Hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee

September 20, 2004 Monday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE SELECT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

RE: NOMINATION OF PORTER GOSS TO BE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR PAT ROBERTS (R-KS)

WITNESSES: REP. PORTER GOSS (R-FL)

LOCATION: 216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

SEN. RON WYDEN (D-OR): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Congressman Goss, as you and I talked about in the office, what I am most troubled about is your willingness to be a change agent at the CIA.

I think that we discussed over the course of the last week the matter of being partisan, the question of being objective, those kinds of issues. And my sense is, I can give somebody the benefit of the doubt on those kinds of issues.

But I have scoured your record, and I just don't see any real evidence of your willingness to push for intelligence reform and be a true change agent. And it is heavy lifting; nobody underestimates that. But I think we saw with Tom Kean that it can be done. I mean, he went into that 9/11 commission project. He had to take on the White House. They were reluctant to cooperate. He handled it in a thoughtful way, and he was able to get a lot of the information that was needed.

What in your record shows that you're willing to be serious about pushing for intelligence reform and particularly doing what Tom Kean did, which is to stand up to your administration, stand up to a president of your party?

REP. GOSS: Senator, as I said last week, I believe it is the intelligence community's job to provide the best product to any administration. It's not a partisan question at all. And as I explained last week, I well understand that I am leaving one arena and, if confirmed, heading to another arena that operates completely differently, where partisan politics are not part of the job.

In fact, I take that so seriously, I've made a down payment on that pledge. You have not heard a word from me publicly on any partisan possible way since the president nominated me.

So I assure you that I understand that the product of the community is for the administration that is running the country, whatever the voters choose on that.

Now with regard to your questions on what have I done, I did appreciate our conversation very much, and I appreciate you taking the time last week to speak to me specially on that. And I have compiled some information, which I hope will be persuasive to you, that we have not been just idling our time away in the past several years under my chairmanship. If you wish, I would start back a few years and give you some examples.

SEN. WYDEN: Well, you can certainly do that. But I would like an answer to the question I asked. Tom Kean showed that he would stand up to the administration of his party and that he would take them on in the name of intelligence reform. I'd like to have even one or two concrete examples of where you are willing to stand up to the administration, the administration of your party, to try to bring about intelligence reform.

REP. GOSS: Senator, again, without regard to the question of the partisanship or the party, which I believe is not appropriate, as I also said last week, even in the construct of the oversight committees that we have in intelligence, so I tried to practice, as I said, nonpartisanship. I didn't always succeed, but I tried to practice it. And I think seven out of the eight bills I pushed through came through on a bipartisan basis.

I did find it necessary to push very hard on the administration on some issues with regard to reform. One of them surely has to be the area of classification and declassification. We had quite an arm- wrestling discussion with the executive branch about that system, which I said last week is a broken system; it is a broken system. I tried very hard to do some reform with it. I actually worked with Senator Moynihan. We did pass a bill-bicameral, bipartisan-a first step. It wasn't as much as either of us wanted, but it was a good step and it is the law, and it has made it easier now on the declassification process.

A second area that I think is critically important to remind ourselves of is that the joint inquiry did turn out a report and it had a number of recommendations -- 19, to be exact. And a good number of those have been enacted by the executive branch at this time. So we have made some strong progress. Now, the major one was the question of the director of national intelligence, or the national intelligence director-I don't want to get mixed up in the alphabet soup-but the kingpin, as it were, the coordinator, the person with the overall accountability for the whole community, which is a huge issue as we talk about stitching together a network. I think we did put out a good report, and I think that the fact today that the work we did in that joint inquiry is out there and is being so thoroughly addressed on the Hill and downtown now is a sign of success. I consider it a victory. We have gotten to a place where we had not gotten to, despite even the good efforts of the Aspin-Brown and other commissions like that, which pointed out pretty much the same thing; maybe we ought to consider this sort of stuff. So I think we have rolled the ball pretty well, sir.

SEN. WYDEN: The only-the only thing about your answer is that you're essentially citing-you said, for example, the executive branch made some changes after 9/11. Of course, no one disputes that. But after 9/11 -- and you served on a commission-you could have introduced a piece of legislation that would have pushed us further and faster. It would have meant you would have had to take them on. And you didn't do it.

