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| Flashback - Sen Rudman makes a clear statement in 2002 |
| 2004-05-05 |
| excerpted from hearings before the Joint House And Senate Select Intelligence Committee October 8, 2002 Interesting angle for the reired Senator to take. He seems to imply that Congress was asleep at the wheel. Imagine that. RUDMAN: -snip- opening formalities First, of course, chairing of PFIAB; second, chairing Hart- Rudman; and third, something that I want to talk about a bit this morning -- that Chairman Goss is very familiar with -- and that is the roles and other responsibilities of the intelligence community for the 21st century, which we prepared at the request of this Congress -- I think it’s Public Law 971. I wish more people had read it. And I want to talk a little bit about it this morning. -snip- The first question that you asked was did -- our national study the security group -- Hart-Rudman -- warned in 2001 that the United States was not prepared to deal with terrorist attacks in the U.S. homeland. Please summarize why you felt that to be true at the time, what steps were taken, if any, in response to our report and why we believe the important steps were not taken and what measures remain to be taken. -snip- mandate to Hart-Rudman And, to everyone’s surprise, our lead recommendation dealt with homeland security and international terrorism. No one on that committee would have thought, at the time that we started, that that would have been our conclusion. We would have thought it might have been more in the area of DOD reorganization or intelligence reorganization or changing the State Department -- changing public diplomacy. It was not. And you are all familiar with the report. I have discussed with many of you, personally. We said, in that report, quote, more or less, "Large numbers of Americans will die on American soil, victims of terrorism, in the coming century." It happened a bit sooner rather than later. Why did we come to that conclusion? -snip- history of what went into this reasoning. We made a number of recommendations. In late January 2001, we presented it to the new administration, to the national security adviser -- the vice president through the national security adviser and the president -- secretary of state -- secretary of defense. It was very well received. People were very interested in it. We brought it up here. We met with a number of you on this committee. To the credit of the Congress, a number of you immediately started moving towards a homeland security department, which has now, I understand, wound up in some controversy. But I expect eventually it will happen. (I think he is using dry humor in that statement.) -Snip- background The administration’s attitude was this is an excellent report. We are giving it to an internal task force of the NSC and we will start to go through it. I find no fault in that. This is a brand new administration. It had much on its plate. It was February-March time frame, of 2001. And my understanding is that they were in the process of working on the recommendations. Now, DOD, in fact, had done some of the things that we had recommended. So I would say that, although people might criticize and say that the administration should have acted more forthrightly, my sense is for a new administration receiving a voluminous report, including an implementation plan, they probably did about all that any administration would have done, under the circumstances. And let me also say that had every recommendation that we had put into that plan been adopted the day after we gave it to the White House, I seriously doubt that that would have been sufficient to prevent 9/11 for many reasons, including some of the reasons that your staff director has talked about here, today. I believe that Richard Clark said the same. Your second question -- we said that military consumers often drove intelligence collection and that given limited resources, the community was neglecting important regions and trends. How did this affect the ability of United States to understand the growth of capabilities and locations such as Afghanistan and Yemen? Would placing more of the intelligence community under the authority of the director of Central Intelligence prevent similar problems in the future? The answer to your question is generally yes. Up until September 11, the bulk of U.S. intelligence efforts had been focused on states. That has been the historic role of United States intelligence community. And I might add that our intelligence community, as well as most foreign ones that I have studied, are extraordinarily good at looking at structure, at capability and intent. They don’t have a very good track record, even working against states, for determining what and when. And I’m not sure that that will ever be totally solved, no matter how hard we try. -snip- RUDMAN: Do I believe or did our commission believe that making the director of the CIA -- giving him a stronger role -- we do. But we are not the first ones to say that. This has been recommended for many years. I mean, you have a director of Central Intelligence who is also the director of the CIA -- 85 percent of that budget is controlled by DOD. From what I read in the papers lately, they would like to get even more control of it. And I leave that to you. You were elected to solve problems like that. I don’t know what the answer is. We have tried to recommend a number of reasonable solutions in this report, of which a number of members of Congress have done. Nothing has happened except I do