL NEEDS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 13, 2004
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Michael Stern, Deputy Staff Director for Investigations
David Kass, Chief Investigative Counsel
Jane Alonso, Professional Staff Member
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
Beth M. Grossman, Minority Counsel
Michael L. Alexander, Professional Staff Member
Andrew Weinschenk, Fellow, U.S. Department of State
Amy B. Newhouse, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Collins.............................................. 1
Senator Lieberman............................................ 3
Senator Stevens.............................................. 5
Senator Levin................................................ 22
Senator Coleman.............................................. 24
Senator Pryor................................................ 26
Senator Carper............................................... 29
Senator Durbin............................................... 32
Senator Dayton............................................... 34
Also present:
Senator Warner............................................... 38
WITNESSES
Monday, September 13, 2004
Hon. Colin L. Powell, Secretary, Department of State............. 5
Hon. Tom Ridge, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security....... 12
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Powell, Hon. Colin L.:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared Statement........................................... 43
Ridge, Hon. Tom:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared Statement........................................... 49
APPENDIX
Questions and Responses for the Record from:
Secretary Powell............................................. 57
ENSURING THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY SUPPORTS HOMELAND DEFENSE AND
DEPARTMENTAL NEEDS
----------
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m., in
room SH-216 Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Collins, Lieberman, Stevens, Levin,
Coleman, Pryor, Carper, Durbin, and Dayton.
Also Present: Senator Warner.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS
Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order.
Good morning. This morning, the Committee on Governmental
Affairs holds its seventh hearing on the recommendations
of the 9/11 Commission to reform America's intelligence
community. I commend my colleagues for their dedication to the
vital mission assigned to this Committee, and I welcome the
very distinguished witnesses that we have this morning, whose
testimony will help guide us in this critical task.
We meet today after a somber weekend of remembrance. The
anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will
forever be a day of tears and prayers for the victims and their
families. On this third anniversary, tears and prayers were
offered as well for the victims of terrorism in Russia and for
their families. Now, as 3 years ago, the grief of people of
good will knows no borders.
We, in government, have an obligation to do more than
grieve. The massacre of the innocent school children in Beslan
and of innocents in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, Jerusalem, Jakarta,
and so many other places, reminds us that terrorism has both a
global reach and an unlimited capacity for cruelty.
We in government have an obligation to dedicate ourselves
to the defeat of this enemy. The role of this Committee in this
effort is to transform an intelligence structure built for the
Cold War into one that meets the demands of the war against
terrorism. Thanks to the hard work of this Committee and the
many expert witnesses we have heard from as well as the efforts
of the administration and other committees, this new structure
is within our grasp. A recent news report put it this way:
``The White House, both chambers of Congress, and members of
both political parties are beginning to sing from the same
hymnal on overhauling the nation's intelligence agencies, but
they are not all in the same key yet.''
To continue the musical metaphor, I would add that although
we are not perfectly in tune, neither are we tone deaf. We know
that the American people expect a lot of us, and we know what
we must do to meet those expectations. We know that the stakes
are high, and we know that reform cannot wait. With each
hearing, significant points of consensus are emerging. The need
for a national intelligence director with sufficient authority
to do the job effectively becomes more and more evident. The
power of the National Intelligence Director (NID) position
cannot inhibit the competitive analysis advantage that we gain
from a vigorous intelligence community. Virtually every witness
has endorsed a national counterterrorism center that will
integrate our knowledge and coordinate our fight against global
terrorism. Intelligence reform should enhance, not detract,
from military intelligence and readiness.
There is also widespread agreement that the complex threats
we face today and into the future require a new configuration
that enhances information sharing. Larry Kindsvater, the deputy
director of central intelligence, has described the situation
this way: ``No one and no organizational entity is actually
responsible for bringing together in a unified manner the
entire intelligence community's collection and analytical
capabilities to go against individual national security
missions and threats such as terrorism, North Korea, the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and China.''
Against that array of threats, we need unity, but we must
also preserve the competitive analysis of the 15 members of our
intelligence community. Our intelligence network needs a hub,
but the Nation does not need a new bureaucracy. This hub, which
I call the National Intelligence Authority, must be crafted so
that we gain coordination, cooperation, and communication, and
lose only our vulnerability.
As the title of this hearing indicates, the reform we
undertake must be designed to meet the needs of both consumers
and producers of intelligence. I am pleased that we have here
today the extraordinary leaders of two such departments,
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Secretary of State
Colin Powell. America has been fortunate indeed to have two
such outstanding leaders in the war against terrorism.
As a nation, we should recognize how far we have come since
September 11, 2001. The FBI, CIA and other intelligence
agencies have undergone significant internal restructuring. We
have created the Department of Homeland Security and the
Terrorist Threat Integration Center. We have expanded the Joint
Terrorism Task Force Program as well as the resources available
to our first responders. The President, Members of Congress
and, of course, members and staff of the 9/11 Commission have
enhanced the cause of intelligence reform and put us on the
path of continued progress.
Many details still must be resolved before the emerging
consensus can be turned into real reform, but each day, we are
advancing the goal. We know from the devastation at ground zero
to the slaughter in Russia that our enemy is capable of
anything. Surely, we are capable of enacting true reform that
will help to make us safer.
Senator Lieberman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN
Senator Lieberman. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman.
In regard to that hymnal you referred to, I think probably
the best thing I can say is amen, sister. [Laughter.]
I think we are singing from the same hymnal, not just you
and me but most of us who have been focused on the response to
the 9/11 Commission's Report, and I appreciate it very much. I
think that is encouraging. This is our seventh full Committee
hearing since the 9/11 Commission reported at the end of July,
and just as you said, I agree with you that not only have we
proceeded deliberatively, but I believe that a consensus is
emerging based not only on the Commission's report but also on
the testimony that we have heard, that we need a national
intelligence director with strong budget and personnel
authority to make sure our enormous investment in intelligence
gives us the national security we need and second that we need
the National Counterterrorism Center and other centers to
achieve something like the same jointness that is now a reality
in our military, among our military forces.
Those are critical points of agreement that we have as we
go forward, and I must say last week, the President added to
the momentum and certainly deepened and broadened the consensus
by, in fact, calling for a national intelligence director along
the lines recommended by the Commission and similar to the
consensus that I think is emerging here. ``The President
intends to give the NID full budget authority over the National
Foreign Intelligence Program appropriation and the management
tools necessary to successfully oversee the Intelligence
Community.'' That was a very significant step on the road to
genuine intelligence reform.
As we came back into session last week after the August
break, we were a lot further ahead than most people ever
thought we would be, not just in this Committee but in both
houses; had many more hearings and much more deliberation than
people thought. There are now those who are skeptical, as they
were when the Commission issued its report about what we would
do in August, that we will not be able to get a bill before the
Senate before we break. I am convinced we will.
There are those who say OK, you will get it through the
Senate, but they will never get a bill through the House, and
you will never conference it before we break for the campaigns.
I am convinced that we will. And I think one of the reasons we
will is that we are just going to keep going straight ahead, as
you have directed and led this Committee to do, to achieve that
end.
I am very grateful to Secretary Ridge, Secretary Powell,
that they are giving us their time and expertise this morning.
Both of these departments, the Department of Homeland Security
and the Department of State, will have obviously an important
impact on our intelligence system and are also critical
consumers of intelligence produced by the system. Each is
affected in one way or another by the report of the Commission
and by what we do.
I look forward to hearing from Secretary Ridge,
particularly about the Information Analysis and Infrastructure
Protection Directorate that has grown up under his new
department and how it has related to the so-called TTIC and how
he expects Homeland Security particularly to benefit from the
creation of the National Counterterrorism Center.
The Commission also envisioned the Department of Homeland
Security playing an important role in a new information-sharing
network by ensuring among other things that State and local
governments and the private sector are brought into the
network, and that is a unique function that the Department of
Homeland Security has begun to play, will play, and I think is
very important as we talk about reforming our intelligence
structures. The Commission also recommends that the Department
of Homeland Security lead the effort to design a comprehensive
screening system to improve border security, set standards for
issuing birth certificates, driver's licenses, and other forms
of identification and also screen all passengers for
explosives. These are important and in some sense still
controversial suggestions. I am generally in support of them,
and I look forward to hearing what the Secretary has to say
about them as well.
Secretary Powell, we are grateful that you are here. The
Bureau of Intelligence and Research, INR, within the State
Department is clearly an important part of the intelligence
community with a reputation for real quality intelligence
analysis. In the 9/11 Commission's assessment, it is one of the
bright spots. It comes out with some of the higher marks in the
intelligence community. The Commission has, interestingly,
recommended that the budget of INR, as you know, not be put
under the new national intelligence director. I would like to
hear your reaction to that and also, how do we make sure, if
that is the case, that INR is at the table? It would be a
strange result if this intelligence office, which has done
well, is not at the table to argue as a consensus about a
particular case that is being formed.
Finally, we have naturally been focused on the threat of
terrorism and how to beef up our intelligence with regard to
terrorism. But America relies on intelligence for a lot more
than the war on terrorism, though it is our focus today. The
news from North Korea reminds us of how important intelligence
is outside of the specific ambit of terrorist threats to us,
and I want to ask you in that regard to assess to the best of
your ability the impact of the kind of intelligence reform that
we are talking about on the intelligence that you need as
Secretary of State to make the judgments you need to make about
a situation as complicated and as critical as the question of
whether North Korea not only has nuclear capacity but whether
it has exploded a nuclear weapon.
So these are critical questions which you two uniquely can
assist us in reaching reasonable judgments on. I thank you for
being here, and again, I thank you, Madam Chairman, for setting
the pace that you have for the Committee with the purpose that
we have had that I am confident will lead us to the reform that
we need. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Lieberman.
I would now like to call on our first witness, Secretary
Powell. Again, thank you both for being here today. I know you
are extraordinarily busy.
Senator Stevens. I hope my friend will not object, but I
would like to just make one comment, if I may.
Chairman Collins. Absolutely.
Senator Stevens. And that is as Chairman of the
Appropriations Committee--incidentally, I am a monotone, so I
am not sure I am on the same page of music that you are looking
at yet. [Laughter.]
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS
Senator Stevens. First, let me tell you as a former
Chairman on this Committee, I think you have done a grand job
on these hearings so far. But the Appropriations Committee next
week will start a series of hearings. I think there are people
who have not been heard yet, and I intend to have the
Appropriations Committee be a forum to listen to those people
who are really on the edge of what you are doing and have some
comments, I think, based upon experience that we should listen
to from the intelligence community. Those will start on
September 21.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator. We appreciate your
expertise and your advice as we proceed in this important task.
You certainly have many years of experience that you can draw
on, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with you.
Senator Stevens. I will try to learn how to sing.
Chairman Collins. We have signed you up for lessons.
Secretary Powell, please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF HON. COLIN L. POWELL,\1\ SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF
STATE
Secretary Powell. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I do
have a prepared statement for the record, which I would like to
offer and then provide a shorter statement and oral
presentation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Secretary Powell appears in the
Appendix on page 43.
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Chairman Collins. It will be included in full in the
record.
Secretary Powell. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman,
Senator Lieberman, and Members of the Committee. I am pleased
to be here today with my colleague, Tom Ridge. I must say I am
taken aback by all these musical metaphors. You obviously have
not seen my performances on the international stage around the
world. [Laughter.]
But I am pleased to have this opportunity to share with you
my thoughts on the reform of the intelligence community.
I have been a consumer of intelligence in one way or
another throughout my 40-plus years of public service. From the
tactical level on the battlefield as a second lieutenant to the
highest levels of the military, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, National Security Advisor and now as Secretary of
State, and I hope that I can offer some helpful insights from
the perspective of the conduct of America's foreign policy.
Before I start, though, let me add my thanks to those of
millions of other Americans, to the members of the 9/11
Commission for their careful examination of what went wrong
during the run-up to that terrible day 3 years ago and for
their thoughtful recommendations to ensure that nothing like
that can ever happen again. And let me also thank you, Madam
Chairman, and the Members of the Committee for the dedication
that you have applied to this task over the last several weeks,
and I hope that you are able to complete your work, as Senator
Lieberman said, before adjournment.
