S. Hrg. 107-562 A REVIEW OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ======================================================================= HEARINGS before the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ JUNE 26 and 27, 2002 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 80-609 WASHINGTON : 2002 _____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio MAX CLELAND, Georgia THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri JIM BUNNING, Kentucky MARK DAYTON, Minnesota PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Staff Director and Counsel Susan E. Popper, Counsel Michael L. Alexander, Professional Staff Member Richard A. Hertling, Minority Staff Director William M. Outhier, Minority Chief Counsel Jayson P. Roehl, Minority Professional Staff Member Darla D. Cassell, Chief Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statement: Page Senator Lieberman............................................ 1, 61 Senator Thompson............................................. 3, 63 Senator Akaka................................................ 5, 65 Senator Collins.............................................. 6, 81 Senator Cleland.............................................. 7, 97 Senator Voinovich............................................ 7, 85 Senator Dayton...............................................38, 88 Senator Durbin............................................... 41 Senator Carper............................................... 46 Senator Carnahan............................................. 65 WITNESSES Wednesday, June 26, 2002 Hon. Ashton B. Carter, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and Assistant Secretary of Defense (1993-1996), International Security Policy................................................ 9 Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, U.S. Army (Ret.), former Director (1996-1999), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), U.S. Department of Defense..................................................... 13 Jeffrey H. Smith, former General Counsel (1995-1996), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)...................................... 16 Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), former Director (1985-1988), National Security Agency (NSA).................... 19 William B. Berger, Chief of Police, North Miami Beach, Florida and President, International Association of Chiefs of Police... 23 Thursday, June 27, 2002 Hon. George J. Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)...................................... 67 Hon. Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)............................................ 70 Hon. William H. Webster, former Director of Central Intelligence (1987-1991) and former Director (1978-1987), Federal Bureau of Investigation.................................................. 93 Hon. Bob Graham, a U.S. Senator from the State of Florida and Chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate........ 106 Hon. Richard C. Shelby, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama and Vice Chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate......................................................... 109 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Berger, Chief William B.: Testimony.................................................... 23 Prepared statement........................................... 166 Carter, Hon. Ashton B.: Testimony.................................................... 9 Prepared statement........................................... 125 Graham, Hon. Bob: Testimony.................................................... 106 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 191 Hughes, Lt. Gen. Patrick M.: Testimony.................................................... 13 Prepared statement........................................... 135 Mueller, Hon. Robert S., III: Testimony.................................................... 70 Prepared statement........................................... 184 Odom, Lt. Gen. William E.: Testimony.................................................... 19 Prepared statement........................................... 156 Shelby, Hon. Richard C.: Testimony.................................................... 109 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 209 Smith, Jeffrey H.: Testimony.................................................... 16 Prepared statement........................................... 140 Tenet, Hon. George J.: Testimony.................................................... 67 Prepared statement........................................... 175 Webster, Hon. William H.: Testimony.................................................... 93 Additional Material Submitted for the Record June 26, 2002 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), prepared statement........ 221 Richard J. Davis, prepared statement............................. 232 Questions for the Record and responses from: Hon. Ashton B. Carter........................................ 241 Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes with an attachment................ 242 Jeffrey H. Smith............................................. 256 Lt. Gen. William E. Odom..................................... 259 Chief William B. Berger...................................... 266 June 27, 2002 FBI letter regarding search capabilities of the FBI's Automated Case Support (ACS) System...................................... 267 Questions for the Record and responses from: Hon. William H. Webster...................................... 270 Hon. George J. Tenet......................................... 273 Hon. Richard C. Shelby....................................... 278 A REVIEW OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ---------- WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 2002 U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, Cleland, Dayton, Durbin, Carper, Thompson, Stevens, Collins, and Voinovich. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. Good morning. The hearing will come to order. I want to welcome our witnesses. Today, we are going to hold the second of four hearings designed to take an intense look at the Homeland Security reorganization plan proposed by President Bush and how best to merge it with legislation reported out of this Committee a little over a month ago. As we create this new Department of Homeland Security, one of our priorities clearly has to be to address what was the single biggest security shortcoming of our government before September 11, and that was the way in which our government coordinated, or failed to coordinate, intelligence. Suffice it to say that a few infamous memos and warnings, now notorious, and the picture they may have painted if they had been understood in relationship to one another are now a perplexing part of American history. And so our challenge is to build a more focused, more effective, more coordinated intelligence system that synchronizes information from the field, analyzes it, converts it, and then turns it into action that can prevent future attacks against the American people here at home. Last week, the Committee was privileged to hear from Governor Ridge on how the administration's plan and proposal would coordinate intelligence gathering, analysis, and implementation. Today, we are going to hear from what might be called a distinguished alumni group from the Intelligence Community and the national security community to get the benefit of their experience and good counsel on the best solution that we can adopt as part of our new Department of Homeland Security or related to it. Tomorrow, we will hear from the Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, the Director of the CIA, George Tenet, and Judge William Webster, who was the former Director of both the CIA and the FBI, but not simultaneously. We will also hear from the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senators Graham and Shelby, because their expertise, including that gained from their current investigations, can