believe there is a stronger community coordination effort since this report than there was before. But you’ve got a long way to go. Why is he talking to Congress as if they should take action? And, frankly, I think it’s the court of the Congress as much as it is the administration. We call for the president, through the NSC, to set strategic intelligence priorities and update them regularly. Was this done? Is it being done today? Well, I can tell you that I am no longer chairman of the PFIAB, so I am no longer privy to those things. But my understanding is that, yes, there has been broad strategic intelligence directives -- PDDRs -- which have been adopted by this administration. I am sure they are available to this committee. And I would advocate that you check with them to get a more precise answer. Brutal -Snip- And how could they take full advantage of each other’s capabilities? What gaps existed in their cooperation prior to September 11? I believe that the joint terrorism centers, which these committees are very familiar with, have come a long way in cooperation. But we have got some very interesting issues here that have to do with law, civil rights, the rights of Americans. I was saying to Louis Freeh before we testified this morning that you go back and read the history of the 1946-’47 National Intelligence Act at it was very clear that the FBI was responsible for domestic counterintelligence -- and I would expect counterterrorism. And the CIA was responsible overseas. And the CIA had better not come close to putting its nose anywhere near domestic issues. It was a wonderful alliance of strange bedfellows What’s this about Hoover and strange bedfellows? Is he allowed to say that? J. Edgar Hoover and the American Civil Liberties Union -- they both had their precise reasons for feeling that way. But the result has been that we have not had the cooperation between these agencies that we should have. I think there ought to be major changes in the law. I have felt that way for a long time. Let me add, just in response to one of the questions posed in one of the opening statements, to create a new MI5-type organization in this country we do not believe, in our commission, would be the solution. You’ve got enormous domestic collection capability in the FBI, assuming it is focused in the right direction. That is a tough issue and one this committee and the Judiciary Committee will have to work with. How effective do you believe that law enforcement tools are for fighting terrorism? Were they relied upon excessively before September 11? The answer to that, I guess, is yes and no. Mary Jo White brought very successful prosecutions against a number of terrorist organizations in the Southern District of New York. On the other hand, President Bush says we are now at war. Well, if we are at war, then law enforcement tools will be used, but in a more minor way. And military tools will be used more effectively to deal with the capability of terrorism. So, I guess, the answer to that question is both in the affirmative and in the negative. And, finally, any recommendations you may have for improving the intelligence community’s performance in fighting terrorism? I believe that the more jointness that you have between these agencies -- the more they work in joint counterterrorism centers -- the more their information databases become common -- a more there is constant daily -- hourly cooperation between them -- the more that the NSA is brought in, by statute if necessary, to subline (ph) the FBI with domestic counterterrorism information, then you’ll do the improvement you need. I do not believe we need new structures or new systems. We may need different kinds of people or we may -- different kinds of technology, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with the systems. But I think there is a lot wrong with how they have been used over the last 10 years. Finally, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to read to you from this report, which was submitted in 1996 to the Congress, at the Congress’ direction. As I said, Chairman Goss served on this and a number of other people that you all know. It was a very distinguished group -- entitled "Commission on Roles and Capabilities of United States Intelligence Community." There is a lot of great recommendations in it. There is one here that is particularly interesting and it’s from the executive summary. And it is spelled out in detail, but I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to read you two paragraphs. It is entitled "The Need for a Coordinated Response to Global Crime." "Global criminal activity carried out by foreign groups -- terrorism, international drug trafficking, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international organized the crime is likely to pose increasing dangers to the American people in the years ahead, as perpetrators grow more sophisticated and take advantage of new technology. Law enforcement agencies historically have taken the lead in responding to these threats. But where U.S. security is threatened, strategies which employ diplomatic, economic, military or intelligence measurers may be required instead of, or in collaboration with, law enforcement response. In the commission’s view, it is essential that there be overall direction and coordination of U.S. response to global crime." I will tell you that nobody, evidently, read it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t think the 9/11 Commission is looking for that type of testimony. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |