Hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee - Reorganizing America's Intelligence Community: A View From the Inside
Federal News Service
HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: "REORGANIZING AMERICA'S INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY: A VIEW FROM THE INSIDE"
CHAIRED BY: SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME)
WITNESSES: WILLIAM H. WEBSTER, FORMER FBI AND CIA DIRECTOR; R. JAMES WOOLSEY , FORMER CIA DIRECTOR; STANSFIELD TURNER , FORMER CIA DIRECTOR
LOCATION: 342 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
TIME: EDT
BODY:
SEN. COLLINS: (Gavel.) The committee will come to order. I want to welcome not only our witnesses today and the members of the Governmental Affairs Committee who have rearranged their schedules to be here, which I very much appreciate in light of the urgency of our task, but I also want to recognize that we're joined today by the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the distinguished senator from Kansas, Senator Roberts, and that we-that shortly, the ranking member of that committee, Senator Rockefeller to also join us.
I felt that since the Senate Intelligence Committee has so much expertise in this area, and we're hearing from three former directors of the CIA, that it would be appropriate for the chairman and the ranking member of that committee to join us today, and I am very pleased that they have done so, and we welcome you, Senator Roberts.
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R-KS): I thank you.
SEN. COLLINS: Today, the Governmental Affairs Committee holds its third hearing on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission calling for a restructuring of the intelligence community. At our last hearing, on August 3rd, we explored the National Counterterrorism Center proposal. The testimony that we heard from experienced intelligence officers and from key commission staff will help us greatly on that component of our task. Today, we will focus upon the proposal for a national intelligence director.
No other component of the commission's recommendations has received as much comment and debate as the proposed national intelligence director. There is considerable, but by no means unanimous, support for the notion that putting in place a national intelligence director will help strengthen our intelligence system. There is the considerable range of opinion, however, about the details of that position, including how it should be structured, where the director should work, and what authority this individual should have.
It is the task of this committee to draft legislation that would ensure that the NIDs of today and for years to come have sufficient authority to do the job effectively while at the same time being subject to the restraints necessary, the oversight and accountability, to keep the position within the bounds of our constitutional system of checks and balances. In other words, we want to create a position with real-not just symbolic-authority, yet not impose just another layer of bureaucracy nor grant so much power that we open the door to abuse.
The details that we must fill in are many, and they have generated vigorous debate, as they should. These are among the questions we will ask:
What powers does this new position need to be effective against the threat we face today and the face we will face in the future?
What safeguards should be included to ensure the independence of the national intelligence director? For example, where should this new office be located?
Should the NID serve a fixed term, as does the FBI director, or serve at the pleasure of the president?
Should the director have deputies that are responsible for leading intelligence efforts elsewhere in government, including some who would answer not only to the director but also to a cabinet secretary-the so-called "double-hatting" question?
From where will this new office get the top-notch staff that it needs?
And perhaps most important, precisely what authorities should the NID have over the entire intelligence community in terms of budget, personnel, technology standards, and the allocation of resources?
The expertise and the insight of our distinguished witnesses today will help us in the difficult challenge of answering these questions wisely.
Our witness panel brings together three former directors of central intelligence from three different administrations. Their service spans nearly three decades, and witnessed an incredible variety of issues. They will provide us with the perspective of those who have grappled with the challenges facing our intelligence community while serving at the highest level. In addition, former CIA Director Robert Gates has submitted a very thoughtful written statement since he is unable to be with us today.
Judge Webster, Mr. Woolsey, Admiral Turner, we're very pleased that you've taken the time to be with us today and we look forward to hearing your testimony shortly.
I'd now like to call on the ranking member, my partner in this endeavor, Senator Lieberman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. Senator Roberts, we're very pleased to have you here with us today, and I'd invite you to make any opening comments that you would like to make.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you very much.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Good statement.
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you for your statement.
It's now my pleasure to introduce our distinguished panel today. And I apologize for being distracted by the chairman of the committee.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I've been having that experience with Senator Roberts for years now.