But let me move on to the question of Iraq. And obviously, on the basis of the pessimistic NIE that was reported in the press last week-and you obviously are not up on this, and these are just press reports; you can't get into all of the details there-but I'd like to ask you, with respect to Iraq, about your ability to brief the president objectively on the Iraq issue. As you know, you voted in support of the president's decision to go to war in Iraq. The conflict continues. Obviously, there are a variety of different perspectives on the current situation and of course also what the future portends for that troubled part of the country-part of the world.

As part of the CIA director's job, you're going to have to brief the president and the Cabinet on the situation in Iraq and how well or how poorly his policies are doing there, and whether the administration's goals are going to be achieved or not. Yet as a policymaker, as a member of the Congress, your decision to invade Iraq was a policy that you yourself supported and voted for. You voted for the policy to go into Iraq.

How are you going to handle matters regarding Iraq and other foreign policy matters that you supported while in the Congress? It's pretty hard for a CIA director to recuse themselves, but how can you tell us, given your past history, that you're going to give the president the unvarnished truth, despite having a stake in policies you voted for?

REP. GOSS: Senator, last week I said it. I will repeat again: I understand the difference in the jobs. To carry out my responsibilities as an elected member of Congress on behalf of the people of southwest Florida, Florida's 14 District, required one set of activities. This job, if I am confirmed, very clearly requires a very different set. And as I've explained, I totally understand the difference.

What I am going to do is try and improve the product that the policymakers get, so that the policy is as best informed as it can be by an unvarnished, straightforward intelligence product. That's my goal, if I am confirmed, to do that.

Now in answer to the chairman's questions when we started out, I pointed out that I do believe the DCI or whatever the equivalent role would be who is speaking to the president has that responsibility to be the bearer of all news, not good news or bad news, that comes legitimately out of a proper, professional job of creating intelligence product throughout the intelligence community.

Obviously, there will be dissents. Obviously, there will be different views. And i think all of the issues of the formula of what do we know, what don't we know, and what would we like to know need to be clearly presented to the policymakers, so that they can be well informed not only for the policy but the tasking that inevitably the community will be asked to do.

SEN. WYDEN: But what is your reaction to these press reports last week with respect to the bleak assessment in Iraq? You obviously can't get into all of the details, but I'd like to know. Do you think, on the basis of the information that you now have, which of course is not what's in an NIE, that these bleak reports are warranted?

REP. GOSS: Does which-I'm sorry?

SEN. WYDEN: The reports about the NIE last week and the situation in Iraq were pretty bleak and they painted a gloomy picture.

REP. GOSS: I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

SEN. WYDEN: You can't get into all of the details of something like that. But based on what you know, do you have any reason to question that NIE?

REP. GOSS: Senator, obviously I'm not going to comment on a product I haven't seen. I don't know anything about it. And I-frankly, I read some of the press reports and have heard some commentary on it, some opining about it. I would like to reserve judgment on that until I have a chance to see it myself.

What my interest is-would be in it is have we got the information we need for the policymakers, and if we haven't got the kind of information we need, how do we go about getting it for them? That's the job of the intelligence community.

SEN. WYDEN: My time has expired. But do you know anything that would indicate that that NIE of last week, that painted a gloomy picture, is off base?

REP. GOSS: Senator, as I said, I don't know anything about that NIE. I read in the papers that there was one. I haven't seen it.

SEN. WYDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BREAK IN TEXT

SEN. WYDEN: (Off mike.)

SEN. ROBERTS: Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I had you first and then Senator Wyden, but we can reverse that.

Senator Wyden.

SEN. WYDEN: Thank you.

Congressman Goss, in your view, what was the most important recommendation of the congressional joint inquiry on 9/11?

REP. GOSS: The most important was probably the first one, sir, to get on with the job of trying to find a way to create a better management of the intelligence community-we suggested through a DNI.

SEN. WYDEN: Through the DNI.

REP. GOSS: Yes, sir.

SEN. WYDEN: And did you introduce a piece of legislation to do that?

REP. GOSS: Directly? I don't believe I did, sir.

SEN. WYDEN: Well, I guess it makes my point. That would be an area where somebody could aggressively push for change and aggressively be a change agent, and you passed on it. I was frankly --

REP. GOSS: Well --

SEN. WYDEN: If I could finish, because I want to give you another chance to answer it. I was going to be charitable and say all right, the congressional joint inquiry is completed in December of 2002. You put in your bill in 2004. It didn't really do what the 9/11 commission talked about, but at least I think you were moving in that direction. So it took you a year and a half-a year and a half-to really do anything on the subject.