Madam Chairman, let me say at the outset that I fully
support President Bush's proposals on intelligence reform. A
strong national intelligence director is essential. That
strength is gained primarily by giving the NID real budget
authority. In that regard, the President's proposal will give
the NID the authority to determine the budgets for agencies
that are part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. As
recommended by the 9/11 Commission, the NID will receive funds
appropriated for the NFIP, and he or she will have the
authority to apportion those funds among the NFIP agencies.
The NID will also have the authority to transfer funds and
to reprogram funds within the NFIP as well as approval
authority for transfers into or out of the NFIP. The President
has empowered the NID in other ways as well. For example, in
addition to the budget authority I have just described, the NID
must concur in the appointment of heads of intelligence
community agencies if those appointments are made by Department
heads, and if the appointments are made by the President, the
recommendation to the President must be accompanied by the
NID's recommendation.
Additionally, the NID will have authority to establish
intelligence requirements and priorities and manage collection
tasking both inside and outside the country, also to resolve
conflicts among collection responsibilities and also to ensure
full and prompt information sharing, to include making sure
that all agencies have access to all intelligence available and
needed to carry out their missions and to perform independent
analysis and finally to establish personnel administrative and
security programs for the intelligence community.
The President's proposal does not adopt the 9/11
Commission's recommendation that the NID have deputies from
DOD, CIA and the FBI. President Bush believes that we need
clear lines of authority, and to have in the structure people
who have to report to two different masters would not
contribute to clarity of responsibility and accountability. The
President's proposal does put the National Counterterrorism
Center under the supervision of the NID; moreover, if any other
such centers were judged necessary, those, too, would fall
under the NID. For example, the President has requested that
the Robb-Silverman Commission look at the possibility of a
weapons of mass destruction center.
To give the NID the sort of independent help that he will
require to do his job, the President's proposal includes a
Cabinet-level Joint Intelligence Community Council, upon which
I and my national security colleagues would sit. This council
would advise the NID on setting requirements, on financial
management, to include budget development; on establishing
uniform policies and on monitoring and evaluating the overall
performance of the intelligence community. Perhaps later, Madam
Chairman, as we discussed before the hearing, I can give you a
little experience of what the Joint Chiefs of Staff are like
and how they operate and how there are some parallels to how
this council might operate.
Finally, the President's proposal would require important
changes to the 1947 National Security Act, changes I know that
members of this Committee will be looking at carefully. An
example of such a change would be the plan to establish the new
position of the Director at the CIA and to define the
responsibilities of that agency, responsibilities that will
continue to include the authority for covert action and the
need to lead in the area of human collection.
Madam Chairman, I know that this Committee will look
closely at the President's proposal. I have been in government
long enough to know also that you and the other Members of
Congress will make changes to the President's proposal. Of
course, that is your priority; nay, it is your duty as the
people's representatives. As you and the other Members of this
Committee and the Congress are reviewing the President's
proposal, and as you are considering what the final product of
your very important deliberations will actually be, I would ask
that you take into account the unique requirements of the
Secretary of State, the Department of State and of the conduct
of foreign policy for which I am responsible to the President
and to the American people.
Let me give you some insights, if I may, on why the
Secretary of State's needs are somewhat unique but why they,
too, would be well-served by such reform as President Bush has
proposed. Diplomacy is both offensive and defensive in its
application. At the State Department, we are the spear point
for advancing America's interests around the globe. We are also
a first line of defense against threats from abroad. As such,
our efforts constitute a critical component of national
security.
Our efforts must not be seen as an afterthought to be
serviced by the intelligence community only if it can spare
priorities and resources from other priorities which they
consider higher. Madam Chairman, the old adage that an ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure describes what I am
implying to a tee. Our needs are as great as any other consumer
of intelligence in the U.S. Government. In that regard, there
are a few critical considerations that should be borne in mind
as we, the administration and the Congress, design an
intelligence establishment for the 21st Century.
First, as Secretary of State, I need global coverage all
the time. This does not mean that the intelligence community
should cover Chad as robustly as it covers North Korea, but it
does mean that I need intelligence on developments in all
countries and regions. I need it to provide information and
insight to our ambassadors around the world and to those of us
in Washington. We all must deal on a daily basis with problems
that range from the impact of instability in Venezuela or
Nigeria on world oil prices to ethnic, religious, regional, and
political conditions that challenge our values, spawn
alienation and terrorists, threaten governments friendly to the
United States and impede or facilitate the export of American
products.
Many times in my career, I have found myself dealing with a
crisis in a country that was on no one's priority list until
the day the crisis hit. That is why we have to think
comprehensively and not set aside any part of the world or any
country of the world as not being of interest to us.
Second, as Secretary of State, I need expert judgments on
what is likely to happen and not just an extrapolation of
worst-case scenarios. The intelligence community we now have
provides fantastic support to the military, both planners in
Washington and commanders in the field, and it should do that.
In many cases, its organization, priorities, allocation of
resources and mindset have evolved specifically to support
military planning and operations. Worst-case scenarios are
prudent and are often sufficient for my colleagues in the
military, and I certainly remember the days when I got these
kinds of analyses, and they were so useful, but they are
generally not quite as useful to the conduct of diplomacy.
They are not because in the world of diplomacy I need to
know what is most likely to happen as opposed to just the worst
case. What will influence the course of events? What will it
take to change the course of events? And how much diplomatic
capital or other blandishments will it take to achieve the
foreign policy goals of the President in specific
circumstances? What usually happens or what you must deal with
is something often far short of the worst case.
An old rule that I have used with my intelligence officers
over the years whether in the military or now in the State
Department goes like this: Tell me what you know, tell me what
you do not know, and then, based on what you really know and
what you really do not know, tell me what you think is most
likely to happen. And there is an extension of that rule with
my intelligence officers: I will hold you accountable to what
you tell me is a fact, and I will hold you accountable for what
you tell me is not going to happen because you have the facts
on that, or you do not know what is going to happen, or you
know what your body of ignorance is, and you tell me what that
is.
Now, when you tell me what is most likely to happen, then
I, as the policy maker, have to make a judgment as to whether I
act on that, and I will not hold you accountable for it,
because that is a judgment, and judgments of this kind are made
by policy makers, not by intelligence experts. And I think this
has been a rule that has been very useful to me over the years,
and it allows my intelligence organizations to feel free to
give me the facts but also feel free to give me the most likely
occurrence knowing that I bear responsibility for making
decisions based on that middle range of information on the
basis of that middle range of information on what is most
likely to happen.
The needs of diplomacy require more than a good ability to
imagine the worst. They require real expertise, close attention
and careful analysis of all source information. To be helpful
to me and my colleagues in the Department of State, many of
whom are extremely knowledgeable about the countries and issues
they cover, the intelligence community must provide insights
and add value to the information that we already collect
through diplomatic channels. When the intelligence community
weighs in with less than this level of expertise, it is a
distraction rather than an asset.
Third, to do my job, I need both tailored intelligence
support responsive to, indeed, able to anticipate my needs, and
I need informed competitive analysis. Precisely because my
intelligence needs differ from those of the Secretary of
Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary
of Energy, not to mention the unique requirements of our
military services, I am not well-served, nor are they, by
collectors and analysts who do not understand my unique needs
or who attempt to provide a one-size-fits-all assessment.
I am well-served by my own intelligence unit; as you noted,
was noted by many observers, the Bureau of Intelligence and
Research or INR, and I am pleased to have with me the director
of that Bureau, Tom Finger. Raise your hand, Tom. INR draws
upon comparable and complementary expertise elsewhere in the
intelligence community, and it must be able to do this in order
to function at its best. To respond to Senator Lieberman's
point earlier, INR must have a seat at the table. It has a seat
at the table now. Tom and his folks have no reluctance to
engage with the other elements of the intelligence community,
and as we put this new design in place, we have to make sure
that this access is as great as ever.
But INR is principally a staff agency of mine, not like all
of the other intelligence organizations that we will be
examining in the course of these proceedings. Any
reorganization of the intelligence community must preserve and
promote intelligence units that are attuned to the specific
requirements of the agencies they serve. Such units should be
designed to ensure their independence and objectivity but at
the same time be sufficiently integrated into the parent
organization to ensure intimate understanding of what is
needed, when it is needed, and how it can most effectively be
presented to policy makers.
That is the relationship that I have with INR. My INR must
be able to recruit and retain genuine experts able to provide
real value to the policy making process. This requires
appropriate and different career paths and training
opportunities. We need specialists in INR, not generalists,
late inning relief pitchers and designated hitters, not just
utility infielders.
For example, INR is in close touch with all of our
embassies, in close touch with the regional bureau chiefs of
the Department of State. I see Mr. Finger every single day. If
he is out of town, I see his deputy. We have a morning staff
meeting where all of my principal officers come together, and
so, anything that is going on, I will see Tom face-to-face at
8:30 in the morning and get his assessment.
Over the course of the day, a steady stream of INR material
comes to me. His predecessor, Carl Ford, changed the way we
were doing business at the beginning of the administration,
where once a day, all of us would get a huge packet of
everything that had been going on. We essentially disassembled
it, so that, during the course of the day, I might get 10, 15
or so individual items from INR with a quick summary of what
the item is all about and then the item underneath, so I can
rapidly see if it is something I need to look at right then,
save it for later in the day or just note it and move it on so
that we have a steady stream of real-time information and
analysis coming in to me in addition to what I get from CIA and
so many other sources. But INR gives it to me in a context that
fits my diplomatic and foreign policy needs.
North Korea is a good example that you mentioned a few
moments ago, Senator Lieberman. When the stories broke over the
weekend about some explosion taking place in North Korea and
some speculation as to whether it was or was not a nuclear
explosion, my instincts told me it was not a nuclear explosion,
not where it happened. It was not in a place we would have
expected it, and so I was immediately skeptical. But within a
short period of time, INR was able to provide me all the
information I needed to make a judgment that I felt confident
in going on television yesterday morning on talk shows and
saying no, it was not a nuclear explosion. And as you know, the
North Koreans have announced today that they were doing some
demolition work for a hydroelectric project, and they are
inviting visiting foreign officials, especially from the United
Kingdom, to visit the site.
INR kept me informed all day yesterday, and first thing
this morning, when I got to the office at 6:35 a.m., material
was waiting from INR, knowing not just whether it happened or
did not happen but knowing what my specific needs were to deal
with that situation. An hour and 20 minutes after INR made sure
I was well-informed this morning, the South Korean foreign
minister calls me to share notes and talk about what is
happening in the area of nuclear weapons development in North
Korea. And so, INR knows what my diplomatic needs are as well
as my information, intellectual and intelligence needs are.
Fourth, we also need to take advantage of
complementarities, synergy, competitive analysis and divisions
of labor. While it is imperative to have more than one
analytical unit covering every place and problem, it certainly
is not necessary or sensible for everyone to cover everything.
Nor does it make any sense to pretend that every unit of the
intelligence community is equally qualified to make judgments
on all issues. You would not give your dentist a vote on the
proper course of treatment for a heart problem, and we should
not derive much comfort or confidence from any judgment
preceded by what ``most agencies believe.'' It is not good
enough any longer.
What I need as Secretary of State is the best judgment of
those most knowledgeable about the problem. INR and the
Department of State more broadly are home to many specialists
who are experts on topics of greatest concern to those charged
with implementing the President's foreign policy agenda. But
INR is too small to have a critical mass of expertise on almost
anything. INR and the Secretary of State need comparable and
complementary expertise elsewhere in the intelligence
community. I rely on all of these others so much.
This additional expertise ensures that as much information
and as many perspectives as possible have been considered, that
differences are highlighted, not muted, and that the sum total
of intelligence requirements can be met by combining the
different expertise of all intelligence community constituent
agencies.
