News Conference - 9/11 Commission Legislation

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: NEWS CONFERENCE WITH SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME) AND SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT) RE: 9/11 COMMISSION LEGISLATION LOCATION: SENATE RADIO AND TV GALLERY, THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D.C.

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SEN. COLLINS: Good morning. I'm very pleased to be here this morning with my friend and colleague, Senator Joe Lieberman, to announce that we have reached bipartisan agreement on a significant intelligence reform bill.

Let me begin by saying what a pleasure it has been to work with Senator Lieberman in crafting this important legislation. I could not have had a better partner in this endeavor.

I'm also very grateful to the Senate leadership, to Senator Frist and Senator Daschle, for giving the Governmental Affairs Committee, which we head, this important assignment.

Our legislation builds on the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, which have been an invaluable blueprint for our work. The bill includes the proposals that the commission identified as its top priorities.

Our legislation reflects not only the commission's hard work, but also what we have learned through eight Governmental Affairs Committee hearings, through widespread consultations with other members of the Senate with expertise in this area, and also with input from the White House, Secretary Powell, Secretary Ridge, Condoleezza Rice, the families of the victims of the-of 9/11 terror attacks, and countless other experts in the intelligence community.

There are many startling findings in this report, but what really was a call to action for me was a statement on page 357. This talks about a memo that George Tenet issued on December 4th, 1998 in response to the terrorist threat. He said, quote, "We are at war. I want no resources or people spared in this effort, either inside the CIA or the community."

Now what is most remarkable about that memorandum is that the commission went on to conclude that it had virtually no effect in mobilizing the CIA or the intelligence community. Well, our legislation would change that. We create a national intelligence director who would have the authority that George Tenet lacked; would have the authority to marshal the people, the money and the resources to target the threats facing our country.

Now I would note that our country has made much progress in the last three years in strengthening our defenses against terrorism. But we believe it is essential that we build on that progress by enacting the most sweeping and significant intelligence reforms in decades.

The current intelligence structure simply does not have the agility that's necessary to respond to international terrorism, rogue states, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other challenges of the 21st century. The institutions were designed to fight the Cold War. They are not adequate to the challenges of the war against terrorism. And that's why we believe that we must transform our intelligence system to meet the threats of today and the future.

As I indicated, we do establish a national intelligence director with strong authority-strong budget authority, strong personnel authority, strong authority to set information sharing and security standards across the intelligence committee (sic).

We adopted another major recommendation of the commission by including language that would establish a national counterterrorism center. That would expand what is now known as the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, so that we have community-wide intelligence analysis within the center.

The center would also have the ability to engage in joint operational planning, so that we have one person and a center that are responsible and accountable for the war on terrorism.

Now I do want to be clear that the national counterterrorism center and the national intelligence director would not have the authority to tell agencies how to execute their missions. It would establish the plan, but it would not tell DOD or other agencies precisely how to execute the mission.

Another important provision of our bill would establish a civil liberties board. We think that this is another commission recommendation that is very important.

Our bipartisan legislation contains many other reforms recommended by the commission, but these are the major structural changes. We anticipate adding other commission reforms, such as the changes in the Homeland Security grant-funding formula, when the bill comes to the Senate floor, and we're continuing to work with our colleagues in that regard.

Let me just close my remarks by saying that the fundamental obligation of our government is to protect its citizens. I believe that the bipartisan legislation that we are unveiling today will help the government better meet that obligation.

It's now my great pleasure to turn over the podium to my partner, friend and colleague, Senator Joe Lieberman.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Thank you very much, Susan. Let me say that the pleasure of this working relationship is mutual. I appreciate very much the fact that we have gone at this, under your chairmanship, in a totally nonpartisan way, without regard to what present political interests in any particular recommendation might be, never splitting into partisan caucuses of our committee, but working together on all of this. And that's obviously the way it should be when we are dealing, as we are today, with so serious a threat to our national security as terrorism represents.