certainly help us craft the most effective legislation. Our fourth hearing on Friday will explore the President's proposal to address the problem of weapons of mass destruction and the relevant science, technology, and public health issues associated with detecting, protecting against, and combating these weapons, and particularly the fourth directorate, if I can call it that, or division, that the President establishes in his proposal. With all that in mind, clearly, the part of this reorganization that has drawn most public attention and most attention and thoughtful concern, I am pleased to say, by Members of the Committee is the question of how to bring the intelligence establishment together with the law enforcement community to avoid the kind of information breakdown that appears to have occurred prior to September 11. The President's proposal to establish an intelligence analysis clearinghouse within the new Department is a step in the right direction, although I think we still want to understand better what is intended and to see if there is a way we can strengthen the proposal. Under the President's plan, as I understand it, the Department of Homeland Security would provide competing analysis, so to speak, but the FBI, CIA, and a handful of other intelligence agencies would still have primary responsibility to uncover and prevent specific threats or conspiracies against the American people. In other words, no one office would be designated to pull the threads together and the dimensions of that and how we can focus it most effectively is something I would be very eager to hear from our witnesses today. Our Committee bill proposed a different approach, which I do not argue on its face is adequate to the threat at this point, as we better understand it today, either. Primarily at Senator Graham's urging, we established an anti-terrorism coordinator in the White House with the statutory and budget authority to pull the various elements of the anti-terrorism effort together, and that would include not just the new Department of Homeland Security, but the Intelligence Community, law enforcement, and State and Defense Departments, as well. In short, the coordinator would be in a position to forge the kinds of relationships that would be necessary to get the information needed to connect the dots and have a chance of seeing a picture more clearly. Today, we welcome the witnesses that are before us to hear their response to these two ideas and hopefully separate ideas that they themselves have. Several people have suggested the creation of a domestic intelligence agency along the lines of Britain's MI5, which, as many of you know, works closely with both local police, Scotland Yard, etc., and the Foreign Intelligence Agency, MI6, and reports to the Home Secretary. The view of those who advocate this idea is that the FBI's law enforcement mission conflicts with the intelligence-related tasks we are going to increasingly give it, and that it is assuming now after September 11, and thus, the counter-terrorism functions of the FBI and CIA would be merged into this new Department. Others have been troubled by suggestions to break up the FBI, of course, but also troubled by the civil liberties implications that are associated with such an agency and we will want to hear from our witnesses about that. Our colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, has presented another proposal which, in some sense, builds on the President's proposal, that would create a National Terrorism Assessment Center within the new Department that would have authority to direct the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies to provide it with all information relating to terrorist threats. That center would pull experienced intelligence analysts from across the Federal Government to analyze, coordinate, and disseminate information to law enforcement agencies and it has an interesting requirement in it somewhat like the Goldwater-Nichols proposal, that people in the different intelligence agencies of the government would have to serve a time in this National Terrorism Assessment Center as part of their promotional path up. We are going to hear other ideas today from a superb group of witnesses. What struck me last week at the first hearing we held with Governor Ridge and Senators Hart and Rudman is the really intense desire of Members of the Committee, certainly across party lines, to figure out the best way to get this job done, and this job meaning both the new Department of Homeland Security and particularly this question of coordinating intelligence and law enforcement. We feel that this is not only a moment of challenge, but a moment of opportunity, and I think most of us have not yet found a comfortable place to conclude our quest, particularly with regard to intelligence and law enforcement coordination. So I look forward to this hearing today with confidence that this distinguished panel of witnesses will help us in that effort and I thank them very much for being here. Senator Thompson. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOMPSON Senator Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would ask that my statement be made a part of the record. Chairman Lieberman. Without objection. Senator Thompson. I think that if we were too comfortable right now in our quest to reach these solutions, we would be premature. That is the very reason, of course, why we have these hearings, and I want to compliment you on this array of witnesses that we have today. I think they are exactly the kind of people we ought to be talking to as we work our way through this. We are dealing primarily today with the intelligence piece. My own view is that, without a doubt, we will conclude after our Intelligence Committee hearings, which I am a part of, that there are deficiencies and inadequacies. I think we have known that for a long time before September 11. We simply have not kept up to the new world that we are now living in since the end of the Cold War. In terms of human intelligence, in terms of ability to penetrate, we are going to have to do much better. We have seen major deficiencies in terms of collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence information. I think the question for us here is to what extent will this legislation fix that, and to what extent is it designed to? I tend to think, at this stage of the game, "very little" is the answer to both questions. I think, though, that certainly stands on its own two feet in being beneficial to the overall problem. But the intelligence issue, is it really meshed into the homeland security problem or is it separate? Do we need to do the Homeland Security organization piece, treat Homeland Security as a customer of intelligence with the idea of reforming the Intelligence Communities later so as not to create confusion and gaps at a sensitive time, or exactly how do we handle this? Do we set up a separate entity, as you mentioned, recognizing the distinct nature of the FBI and the law enforcement mandate that it has, and the fact that overnight, its top priorities are now things that they spent relatively very little time on up until now? So should we keep them in the same Department or put them in the Homeland Security Department, or put part of them in the Homeland Security Department, or create a new MI5? If we create a new MI5, what should it be under, the Justice Department or the DCI or where? And what difference does it make anyway? We all have ideas that seem logical to us as to where the boxes ought to be and who ought to be under where, but we really need to get down to why. What empirical evidence is there that one way might work better than another? I think that is what people like these gentlemen can help us with. So thank you for being here with us today and I look forward to their testimony. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Thompson. [The prepared statement of Senator Thompson follows:] OPENING PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOMPSON Thank you Mr. Chairman for calling this hearing. I'm glad as we continue our work on the proposal for a new Homeland Security Department that we are going to spend a couple of days looking at intelligence information sharing. The President's proposal places a great deal of responsibility on the new Department to sift through information, conduct threat assessments and vulnerability assessments, to issue warnings, and to ensure that our critical infrastructure remains safe. This ambitious mission, together with reform of the Intelligence Community, cannot succeed, however, unless the Department receives cooperation and all the information it needs from collection sources such as the FBI and CIA. Shortcomings in intelligence collection and analysis must be solved if the nation's homeland security is genuinely to improve. Even if we do improve these aspects of intelligence operations, however, we still confront serious obstacles to getting agencies to share relevant information with each other. Indeed, some have questioned whether Congress should reorganize the Intelligence Community as a whole to improve the sharing of information. The failure to share intelligence is not a new problem. In fact, this Committee has seen some of those difficulties first hand. For example, during the campaign finance investigation, our efforts were hampered by the failure of the FBI to properly disseminate information to Congress, and for that matter to the Campaign Financing Task Force within the Justice Department. This Committee also conducted an investigation of the Wen Ho Lee matter and Senator Lieberman and I released a joint report regarding numerous failures within DOJ and the FBI including some regarding information sharing. A number of reasons have been given for the problem of information sharing. Some believe that it is simply not possible for law enforcement agents, whose training and promotions revolve around pursuing criminal cases for prosecution, to switch gears and operate as intelligence analysts. Others believe that because the FBI, CIA, and the military services all have a different focus that they're not inclined to talk to each other. Some also believe that our intelligence agencies are not coordinated very well and often display an inherent tendency to protect their information in order to protect their sources. Whatever the cause for the information-sharing problems that have existed for many years, we must address them. The good news is that we are doing so. Obviously, this committee is working on the issue this week in conjunction with its legislative jurisdiction. Other committees, most notably the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, are also examining this issue. I am looking forward to hearing some different ideas today about how the new Department could and should work within the Intelligence Community. I also want to hear the views of our distinguished witnesses about possibly reorganizing the boxes to put pieces of the FBI in the new Department, create a new independent intelligence center, or even an MI5 type model. I am also looking forward to hearing tomorrow about the ongoing effort at the FBI to reorganize from within to see if that reorganization will provide sufficient support to the new Department and obviate the need to shift portions of the FBI. While we may act on a Homeland Security Department in the short term, we will need to keep an eye on how information sharing works in practice to determine whether more steps need to be taken in the future. Whatever we do now to create a new Department will not be the last step, but only the first. Continuous and continuing oversight and reevaluation must be the new watchword for Congress, and especially this committee. We must keep in mind that the establishment of a new Cabinet Department with an intelligence component will not solve the defects we observed in connection with the attacks of September 11. Instead, wholesale reform of our Intelligence Community is desperately needed. We cannot afford to allow the failures in our collection, analysis, and dissemination to continue. Our intelligence agencies are the eyes and ears of this country. If they are malfunctioning, then we will be blind to potential attack. Clearly, September 11 proved to all of us that our Intelligence Community has not functioned properly for some time. Despite numerous warnings, we did not take sufficient action. The investigative efforts of this Committee and others are the first step toward fixing our intelligence agencies. We must follow these hearings with serious reform. This matter is too important to put off any longer. Mr. Chairman, you have brought together a number of very distinguished observers of the current system whose views will greatly assist Congress in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the current system. I look forward to hearing from them. Chairman Lieberman. Senator Akaka. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to our witnesses and thank you for joining us today. I want to commend Chairman Lieberman for his leadership and guidance in what we are doing. Since September 11 exposed the strengths and weaknesses of our national security systems, we have been trying to correct mistakes, trying to strengthen our weaknesses, and Chairman Lieberman has stepped out on this issue. It was appropriate that after hearing from Governor Ridge and Senators Hart and Rudman last week that we discuss how the proposed Department of Homeland Security fits into our Nation's intelligence structure. In hindsight, we must strengthen existing analytical and information sharing structures and avoid duplication at the expense of other national security requirements. We are facing the most extensive government reorganization in over 50 years. Yet, the administration's proposal fails to articulate a long-term vision to guide this new Department. Moreover, I hope the proposal is not meant to replace the Homeland Security strategy that Governor Ridge is expected to release next month. The Hart-Rudman Commission found that the United States lacks systems to facilitate timely intelligence sharing. We must ensure full and active coordination between the Intelligence Community and this proposed Department. Currently, representatives from our Intelligence Community serve on the Central Intelligence Counter-Terrorism Center. We should ask whether strengthening the CTC and establishing liaisons between the new Department and the CTC would ensure access to timely information. The administration's proposed Department would analyze raw data and finished reports from many different agencies. However, the linkage of these previously separate functions could take years to develop and might create unintended vulnerabilities. State and local authorities in Hawaii and throughout the Nation depend on the Federal Government to collect, analyze, and disseminate information that is timely and accurate. I am concerned that the President's proposal does not include mechanisms for intelligence sharing between the Department and other Federal agencies, with State and local authorities. It is critical to establish and promote standards, intelligence sharing, and to guarantee that the information is reliable and credible. Regardless of how we organize the Federal Government, we cannot meet our intelligence obligations unless we maximize the talents of those charged with security, and provide sufficient resources to carry out new Homeland Security missions. As an example, we must provide training to improve the foreign language skills of our present Federal workers, and invest in the next generation of employees to ensure a dedicated and capable workforce that will contribute to our national security. We cannot allow the Federal Government to become the "employer of last resort." Learning from September 11, let us move forward to improve existing structures, coordinate information sharing, and ensure cooperation among agencies. I see these actions as opportunities, not challenges, in strengthening our Nation's security. Mr. Chairman, I join you in this effort and in thanking our witnesses for being with us this morning. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Akaka. Senator Stevens. Senator Stevens. I yield to Senator Collins. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks. Senator Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Senator Stevens. Mr. Chairman, as our hearing last week demonstrated, this Committee, Congress, and the administration still have a lot of work to do to create workable legislation establishing a new Department of Homeland Security. Today, we are considering the relationship between the new Department and the Intelligence Community. This could well be one of the most important and difficult issues that our Committee wrestles with. If there is not efficient and adequate information sharing between the new Department and the existing intelligence agencies, and if there is not better interagency cooperation, then the reorganization and creation of a new Department will not be sufficient to remedy the problems that have been identified as vulnerabilities in our system. I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses today. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. Senator Cleland, good morning. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CLELAND Senator Cleland. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. I feel very strongly about several issues. First of all, the need for a Homeland Security agency to force coordination, cooperation, and communication among basic agencies that are in charge of our homeland defense, like Customs, like the Coast Guard, like the Border Patrol and other agencies. I am an original cosponsor of the Homeland Security Agency bill that came out of this Committee. I feel strongly about two other issues. First, that the Secretary of the Homeland Security Agency should be a Cabinet- level officer, sit in the Cabinet meetings, and be part of that inner circle. But the legislation that we reported out has within it a suggestion that I made, and that is that the head of the Homeland Security Agency should also sit on the National Security Council. Why? For access to intelligence, so that Secretary knows what everybody around the table knows. For me, that pretty much solves the problem. I think the Secretary of the Homeland Security agency ought to have access to information, and access to intelligence. I am not quite sure it is proper for that agency to be engaged in intelligence gathering. We are all worried about connecting the dots, but if you sit on the National Security Council and have access to the intelligence and know what everybody else around the table knows, it seems to me that ought to be sufficient. I would like to get your opinion as we get into the questions here, but that is the way I solve the access to intelligence problems and enable the Homeland Secretary to have the intelligence that he or she needs to do the job. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Cleland. Senator Voinovich. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the last hearing, I mentioned that we can rearrange the chairs in the new Homeland Security Department, but what really counts is who is sitting in the chairs, the quality of the individuals, their skill, their knowledge, and from the point of view of intelligence sharing, their interpersonal skills with each other. I am very pleased that Senator Akaka mentioned the human capital challenges that we have regardless of what we do in this proposed new Department. The subject of this hearing is intelligence sharing. But Mr. Chairman, at our last hearing, we spent most of our time talking about intelligence sharing and whether it was going to work or not. It seems to me that all of us should be concerned about the rash of reports that our Intelligence Community is deficient in its information sharing. Last week in the Washington Post, a senior U.S. official stated, "We do not share intelligence among agencies. No one seems to have the authority to make that cooperation happen. We are very much a Third World country in how we are doing this." This is a devastating assessment made by a senior government official and something, I think, that this Committee should take seriously. The inability of the government to share intelligence effectively seems to be rooted in longstanding and systemic problems, including a history in some agencies to protect turf rather than work together with other agencies toward a common goal. This simply cannot continue. I ask that the rest of my opening statement be inserted in the record. I am very anxious to hear from our witnesses because they have got the experience to tell us if these observations that I just made are correct, and if they are, what can we do to solve the situation. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. [The prepared statement of Senator Voinovich follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I applaud your leadership in our Committee to move this issue forward. As you know, the proposed Department of Homeland Security represents the largest government restructuring in 50 years. Paul Light from The Brookings Institution noted that this effort "is by far the most sweeping merger of disparate cultures in American bureaucratic history." This is a massive challenge and the stakes are of the highest order. Today, however, we are not here to discuss merging the cultures and activities of 22 separate agencies, but rather how this new Department will interact with the agencies that handle the most classified and sensitive national security information and how those agencies can share information appropriately with the new Department of Homeland Security. I would observe, Mr. Chairman, that this is really the second, not the first, day of hearings on this specific aspect of the proposed reorganization. Last Thursday, most of the Members of this Committee focused almost exclusively on the relationship between the proposed Department and the Intelligence Community. We all seem to agree that this relationship may determine the success or failure of our efforts to secure the American homeland. According to a rash of recent news reports, our Intelligence Community is deficient in its information sharing. For instance, in last week's (Tuesday, June 18) Washington Post, a senior U.S. official stated that " . . . we don't share intelligence among agencies; no one seems to have the authority to make that cooperation happen. We are very much a Third World country in how we are doing this." This is a devastating assessment made by a senior government official, and something this Committee must take seriously. The Federal Government's inability to share intelligence effectively seems to be rooted in longstanding and systemic problems, including a history in some agencies to protect turf rather than work together with other agencies toward a common goal. This simply cannot continue. As a matter of national security, we cannot afford to continue policies or processes that disrupt the flow of information to the people who need to know and who can make a difference. Mr. Chairman, countless other Members of Congress have said similar things regarding intelligence sharing and cooperation in the past, yet the problem persists. We must make sure this time that we take all the necessary actions to ensure our security and we will not tolerate petty jurisdictional or turf considerations. This means that Congress must provide a solid legislative foundation for the Department that clearly sets out its roles, responsibilities, and relationships to the Intelligence Community and other departments and agencies. There must be strong accountability mechanisms. We also must provide adequate resources, including technology and, above all else, the people needed to get the job done. People who know how to obtain, organize, analyze and disseminate information collaboratively and effectively. Human capital, at all levels, will be key to the success of this Department. As we conduct this dialogue over the next 2 days, I look forward to hearing about ways in which we can better organize