Madam Chairman, it is equally important to recognize and
capitalize on the role departmental units such as INR play in
the overall national intelligence enterprise. For example, INR
is not just an outstanding analytical unit, it is also the
primary link between diplomats and the broader intelligence
community, as I noted. Specialists who understand collection
systems and the unique capabilities of other analytical
components anticipate, shape, communicate, and monitor tasking
requests that ensure that I receive the information I need when
I need it in a form that I can use.
The links among policy makers, analysts and collection and
operations specialists are very short in the Department of
State. We have short internal lines of communication, fast
lines of communication, and this is critical to ensure that my
diplomats around the world obtain the intelligence support they
need when they need it and the intelligence support that they
deserve.
Departmental units like INR, structured and staffed to
provide high-value support to their primary customer sets also
support other components of the national security team. We know
that INR products are read and used by analysts, policy makers
and commanders around the world who do not have comparable in-
house expertise or who want a second opinion on subjects of
importance. The de facto division of labor within the IC that
results in part from the promotion and existence of
departmental units is critical to the strength and health of
the overall intelligence enterprise.
Let me make one other point, Madam Chairman. The
intelligence community does many things well, but critical
self-examination of its performance, particularly the quality
and the utility of its analytical products, is too often not
one of them. Thousands of judgments are made every year, but we
have got to do a better job of subjecting all of those
judgments to rigorous post-mortem analysis to find out what we
did right as well as what we did wrong. When we did something
wrong, why did we do it wrong to make sure we do not do it
wrong again? We have to have alternative judgments in order to
make sure that we are getting it right.
Senator Pat Roberts' proposal, for example, talks to this
issue and assigns responsibility for conducting post hoc
evaluations to a new Office of the Inspector General. I think
this is a good idea. One can imagine other places to locate
this responsibility and other ways to achieve the desired end,
but any reform scheme should include independent review of
analytical products.
One more point if I may, Madam Chairman, then, I will stop
and yield the floor to my colleague, Tom Ridge. As you know,
President Bush has issued an executive order to improve the
sharing of information on terrorism. We need to extend its
provisions to intelligence on all subjects. In this regard,
simple but critical guidelines would include separation of
information on sources and methods from content so that content
can be shared widely, easily and at minimal levels of
classification.
For this to work, collectors must have clear ways to
indicate the degree of confidence that the information is
reliable and user-friendly procedures for providing additional
information to those who need it. Changes implemented by former
DCI George Tenet earlier in this year and incorporated into the
production of NIEs are an important step in this direction, but
we can and must do even better.
Similarly, decisions on who needs information should be
made by agency heads or their designees, not collectors. Every
day, I am sent information that can be seen only by a small
number of senior policy makers who often cannot put the reports
in the proper context or fully comprehend their significance.
Intelligence is another name for information, and information
is not useful if it does not get to the right people in a
timely fashion.
And finally, we must do something about the problem of
overclassification. Today, the intelligence community routinely
classifies information at higher levels and makes access more
difficult than was the case even at the height of the Cold War.
Now, by extension, I might say that my folks around the world,
even on nonintelligence matters, just reporting what is going
on, we tend to overclassify as well, and we have to do a better
job of making sure that things are not overclassified so that
these items can be shared more widely and therefore more
effectively.
We need a better sense of balance and proportion. It is not
good enough for intelligence to reside on a highly classified
computer system. If it is to be useful, it has to be available
so that it can be used.
One final point to respond to a point that Senator
Lieberman made with respect to INR. INR has a budget of roughly
$50 million a year. It is inside of my appropriation, but it is
known and carried also in the intelligence community overall
budget, and I think I would like to keep it that way, and I
would protect it in that manner as we move forward.
I have slightly over 300 very qualified folks working in
INR. They have a tenure of roughly approaching 15 years in the
work. So these are experts. They do not move around a lot. They
are not part of the floating group of individuals who go around
the world. They are both Foreign Service officers as well as
civil servants, a large component of civil servants who have
dedicated themselves to a particular expertise or a particular
field of endeavor, and I am very proud of each and every one of
them.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Secretary Ridge.
TESTIMONY OF HON. TOM RIDGE,\1\ SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Secretary Ridge. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Collins,
Senator Lieberman, Members of the Committee. First of all, let
me thank you for including the Department of Homeland Security
in this very important discussion. While we may be less than 2
years of age, we are both producers and consumers of
intelligence, and we are pleased to testify before you with our
colleague and my friend Secretary Powell.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Secretary Ridge appears in the
Appendix on page 49.
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I am very pleased to have this opportunity to discuss
important new initiatives undertaken by President Bush to
enhance our intelligence capabilities and strengthen our
ability to fight the war on terror. This is particularly timely
in the wake of the thoughtful and thorough recommendations made
by the Commission on the Terrorist Attacks on the United
States.
As the Commission recognized in the aftermath of September
11, it was clear that the Nation had no centralized effort to
defend the country against terrorism, no single agency
dedicated to homeland security. And as all of you know, these
tragic attacks required a swift and drastic change to our
understanding of what it means to secure America.
With your help, the Department of Homeland Security was
established to bring together all of the scattered entities and
capabilities under one central authority to better coordinate
and direct our homeland security efforts. In the span of our
18-month existence, we have made tremendous progress. And I
want to thank the Commission and the Congress for recognizing
and supporting the tremendous strides we have already made.
That does not mean, however, that there is not quite a bit of
additional work to do. And nowhere is this more important than
with our intelligence operations.
Every day, terrorists are at work to discover a
vulnerability, to uncover a gap in our substantial network of
layered security. Every day, hundreds of pieces of information
come to us, some of which the public is aware, such as the
recent al-Zarqawi tape and information gleaned from the tragedy
of the school in Beslan, and much that the public never hears
about.
Intelligence gathering and sharing will always be at the
center of our efforts to prevent an attack. That is why
improved coordination and cooperation across all elements of
the intelligence community has been an absolute imperative of
the homeland security mission and one that the President has
fully embraced and addressed with recent reform initiatives.
Since the inception of the Department of Homeland Security,
we have improved intelligence capabilities and information
sharing with our partners across all levels of government and
the private sector. The President has directed a number of
important initiatives to be taken to further reform our
intelligence collection and analysis. As Secretary Powell
mentioned last month, he issued a series of executive orders
implementing some of these reforms.
The President established the National Counterterrorism
Center, which will build on the important work already underway
at the Terrorist Threat Integration Center or TTIC. TTIC itself
was an initiative of this administration that recognized the
need for a centralized approach to terrorist threat assessments
for the Nation.
This new center, the National Counterterrorism Center, will
become our Nation's shared knowledge bank for intelligence
information on known or suspected terrorists. It will
centralize our intelligence efforts and help to ensure that all
elements of our government receive the information they need to
combat terrorist threats. It will provide a better unity of
effort within the intelligence community and improve our
linkage with law enforcement.
By enhancing the flow of critical information, we will
greatly enhance our ability to do our job protecting Americans
and securing the homeland.
The President has also directed that additional actions be
taken to improve the sharing of terrorism information among
agencies and that needed improvements be made in our
information technology architecture. Last week, as has been
previously mentioned by both Senator Collins and Senator
Lieberman, the President announced yet another important step
in his reform agenda. In a meeting with senior Congressional
leadership, he conveyed his strong support for the creation of
a national intelligence director.
The creation of both the national intelligence director and
the new counterterrorism center were recommendations by the 9/
11 Commission and embraced by our President. They are critical
building blocks to enhancing our Nation's intelligence system.
Under the President's plan, the national intelligence director
would be given full budget authority over the national foreign
intelligence program appropriation. The director will also be
given responsibility for integrating foreign and domestic
intelligence and would be provided with the management tools
necessary to effectively oversee the intelligence community.
The director will report to the President and serve as the
head of the U.S. intelligence community. He will be assisted in
his work by a cabinet level Joint Intelligence Community
Council. The council is critical to ensuring sound advise to
the national intelligence director as well as the opportunity
for departments to shape priorities together. The new director
provides centralized leadership for our national intelligence
efforts and will ensure a joint, unified effort to protect our
national security.
The Department of Homeland Security will play an important
role within this new structure and will directly benefit from
the centralized leadership and the enhanced flow of information
it will provide. The Department of Homeland Security's Office
of Information Analysis will participate in the new
counterterrorism center. As a member of the intelligence
community, it will have full access to a central repository of
intelligence information.
DHS and other members of the intelligence community will
now go to one place that will formulate an integrated approach
to consolidated threat assessments and related intelligence and
planning support. This centralization is critical to our
efforts. The new integrated structure will create a more open
flow of information, leaving DHS better-informed regarding
terrorist threats and better able to address vulnerabilities
and therefore secure our country.
Just as important, we can effectively and efficiently
channel that information to those who need it by using new
communication tools such as the Homeland Security Information
Network. Again, as several of you have previously described, it
is important to get this information to those who can act upon
it, and one of the responsibilities of the Department of
Homeland Security was to not only participate in the
interdepartmental sharing of information at the Federal
Government but from a top to bottom information sharing scheme
with our partners in State and local government as well as the
private sector.
The Homeland Security Information Network is a real-time,
Internet-based collaboration system that allows multiple
jurisdictions, disciplines and emergency operations centers to
receive and share the same intelligence and the same tactical
information. This year, we have expanded this information
network to include senior decisionmakers such as governors and
homeland security advisors in all 50 States as well as the top
50 major urban areas.
It was an ambitious goal but one that we met ahead of
schedule, and we are still working, namely to provide increased
security clearances and secret level connectivity not only at
the State level but also for private sector leaders and
critical infrastructure owners and operators.
In order to increase compatibility and reduce duplication,
we are also working to integrate this information network with
similar efforts of our partners in the Federal Government,
particularly the Department of Justice, to include the Law
Enforcement Online and the Regional Information Sharing System.
And all of our Federal partners as well as many others
participate in the Department's new Homeland Security
Operations Center. This 24-hour nerve center synthesizes
information from a variety of sources and then distributes the
information, bulletins and security recommendations as
necessary to all levels of government and to the private
sector.
Our progress in intelligence and information sharing, I
believe, demonstrates the links we have made between prevention
and protection. By establishing a comprehensive strategy
combining vulnerability and threat assessments with
infrastructure protection, we are taking steps daily to protect
the public and mitigate the potential for another attack.
The focus today is on the President's actions to strengthen
and to unify our intelligence efforts. However, there is a
whole breadth of issues that are covered by the findings and
recommendations of the Commission which I think are both
indicative of and also insufficient to capture the full scope
of the department as well as our mission. This Committee faces
the important work of building upon the President's initiatives
and the 9/11 recommendations to strengthen and improve our
intelligence capabilities. I commend your efforts in this area
and in examining and assessing the important work of the 9/11
Commission.
We at DHS look forward to working with this Committee and
with the Congress as a whole in this extremely important
endeavor.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
I am going to call on Senator Stevens first for questions,
because he has to leave at 10:30. Senator Stevens.
Senator Stevens. Well, thank you very much.
I have just one question to my two friends: During my time
here, I think I have been exposed to intelligence briefings on
economic, particularly financial, political--particularly in
the area of the threats to some of our basic friends and allies
throughout the world-- and scientific--particularly in terms of
new technology. I think it has come from not only the State
Department but the Energy, Commerce, Justice Departments, and
other entities.
Now, you have INR, Secretary Powell. Do these other
agencies continue to have a need for the ability to collect
their own intelligence, and if so, should that be in any way
under, or should the people be responsible to the NID if we
create one?
Secretary Powell. I am reluctant to speak for all of my
other colleagues in the Cabinet. I think every Cabinet officer,
Treasury, Energy and others, has their own unique requirements.
And they should be in a position to make a judgment as how to
best satisfy those requirements in their own internal
intelligence organization that analyze those requirements.
What we have is a collection system, CIA and so many other
collection agencies, that bring in information. And that
information has to be sorted through and analyzed, and it has
to be organized in a way that serves these different parochial
needs. Secretary Snow, Secretary Ridge, and Secretary Abraham
have a different need than I do. And so, they have to be able
to have an organization or some means of getting that part of
what has been collected that is relevant to them and then to
analyze that in greater detail.