The fact is that the 9/11 commission indicted the status quo in America's intelligence community, and they have called for, in fact insisted on fundamental revolutionary reform. I feel confident that in the bill that Senator Collins and I are announcing today, and that we will put before our committee's markup next Tuesday, these fundamental, revolutionary changes in the American intelligence community are embraced and implemented. Our bill adopts the two commission proposals which its leaders have said are the most important and most urgent, and that is the creation of the national intelligence director and the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center.

Good intelligence is central to our ability to secure our nation and our people from terrorists. Why? Because good intelligence enables us to see, hear and, hopefully, eliminate terrorist threats before they can strike us.

Make no mistake about it, we are capable of gathering today some extraordinarily good intelligence. And you just have to look at the range of information that was in our possession prior to 9/11, that is described in intimate and increasingly frustrating detail in the 9/11 commission report. We had the information scattered among several intelligence agencies throughout our government, but we did not have the organization to put it together to create an intelligible picture of the true nature of the threat that we faced.

It was the lack of unity and clear, strong leadership that allowed so much good intelligence to slip through our grasp and the terrorists to evade our defenses.

I've grown fond of using the metaphor-which is seasonal-of football. The American intelligence community today is like a very good football team with great players but no quarterback. That's not the way to play winning football. And in matters of national security and intelligence, it's not the way to have a successful and strong defense.

So our purpose in producing this legislation is literally to upend the status quo in the American intelligence community and to advance a new strategic vision and a new organizational structure so we will never again have to explain to anyone-family members, friends-how something like September 11th could have happened.

Our bipartisan proposal will reorganize many of our intelligence agencies to create a unified command and control structure so that one person, the new national intelligence director, is in charge and accountable for the nation's intelligence operations. Under our plan, when somebody asks who's in charge, the question will not be met with blank stares and non-answers, which greeted the 9/11 commission every time they asked somebody that question; the answer to the question of who's in charge will be the national intelligence director is in charge. And when the director's in charge, we're all going to be a lot safer.

As Senator Collins said, we're also creating a national counterterrorism center-second most important, urgent recommendation of the commission-to assure this level of collaboration and cooperation in the war on terror that didn't exist prior to September 11th, to make sure there's one place where all the information comes together, under the direction of the director, to the benefit of the American people. This center is going to have both analytical and operational planning authority for counterterrorism initiatives, giving it both the brains and the brawn to get the job down.

To complement this restructuring, we're also giving the national intelligence director the power to create a series of new intelligence centers to be staffed by people from throughout the intelligence community and organized either around problems, like weapons of mass destruction, or geographical areas, like North Korea, according to what the director deems to be our most pressing intelligence needs.

As Senator Collins has said, our proposal encompasses other recommendations made by the 9/11 commission, including this executive branch oversight board to protect privacy rights and civil liberties of all Americans. As the commission said quite correctly, in an age of terrorism, for the safety of the American people, our government's going to play a larger role in our lives, but as it does that to protect us we want to make sure there's a board there to protect our civil rights and civil liberties as well. The information-sharing network that we would create to promote the widespread dissemination of terrorist information inside our intelligence community is also critical.

I fully expect that additional recommendations from the commission, which are included in the legislation Senator McCain and I have introduced, will be offered as amendments during Senate floor debate, and I hope they will pass.

In our work, Senator Collins and I have kept in mind that our committee's mission here is more important than any one person's or a committee's portfolio or any agency's traditions. The urgency of our times demands prompt and considered action in the national interest for we are, after all, a nation at war, a war like none other we have ever fought, and we must both maximize and transform our ability to defend ourselves in these unprecedented circumstances. Senator Collins and I are confident that our committee's work on this bill will do exactly that.

Thank you.

Q Senator Collins, what kind of response have you gotten from the White House, assuming you've run through all of this with them, and from other Cabinet secretaries such as Ridge, Rumsfeld, et cetera?