and manage the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies to ensure that life-saving information is made available in a timely manner to the Department of Homeland Security, and not, as we have regrettably seen, days or weeks after it is too late. Mr. Chairman, thank you again for your leadership on this issue. Chairman Lieberman. Gentlemen, thanks very much for being here. We end up speaking in technical terms sometimes about this, but as I see the question before all of us, it is to acknowledge that we are now spending an enormous amount of money annually to gather all sorts of intelligence, and the question post-September 11 is how can we most effectively bring that together to prevent further terrorist attacks before they occur? Are there other forms of intelligence that we should be more aggressively collecting now with what we know after September 11 and after, in fact, the anthrax attacks? So those are the big questions. I am very grateful that you are here. We are going to start with the Hon. Ashton Carter, who was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy from 1993 to 1996, is now Co-Director of The Preventive Defense Project at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Thanks, Dr. Carter, very much for being here. TESTIMONY OF HON. ASHTON B. CARTER,\1\ CO-DIRECTOR, PREVENTIVE DEFENSE PROJECT, JOHN F. KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (1993-1996), INTERNATIONAL SECURITY POLICY Mr. Carter. Thank you, Senator and Members, for having me today. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Carter appears in the Appendix on page 125. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chairman Lieberman. Excuse me a second. We have got the clock set for 5 minutes. Feel free to go a little longer if you have not--this is the only panel we are going to hear today--if you do not feel you have had a chance to say your peace. Mr. Carter. Thank you. I will try to be brief, though, Senator. You just mentioned new types of intelligence in connection with Homeland Security, and that is, in a sense, the theme of what I would like to say today. I have a written statement which I would like to enter into the record, if I may. Chairman Lieberman. It will, along with the other excellent statements all of you have prepared for us, be entered into the record. Mr. Carter. Thank you. The written statement addresses the overall architecture of the Federal Government for Homeland Security, including the respective roles of the White House, OHS, Office of Homeland Security, and the proposed new Department, DHS. In my oral comments, I want to focus on several new types of intelligence, intelligence with a small "i", which I mean very generally to denote information and analysis necessary to the successful accomplishment of the mission of Homeland Security over time, but which is not necessarily the perpetrator-focused, event-focused type of intelligence that we traditionally associate with the FBI and the CIA. These types of intelligence, which I would argue the Department of Homeland Security can usefully devise or invent or promote and then practice, these are modes of intelligence that the CIA and the FBI, I would judge, are unlikely to practice well by themselves, but for which they can provide useful inputs. If I may, I would like to take a few moments to recap the main points of the overall argument I made about the architecture and then turn to the intelligence question. Just a few points on the respective missions of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. I am moved to do this because I think that the foundation of the new Department, if there is a foundation of the new Department, does not make the role of Tom Ridge or the Office of Homeland Security any less important. In fact, it probably makes it more important. Therefore, it is important that we not think of the DHS as somehow supplanting the Ridge mission. The reason for this is that while, in everybody's version of the Department of Homeland Security, it contains much of the Federal structure that bears upon Homeland Security, it also omits much. Therefore, the problem of interagency coordination does not go away. That is something that can only be done in the White House. The heart of the Ridge mission, from my point of view, is not what his charter says, which is to coordinate. Coordination implies that the Nation has the capabilities it needs to do Homeland Security. All we need to do is marshal them optimally. I do not think that is right. I do not think the Nation has the capabilities it needs. And so if all you have is a come-as- you-are party where everybody brings whatever history and tradition and their existing missions happen to have equipped them with, you are not going to have the capabilities the Nation needs. So to my way of thinking, Governor Ridge ought to see his job far less as one of coordinating what we have than building what we need, that is, an architect, not a coordinator--an architect who conceives the investment plan the Nation needs to make in its own protection over time. That is the heart of his job and the critical product we require of him is a multi-year, multi-agency program plan, precisely the kind of program plan that I think we all wish had informed the preparation of the fiscal year 2003 budget, which instead is essentially a bubble- up product rather than a top-down product. That investment plan, when he makes it, needs to include-- and this is also why this is quintessentially a White House function, not an agency function--attention to how the investments on Homeland Security are to be apportioned between the Federal Government, State and local governments, a question of fiscal federalism as it applies to Homeland Security. It is a critical issue. Someone needs to share out the responsibilities here. There are clearly things that the Federal Government ought to do in this domain, others that can be done by State and local government but might need support from the Federal Government, and others that they will need to do on their own. And part of the architecture is to establish a few ground rules for who does what. That is true also when it comes to the question of public investment versus private investment. Any of the needed investments that need to be made in the private sector, are they to be mandated by government, encouraged by government, supported by government, or are we going to count on the insurance industry or the self-interest of corporations to supply the needed incentives? Once again, that is a whole set of questions that only an architect can address. So for all these reasons, I think the White House and the Ridge office become more important, not less important, the more serious we get about Homeland Security, and his job is to be the investment architect, not the coordinator, not the czar. With respect to the Department of Homeland Security, I think that is an important ingredient of the architecture. I do have three concerns about it, though, and let me share them before turning to the intelligence question. The first, I have already noted, namely that it is a big mistake if we allow the Department of Homeland Security to divert us entirely from the mission of the Office of Homeland Security or imagine somehow that it is a substitute for a functioning Ridge office. It is not. Second, I have seen a lot of government reorganizations, participated in some in the Department of Defense, and they have a tendency to be half-done, to be poorly done. Unless this reorganization is aggressively pursued and whoever has the job of carrying it out is given the authority to manage it aggressively and creatively, we could end up worse off than we are now. Halfway-done reorganizations are the worst of all possible worlds. And the third proviso on the Department is I do not think it is enough for us to ask that the new Department just bring together things that we are already doing, focus them, and make them more efficient. I think unless the new Department does new things that are not done anywhere in the Federal system now, it