And I think if we did anything that damaged that process or
damaged that system, we would regret it later. So in the case
of INR, I think INR has demonstrated that it does that very
well for me. It is protected in the President's proposal, and
frankly, it is protected in all of the other proposals that are
before the Congress. At the same time, I believe INR has to be
seen not just as my organization but as an organization that
participates in the work and the processes of the overall
intelligence community, and I think the NID should have the
ability to concur in who I select as the director of INR. If he
and I have a disagreement, then we will take that to the
President.
And so, I am prepared to do what is necessary to show that
INR is a contributing member to the overall work of the
intelligence community but first and foremost serves my
diplomatic needs.
Senator Stevens. Do you have collection as well as
analytical capabilities?
Secretary Powell. My organization--and Tom will shake his
head one way or the other as I say the following--is
principally an analytic organization, not a collection
organization. It uses the information that has been gathered by
the CIA, by NSA and by service organizations, by energy-
specific collectors. We are an analytic organization that takes
this body of information and extracts from it that which INR
knows I need and the President needs and other Cabinet officers
need with respect to foreign policy issues and the diplomatic
perspective.
Senator Stevens. Secretary Ridge, do you have any comment
on that?
Secretary Ridge. Yes, I do, Senator. As you well know, not
only is our Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis a part
of the intel community, but the U.S. Coast Guard is. And we
look at both of these entities as generating intelligence that
at some point in time is quite relevant to the National
Counterterrorism Center. I might add that within the Department
of Homeland Security, we have other agencies that acquire
transactional information that ultimately may be helpful to the
threat assessment and the responsibilities of the NCTC.
For example, at our borders, we often secure information
about individuals as well as conduct, and so, we have the
Customs and the Border Patrol and the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. And as we continue to build and then sustain the
relationship we have with the State and locals, conceivably, we
might collect information up through that chain from either the
private sector or the State and local government with regard to
surveillance, reconnaissance or unusual activity that may be
necessary for the National Counterterrorism Center to know.
So I would say to you that we both produce and consume, but
I think it is very important, given the unique responsibilities
of the Department of Homeland Security that we do not cede this
authority to the NID, particularly in the transactional piece
as well as the Coast Guard.
Senator Stevens. Well, my mind goes back to an interagency
briefing we had for the Senate, Senate Appropriations, in
preparation for an international economic meeting. And it was
multiple agency, and they had multiple collectors within those
agencies. I just wonder what could happen to that expertise
that is out there in almost every agency that is related to the
future of the country as much as, probably not as significant,
but as much as counterterrorism and the military intelligence.
This intelligence of economic and scientific basis really has a
lot to do with our future economic development, and I do not
see anyone yet talking about how or if they survive and whether
they are subject to control by the NID.
I understand what you say, Colin, about your checking your
director with the NID, but does he have to approve your people
that you employ?
Secretary Powell. No; the way it has been visualized to
this point INR works for me just as it always has in the past.
There is no change to INR. I justify its staffing before
committees of Congress and its funding before committees of
Congress, and we want it to be a player in the interagency
process with the community, but INR will keep doing what it has
been doing.
Senator Stevens. Thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your courtesy.
Secretary Powell. I might make one point before the Senator
leaves, and that, of course, there is another collection that
is taking place that is not CIA or NSA, and that is just all of
the diplomatic reporting that comes in from our embassies all
over the world, and those cables come in, and they contain
information that often adds to the intelligence collection
system not often for that purpose.
And that will always be there, and so, we are in a sense a
collector as well as all of the other intelligence
organizations.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman, why do you
not go next?
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
Again, thanks to both of you for excellent testimony.
Secretary Powell, as I said in my opening remarks, you
really have a unique position in the intelligence community,
and it is very important to us to have heard from you today,
because you are not only a producer of intelligence; you are a
consumer in areas other than terrorism, and you give us in your
testimony, I think, some very important guidelines and
directions that we should follow to achieve the broader reform
of intelligence that we want.
I am struck by some of the things you said, and I just want
to highlight them--that the goal of the NID, you say, is to
ensure full and prompt information sharing, to include making
sure that agencies have access to all intelligence needed to
carry out their missions and to perform independent analysis.
My own interpretation of some of the things that you have said
later in your statement is that we have not achieved that goal
yet, and that is part of what we need from the NID.
I was particularly struck by your comparison of the needs
of the military for intelligence and the needs of other
agencies, including particularly your own, and part of what is
going to happen if we create this national intelligence
director correctly is not, I hope and I am sure you hope, that
we diminish the intelligence available to our war fighters, but
we make sure that there is equally relevant, helpful
information to other decisionmakers in our government,
including the Secretary of State in your capacity to both form
our foreign policy and advise the President of the United
States about the decisions that he has to make.
And I am struck that you are saying that the intelligence
community, we have provided fantastic people to the military,
but by those standards not as useful, as you say, in the world
of diplomacy. And I think that really should guide us as we go
forward. Am I reading you correctly or hearing you correctly?
Secretary Powell. Yes, the war fighters have to be given
what they need when they are going into combat, and you have to
be able to count things, see the battlefield, get all you can
about enemy intentions, what the enemy is going to do. That is
becoming more difficult. In the old days, when I was a much
younger man and a soldier in the field, they told me about
where divisions and corps were and how I would fight them. When
I was a corps commander in Germany, I knew all I needed to know
about the Eighth Guards Army that was facing my corps, the
Fifth Corps, and I knew where they were coming, how they were
coming, at what rate they were coming. I knew how to attrit
them as they came.
But that enemy is gone. It is a different kind of enemy now
that does not quite give you that sort of target. So our war
fighters have much more challenging needs now, and the
intelligence community has to change in order not just to be
able to count the Eighth Guards Army along the Iron Curtain but
what is happening, for example, inside Sadr City, a much more
difficult target.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
Secretary Powell. But as we chase those targets, as we try
to get to the bottom of that, do not forget that the diplomacy
of the United States and the diplomats I have around the world
and the judgments I have to make also require dedicated assets
and the best we can do to divine the intentions of foreign
leaders and their ability to act on those intentions. And it
tends to be a softer, not quite as pleasant a task, and we
cannot have an intelligence system that is so focused on one of
the needs of the government overall that it ignores other
needs.
Senator Lieberman. I appreciate the answer.
In other parts of your opening statement, you go, I think,
quite strongly into the questions of the way in which
information is classified, and maybe it is overclassified now.
You make a very important distinction that if we separate
information on sources and methods of intelligence so that we
can share the content without--and I am not talking about the
evening news; I am talking about making sure you get it and you
get it, Secretary Ridge--then, we are all going to be a lot
better off.
And, the 9/11 Commission focused, obviously, on the pre-
September 11 failure of, for instance, the CIA and FBI to share
information. I am hearing you to say that it is not as easy as
it should be for you to get all of the information that you
need to form our foreign policy from all of the other
intelligence agencies of our government; correct?
Secretary Powell. I think I get everything I can possibly
read in one day from all of our other intelligence agencies.
That is not the problem. The problem is making sure that others
can access it and use it.
Senator Lieberman. Who are you thinking about?
Secretary Powell. My assistant secretaries or even lower,
my ambassadors, political officers out at different embassies.
We have to make sure that we are classifying these things at
high levels and in great quantity because we do not want to
lose the source, the method----
Senator Lieberman. Right.
Secretary Powell [continuing]. By which the information was
acquired. And so, the point I was making, and it is a point
that has been made many times, is that we have to find a way to
protect the source and the method while using the information
and therefore delink the source and the method from the
information.
Very often, we will find a leak in a newspaper where a
source and a method has been given away, and we have really
hurt ourselves. And what we have to do is to find ways to
sanitize the information so that we separate source and
information from method so that the information can be used
more widely. And then, there is just a general bureaucratic
tendency to overclassify things because it is easy to do.
Senator Lieberman. And that is what we want the new NID to
overcome.
I want to ask you a final quick question to make it in real
time. When the head of INR put that memo in front of you this
morning about the questions about the North Korean explosion,
did he have the fullest access to all the other information
available to our government? And just to give you another
example which we have heard in some of the other testimony, if
you, to advise the President about what happened, wanted to
make sure that we got adequate satellite-based imagery, are you
confident that you could make sure that the satellite took the
picture that you wanted it to take and that it was not--well,
was not where the Secretary of Defense wanted it to be, because
he thought that was more important at a given moment?
Secretary Powell. To be precise, it did.
Senator Lieberman. The satellite was there. That is good.
Secretary Powell. The point is Tom did not come to work
this morning and have the ability to go see what happened in
North Korea as INR.
Senator Lieberman. Sure.
Secretary Powell. What he did was dial into what the
intelligence community's holdings were overnight, so it is not
something that INR did that was so brilliant; it was what the
rest of the intelligence community did that was brilliant that
INR was able to draw upon, analyze, look at and give me what
they knew I would need.
Senator Lieberman. Absolutely. And that is my question,
that you need to know that he had the access to the total
information available to all elements of the intelligence
community, and hopefully, NID and the centers that we are
talking about, I know the Commission talked about possibly
creating a center on North Korea; a center on WMD would be very
helpful.
Secretary Powell. I think others should talk to whether or
not there are needs for all of these centers, but the one
caution I would offer is that there are just so many experts
and analysts around. So you can create all kinds of structures.
In the military, we would say you can create all kinds of
spaces, but there are a limited number of faces with the
expertise needed for these spaces.
So be careful about creating any structures that might
really not be necessary if all you are going to end up doing is
competing to get the best people from organizations that are
doing good work now to fill these new spaces.
Senator Lieberman. I agree; it is a good warning. Of
course, the advantage is for you, if you have a center on North
Korea, you have got the faces in the same space in our
government who know anything about it, so they are going to
pool their information, argue with one another, and then give
you and the President the best advice possible.
Secretary Powell. Yes, but you are going to be taking those
faces from some other organization that will not be able to
argue a little later on. It is just a caution, Senator
Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Yes, I hear it, and that is the balance
we have to strike.
Thanks very much.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Lieberman.
That is a good lead-in to the bottom line question that I
want to ask each of you before I go into some of the details of
the Commission's and the President's plans for reorganizing the
intelligence community. In the case of the North Korean
explosion, it sounds like the current system worked well. There
are obviously other recent examples where the current system
did not work well to produce the kind of quality intelligence
that we need.
A bottom line question for both of you: Do you believe that
a strong national intelligence director with enhanced power to
set collection priorities and to task the collection of
intelligence, will improve the quality of intelligence that you
both need in your capacity as policy makers? Because that is
really what this is all about: Making sure that we have the
structure in place that will produce high quality intelligence
when you need it.
Secretary Powell.
Secretary Powell. Yes, I do. We need a stronger, empowered
quarterback.
Chairman Collins. Secretary Ridge.
Secretary Ridge. I concur, and it would also probably
facilitate access, so improving the quality and then
facilitating access for the multiple agencies within the
intelligence community to each other's information flow would
certainly be a plus-up.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. That is very helpful, because
that really is why we are here, and we do want to get this
right.
As you both know, the President has announced that he
believes the national intelligence director should be assisted
by a Cabinet-level Joint Intelligence Community Council, and
Secretary Powell, you described this in your testimony as
giving the director the sort of independent help that he will
require to perform the job. I would like to have you both
expand on what you see this Joint Intelligence Community
Council doing, what you see as its advantages. Secretary
Powell, if there are analogies with the Joint Chiefs, that
would be of interest to us as well. We will start with you,
Secretary Powell.
Secretary Powell. Yes, I think this is a very useful
corporate model to use. The counsel should advise the national
intelligence director, identify corrections and tell him
whether him or her that he/she is moving in the wrong
direction. The NID is not going to be omniscient, and
therefore, this senior body will play a very useful role.
The parallel I was suggesting was with the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, particularly as empowered by
Goldwater-Nickles in the mid-80's, and I was the first chairman
that had really full authority under Goldwater-Nickles from
1989 to 1993. It had been implemented by the time I took over.
But in effect, you took the four service chiefs, the Army,
Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard on occasion, and
then, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Vice-
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Each of those four service secretaries came in, and they
are responsible for the training and equipping of their forces.