So how does someone like myself, who, A, likes you personally; B, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on the question of partisanship and objectivity, but I'm still looking for somebody who's aggressively going to be a change agent. And here is an example where you had an opportunity to do it-you're the chairman-and it just doesn't seem to be done.

So, if you could respond to me on that.

REP. GOSS: Senator, you asked me if I had directly put in a piece of legislation related to the number one recommendation of the Joint Inquiry. The answer is I did not put in directly, as I said.

As you did properly point out, I did work to try and find the right moment, the right way, the right combination to go forward to get that job done in another bill, which I did, as you properly pointed out, introduced in our reform bill, which was an announced work product of the HPSCI for this year. That statement was made I believe at the-probably at the end of '03, sir. I'm not sure exactly. It would be in the HPSCI records. But it was an organized way to go after a problem.

I did this, frankly, after consulting with this committee too, the leadership of this committee, about how we were going to proceed, and with the former chairman, Chairman Graham-Senator Graham. And we did sort of take stock at one point; we had a meeting to discuss where we were on the 9/11 recommendations.

It was my judgment-and I think it's been borne out-that having the horsepower and the additional awareness and understanding of the work product of the 9/11 commission that we did set up, and was specific action taken by me and our committee in the intelligence authorization, which I am very proud, to come up with a good committee, the Hamilton-Kean committee and the people who served on it, the commissioners who served on it, who have done a fabulous job of keeping the issue of reorganization before the public, before the Hill, before the administration, before the world, I guess. And I think that was a pretty good way to proceed. And in the annals of getting things done around here, speaking as a congressman, I tend to feel moving in a year and a half to get where we've gotten is pretty good speed.

I am committed to reorganization. We're going to have it. Once that reorganization is in place, sir, then it will be a little easier to do some of the reform you're asking me to commit to. I commit to improving the product. That is going to take reform. It's a little hard for me to be specific about what precisely I am going to do if I don't know exactly what the blueprints are of the network. So I am asking, if I am confirmed, for a close working cooperation, positive, leaning-forward, complementary efforts by the oversight committees and the community to make the reform happen and to make the reorganization happen.

SEN. WYDEN: I'm going to move on, Congressman.

REP. GOSS: Yes, sir.

SEN. WYDEN: But my concern remains, because I have asked you for example after example. I mean, the very first question at the first hearing, you said, well gosh, there wasn't a constituency for the subject; it was hard to get attention. And I said well you're the chairman, you've got the bully pulpit.

And so in example after example, I will tell you, I remain concerned about your willingness to lead. And I'm going to ask you about some other areas where again I think you'll have an opportunity to lead, if you're so inclined.

The president's proposal to instruct the-to restructure the intelligence community includes a provision that wasn't recommended by the commission, and I'm not sure many people are aware of it. It seeks to give the president an exemption from some existing laws on oversight of the intelligence community. And these are the laws requiring that the Congress be kept-and I'll quote here-"fully and currently informed, especially about covert action operations." The president is proposing that explicit language, as stated, that takes the carefully worked-out limitations and oversight requirements and only applies them to the extent consistent with the constitutional authority of the president.

Now given the very broad interpretation of the president's authority that we saw in these memos with respect to torture-the torture memos that finally came to light this summer, in which the Justice Department lawyers argued, in effect, that the president didn't really have to comply with the torture laws-what assurance does this committee have that language like that advocated by the president wouldn't be used to undermine the congressional oversight that the 9/11 commission says needs to be strengthened?

REP. GOSS: Senator, is that the amendment to 12333 you're speaking to? Is that where that language is?

SEN. WYDEN: I'm talking about the language that the president has proposed to give the administration exemptions from the laws with respect to informing the Congress.

REP. GOSS: Is that a law that is --

SEN. WYDEN: It's the draft reform bill.

REP. GOSS: It's the draft reform bill.

SEN. WYDEN: Right.

REP. GOSS: Senator, that's going to be your decision on how that goes, how you want to handle that.

SEN. WYDEN: But I want to know if you're for that, because it seems to me this puts in a huge loophole and a loophole that goes in the exact opposite direction of what the 9/11 commission called for. They want Congress to do a better job of oversight. The president in his draft bill has now proposed going the other way and giving Congress fewer tools.