SEN. COLLINS: (Laughs.) It's a new one for me.
SEN. ROBERTS: That's my job description.
SEN. COLLINS: It is a great pleasure to introduce today's distinguished witnesses. In addition to each serving as director of Central Intelligence, each of them has served our country with honor in such fields as the judiciary, law enforcement, diplomacy and the military. The views that they offer from the inside perspective and from many different perspectives will greatly assist this committee.
William Webster was director of Central Intelligence from 1987 to 1991, following nine years as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His experience in heading both the CIA and the FBI gives him a unique perspective to help us answer many of the questions today. Earlier he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Judge Webster has received numerous awards for public service, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. We welcome you.
James Woolsey has served under four presidents, most recently as director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995. He also served as ambassador to the negotiation on conventional armed forces in Europe from 1989 to 1991, as a delegate to the U.S.-Soviet strategic arms reduction talks from 1983 to '86, and as undersecretary of the Navy from 1977 to '79. He's also been a member of the National Commission on Terrorism and the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. We welcome you as well.
Stansfield Turner was director of Central Intelligence from 1977 to 1981. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and was promoted to rear admiral in 1970 and to the rank of admiral in 1975, when he was appointed commander-in-chief of NATO's southern flank. Admiral Turner has taught at Yale, at West Point and at the University of Maryland graduate school of public affairs.
I want to thank each of you. You're very dedicated public servants who have given a great deal to your country. We look forward to hearing your testimony today as we fill in the details and, with your guidance, make the right decisions.
Judge Webster, we'll start with you and your statement.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you, judge, for an excellent statement.
Mr. Woolsey.
MR. WOOLSEY: Thank you. Madam Chairman, Senator Lieberman, members of the committee, Senator Roberts, Senator Rockefeller, it's an honor to be able to testify before you today.
Let me say at the outset that I believe the-if I could have my whole statement submitted for the record, Madam Chairman --
SEN. COLLINS: Without objection.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you very much. Admiral Turner.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you, Admiral.
Judge Webster, the 9/11 Commission documents very well the failure to share information between the FBI and the CIA. And the commission documents the legal and cultural barriers that prevented that information-sharing. And that's one reason that the commission has proposed that the national intelligence director have authority over both the domestic and foreign side of intelligence.
In his written statement submitted to the committee, former DCI Robert Gates, raises some serious concerns about vesting in the new intelligence director the authority over both domestic and foreign intelligence. And he talks, as you did briefly in your statement, about President Truman's fear that if those two areas were under one person, you might create an American KGB, I believe Truman said.
Dr. Gates has suggested that we need to put some safeguards, and that one such safeguard might be to restrict the NID to receiving domestic intelligence only with respect to certain categories of threats, like terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, international drug trafficking.
Since you have served as both head of the FBI and the CIA, I would very much like to get your assessment of what safeguards, if any, we need to include if we are going to give the new director authority over the foreign and domestic divide.
MR. WEBSTER: Madam Chairman, Dr. Gates' suggestion of categories is an interesting one and deserves further consideration by the committee. My earlier remarks had to do with operations, primarily with operations, getting the intelligence, and how to get the intelligence, and making sure that when dealing with U.S. citizens we did it in a manner that comported with our requirements, our values. And sometimes I liken that to the investigation of the assassination of President Lincoln, when we arrested 2,000 people, all the cast of "My American Cousin," did a whole range of things which were commensurate with the forensic skills and capability at the time.
We now have other means of getting information. Some of it requires warrants, some of it does not. I prefer that the attorney general be involved in the process of determining how information is obtained and whether or not it requires a warrant or requires whatever restrictions. The Patriot Act liberated a lot of the frustrations with respect to getting, focusing on telephones rather than on individuals in matters of that kind, and it's been roundly criticized, but most of those-most of those changes I think were constructive ones.
There has to be a relationship between international intelligence and domestic intelligence which recognizes the need at the intelligence-at the domestic level, to provide information to those who are concerned with the overall international aspects.