So the Chief of Staff of the Army is worrying about the Army,
and the same thing with the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps
bosses. But when they came together as the corporate body, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, they were expected not only to represent
their service interests but go beyond that and to represent the
interests of the joint body of the Nation as a whole.
And I found it to be a very workable and effective system.
When we were all together in the time I was Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, I would have regular meetings with each
of them individually where they would pound away on their
service needs and service positions. But when I needed to know
what they thought as professional military officers and
separate it, step aside from their corporate responsibility or
service, I would have a meeting in my office with no staff, no
note takers, no agenda, and nobody on any staff knowing what I
planned to talk about with the chiefs.
But the chiefs knew, because I would call them. And they
would step out. They would have sort of a slight out of body
experience, and they would step out of their service and step
clearly into the national need, and we got the best advice
using that kind of technique. This, I can see in that same way,
where you have Tom, myself, the Secretary of Energy, the
Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Treasury, where each
of us will come together with our unique parochial experience
and with the interests of our department and agenda in mind but
at the same time coming together as a senior-level body to
provide advice, counsel, correction, guidance to the NID as to
what the overall needs of the Nation are.
And I am sure that we will be arguing amongst ourselves
inside of that council, as we should. But there is no such
council now that does that, so I think this is an important
idea, and I think it will help this whole NID concept to have
this kind of a group.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Secretary Ridge.
Secretary Ridge. It is very difficult to build on that very
strong reasoning process, but I would add one more component to
the analogy that Secretary Powell gave you, and that is just
enhanced accountability to both the NID and the President with
the principals in the room. Once the consensus is reached,
after whatever exchange of priorities, debate, discussion,
however, but once a consensus is reached, when you have the
principals involved rather than an assistant secretary, an
under secretary, a deputy secretary, then, I think frankly, it
streamlines and enhances the credibility that whatever is
decided is to be implemented, and the principal him or herself
is going to be held accountable.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Levin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN
Senator Levin. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you and
Senator Lieberman for not only your leadership but for your
opening statements. I think you really spoke for all of us in
what you said, and I want to thank our two witnesses for all
they do.
Secretary Powell, there were two major reports that we have
grappled with. One is the 9/11 Commission Report setting forth
all the failures prior to September 11, the failure to share
information, the failure to act on it between CIA and FBI
within those organizations, for instance. Then, there is also a
Senate Intelligence Committee report, 500 pages of mistakes,
omissions, distortions by the CIA, all in the same direction
pointing towards the Iraqi threat being sharper and clearer
than it was or turned out to be.
My major focus is twofold: One is to be supportive of the
reforms of the nature that we have talked about, and I think
they are important, and they can be useful. We have got to do
it right, but we have got to do it in many ways. I think TTIC
has taken us a long way down that road, but I am in favor of a
number of the reforms which have been mentioned.
But I am also determined that we are going to do something
to promote independent and objective analysis. Too often, we
have not received independent, objective analysis from the CIA,
and that has been true for a long time. This is not the first
time. And by the way, I want to complement you, Secretary, on
the INR, because one of the kudos given out by the 9/11
Commission was to that INR, and a similar operation inside the
Defense Department also received some kudos, and we just wish
the CIA had listened to some of those findings and analyses
rather than going down the course that they went.
But my questions to you because of what the 9/11 Commission
found relative to the Iraqi intelligence relates to a couple of
specific issues which the 9/11 Commission commented on. For
instance, the 9/11 Commission in their report said that there
was no evidence that Iraq operated with Al Qaeda in attacking
the United States. That was in the 9/11 Commission Report. The
9/11 Commission Report said that there was no evidence to
support a meeting of Iraqi secret police with one of the
hijackers, Atta.
And yet, you were pressed, according to the press reports,
prior to your UN speech, to include a reference to the meeting
that was alleged to have taken place in Prague between the
hijacker, Atta, and Iraqi intelligence, and you refused to
include that reference in your UN speech despite being pressed
to do so. Now, you turned out to be right. But that pressure,
nonetheless, was there. It came from the CIA, apparently, in
materials that were given to you which you decided not to
utilize, and it came as late as the night before, according to
a Vanity Fair article. While you were sleeping in preparation
for your speech, there was still a call allegedly on behalf of
the CIA urging you to tighten up your references to links
between Saddam and Al Qaeda including to make reference to that
report that you just thought was not accurate of that alleged
Prague meeting.
And I wonder if you would tell us if that report is
accurate. Were you, in fact, urged to include reference to that
Prague meeting which the 9/11 Commission said did not exist and
which you concluded was of dubious evidence?
Secretary Powell. Several days before I made the
presentation, the President asked me to make the presentation,
and I only had about 5 days to get ready for it, and a lot of
information had been assembled in anticipation that somebody
would have to make a public presentation before the United
Nations.
When I gathered all the information that had been prepared
by various staff agencies and the CIA, elsewhere, in the
Executive Office of the President, some of the information
included the ideas with respect to the Prague meeting or some
connection between Al Qaeda and September 11. When I examined
it all and spent several days and nights out at the CIA looking
at the basis for all of the claims that were going to be put
forward in my presentation, I did not find an analytical basis
upon which to make the claim of Al Qaeda, September 11, or the
Prague meetings, and so, I dropped them.
Nobody pressured me; nobody called me and said I had to
include it. I got this raw information, looked at it and
declined to use it. The reason I declined to use it was that
the intelligence experts that I spent those nights with at CIA
could not substantiate it, so I dropped it. Nobody questioned
me.
Senator Levin. Did the CIA not attempt to reach you during
that evening?
Secretary Powell. As you noted, Senator, I was fast asleep.
Senator Levin. I know, but did the CIA attempt to reach
you? Do you know, and have you ever talked to Tenet about that?
Secretary Powell. No, the reason I do not think this is an
issue, and I do not----
Senator Levin. Well, it is a 9/11 Commission issue. It is
right in their report.
Secretary Powell. Well, what I will say to you is that the
CIA chopped off or concurred in everything that I said.
Director Tenet was with me the night before my presentation in
New York at a mockup set that we had created with all of the
visuals and so was Deputy Director John McLaughlin, and every
word that I used and every judgment that I came to was
concurred in by the CIA. So the answer is no, the CIA did not
try to put something into that statement.
Senator Levin. Did not urge you to include that?
Secretary Powell. No, George and John were with me, and
they bought off on my script, and they did not say you ought to
put this in.
Senator Levin. Mr. Secretary, my time is up, but I really
would like a direct answer, though, to this question.
Secretary Powell. I just said no, they did not.
Senator Levin. They did not urge you the night----
Secretary Powell. No.
Senator Levin [continuing]. The night before----
Secretary Powell. No.
Senator Levin [continuing]. To include something?
Secretary Powell. No, Senator.
Senator Levin. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Coleman.
Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Secretary Powell. Let me be precise, Senator, because you
are being precise. Nobody at any--neither George Tenet nor John
McLaughlin the night before after we made the final rehearsal
at about 10 that night, and we were all secured for the night,
nobody at that level--I do not know what might have happened
among staff people, but neither George nor John made any
effort, because they had concurred in the presentation, and we
all got up the next morning and did a final check. Neither
George Tenet nor John McLaughlin brought forward any idea that
this concept, these two concepts had to be introduced into my
presentation.
Senator Levin. That is why I referred to the staff level. I
said on behalf of the CIA.
Secretary Powell. I have no idea what might have taken
place at the staff level, but it never got to my attention, and
I would have--for the simple reason that the CIA had chopped
off on it and had chopped off on those two points for several
days----
Senator Levin. Thank you.
Secretary Powell [continuing]. Before my presentation.
Chairman Collins. Senator Coleman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN
Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Secretary Powell, you have done a very good job of laying
out some of the specific needs that you have, and I am not sure
whether my question is a resource question or a structural
issue. I have, in my conversations as I have traveled meeting
with various embassies particularly in Latin America, but I
think it is probably fair throughout the world; post-September
11, there has been a shift, and the shift in focus, obviously,
with good cause, is counterterrorism.
But the result of that is that in other areas, some of the
economic analysis, some of the things that you talked about
that are essential, for the long-term relationships that we
have with this country, and I would conclude for the long-term
security of this country are still fundamentally important. But
the question is are the resources shifted into one area; and we
have the resources, then, to still do the things that have to
be done in those other areas, the economic analysis, the
resource analysis, all the things that you and our ambassador
have to take into account?
I raise that because when we look at the establishment of a
national intelligence director, and in your testimony, among
the responsibilities would be to establish intelligence
requirements and priorities and manage collection tasking, both
inside and outside the country. Is there a conflict, then, with
a national intelligence director who has those responsibilities
of establishing requirements and priorities and then the needs
that you have in your testimony, and then you go into saying we
need a national intelligence director; I support that, but I
have some very specific needs, needs about global coverage,
needs about kind of judgments that I need, and I would suspect,
then, needs in terms of priorities for you that are important
in our ability to conduct treaties, conduct negotiations,
understand weaknesses and strengths of various countries at
various times? Is there a conflict there?
Secretary Powell. I think it is quite the contrary, Senator
Coleman. I now have somebody with the authority to make
judgments and to change priorities and to shift assets around
and to reprogram money that I can go to and make the case if I
think there is a case to be made that something is being
overlooked.
And I am also on this council that gives him advice and
counsel on these matters. So I think this gives me greater
access into that requirements determination, reprogrammings and
initial programming. When all the budgets come in, it is the
NID who will assemble all of these budgets into a single
request and then present that request to the Congress and get
the appropriation back.
So what you said is correct. When you have something like
terrorism come along, and we had to allocate resources to it;
we had to protect the homeland, and from a finite body of
analysts and capability, something is going to come in second
in that contest for awhile until you build your capability up
to take care of it. What we have to do now is some capability
building, bring more people and more resources in and make sure
that I am making the case as to why a particular country in
Latin America and elsewhere is not getting the coverage it
needs, and notwithstanding the war on terrorism, we have to
cover a particular country, and there are several who are
deserving of that level of coverage.
I also have to be prepared to say to the NID, and by the
way, there are these countries where, frankly, the diplomatic
reporting I am getting is enough, do not waste a lot of
analytic capability on that. So, I have to be able to make the
case on what is important, but I also have to be willing, as
part of this council, to say do not worry about it, I will just
read newspapers and get diplomatic reporting, and that will be
enough for that particular country.
Senator Coleman. As I reflected upon, Mr. Secretary, some
of the earlier testimony we had, particularly with some of the
former directors of the CIA, I got a sense that a lot of the
interaction among some of the principals in intelligence was
done in a conversational way, folks laying out their various
needs. Because that goes on today, even in the absence of a
national intelligence director.
So what I am hearing from you is that you are not troubled
by your lack of ability to have the power to make that
decision; that you are comfortable with the opportunity to have
input in that decision, to know that your needs would be met.
Secretary Powell. Yes, sir.
Senator Coleman. Secretary Ridge, among the changes that
have been made, and I must note that in some of the testimony
we had earlier, particularly of some of the families of the
September 11 victims, there was a concern about have we done
anything since September 11? And if I have learned anything,
Madam Chairman and Ranking Member Lieberman, from these
hearings, we have done a lot since September 11 in so many
areas to make America safer, to make it more secure, to improve
our ability to manage, to collect, and to analyze intelligence.
One of those areas has been TTIC, where we have a Threat
Terrorist Integration Center. My sense is that the National
Counterterrorism Center is really more like a TTIC plus one,
TTIC plus two. What is it that we are not getting in TTIC now
that somehow we are going to get if we move to more than just a
new acronym?
Secretary Ridge. Well, I think first of all, in the NCTC,
you will have--there will be an originator. The analysts there
are compelled under the President's Executive Order to operate
from a consolidated database and originate a consolidated
threat assessment for the country as opposed to integrating,
perhaps, individual assessments from multiple departments. I
think you will see a much more robust and comprehensive
approach. I think you are frankly going to see more people
there doing more things and again having the National
Counterterrorism Center personally accountable, institutionally
accountable to the NID, who is accountable to the President, I
think, gives us, again, a far more complete and comprehensive
domestic picture as far as we are concerned.