SEN. COLLINS: The president last week took a very significant step by endorsing strong budget authority for the national intelligence director. That has really helped to build momentum for what I view as one of the most important recommendations made by the 9/11 commission. If the NID did not have strong budget authority, we really would just be creating another level of bureaucracy, something that would not enhance our security. So the president's endorsement of a national intelligence director with strong budget authority as well as his endorsement of a national counterterrorism center increases our momentum and will help us get our bill through.

As far as the Cabinet goes, we received testimony earlier this week from Secretary Powell and Secretary Ridge that was extremely helpful in endorsing the concepts in our bill.

I asked both secretaries whether they believed that the creation of a strong national intelligence director would improve the quality of the intelligence that they received from their perspective. Each of them answered in the affirmative, and I think that helps us as well.

Q And the secretary of Defense?

SEN. COLLINS: The secretary of Defense, we had Steve Cambone, one of his deputies, testify in a classified hearing that we had at great length. And, of course, the secretary testified before Armed Services. We-he did not come to testify before us this week. But we're continuing to work closely with DOD. All of us want to make sure that the real-time intelligence that goes to our troops on the front line is not in an way interfered with. We believe that the restructuring that we've proposed will improve the quality of intelligence for all the consumers, including the Department of Defense, which is certainly a major consumer.

Q Senator Collins, the-another one of the major recommendations was that Congress needs to get its own house in order. The House side has just sort of started working on this. What's the status of the task force recommendations, and how much of that are we going to see when this bill comes to the floor?

SEN. COLLINS: We both attended a meeting of the task force this morning. Why don't I --

As part of our bipartisan partnership here, why don't you take that?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: The bipartisan 22-member task force appointed by Senator Frist and Senator Daschle are working on congressional oversight. And I'm very encouraged that the pace that's been set by our committee and other committees throughout the end of July-August also seems to be reflected and picked up now by that group working on congressional oversight reform, so that the intention of Senator McConnell and Senator Reed, who are the co-chairs of the committee, as expressed today is to have the Senate adopt-consider and adopt those reforms in somewhat the same time frame as our legislation, which, incidentally, I gather Senator Frist is prepared to bring up the week of September 27th. So that group is working on those proposals. And they're serious. And I-I said before that the commission-Governor Kean, Congressman Hamilton told us their top two recommendations, most urgent, most important: create a national intelligence director, create a counterterrorism center. Third, congressional oversight reform. So we got to do that quickly.

It won't surprise you -- (laughs) -- that there's a range of opinion within the members of the Senate, and I think it's also healthy to say that the break may not come on partisan lines.

SEN. COLLINS: (Laughs.)

SEN. LIEBERMAN: (Laughs.) It may come on what committee you serve on, and what your perspective is.

Senator McCain and I feel quite strongly that we're-we hope that the working group adopts one of the recommendations made by the commission.

But if not, we're going to give our colleagues on the floor an opportunity to vote on the proposal to create an Intelligence Committee that has both authorization and appropriations power. I think that's the best response.

Q Is there any difference between your vision of the NID, the commission's vision of the NID and the president's vision of the NID? Is there any differences in there?

SEN. COLLINS: Yes. Our-we take the basic concept of the national intelligence director as recommended by the commission and as endorsed by the president. One technical difference is the commission proposed that there be deputies to the director who would be double- hatted. They would perform functions in the Department of Defense, in the Department of Homeland Security for example, as-and run important intelligence agencies there; at the same time, they would be deputies to the national intelligence director.

The testimony at our hearing was overwhelming that that kind of structure would not work well, and it would create confusion. So after consulting further with the commission, we decided to adopt a different structure. So that's one area of difference.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I would just add this. As Senator Collins suggested, said at the end, we've stayed very close to the 9/11 commission, and I think it's fair to say that the recommendation that's part of our legislative proposal for the national intelligence director is consistent with their desires. And I hope and believe they will support it.

I just want to say another word about this dual hatting, because I think the commission itself has changed its mind about it. We felt that the most important thing we could do here is to create a strong national intelligence director.

In the original commission proposal, his three deputies were coming over from other departments. So the undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence was going to end up as the deputy to the national intelligence director for military intelligence. Same was true of the CIA director and the head of intelligence in Homeland Security and FBI.

