Panel I of the House Government Reform Committee - Recommendations of the 911 Commission
Federal News Service
August 3, 2004 Tuesday
HEADLINE: PANEL I OF A HEARING OF THE HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS
CHAIRED BY: REP. TOM DAVIS (R-VA)
WITNESSES: JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER ®; BOB KERREY, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER (D)
LOCATION: 2154 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
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REP. SHAYS: Thank you. At this time we'd recognize Chris Van Hollen from Maryland.
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank both of you gentlemen for your incredible service to our country. And I, too, want to thank the families of the 9/11 victims for everything you've done for our country and making the commission possible.
Secretary Lehman, I was encouraged by your comment that your recommendations are not a Chinese menu and that the devil is in the details. And I ask that you continue to evaluate proposals, whether they come out of the White House or the Congress in the days ahead, to see if they meet that test, because I don't think it's partisan in any way to ask you to evaluate those proposals, whether they be out of the White House or out of the Congress. And I thank you for that.
There's a line in your report on page 406 that says, "The most serious disadvantage of the NCTC is the reverse of its greatest virtue." And you go on to say that in fighting this war against Islamic terrorism, you may have to concentrate more power in a certain entity, but we may concentrate too much power in one place. And therefore, you call for checks and balances.
And I want to ask both you gentlemen, with respect to your observations and recommendations for the Congress, because in my observation, Congress is very good at telling other people how to change themselves and reform themselves, but it does not have as good a track record when it comes to making reforms of itself.
And both of you, I'd be interested-Senator Kerrey, you mentioned the challenges you had with the Armed Services Committee and others during your service in the Senate. I'm interested in your advice as to how you create pressure within this institution to create some of those changes, number one.
Number two, in addition to the changes you've recommended, it requires the political will of the Congress to exercise that accountability. And, you know, you mentioned subpoena power you had. The fact of the matter is, in the last couple of years the Congress has not issued any subpoenas with respect to federal government agencies.
And it gets to the question-I don't mean this to be partisan, because it could happen whether you had Democrats in control of the White House and the Congress or Republicans in control of the White House and the Congress. But the fact of the matter is, we need, it seems to me, as an institution, the Congress, to strengthen and see our role as a co-equal branch of government and not necessarily endorse-see ourselves as someone who's an endorser or a cheerleader of all the policies that come out of the executive branch. And I only mention the subpoena issue because I think it's a reflection of the fact that Congress has maybe not exercised its full powers. And I ask for your observations on that.
And the final question I have, it relates to the other part of what I see as the intelligence failures. You examined the intelligence failures dealing with 9/11. We, of course, have a number of groups that are looking at the issue of weapons of mass destruction and failures in intelligence or oversight of intelligence or interpretation of intelligence in that regard.
And my one concern with some of your recommendations is the very things that may lend yourself to supporting a good response to the intelligence failures with regard to 9/11. I would ask you gentlemen whether they could exacerbate the intelligence failures with respect to weapons of mass destruction in that you would have more homogeneity, more cookie-cutter approaches if you have one director, whether that would create additional pressures for everyone to salute and say, "Yes, sir, we agree with your analysis," as opposed to having different centers of analysis.
MR. LEHMAN: Well, I'll take the last part of that and let Bob deal with the first part. I think that homogeneity is something we absolutely must get away from. Time and again through our investigation, we found that group think in the community prevented an imaginative perception of what the real threat was.
We think that the recommendations we're making here, the system that we're recommending, ensures competitive analysis, not homogeneity, not agreement. When there are going to be national intelligence estimates, there need to be dissenting views in those intelligence estimates when there are, and there usually are. DIA is very likely to have a differing perspective on some aspects of the same facts than CIA. And we want to make sure that the senior leaders, where there's honest differences of perception and analysis, they get to see them. But it's not an enforced consensus.
One of the tremendous things about our report is, I'm sure, as you read it, this is not a ground-down homogeneity of view. It's a sharp-edged report with a lot of bold statements and facts in it. Yet we reached unanimity on it. That is what we've got to get. And to do that, you've got to have someone who ensures that the environment is such that people aren't afraid to speak out, that there is entrepreneurial spirit by analysts, and that there's a willingness to take risks.
MR. KERREY: Well, the first-I forgot what the first part was. (Laughter.)
REP. SHAYS: Senator, I need you to talk in that mike more.
MR. VAN HOLLEN: (Inaudible) -- your experience how you would propose the Congress go about enforcing your recommendations. I mean, what would you do as members of Congress? And is there an institutional problem when-do you sense that Congress has in any way lost its ability to-well, its more traditional role of acting as a separate branch of government with respect to national security oversight?PANEL I/HGR/TERROR CMSN RECMDTNS PAGE 57 08/03/2002 .STX
REP. SHAYS: This is a repeat of the same question, but the gentleman --
MR. KERREY: Yeah, I think-yeah, I think that, based upon my own experience, I think there is a tendency to yield ground on national security when ground shouldn't be yielded by Congress. I think, though, there's-again, to hit the one issue that I have talked about several times, in this area it's even more difficult because it's all classified. I mean, you see ferocious debates going on in the open press about whether or not our military is at the readiness levels that they need to be at. There's no such debate going on in intel-none.
Earlier, one of the members of this committee made a reference to -- (inaudible) -- to detect the Indian nuclear declaration. We detected it the year before. We missed it by a hair the second time. You say, "Wait a minute. Vajpayee campaigned on a promise to detonate a nuclear weapon. You know, we shouldn't need the CIA to tell us he's going to do it." He promised to do it, unless we expect in India they don't keep their promises or something; I don't know.
Thirdly, find those areas where you're doing good work and do more of it. I mean, as you know, oftentimes it's somebody in a position of power that wants to make the government work better that you're not going to see him out in the press. I mean, right now in intel, I think Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens are doing exceptional oversight on the Defense Appropriations Committee-care about the subject matter. You never see it out in the press. And as a consequence, I trust that the job is getting done.
In this case, I believe that unless Congress changes the law on intel to create a much, much stronger committee than you currently have, I think you're always going to be frustrated.
And the last thing we'd say, I don't really think that we should be extended for 18 months. I don't think it works for us to be extended for 18 months, and even if I had 18 months to give to the task, because in many ways we were doing what now Chairman Shays-who's about ready to gavel me down-was trying to do with this committee.
This committee can do oversight of the intelligence agencies where you see failure happening, and I think can be a very substantial force to make sure that these changes occur.
REP. SHAYS: Thank you, Senator. At this time the chair would recognize Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee.
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