I like the ability for the NID to oversee the information
sharing responsibilities within the respective agencies so that
within the National Counterterrorism Center where some of my
analysts perhaps with the Information Analysis Unit might have
to go in and task or ask. It will already be there to our
analysts in the National Counterterrorism Center. So I think
this broader approach, with an originator of a consolidated
threat assessment, and more resources committed to that will
provide more of a push system to push more threat assessment
out.
It will take over a lot of the threat assessment from the
Information Analysis Unit that I have. I mean we cede some of
that authority. We will clearly not cede the responsibility to
do competitive analysis as it relates uniquely to our mission,
the domestic threat, but broader threat assessments will be
done by the National Counterterrorism Center for us. It is a
good tradeoff as far as we are concerned. We can use those
analysts for other purposes and use the information analysis
and infrastructure protection, frankly, for some of the areas
where we have an important but limited role can be expanded.
Senator Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you and
Senator Lieberman again, both of you, for your leadership on
this issue. It is very important.
Secretary Powell and Secretary Ridge, we appreciate you
being here. I know how busy your schedules are.
So Secretary Powell, let me start with you. I found your
testimony very interesting, especially the part where you said
we do not need, as a consumer, you do not need a series of
worst-case scenarios. And I liked what you said about, talk to
your staff saying tell me what you know, tell me what you do
not know, and also, based on what you do and do not know, tell
me what you think. I think that is a very healthy approach. And
you also mentioned that it is important as we, the Congress,
and the intelligence community, as we go through these reforms,
it is very important that we get it right.
And I agree with you 100 percent on that, and so, I guess I
have a general question to start with of you, Secretary Powell,
and that is what changes would you like to see that would help
the State Department, and I am sure that there are some changes
that you think would be a mistake if we made those changes,
because they would, in effect, hurt the State Department. Could
you elaborate on those?
Secretary Powell. I think the creation of a NID will help
the State Department, and I will just refer to what I was
discussing with Senator Coleman, that it now gives me somebody
to talk to. DCI has been there before, but the DCI did not have
the kind of authority. And in this town, it is budget authority
that counts. Can you move money? Can you set standards for
people? Do you have the access needed to the President?
The NID will have all of that, and so, I think this is a
far more powerful player, and that will help the State
Department. There is a tendency in the intelligence community
to make sure we are giving the war fighters everything they
need, and I would never argue with that, because I used to be
one of them. But I think now I am in a better position to point
out the needs of the foreign policy experts of the department
and my needs as Secretary of State, not only with a more
powerful NID but with me and Tom and our other colleagues being
on the council.
I would be careful, and I do not want to get into this too
deeply, because it really is the purview of others. I would be
very careful if you started to proliferate too much
bureaucracy, too many centers for this, and centers for that.
Senator Pryor. Right.
Secretary Powell. The conversation we had earlier with
Senator Lieberman. I can assure you that there are only a
finite number of Hangul speakers for the Korean language and
Arabic speakers, and with the academic background and
experience needed to do these jobs, and if you create a lot
more structure and slice and dice it, it is the same group that
is going to have to cover all of the new spaces until you grow
new experts, and that is a very time consuming matter. So that
would be my caution, Senator.
Senator Pryor. Right.
Secretary Ridge, let me ask you, if I can, in the 9/11
Commission Report, it says that ``Congress should be able to
ask the Secretary of Homeland Security whether or not he or she
has the resources to provide reasonable security against major
terrorist acts within the United States.'' It is on page 421.
Do you have the resources necessary?
Secretary Ridge. You ask me, Senator, every time I come to
the Hill.
Senator Pryor. I know that.
Secretary Ridge. And the answer is yes.
Sometimes, we differ with regard to priorities, but the
budgets that I have been able to request on behalf of the
President, I think the Congress has generously supported.
Sometimes, you have moved some dollars around, because from
your perspective, we had different priorities within DHS, and
it is our job to accommodate that adjustment and try to do
both, but we do.
Senator Pryor. Secretary Ridge, you also, in the 9/11
Commission Report, it was mentioned that I believe the
Department of Homeland Security has to appear before 88
committees and subcommittees in Congress, and one witness told
the Commission that this is perhaps the single largest obstacle
that is impeding the Department's successful development. And
again, that is on page 421. Do you agree with that assessment?
Secretary Ridge. Well, first of all, we accept, obviously,
not only the Constitutional notion of the Congress' oversight
responsibility and appropriations responsibility, but the fact
that we are building this Department together. It is a
partnership. I mean, there is strong support for this
Department on both sides of the aisle from the Congress, and we
have continued to build it together. There is more work to be
done.
But I will tell you in the last year, both myself and my
colleagues in senior leadership testified over 140 times on the
Hill. Many of them were involved in over 800 briefings up here,
and I think we probably responded to 700 or 800 requests for
information from GAO in addition to hundreds, particularly
hundreds of pieces of correspondence from individual Members of
the House or Senate. So it is a partnership. We expect and
respect the oversight. Frankly, we think it could be a much
more effective partnership and more rigorous oversight if the
jurisdictions were compressed, and I will leave that to the
wisdom and the leadership on the Hill.
Senator Pryor. The 9/11 Commission said 88 committees and
subcommittees.
Secretary Ridge. That is correct.
Senator Pryor. Is that right?
Secretary Ridge. If someone took a look at the 535 Members
of Congress and said but for a handful, somebody somewhere has
an opportunity to make an inquiry that has Homeland Security
implications.
Senator Pryor. And the last thing I had is I know that in
the 9/11 Commission Report, it really talks about how some
people should report to two different agency heads, and the
NID's deputy for homeland intelligence would be one of those,
and I guess I am a little bit mindful of what the Bible says
about not being able to serve two masters. Do you think that
can be worked out and structurally that one person, one deputy,
could be reporting to both, and does that cause you any
concern?
Secretary Ridge. If that is what Congress decided we had to
do, we would do it, but the admonition about serving two
masters is a good one. And I think the President, in
anticipation of that concern, in his recommendation included
the Joint Intelligence Community Council, so you are not
dealing with necessarily people serving two roles on a day-to-
day basis, but you have access to the principals at the Cabinet
level to make the critical decisions and to give guidance and
to compete for the attention and the budget and everything else
that will be in the control and the responsibility of the NID.
So the dual-hatting is not an approach that I think I can--
rarely do I speak for any of my colleagues in the Cabinet, but
I do not think anyone supports that as a means to the most
effective integration of what we do individually as departments
and our working relationship with the NID.
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Secretary Powell, do you want
to respond to that issue also?
Secretary Powell. He is speaking for me, too. That is not a
good idea.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks, Madam Chairman, and our thanks to
you and Senator Lieberman for convening yet another really
valuable set of witnesses here today for us. It is great to see
both of you, and thank you for your service, and I welcome you
today.
Secretary Ridge would be disappointed if he left here today
and I did not ask him about rail security. And I do not want to
disappoint him, but I will not lead off with that, but just to
give you something to look forward to, I will come back to
that.
A good friend of mine just passed away about 2 weeks ago.
He was a minister, a Methodist minister and paster of churches
all over Delaware. His name was Brooks Reynolds. And he would
have been 89 years old on Election Day had he lived. He used to
give the opening prayer at our General Assembly for many years
when I was governor. And among the things I have often heard
him say, and I have heard him say more than a few times; he
used to say the main thing is to keep the main thing the main
thing.
I just want to--in recalling his words, for us, who serve
on this Committee and are charged with developing at least a
proposal for addressing our intelligence inadequacies, what
should, for us, be the main thing?
Secretary Powell, do you want to tackle that first?
Secretary Powell. The main thing is to do no harm to an
intelligence community that is very competent; very dedicated,
and overall is doing an excellent job. What we want to do, the
main thing we want to do is to put these very competent,
qualified people in an even better position to do an even
better job. That is the main thing. So everything you do and
every change that you make in the current system has to be for
the purpose of putting these individuals in a better position
to do a better job.
I think that having a national intelligence director with
real authority not just ``bureaucratic authority'' of the kind
that the DCI had in the past is part of putting them in a
better position to do the better thing. And I think with the
council of the kind that we have discussed here this morning in
place and functioning also helps us do a better thing. And I
feel strongly about that. When Tom Ridge took over as advisor
in Homeland Security and then took over the Department of
Homeland Security, it was a brand new thing in the world, and
it was a single place to go for homeland security issues and
authority.
And I welcomed it, and Tom will tell you I am forever
sending him things that I need done or problems that I have
that relate to homeland security. But at least I now have
somebody to send it to. Now, he does not always welcome my
mail, and it usually----
Secretary Ridge. They are not always love letters.
Secretary Powell. They are not always love letters. The
fact of the matter is, though, I now have somebody who, in one
person, can deal with these kinds of issues. I think it is the
same thing with a national intelligence director. He will be
the main person working on the main thing and keeping our focus
on the main thing.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Secretary Ridge.
Secretary Ridge. Not too much to add.
Senator Carper. You can repeat for emphasis if you like.
Secretary Ridge. I think back to, actually, the reference
that Secretary Powell made when I was serving in the White
House as assistant to the President for Homeland Security and
was given the opportunity and the responsibility to coordinate;
there is certainly a difference in terms of authority and
response to that authority if you are part of a coordinating
effort versus a command and control component.
And as Secretary Powell pointed out, when you give the NID
the budget authority, in this town as everywhere else, that is
the ultimate command and control. The only one other dimension
that I think this will significantly improve, and it has
improved every day since September 11, but I do not believe
anybody is to the point where they think we have a perfect
system, and that is information sharing generally, not just
inter-Federal Government but down to the State and locals.
And again, when you have a NID who can talk about and
reconsider the Cold War classification system and the handling
caveats, obviously, with the notion that you do have to protect
sources and methods, but we do have allies and those who can
help us combat terrorism at the State and local level; and
again, under a NID, over time just kind of reviewing and
assessing the kinds of information that can be channeled down
to those on the streets and in the neighborhoods I think will
be a huge improvement over the existing approach we have now.
Senator Carper. Thanks. I seem to be hearing the word wrong
a lot lately in public discourse. Would you just take a minute
and share with us as we consider the recommendations of the 9/
11 Commission, big ones and not so big ones. What would be the
wrong thing to do with respect to following any one of the
recommendations that you do not particularly agree with?
Secretary Powell. I think it would not be a good thing to
go to this deputy system, and we had this conversation a little
while ago. I also think you cannot serve two masters
effectively. There are better ways to do that.
We still have to look at exactly how the NID is placed
organizationally within the Executive Branch. I think the
President has made it clear that he thinks it is better that it
not be located in the immediate Executive Office of the
President. I also think that would be a wrong thing to do. I do
not have any others that I need to touch on right now, Senator
Carper, that come to mind. I do not know if Tom does.
Senator Carper. Secretary Ridge.
Secretary Ridge. I would concur with my colleague. Again,
one challenge: It would be wrong to assume that we have got the
system of sharing the information with the State and local
worked out. I think the NCTC is empowered to share that
information, and I just hope that one of the considerations
that this Committee and others take a look at is that was
initially, and I think permanently, a responsibility of the
Department of Homeland Security, but the Department of Justice
has a role to play.
I mean, we have to take a look at the National
Counterterrorism Center to see what, if any, role. We do not
want to start building up independent lines of communication,
stove pipes, if you will, getting whatever information we think
is relevant and appropriate down to the local level. So it
would be wrong to assume that with this configuration we have
solved all of the problems. We still have, I think, a very
critical dimension to be discussed, and it may or may not be
dealt with in the legislation as to the points of access from
the State and locals to the kind of information that can be
appropriately distributed to them.
I think that is important from a homeland security
perspective.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Madam Chairman, my time has expired. Could I ask Secretary
Ridge to take maybe 30 seconds and just give us a quick update
on rail security?
Chairman Collins. No. Yes, you may.