Well, there's a reasonable question to ask: Where was-where would the loyalty of those deputies be? (Chuckles.) Would it be to the department that they spend most of their time in, or to the national intelligence director? And of course we feel very strongly that you can't blur those lines. That's exactly what's happened too much up until now.

And therefore, by giving in our bill the national intelligence director the authority to choose his own deputies, we're creating lines of authority that are clear and keeping the NID strong.

Q Senator Lieberman, you made reference in your statement to this issue of never splitting into partisan caucuses. Does that mean you have a little bit of concern with the way the working group is doing its job? There was some suggestion that they split into partisan caucuses --

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, there were initial meetings of Republicans and Democrats separately.

But we had a very good-our first joint meeting today; it was very good. And in fact, as an expression of how this is not going to break on partisan lines, there was unanimous agreement that we would all ask Senator McConnell and Senator Reid to work together, to come back to us with a proposal.

So I think that-you know, this is one of those occasions where members of Congress are getting it. In a Congress that has become increasingly partisan, at a time which is obviously partisan because it's a national election, I think we're figuring out that what the American people most want us to do, and what's our-it is our responsibility to do-as Senator Collins said, our first responsibility to protect national security, is to put the party labels away and do what we think is best in the war against terrorism.

Q Senator Lieberman, just a week ago you and Senator McCain were here introducing a bill that had the 9/11 commission recommendations in it. What purpose did that serve, and what's the difference?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, I don't blame you for being somewhat confused.

Senator McCain and I pledged to Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton, two or three weeks before their commission issued their report, that we would take it on ourselves-we would really take it on our staffs' selves-to translate their proposals into legislative language so that there would be a vehicle that would, hopefully, force some early action. When we did that-and we made the promise in the morning or the early afternoon of the day they put their report out-we had no idea what response Congress would have to the report.

That night, Senator Frist, Senator Daschle authorized this committee to go ahead and deal with the executive branch changes made.

But Senator McCain and I felt that we wanted to keep our promise to get that full bill before the Congress. It then is-it basically is now before our committee in the Senate; the committee has the jurisdiction to report out. But as I said earlier, we've taken on exactly what Senator Frist and Senator Daschle asked us to do as a committee-executive branch organizational reform that deals with intelligence.

There's a lot more in the 9/11 report and in the legislation I introduced with Senator McCain. As I said in my statement, I expect that a lot of that-maybe all of it-will be introduced as amendments on the floor when our bill gets to the floor. And I feel good that the work that our staffs and we did over the summer has legislative language available to make that possible.

Q Did Hamilton come to you, or did you and McCain go to him and make this pledge?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: You know, I don't actually-we were meeting with them regularly. I don't remember exactly who said what. But maybe-my best recollection is that Kean and Hamilton said, you know, we really think this is urgent, but we don't know what's going to happen in Congress.

And I think John and I said, okay, we don't know either, but we're at least going to guarantee you that your proposals are going to be introduced right after Labor Day so that-they're going to be before the Congress.

Now, as you know, a lot more happened in July and August than anybody expected.

Q Senators, based on how you want to restructure the executive, have you come up with any recommendations to the working group for how congressional oversight should then be changed to best oversee this new structure?

SEN. COLLINS: Well, the starting point, in my judgment, is the recommendation-are the recommendations of the commission, and those call for strengthening the Intelligence Committee; combining the authorizing and appropriations authority in that committee; doing away with the term limits, making it a permanent committee; shrinking its size; strengthening its ability to conduct oversight. In the case of the other major recommendation, it is to centralize all the responsibility for homeland security in one committee.

I think that both of those major recommendations makes sense. I haven't-I've really been focused on the executive branch reorganizations because that was our major responsibility. But I think the goals of the congressional reorganization makes sense, whether or not the individual details should change.

Q Secretary Rumsfeld in his testimony to the Armed Services Committee raised concerns about having control over real-time intelligence for the battlefield. How does your proposal deal with those concerns, and does the Pentagon maintain any control over budget?

