Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan Security and Reconstruction Act, 2004

EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN SECURITY AND RECONSTRUCTION ACT, 2004

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. I will be brief. I rise in support of the amendment. The bottom line is, in our post-9/11 world, we have learned that intelligence is more important than ever. To prevent terrorism, in essence, small groups of people who can do real damage to us, depends on intelligence.

Maybe things are working fine, but maybe they are not. The amendment of my colleague from New Jersey casts no aspersion on the job the Intelligence Committee is doing. But it seems to me perfectly logical, in our post-9/11 world, to get as many voices with different perspectives as possible, especially early on because this war on terrorism is going to be with us for decades. It makes eminent sense.

I have never served on the Intelligence Committee, and I have no doubt that the 10 staffers on that committee who were mentioned by my friend from Kansas and praised by my friend from West Virginia are excellent, but they have one perspective. They have been involved day to day in dealing with intelligence matters, and to have a new outside commission take a look at these specific instances can only benefit the American people.

Having some experience with this leak of the name of the CIA agent, I am utterly amazed at what is going on here and among some—not all, not a majority but some—in the administration, there is an idea that we should not get at the full truth; an idea that if someone tells you something you don't like, they are to be disparaged and, in the case of Ms. Plame, hurt much worse than that.

The bottom line is very simple: If we are going to stay a great power—and I hope and pray we will—we need the truth. We need to know what is going right and we need to know what is going wrong. There is no greater time than now.

To say that a 10-staff-member group that has been thoroughly involved in intelligence matters cannot add much perspective is totally wrong, but just as much, to say that a new commission of fresh blood with a new look at the matter might come to some different conclusions than that 10-member staff is equally totally wrong and hurts America.

This amendment of my colleague from New Jersey is not aimed to be nasty; it is not aimed to be political; it is not aimed to be partisan. It is aimed to find different ways to get to the truth because we all know in the wake of 9/11 that our intelligence was not what it should be. It probably was good enough for a preterrorism world, but it is not good enough for
a terrorism world.

I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. It is not, again, to disparage what the committee is doing, but to say we should only have one voice at a time when intelligence is so important, to me at least makes no sense, and I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support this very much needed amendment.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, as aggravated as my colleague from Alaska is with me, I am with him. This is not intended to be political. I believe that our intelligence needs improvement. I think most Americans—Democrat and Republican—believe that. And if every time we say improve intelligence, look for different ways, people get accused of being political, that is the very point I am making.

Let's debate this on the merits. Let's not call people names because they happen to disagree that our intelligence is doing a fine job. I don't. It may have been doing a fine job in the cold war for a cold-war era, but the whole tectonic plates of foreign policy have changed. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't.

I ask my colleague to go on the streets of any city in New York or any city in America, mine or his—in New York or Alaska—and ask the average citizen do they think the intelligence is working fine. My guess is they will say it needs tuning up. That is all this Senator is trying to do, without being political.