Secretary Ridge. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I liked your
first answer. [Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Secretary Ridge. Senator, as you well know, under the
President's directive, we are obliged by the end of this year
through the Transportation Security Administration to come in
with a National Transportation Security Strategy. Clearly,
railroads are an integral part of that strategy. But we are not
waiting for the strategy document to be developed to take some
immediate action, and during the past several months, working
with Amtrak, working with Congress but working with Amtrak,
working within our Science and Technology Unit, we have got
certain pilot programs to test--they are basically explosive
portals to see if we can pick up traces of explosives on
passengers or baggage.
We have deployed, and again, these are pilot programs but
sensing technology at different places. We, frankly, have built
up the supply of canine teams at railroads around the country;
pretty reliable, old technology. They are well-trained, and
they do a darned good job. But there is still much more that we
need to do, and as I know it is a very high priority for the
Senator, I look forward to continuing to working with the
Senator in that regard, particularly once the complete analysis
is done within the railroad industry.
They have had a representative within our critical
infrastructure protection unit since day one. They are very
well organized. They are very helpful in this assessment
effort, and we look forward to sharing the product with you.
Senator Carper. Thanks very much.
Madam Chairman, you know the old saying you cannot teach an
old dog a new trick, and as it turns out, these dogs are pretty
good sniffers, and we just need a few more of them, and I am
pleased to hear that they are being more broadly deployed.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
I would note that we have been joined by the distinguished
chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We thank you for your
commitment to this issue and for joining us this morning.
Senator Durbin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN
Senator Durbin. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator
Lieberman for this hearing.
Secretary Powell, Secretary Ridge, thank you for your
service to our Nation, and thank you for being here today.
Secretary Powell, I am a member of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, as several are on this panel. Part of the invasion
of Iraq, I listened carefully to day after day of information
being given in that Intelligence Committee with a growing
degree of skepticism. The hyperbolic statements about the
threat to America, both public and private, the slam dunk
certainty about weapons of mass destruction, I took with
growing skepticism and ultimately voted against the use of
force resolution.
There was one moment that shook my confidence in my
position, and that was when you appeared before the United
Nations. And it is because of my respect for you. And I thought
if Colin Powell is convinced, maybe I ought to think about this
again. Now, Senator Levin has raised the question about your
discerning judgment in what you said before the United Nations.
But I think in reflection, I hope I am saying this accurately,
but looking back on that testimony in light of the reality, the
failure to find any evidence of weapons of mass destruction or
a nuclear program as was described, that you were not given
good intelligence.
And I think the bottom line to all that we are about here,
as Senator Collins and Senator Levin have talked about, is
whether or not making changes, pursuing the 9/11 Commission
goals will lead to better intelligence, our first line of
defense in the war on terrorism. We talk a lot about the wiring
diagrams and the boxes and the charts and whether we are
changing email addresses and spaces and faces.
What is it about the reforms that you have read that lead
you to believe that either you or some future Secretary of
State will not be put in the same compromising position, being
given intelligence data to tell the world and America in
preparation for a war that turns out to be at least fragmented
and perhaps just plain wrong?
Secretary Powell. Intelligence is always something that
there is some risk with, because you are dealing with a target
that is doing everything he can to keep information from you.
So you will never have a perfect picture of what is actually
happening. With respect to the presentation I gave, over a
period of years, a body of intelligence information had been
built up that said that this is a regime that has used this
kind of capability in the past against its own people, against
its neighbors. They have gassed people. This is a regime that
has not accounted for stockpiles and quantities of materials
that they were known to have or have not accounted for
previously and could have accounted for but chose not to, so
they are trying to keep something from us.
This is a regime that has never walked away from their
intention to have such capability. A reasonable person could
have thought that, in my judgment, anyway, that Saddam Hussein,
if not constrained by the threat of force or constrained by
international sanctions or international pressure, all that
went away, would not use his intention and the capability that
he had to have such stockpiles. We know that he had dual use
facilities. We know that he had been going after precursor
materials; we knew all of that. And it was not just what we
knew; it was what other intelligence organizations knew, and it
was the conventional intelligence wisdom of the international
community.
When we presented all of this, I think that was solid
information, frankly; notwithstanding criticism of the
presentation and our intelligence picture, it stood the test of
time. What has not stood the test of time was the judgment we
made that there were stockpiles of chemical and biological
weapons. On the nuclear side, there were real questions as to
how much we really knew. Tom Finger and my INR guys and Carl
Ford kept suggesting to me that it is not that clear a case,
and that is why, in my presentation, I indicated some
uncertainty with respect to the centrifuges and the nuclear
capability, although others in the intelligence community felt
more strongly about it than INR did.
But we all believed that there were stockpiles of chemical
and biological weapons. There was no real dispute within the
community except how large they might be, and there was also no
dispute about the fact that there were large gaps in
information and questions that were unanswered by the Iraqis
over all these years: Why are they not answering these simple
questions about what they did with some of this material?
INR also agreed with that. INR did not say there were no
stockpiles. INR said there were stockpiles. It has every reason
to believe there are stockpiles. We could question the size of
stockpiles, but we all believed there were stockpiles. It
turned out that we have not found any stockpiles; I think it is
unlikely that we will find any stockpiles. We have to now go
back through and find out why we had a different judgment.
What I have found over the last year and several months is
that some of the sourcing that was used to give me the basis
upon which to bring forward that judgment to the United Nations
were flawed, wrong.
Senator Durbin. I am running out of time.
Secretary Powell. Yes.
Senator Durbin. But I want to bring it to this conclusion--
--
Secretary Powell. But it was an important question, and I
have got to----
Senator Durbin. But what is it about----
Secretary Powell. I am going to get to it.
Senator Durbin [continuing]. Our agenda that will change
that, that will make us more accurate in describing and
understanding our enemy?
Secretary Powell. I am not ducking. I am going to get to
the question, but I have to do it this way.
Senator Durbin. OK.
Secretary Powell. What troubled me was that the sourcing
was weak, and the sourcing had not been vetted widely across
the intelligence community. What also distressed me was that
there were some in the intelligence community who had knowledge
that the sourcing was suspect, and that was not known to me. It
did not all come together in a single way with a powerful
individual and a powerful staff who could force these people to
make sure that what one person knew, everyone else knew. That
is what we have been talking about all morning.
There were some intelligence communities that had put out
disclaimers about some of the sourcing that were not known to
the people who were giving me the analysis and the conclusions.
Now, it seems to me that if you have a powerful, important,
empowered national intelligence director, you are less likely
to have those kinds of mistakes made, and if you focus this new
system, this new approach to business on sharing all
information openly, widely, and without fear of busting your
stovepipe, then, it is less likely that you will have the kind
of situation where I go out there, and I am saying something,
while there are people in one part of the intelligence
community not connected well enough to another part of the
intelligence community who know--they knew at the time I was
saying it that some of the sourcing was suspect.
That is what we have got to make sure we do not allow to
happen, and I think an empowered NID that has the authority to
direct, move money around, move resources around, we are in a
better position to avoid that kind of problem.
Excuse me for taking time to get there.
Senator Durbin. No, it was an excellent answer, and it
leads to about a dozen followup questions, which I am going to
have to wait for. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Dayton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Thank you both, and I think when all is written, and much
has been written already, you two will be seen as true heroes
in this whole operation.
I want to pick up on something that Senator Durbin was just
referring to, and that is this multiplicity of function and
responsibility, because my father, who is a very successful
businessman, said once that if someone is not responsible,
then, no one is accountable. And it seems to me we have this
dilemma here with whether or not to create or allow to continue
this plethora of different operations with various people
responsible, and now, we are talking about a coordinator or
director or somebody with partial authority but not complete or
a monolith.
And given the reality that a preponderance of the budget
and therefore the operations are under the Secretary of
Defense, I do not see how realistically, unless you extract
every one of those intelligence operations out of the Secretary
of Defense's authority you can give that to any director or
anyone else as a practical matter.
And then, we get into, and I am going to refer to one of
these sources, a book called the Pretext for War by James
Bamford, because frankly, even as a Member of both this
Committee and the Armed Services Committee, most of what I find
out, whether it is accurate or not, but most of what I find out
that gets into the depth of what is either going on or is
alleged to be going on comes from these external sources. It
does not come from information that I get directly from anybody
who is involved.
And the point I am making here, and I will give you a
chance, hopefully, at the end of this time to respond to it,
but I want to put it on the record because it gets, to me, to
the core of the dilemma that we have where we have these
different actors carrying out these different functions. And
then, as Senator Durbin said, somebody else is dependent on
that for the validity of the information.
He writes, and I am editing a little bit here, but I am
keeping the integrity of it, I believe: Beginning in the mid-
1990's, Chalabi and his crew of INC directors were shunned by
the CIA and the State Department. They considered them little
more than a con man trying to wrangle large payments and to get
them to start a war so he could be installed as president.
The Pentagon, however, had a different agenda, and in the
spring of 2002, both Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld began seeking
Bush's intervention to grant Chalabi $90 million from the
Treasury. While the Congress had authorized $97 million for
Iraqi opposition groups under the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act,
because of State Department objections, most of that had not
been expended. State had argued that it would be throwing good
money after bad, because Chalabi had not accounted for previous
monies given to him.
Nevertheless, a major effort was made to use Chalabi's
reliable defectors and hyped anti-Saddam charges to channel
disinformation to the media and help sell their war to the
American public through the press. One man, a former Iraqi
engineer, claimed that he had personal knowledge of hundreds of
bunkers where chemical, biological and nuclear weapons research
was hidden throughout Iraq. It turned out that he had worked
previously extensively for Chalabi and the INC, making anti-
Saddam propaganda films. Worse, he had also worked for a
shadowy American company, the Renden Group, that had been paid
close to $200 million by the CIA and Pentagon to spread anti-
Saddam propaganda worldwide.
The firm is headed by John W. Renden, a rumpled man often
seen in a beret and military fatigues, who calls himself, an
``information warrior and perception manager.'' His specialty
is manipulating thought and spreading propaganda. Soon after
the attacks of September 11, the company received a $100,000 a
month contract from the Pentagon to offer media strategy
advice.
Among the agencies to whom it provided recommendations was
the Office of Strategic Influence, which is apparently intended
to also be a massive disinformation factory. That is the
editorial comment of the author. In the end, nothing was found,
not a single bunker. Al-Hadari claimed that the evidence had
probably been moved. Well, gosh, how do you move an underground
facility, asked Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in
Iraq? It is the classic defense of the fabricator to say, well,
they are moving it. They are hiding it.
Ritter said he used to hear the same excuses from Chalabi
when Ritter worked as a weapons inspector in Iraq: ``That was
what Ahmed Chalabi always told us every time we uncovered his
data to be inaccurate,'' said Ritter. He said, ``well, they
change scenes; they are too clever for us. They are too fast.
They respond too quickly. No, Ahmed. No, Mr. Al-Hadari, you are
just liars. And it is time the world faced up to that. They are
liars. They misled us, and they have the blood of hundreds of
brave Americans and British service members on their hands and
hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis who perished in a war
that did not need to be fought.''
The entire story may have been little more than a U.S.-
sponsored psychological warfare effort, the Renden Group's
specialty, to gin up the American public's fear over Saddam
Hussein. If so, it would have been illegal under U.S. law,
which forbids the use of taxpayer money to propagandize the
American public. ``I think what you are seeing,'' said Ritter,
``is the need for the U.S. Government to turn to commercial
enterprises like the Renden Group to do the kind of lying and
distortion of truth in terms of peddling disinformation to the
media that the government cannot normally do for itself.''
Having largely shunned the CIA's analysis, the Pentagon's
top leadership was instead dependent on selectively-culled
intelligence from a man who had long pushed his own radical
agenda for the Middle East and the bogus information from
Chalabi and his defectors. It is a dangerous exercise in self-
deception. Their task now is to frighten and deceive the rest
of the country, and there is no better way than with the image
of a madman a few screws away from a nuclear bomb.