A major problem, and this goes beyond your question a little but I think it's so fundamental, and that is to pay attention to the information-gathering techniques that we have today and how they were constructed. A 13-year-old mainframe simply does not work today to do what you would like to see done. They're trying to improve it. The past jobs-Congress has voted some money for Trilogy and others, still very limiting. The ability to make sure that information collected in a particular way by the FBI can be transmitted on responsible demand from the NID or whoever has the authority to request that information, can in fact be done and done in a timely way. It's badly lacking now, and I think a lot of those dots could have been connected had they had the ability to respond. They now have the charter to respond.
Bottom line, we can do a lot more. We need better equipment. We need the will. The message is out there. And, I think that the focus of the Congress should be-should at least be on how the information is collected.
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. Mr. Woolsey, a major issue facing this committee in drafting the bill is how much authority the director, the national intelligence director or the director of the counterterrorism center, should have in tasking the collection of information by the various intelligence agencies.
I raised a scenario in a previous hearing of what if you had a satellite that was over Iraq and DoD wanted it to stay over Iraq; the CIA wanted it to be shifted to Afghanistan. In your experience, how are those conflicts resolved? And should the director have tasking authority?
MR. WOOLSEY: I think that the director should have more tasking authority than is now implemented, Madam Chairman. The history of this is that, going back, there was more collective tasking than there is now. There used to be a committee called Comirex (sp) that tasked the satellites, for example, in which the whole community participated.
When I was the head of a panel for Bob Gates in the summer of 1992, looking at restructuring the National Reconnaissance Office and its programs, we came up with something called the needs process, which was relatively straightforward. We had a very experienced intelligence officer, analyst, make the rounds of the customers, not just the people who operated collection systems but the customers, including Treasury, State, so forth, and come back with a judgment about what their needs were and whether they were being balanced properly by the official process. I tried to keep something like that going when I was director of Central Intelligence, but things like that often get bureaucratized rather quickly.
The problem is that today the SIGINT people tend to task SIGINT and the satellite people tend to task satellites. And I think one important positive reform that could come from having an NID or a CTC director under him or her is that you could have a process whereby intelligence consumers could have more influence, again, filtered through the balanced judgment of some professionals, but nonetheless, more influence than they have now.
So I would regard that as one positive outcome of having an NID or a CTC. And I must say, with respect to the question that Judge Webster answered, I think another reason to have an NID is that, with the restrictions he mentioned, which are very important, it's a better idea to have someone other than the head of the CIA be the person to whom someone with responsibility in the Justice Department or the FBI reports.
I go into this some in my statement, so I won't go into it any further here. But I'd much prefer an NID to have some type of limited joint authority over CIA or foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence rather than the individual who is the head of the CIA.
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. One very quick final question that I'd like all three of you to answer, and we'll start with Admiral Turner. Should the NID serve at the pleasure of the president or have a term? Admiral.
MR. TURNER: Absolutely, at the pleasure of the president.
SEN. COLLINS: Mr. Woolsey.
MR. WOOLSEY: I agree.
SEN. COLLINS: Judge Webster.
MR. WEBSTER: I agree. And I don't think you can do anything about it. People cite the FBI 10-year term as a model. If you read the statute, it says not more than 10 years. It was a reaction to 48 years of one director. The Constitution protects the executive authority to hire and to fire. And I don't believe that-if you had a quasi-legislative thing like the Federal Reserve Board or something like that, yes. But I think constitutionally it would be very difficult to do. They tried to do it with the FBI and concluded they could not do that.
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. Senator Roberts.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.
Senator Rockefeller.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Senator Voinovich.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. Senator Coleman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. Senator Durbin.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. Senator Carper.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you, Senator.
And last but not least, the ever-patient senator from Minnesota, Senator Dayton. Thank you for staying.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.
SEN. DAYTON: Thank you all again.
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today. Each of you added a great deal to our consideration of these important issues. We have a heavy responsibility to produce a reform bill, to do so in a relatively short amount of time. And being able to call on people with your experience, expertise and judgment certainly facilitates our task. I hope we can continue to call upon you during our deliberations, and I thank you very much for being here today.