REP. GOSS: I believe very strongly, Senator, that there should be strong congressional oversight. I have actually had a hearing as-at the point of my transition out of the committee. I did get instructive testimony from Governor Kean and from Congressman Hamilton on that subject. And it's actually very important, and I'm very glad you asked the question, because their comment went very much to the issue of the dysfunction of oversight as it is now, and the need to fix it. And they both went to some pains to say they were not picking on your committee, on this committee, or on HPSCI, on our committee, and they were not comments about us. They were comments about the system, basically the jurisdictional problem.

And I think that the thing I take away from that, in supporting the 9/11 recommendations for strong oversight, is that Congressman Hamilton made it very clear-and I think his words to me were: Look, if you don't get the oversight piece done, if Congress-this is when I was a congressman-he said: If you don't get the oversight piece done, none of the rest of it's going to work either. And that's why I make the strong statement about a forward, willing, complementary relationship between the director of national intelligence and the oversight committees.

I certainly believe that we need to have the safeguard for the American people of strong oversight, and I do not believe it should be nullified by any shortcuts that have not passed muster with the Congress.

SEN. WYDEN: Can you envision any situation that justifies withholding oversight information from this committee for an indefinite period of time?

REP. GOSS: I don't believe I can think of any right now. But I would point out that there needs to be work on the statutory requirement-when you say "this committee"-on the statutory requirement on the gang of eight, and which gang of eight we're talking about. It turns out there are more than one gang of eight, as I think you know, which has confounded us a number of times. But there is one in statute, and that would, therefore, preclude some types of information being shared under the notification process with all members of the committee. So I don't want to mislead you in any way on that.

SEN. WYDEN: Just so we're clear, because you mentioned Governor Kean, Governor Kean did not make any recommendation at all with respect to congressional oversight along the lines of what's in the president's draft bill, and that's why I'm so troubled by it.

Let me, if I might, turn to the question of the Patriot Act with you. And as you know, it will be expiring in December 2005. Do you support the Patriot Act in its current form? And Senator Murkowski and I have introduced a bipartisan bill to make changes in this area, and I would like to know your position generally with respect to the Patriot Act. And then I have a couple of specific questions about it.

REP. GOSS: Senator, when I was a member of Congress and the Patriot Act was before us, I supported it, and I stated my reasons in the record for doing that. I think it has been useful. I think we have testimony in this report about the breaking down of the wall and in other areas.

You asked me about future legislation or pending legislation. Obviously, I'm going to respectfully demure from that. The job I seek has no business making comment on legislation that you all might be considering, in my view, if it comes to policy. And I don't think I want to try to be wearing two hats at the same time, sir.

SEN. WYDEN: Mr. Chairman, could I ask one additional question on this point? It will be very brief.

SEN. ROBERTS: Certainly.

SEN. WYDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Do you know of instances, Congressman Goss, where the agency needed the library lending records provision? This has been very controversial, as you know; librarians up in arms about this across the country. Do you know instances where the agency needed that provision in its current form?

REP. GOSS: Senator, we are in open hearing, and I can tell you the answer is yes.

SEN. WYDEN: Are you open-the chairman has been very gracious. Are you open to working with myself and Senator Murkowski-as I say, we had a bipartisan bill-on looking at changes to parts of the Patriot Act?

REP. GOSS: Yes, sir, of course. If confirmed, in the appropriate role of the DCI, not as a member of Congress.

SEN. WYDEN: Mr. Chairman, you have been very kind. I would like the nominee, either when we are in closed session or in another arrangement that you and Senator Rockefeller put together, to have him furnish to us the matter that he felt needed to be kept secret this morning with respect to the library lending records.

SEN. ROBERTS: I think we can do that without having a closed hearing. And I'll be more than happy to address the senator's request.

Has the senator concluded?

SEN. WYDEN: My time was expired, and you've been very gracious.

BREAK IN TEXT

SEN. WYDEN: Mr. Chairman, I have only one other question. Let me also say to you, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the time that you've given. I think this is probably going on my fifth round, and I appreciate it.

Congressman Goss, the last question I had for you is, in your judgment, what went wrong on the matter of the Iraqi nuclear threat?

As you know, we documented at some length in our committee the matter of the aluminum tubes. The president of the United States in his address talked about a mushroom cloud.

I would be interested in your judgment on what went wrong with respect to how the matter of the Iraqi nuclear threat was handled.

BREAK IN TEXT

SEN. WYDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.