Now, if that is what is going on or even partially true
what is going on, and that is over in one province, and you are
in another, and somebody else is in another, and nobody is
ultimately responsible for that, then, who is responsible, and
who could possibly be held responsible, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary Powell. I cannot speak, of course, to any of the
matters----
Senator Dayton. Well, you would know better than I would
whether it is partially true or not, but if it is even
partially true, if there are these rogue actors out there, if
there are private firms being subcontracted by various agencies
of our government, and if they are then distilling information
that then becomes the information that is provided to other
secretaries, to the President, to the Vice-President, I do not
fault them. They are ultimately reliant on what they are
getting from these other sources.
But then, if no one is in charge, then, ultimately, when we
do get the problems that we have encountered, then, no one is
accountable.
Secretary Powell. I receive my information from the
government's intelligence community, from the CIA and from INR.
Now, if some of the sourcing that went to the CIA was wrong or
had suspicious underpinnings, it was not known to me, and I do
not think it was known to the CIA until after the fact. But I
cannot talk about the Renden Group. I know nothing about it.
Senator Dayton. My question, sir----
Secretary Powell. I think you are in a better position to
deal with this kind of problem if you have somebody who, as we
have noted earlier, has the power and the authority to make
judgments about such matters that are removed from any one of
these stovepipes. This NID, with the power of the purse and
with the relationship that he will have to the President and
not being in any one of the stovepipes I think is in a more
powerful position to question any of the information or
judgments that he is being given from any one of the
organizations of government.
Senator Dayton. But, sir, is he or she sufficiently
powerful to make all of those judgments when he or she is not
going to be aware of all that is going on? The former director
of the CIA, James Woolsey, testified before our Committee; was
very helpful to me, anyway, in defining that to really be able
to be held accountable, you have to have full budgeting
authority; you have to have hiring and firing authority; you
have to have tasking authority; and then, you have to have
control of the information and its distribution.
Well, the proposal from the President goes part way in that
direction. It does not go all the way, and I guess my question
is given that the preponderance of the budget and
responsibility, then, that resides within the Secretary of
Defense's purview, is it realistic that anybody else is going
to be able to be sufficiently--to have the sufficient authority
to prevent these kinds of tangential operations, know they are
occurring, be able to assess whether they are accurate or not
and ultimately, then, give to you or to the Vice-President or
the President information that can be relied upon?
Secretary Powell. Because this individual sets
requirements, priorities; he can reprogram or she can reprogram
funds on their own authority, whether it is endorsed or not
endorsed by those whose programs are about to be reprogrammed,
I think that is enormous authority. What I do not think you
should think about doing is to take all of these disparate
intelligence organizations that are now in bureaucratic
entities and think that they can just be brought out and put in
some new superintelligence organization that I think would be
very difficult to manage and would break the link between these
intelligence organizations that they are supporting, especially
within the military context and the direct kind of support that
NRO and DIA and similar organizations give to the war fighter.
I do not think that their programs should be removed from
their current bureaucratic entity and moved into a super, new
bureaucratic entity.
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Senator Warner, I would like to give you
the opportunity to question the witnesses if you have any
questions you would like to ask at this point.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF VIRGINIA
Senator Warner. I appreciate that courtesy. I will avail
myself of that opportunity.
Secretary Powell, drawing on the experience of the past
when we worked together, one of our challenges was the
Goldwater-Nickles Act, which revised a good deal of the
structure, particularly in the Joint Chiefs and so forth. One
of the provisions we put in there, you are very familiar with
it, having been chairman at one time yourself, and that is in
the course of the deliberations, the chairman is the principal
advisor to the President, but if one of the service chiefs
feels very strongly about his or her views, whatever the case
may be, they have the opportunity to go to the President and
express an opinion to some degree at variance with the
chairman.
I want very much to try and work with this Committee and
other committees to craft a similar provision in whatever
legislation may be forthcoming. Again, I feel that the NID will
be a very strong stovepipe in collecting this information, but
it may well be, for example, that the CIA director might have a
view different than the NID's or our distinguished colleagues
with you here this morning. And I would like to have
reassurance that those individuals in those respective
positions and perhaps yourself could ask to be present at the
time the NID addressed an issue at which you felt at variance.
Without getting into the specifics, do you feel that such a
safeguard is a valuable thing to work into this legislation?
Secretary Powell. Without seeing exactly what the language
would look like, Senator Warner, I think it would be useful to
consider such an idea. As you know, in Goldwater-Nickles, the
chairman, and let us say now the NID----
Senator Warner. Yes.
Secretary Powell. That is who the equivalent is----
Senator Warner. We are talking about the NID.
Secretary Powell [continuing]. Is the principal advisor,
military advisor, in the chairman's case, to the President. But
all of the other chiefs were military advisors to the
President, and during my time, there were one or two occasions
where a chief said I want to speak directly to the President,
and we made it happen.
Also, the chairman--I never went and gave my advice to the
President without all of my colleagues and the chiefs knowing
what I was going to tell the President, so they would have an
opportunity to say no, I do not agree, and I want to talk to
the President. And that is the way it works out. I think it
should work the same way.
Now, what I have just described to you with respect to the
chiefs was a matter of law. Now, in the JICC, I am not sure
that any of the Cabinet officers would be shrinking violets
with respect to going and telling the President what they
thought, with or without the benefit of provision of law. But
you took it a little further to say, well, how about the
director of CIA----
Senator Warner. Correct.
Secretary Powell [continuing]. Or all these other folks,
should they have the ability by law to say the law says I may
do this; therefore, you must let me do it. I think it is an
interesting proposition. I do not know that off the top of my
head, I would object to it, but of course, I would have to see
exactly how it is worded and how it is put in.
Senator Warner. Well, we will work on that principle, and I
am going to consult, as a matter of fact, today with the
distinguished Chairman and Ranking Member, at which time I will
raise that.
My second general question is that both of you have
remarkable careers of public service and particularly in
Federal service. The need for intelligence by our President and
our military is daily, 7 days, 7 nights, constant. We just
cannot turn off the spigot with this new piece of legislation,
hope to put in place all the pieces and then go back in
whatever of time lapses to turn it back on to function.
So some thought has got to be given to the transition from
the present system to the new system. And I wondered if you had
given any thought as to how that transition could best be
achieved, and do you see that we should focus on it, because
those enemies wishing to inflict harm will view this
transitional process as possibly a time of America's weakness.
If either witness would care to comment on that.
Secretary Powell. Oh, I think you have to be very careful
as you transition to a new system. It is a baton pass. The race
does not stop when you hand the baton off. And so, there has to
be a very careful plan as to how the NID will come into being.
It will have to be tested and tried and rehearsed, and they
have to be up and running before you can say fine, you have got
the baton. And I think a great deal of care has to be taken to
design and implement that transition.
Senator Warner. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Ridge. I just wanted to say, Senator, I very much
appreciate the question, because with the creation of the NID
and the accompanying National Counterterrorism Center, there
has obviously got to be significant thought given to the kinds
of resources that will be used--staffing, technology and the
like--and right now, in response to September 11, there are so
many agencies that are building up their analytical capacity.
We are one of them; as is the FBI. So there is tremendous
pressure out there to find the best and the brightest to come
into our respective agencies simply to fill previously imposed
or agreed upon requirements set with the Congress of the United
States.
So the transition from a good system that people admit
there are some imperfections to it to this different system is
a critical period where, to use Secretary Powell's admonition,
you start with the notion that you do no harm, and you could do
significant harm, I think, to existing entities if you
immediately assigned a significant number of analysts from them
into the National Counterterrorism Center and the like.
So again, it is just a word of caution, because there will
be substantially more resources, people and technology involved
in this, and it is going to take time to build up the capacity,
I would presume.
Senator Warner. I think we should focus on that. Now,
whether there is some--I have always been of the opinion that I
think we will be able to achieve a measure of legislation in
this Congress, and I hesitate to say it, but it may be a task
left to the next Congress to look at this thing after some
experience time.
My last question would be again to Secretary Powell. You
will recall very vividly during the Gulf War that on the
tactical side, we had a lot of shortcomings, and General
Schwartzkopf and many others came before the Armed Services
Committee, and we have worked, and I say we, successive
administrations and chairman of the JCS and so forth to improve
that. And do you agree that we have made substantial
improvements?
Secretary Powell. Yes.
Senator Warner. And we do not want to now, in this
challenge before us, dismantle any of those things that we put
in place. I do not know whether you have addressed that today
or not.
Secretary Powell. I think we have, Senator, in the course
of our presentations.
Senator Warner. All right.
Secretary Powell. We want to make sure that these young men
and women we send into battle have what they need, and we do no
harm to that system.
Senator Warner. I thank the Chairman and the Ranking
Member.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Warner.
I was just discussing with the Ranking Member that we are
putting into our bill a mechanism to have a lookback to see how
the reforms have operated so that it would be, I guess, an
action-forcing mechanism to make sure that Congressional
oversight stays vigorous in this area. And we would be happy to
work further with you on that and look forward to our meeting
later today.
Secretary Ridge. I thank you.
Chairman Collins. My colleagues, I would note that I
promised our two witnesses that they would be able to leave by
noon today in order to keep other commitments. So we are not
going to be able to have time for a second round. But I would
encourage--there are a lot of additional questions, and I would
encourage them to be submitted for the record, and I would
encourage our two distinguished witnesses to respond as
promptly as possible to those questions, because we are on an
expedited time frame. We do hope to mark up legislation next
week. We look forward to continuing to work very closely with
you.
In closing, I want to thank you both for your extraordinary
service to your country. At a very difficult time, when we are
facing many challenges both domestically and internationally,
our Nation is very fortunate to have public servants like you
who have served so well and so long, and we very much
appreciate your helping us in the vital mission that this
Committee has been assigned.
This hearing record will remain open for 5 days. I would
like to ask Senator Lieberman if he has any closing remarks.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
Again, I thank the two of you. Secretary Ridge, you are in
the unique position of having set up a department and really
brought together in a way larger than the NID will have to do,
the new national intelligence director; I appreciate very much
what you have done in that regard, and your counsel as we move
forward to create this new coordinating body in the national
security interest will be incredibly important.
Secretary Powell, thanks for your testimony, which has been
very helpful. And you said something that as we go about
reforming the intelligence community, with all of the questions
we are raising about counterterrorism and all of the
information we need on other trouble spots like North Korea and
WMD, it is a very simple sentence you gave us, but it is very
profound. And it goes to the heart of what so many of the
controversies, including some you have been questioned on
today, which is the rule that you use with your intelligence
officers over the years: Tell me what you know, tell me what
you do not know, and then, based on that, tell me what you
think is most likely to happen.
And I think in many cases, including the most controversial
regarding WMD pre-Iraq War, there has been a tendency, for
some, to interpret the third part of your formula--tell me what
you think is most likely to happen--as the first--what you
know--and in the end, in many cases, I have learned a lot in
these hearings, and you have lived with this all your life,
intelligence is ultimately about making your best judgment
based upon what you know and what you do not know.
There are a lot of big decisions made which are not based
on--it is not two and two equal four. You have got this
information; you do not have that information; the national
security is on the line, and you do the best you can based upon
what you think is most likely to happen. I have a running
dialogue with a few of my colleagues here about WMD. I
understand your concern that you were not told about the
sources. That is a very critical component. Incidentally, Bob
Mueller, the head of the FBI, made a very comparable point
about what is important to know, but it seems to me we did know
what he had, we did know what he did, Saddam, and there was
reason to believe that he likely had stockpiles. Now, so far,
we have not found them. But to this individual consumer of
intelligence, I am still not convinced he did not have them. We
have just not found them, and maybe they are somewhere else.
So anyway, it is very important through all of the
structures and discussions we are having to remember that
intelligence comes down to the--I am going to create a new
Powell doctrine here. No, the Powell Doctrine has other
applications. This will be Powell's Law. It is a very important
thing for us to remember as we try to reform our intelligence
apparatus: Better to know what we know and what we do not know,
but ultimately, we have got to make our best judgment what is
likely to happen. Thank you very much.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
I want to close by thanking our colleagues for being here
today. I know Monday morning hearings are very difficult, since
my colleagues and myself go home each weekend, and I appreciate
the efforts that they made to be here as well.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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