SEN. COLLINS: I'm glad you asked that question because that is a really important point.

Under our legislation, the Pentagon would continue to retain complete control over the tactical intelligence assets that the department has. They are part of a special budget in the-that is combined into the intelligence budget.

Those are the individual services' intelligence units. And there is no justification for moving those out of the Pentagon and putting them under the National Intelligence director because they are solely used by the Department of Defense and the individual services. So we would leave that under the jurisdiction of the Pentagon. What we want to make sure is that what we would call national intelligence assets-i.e., those that are used by more than one agency or department and the president needs-are under the control, the budget for that is under the control of the NID.

(To Senator Lieberman) Do you want to add to that?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: No, you said it exactly right. I mean, it's very important to understand, as I'm sure most of you do, that this-when I say that it represents a trend-a fundamental revolutionary change, it does. And one of the ways it does is in control of the budget for the intelligence community. The specific numbers are classified, but suffice it to say that most people assume that a majority of the current intelligence budget is under the control of the Defense Department. That would now switch to the National Intelligence director. And Senator Collins has got it-said it just right, that we're dividing it into two: a national intelligence budget, which would under the NID, because this has got to be available-as Secretary Powell said, he needs good intelligence to advise the president about foreign policy. The tactical will be within-remain within the Defense Department.

We have also adopted a suggestion that President Bush made to us last week at the White House to create a joint intelligence community council, which Secretary Powell, for the first time I heard, articulated the acronym JICC. And I wanted to do that for the first time myself. (Laughter.) The JICC -- (laughter) -- may play an important coordinating role. The national intelligence director will be the chair of it. The secretary of Defense, secretary of State, FBI, CIA, et cetera, will sit on it, and that can be a very important policy body.

Just-if I can get briefly into the weeds, there were some questions to our offices earlier today. Did we-I think it may have been a confusion based on a chart in the commission. Did we somehow do something different with the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, from what the commission did? The answer is no. There are some national assets that are part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Their budget will go to the national intelligence director. All the tactical intelligence they do for the military will stay with the Department of the Defense.

(Cross talk.)

Q (Inaudible) -- here about the White House's role in all of this? I mean, who's taking the initiative here? Is it the Senate, or is it the White House? I mean, who's in charge?

SEN. COLLINS: Well, it's -- (chuckles) -- it's a joint effort. We've obviously reached out to the White House, and the White House has given us advice and input.

Our committee has taken the lead to craft the legislation. But we haven't used a bill produced by the administration, for example.

Q Are they going to embrace your bill?

SEN. COLLINS: I'm sorry?

Q Are they going to embrace your bill? Is the president going to embrace this bill?

SEN. COLLINS: I hope so, but-and I think it's very consistent with the president's outline of his position. But this is a bill where we have taken the lead. But the White House's involvement has been critical and very helpful. And the fact that the president endorsed significant budget authority is so beneficial to our efforts to get this bill enacted. And that is what we want to.

Q Senator Collins --

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, I agree. I mean, I hope and I believe that the White House will endorse the bill. And I think the-a key turning point in this whole process was last week, when we were all invited to the White House, and the president said that he was for a strong national intelligence director with budgetary authority over the national intelligence program-now that was a big step-and made some other suggestions, including the Joint Intelligence Community Council, which we adopted, and as we have adopted ideas put forward by Senator Roberts, Senator Rockefeller. So I think we're really at this point, remarkably, moving in the same direction.

It is not to say that at our committee meeting next Tuesday and on the floor of the Senate there will not be some dissenting voices. There will be, because it would be shocking if there weren't, because this represents such significant change.

Q What are the biggest obstacles that you face, do you think?

SEN. COLLINS: Biggest obstacles? The short calendar. But this is so important, and we are making tremendous progress. I am very optimistic that by the end of next week, our committee will report a bill. Bill Frist has already reserved the following week, the week of the 27th, for floor action on the bill. So I think we're on an appropriately fast track.

Thank you.