The hearing record will remain open for five days.
I want to thank my colleagues also again for their efforts to be here. I think it's a sign not only of the compelling testimony that we have, but the importance of our task that so many members have come back from their home states and have stayed throughout the hearing. So I thank you.
Senator Lieberman, did you have any closing comments?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Thanks, Madam Chairman. Just to join you in thanking the three witnesses. This has been a very, very valuable hearing. We have actually learned something from you. And we appreciate it. (Laughter.)
SEN. COLLINS: I find that less shocking than does my ranking member. (Laughter.)
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, it may comment more on other hearings than on you. But, anyway, I appreciate it. When I called you three wise men at the beginning, you haven't let us down. And I think it's very important the three of you have in different ways said that the status quo is not acceptable anymore with regard to the intelligence community. You're all for a stronger national intelligence director. There may be some disagreement about the details. Admiral Turner, your story from the Carter administration was fascinating to me. And it does show that what a lot of us are calling for could be done without statute change. On the other hand, the statute is permanent and does set a standard. So we need it quickly.
I'd say-the final thing I'd say is that I agree with Mr. Woolsey that we've got to stop ever using the word "czar" to describe strengthening of position. And for the moment I like your comment that the NID is meant to be a CEO, right? It's meant to be a chief executive officer. Thank you. And, Madam Chairman, thank you very much.
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.
SEN. DAYTON: Madam Chairman?
SEN. COLLINS: Senator Dayton?
SEN. DAYTON: Tomorrow morning-and I know you've made considerable effort to reconcile your time table with that of the other committee on which we both serve-what is your intention tomorrow with regard to the witnesses and proceedings? The next committee starts I think it's an hour and 15 minutes later.
SEN. COLLINS: Which is highly unfortunate. We had changed our hearing time twice to accommodate Armed Services, and then unfortunately the secretary had an appointment that he couldn't change. Our hearing will begin at 9:00 now, and I would encourage members who are on both committees to just go back and forth. We will be hearing from a very compelling panel of family witnesses of those who lost loved ones on 9/11. As you know, they were the driving force behind the creation of the 9/11, and they followed its work very closely. So I think it's an important hearing. But I certainly understand that members are going to have a lot of conflicts, but we will begin at 9:00.
SEN. DAYTON: As they both-which is why I regret that. I guess I'd just respectfully ask if we could, you know, if they have that opportunity to have that panel begin its remarks as soon as is practical tomorrow morning --
SEN. COLLINS: We will --
SEN. DAYTON: -- that will accommodate those of us who do need to be at both simultaneously.
SEN. COLLINS: Exactly. That's why we moved it up to 9:00 too.
SEN. VOINOVICH: Madam Chairman?
SEN. COLLINS: Senator Voinovich?
SEN. VOINOVICH: We're talking about moving very quickly on this whole issue. The statistics that 195 days that the Congress was in session and was on the Hill 205 of those days testifying begs or --
MR. WOOLSEY: Meetings. Some of those were meetings.
SEN. VOINOVICH: -- meetings-begs for the fact that we ought to move as quickly as we possibly can to shape up our shop as we do the other. In other words, we ought to have this on both tracks. And I'd recommend to you and also to Senator Lieberman, our leadership, that they ought to get on with this whole issue, because we can't keep going the way that we're going. I mean, this whole committee structure is not put together in a way to respond to the threats that we have today, and it's incumbent on us to get the job done.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: Here, here.
SEN. COLLINS: I think you're absolutely right. Senator Lieberman and I have been assigned the reorganization of the executive branch, not the legislative branch. But I know that our Senate leaders are moving forward with that vital recommendation as well. And you're certainly correct that Mr. Woolsey's testimony about the number of commitments on the Hill that he had to answer-certainly while oversight is very important, we ought to be able to do it in a more efficient manner so that we're not taking up all of the executive branch's time testifying before Congress. So thank you for those comments as well.
Thank you. This hearing is adjourned.