is not adding enough value. I would identify two things, particular things, that are, I would say, to a first order of approximation not being done at all that need to be done. The first is these new types of intelligence, to which I will turn to in a moment. The second is the science and technology investments, or inventiveness, as it applies to Homeland Security. We have a lot of weaknesses as a Nation as we face the era of terrorism. We are open. We are a relatively soft target in many ways and we need to look to our strengths. If this Nation has one strength that has served it well in emergencies in the past, it has been our inventiveness, and particularly in science and technology. If we do not bring that to bear on this problem, we are not taking advantage of one of our key national traits. The other thing the Department of Homeland Security ought to do is intelligence with a small "i", and let me use a few minutes to say what I mean by that. There is a lot of debate going on about whether we should have connected the dots or not before September 11 and I think some useful insights have emerged from this debate already. One insight is the danger of continuing to separate foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence as rigorously as we have done in the past. Another is the insight that we need to encourage FBI law enforcement officials to prevent terrorism and not just to solve the crime after it has occurred. So these are useful insights. But most of the debate on intelligence is still what I would call intelligence with a capital "I", that is, intelligence which conceives of the information at issue as perpetrator-focused or event-focused. Who are these guys who might do this to us? What are their intentions? What kind of act might they be planning? This is obviously pertinent information, but I think there are some other concepts of intelligence that are of great potential importance to Homeland Security which, as I said earlier, at first approximation, are not currently accomplished anywhere in the Federal Government. A clear and valuable role for the Department of Homeland Security would be to develop and practice some of these intelligence techniques. Among them are red-teaming, what I call intelligence of means, counter-surveillance, and risk assessment, and I would like to just define each of those and give you an example. I will say parenthetically that these are important and effective aspects of the intelligence underlying Homeland Security and they raise very few civil liberties issues by themselves, and that is another advantage. Let me start with red-teaming. Most Americans were probably not shocked--I certainly was not--on September 12 to learn that we did not have advance information about the dozen or so individuals living in our midst who plotted and took part in the airline suicide bombings. I was deeply disturbed to learn, though, and I think most people I talked to were, that the government was as heedless of the tactic they used as it was of who they were. That is, we inspected the airline system for guns and bombs, not knives, and we thought about people seeking conveyance to Cuba, not seeking conveyance to the upper floors of the World Trade Towers. So a huge gap existed in our airline security system and they found it before we did. We cannot allow that to happen. We cannot allow that kind of tactical surprise to happen again, and to me, that recommends that the Homeland Security effort do something, red-teaming, which is a standard thing in military organizations, to have competing red and blue teams. An experience that I am familiar with was the example of the development of stealth. In a red team, you try to project yourself imaginatively into the shoes of the opponent. Think of what the opponent might do to you and then what counters. Then you have a blue team which devises counters. In the stealth program, when we developed the first stealth aircraft, for example, the Air Force created a red team which tried to figure out how to see, detect, and shoot down stealth aircraft, and I am sure some of the people here remember that well. The blue team was charged to fix the vulnerabilities, and then we could systematically balance the threat of detection against the cost and inconvenience of countermeasures. A comparable red and blue team effort is, to my way of thinking, a crucial aspect of Homeland Security, as I said, essentially not done anywhere in the government now except in bits and pieces--intelligence with a small "i". Another example, intelligence of means. If you think not about catching the people, but catching the wherewithal of terrorism, that is a pretty rich field, as well. Remember all the talk of crop dusters in October? That came from the Atlanta Olympics experience, within which I also participated, or with which I was associated, and that is an example where you surveilled the means of destruction. You do not know who has the intention of using a crop duster to spread biological weapons. You do not presume you have that information, but you are going to watch the crop duster. We watch fissile material around the world, not well enough, but we do. That is something, presumably, you will be discussing on Friday. It has been just a few years that we have surveilled pathogen cultures. And in the news in the last few weeks, we have learned that we are not surveilling well enough radiological sources, surveillance of means. Counter-surveillance, another concept---- Chairman Lieberman. Forgive me for doing this, but I am going to ask you to see if you can wind up. Mr. Carter. I am done. I have got one more example and I am done, sir. Chairman Lieberman. Good. Thank you. Mr. Carter. Counter-surveillance, the best example of that is what we do at embassies and bases, where, a simplistic version, you stand on the roof and look for people looking for you, people driving by more than once, people taking pictures of architecturally undistinguished aspects of a building. But counter-surveillance, the point of it is to estimate the information that a terrorist would need to attack you and then look for people looking for that information--a very lucrative form of intelligence with a small "i". And finally, there is risk assessment, which I will not go into but in the course of which one comes out balancing risks, figuring out which threats are most likely, most damaging, and least costly to countermeasure. It is risk assessment that is the crucial input to the architect's budget plan. So in summary, if you think about forms of intelligence with a small "i", it is easy to think of some. I have given some examples. These are things that need to be done. CIA and FBI information is input to them, but no substitute for them. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Dr. Carter, for very fresh and helpful testimony. I look forward to asking you questions about it. Our next witness is General Patrick Hughes, U.S. Army, Retired, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and now, I believe, a consultant in the field of security, generally. General Hughes, thank you for being here. TESTIMONY OF LT. GEN. PATRICK M. HUGHES,\1\ U.S. ARMY (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR (1996-1999), DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (DIA), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE General Hughes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Thompson, and other distinguished Senators. I would like to read my statement because I want to make sure that I make the points clearly and directly to you. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of General Hughes appears in the Appendix on page 135. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What we do to secure our Nation must be done both internally and externally. We should go abroad in the global context as well as within our Nation's borders and vital territory to seek out those who would strike us and interdict them, stop them, dissuade them, provide alternatives to them, whatever will work short of appeasement, to forestall future attacks. We cannot afford to absorb the blows that are possible in the future. As bad as past attacks have been, those events were not as bad as future attacks may be. Thus, I am making my comments today with a great sense of urgency, because in my view, the conditions are, indeed, urgent. We have enlarged the battle space by putting forward the concept of conducting a defensive and sometimes offensive war on terrorism here in our homeland. To ensure an internally secure America, we must continue to attend to traditional threats from nation states and alliances and coalitions and from new groups that may form against us. We have not reduced the mission environment, nor have we reduced the possibility for external conflict merely by preparing for the threat to our homeland from terrorists and other antagonistic groups. Rather, we have expanded our requirements. As you know, the Department of Homeland Security will require appropriate legislation to give it a charter and authority and responsibility in the context of the U.S. Intelligence Community. In that same context, the Department will require Presidential authorities in writing and detailed written descriptions of its responsibilities and functions. Ideally, these documentary efforts should match and reinforce. Standing up the intelligence element of the Department of Homeland Security is not a zero-sum effort. Additional people and money must be allocated for this undertaking. The Department of Homeland Security should have a senior official appointed to do the work of intelligence included in its structure. The people who actually do the work of intelligence in the Department of Homeland Security should be the best and we should give them the best tools to work with. This will cost money and will strain limited human and technical resources. The key to the success of the people that do the work of intelligence is access to information. Intelligence sharing across the Intelligence Community, Federal, State, and local, is vital. Without open and expeditious sharing of intelligence, I believe this endeavor will fail. The Department of Homeland Security should not separately develop or field sensors, sources, methods, or collection capabilities apart from the existing U.S. Intelligence Community or relevant elements of law enforcement, counterintelligence, and security. However, it should have the power and authority to use existing or developed capabilities in partnership with those who have primary responsibility for the capability. The Department of Homeland Security should participate directly in Intelligence Community collection management. The Department of Homeland Security should have the requisite processing, analytic, and production capacity necessary to the task at hand. In our Intelligence Community, we currently have an inadequate capability to process, analyze, prepare in contextual and technical forms that make sense, and deliver cogent intelligence to users as soon as possible so that the time-dependent operational demands for the intelligence are met. In order to fix this inadequacy, this requires a very advanced set of automation and telecommunications capabilities, the best analytic tools we can acquire, and the best people we can coax to do this demanding work. Intelligence support for countering terrorism in the context of Homeland Security is akin to searching out criminals who are planning to act and interdicting them before they act, more than it is about the physical kinds of intelligence directed against established nation states or alliance opponents in conventional or even unconventional warfare. Understanding this construct seems critical to the work of intelligence support, since it is much different than the typical military context. This is, indeed, different and requires a different approach to achieve success. Warning times will be very short. Evidence of an impending act may be slim. The number of people involved can be comparatively small, and clarity is unlikely since extraordinary measures will be taken to conceal what is being planned or attempted. The threat may be so acute that we must act very rapidly. Invasive human and technical presence inside the planning, decision, action, and support loops of the compartmented opponents we are faced with seems vital. While this reinforces my view of the importance of human intelligence, it also reinforces the fact that technical intelligence of all kinds, appropriately targeted and focused, can provide important assistance and insight. We have, in my view, failed to do the right things in the past. These failures include an inadequate human intelligence gathering capability, an unwillingness to engage in risky operations, and a flawed set of recruiting, training, supporting, and training systems for intelligence professionals. For the security of our homeland, we have to fix this set of problems. Every possible type of intelligence endeavor must be applied concurrently and synergistically in an all-source collection and all-source analytic environment so that no stone goes unturned, no opportunity is missed, and no venomous snake is left alive unless it suits our purpose. The Department of Homeland Security must have, internal to its structure, an adequate all-source management and performance capability. One of the most demanding tasks for the Department of Homeland Security is to warn the citizens of the United States of an impending threat. Setting up an effective, efficient, and dependable Homeland Security warning system is quite different, since the nature of the threat, time, space and place, and tempo of activity are so different. Solving this problem is already challenging and will become more difficult as time passes. The indications and warning system needs our best effort. We should not allow the open publication and public compromise of vital details of intelligence activities which, when they are compromised, give some advantage to our opponents. On the other hand, appropriate authorities must have full access to the workings of the Homeland Security intelligence structure so that they can exercise the kind of oversight, policy control, and enforcement and accountability that we all know we need. We need to find some form of balance between these concepts. When one looks out at the future threat, notably the threat from rogue elements with weapons with mass effects, and adds to it the possibilities embodied in new science and new technology, then I believe we should generate an exceptional and urgent response to these threats. In speaking to you today, it is my fervent hope that some idea or thought will help to better secure our Nation. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, General. That was a very helpful statement. Next, we are going to hear from Jeffrey Smith, former General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency and now a partner at the law firm of Arnold and Porter. TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY H. SMITH,\1\ FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL (1995- 1996), CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, thank you. It is a pleasure to be here and appear before this Committee to discuss generally the issue of Homeland Security and in particular one of the most important questions, how to improve the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Smith appears in the Appendix on page 140. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In my judgment, I agree with Senator Thompson. It is probably premature to reach final conclusions about what went wrong and how to fix it until the Intelligence Committees complete their review, but we can begin to ask some questions now. Let me talk just for a couple of minutes about intelligence broadly and then focus on some specific issues related to this. In my view, it is an oversimplification to say that the failure to predict to prevent the attack was caused solely by the lack of cooperation between the FBI and the CIA. Intelligence, whether it be domestic or foreign, is far more than just sharing information and connecting the dots. My colleagues have talked about this a bit, but good intelligence depends on many factors--understanding what the consumer of intelligence needs, and what we are able to collect, and what we are not able to collect. General Hughes mentioned the need to take risk, particularly in the clandestine service. One cannot say too strongly that clandestine officers of the CIA must know that we expect them to take risks and know that we will back them up when the going gets tough, and candidly, we have not done that perhaps as often as we ought to have. It is also imperative in my judgment that the analyst and the collector work together closely. The collector needs to understand what he is supposed to collect and the analyst needs to understand what the collector can and cannot collect. The analyst also needs to understand the texture in which it was collected to know what kind of weight that ought to be assigned to a particular scrap of information. Another fundamental question is whether it is possible to have a single agency responsible for both law enforcement and intelligence. Over time, we have discovered how hard that is, and frankly, I am almost of the view that we should separate the two. I think we need to look very hard at that, and I want to talk about that in a moment. The CIA and FBI have done a much better job of working together in the last few years, but there are still gaps. Finally on this broad issue, Mr. Chairman, I agree with the comments of General Hughes. I am sure General Odom will talk about this. The imperative to have the very best information technology available to our Intelligence Community. We have discovered that the FBI, particularly, is lagging. NSA has made a major investment. We have a lot of genius in this country in industry and academia, but we need to do a better job of reaching out to them and finding ways for the government to work with them to find the very best information technology. Let me turn then briefly to some issues particularly raised by the Department of Homeland Security. The administration's proposal would make Homeland Security a customer of the Intelligence Community. I think that is correct. The specifics are still vague and need to be worked out. There are some things that are not clear to me, obviously, but that is one the things this hearing will get at. In my view, the Homeland Security Department needs an intelligence function. It needs an element within the Department that can perform analysis and can disseminate that analysis to the rest of the government. There are a couple of pretty good examples, I think, of where other departments have an intelligence function embedded within them that carries out this role. INR in the Department of State, for example. Maybe even a better example is the Office of Net Assessment in the Secretary of Defense, whose job it is to take intelligence reports from various parts of the U.S. Government and then line that up with what we are facing, what the opposition has, and then try to reach some sort of net conclusion about how our forces would do in a particular battle or particular conflict with armed forces of that country. That is essentially what Homeland Security is going to be asked to do, to take intelligence information collected by the Intelligence Community and then produce an analysis that also incorporates what they understand to be the vulnerabilities about the United States. Having said that, I do not believe it would be a good idea to create within Homeland Security a competing intelligence center to the CIA. In my judgment, the Counter-Terrorist Center at CIA and the FBI should be combined into a single center. I would pull the analytical function out of the Bureau and create a single Counter-Terrorist Center under the DCI. Clearly, FBI officers, officers from other elements of the government need to be there, but I am not in favor of having a lot of competing centers around town. I also believe the time has come to consider the creation of a domestic security service. We most frequently think of MI5 as an example. They are, in my judgment, a first-rate service. They are able to work, as you said, Mr. Chairman, with MI6, the external service. They are also able to work with Scotland Yard and Special Branch, not only in London, but scattered around the country, the United Kingdom, and I think we have a great deal to learn from them. They do not have arrest authority. I do not believe that if we were to create a security service, I do not believe they should have arrest authority. As to where it is housed, Senator Thompson mentioned the two obvious choices, the DCI or the Attorney General. My inclination is to make them under the DCI, but a strong case can be made that they ought to be under the Attorney General. Regardless of where it is housed, the director of the new service ought to have direct access to the President, and I think that if we were to do this, the director of the security service ought to be a career government civil servant, perhaps with a fixed term like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who also, of course, has direct access to the President. I am also intrigued with the suggestion that a couple of people have made, including recently Senator Feinstein and others, that we ought to separate the Director of Central Intelligence from his duties as the head of the CIA and to create a true Director of National Intelligence. This is highly controversial, but it does seem to me to have considerable appeal. One way of looking at it would be to think a little bit of the new Director of National Intelligence as analogous to the Secretary of Defense with greater powers and that the various pieces of the Intelligence Community would have a relationship to him in a way similar to that that the military departments have with the Secretary of Defense. As I say, that is controversial, but I think it is worth thinking about. Clearly, if we were to set up a domestic security service, a great deal of thought would necessarily be given to protecting civil liberties. In my judgment, that is certainly doable, and I have a few particular suggestions to how that might be done. I do have just one final thought, Mr. Chairman, about the proposal made by the administration and the issue of access by the Secretary of Homeland Security to information. The administration's proposal lays out a fairly complicated structure where there are three different categories of information and the Secretary gets all of this and some of that and a little bit of this, but only if the President agrees. I can envision some of my successors sitting around a table arguing, well, is this in Column A or Column B and does he get it or not get it? My suggestion is to simply have a statute that says the head of each Federal agency is required by law to keep the Secretary of Homeland Security, "fully and currently informed" on all intelligence or other data in the possession of that agency that is relevant to the Secretary's responsibilities, unless otherwise directed by the President. The "fully and currently informed" language is one that we are all familiar with. It is used in U.S. statutes a number of places. It is the operating principle under which the DCI is supposed to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. I would turn it around and just put the burden on individual agencies to keep the Secretary fully and currently informed unless the President says otherwise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to your questions. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Smith. That was very interesting. There was a lot of discussion with Governor Ridge about the provision in the President's proposal which seemed to require the President to give approval before so-called raw data, raw intelligence, could be given to the Department of Homeland Security. There was some suggestion that might have been to get around an existing legal prohibition. Do you have any understanding of what that might be? Mr. Smith. No. The only concern about that, Mr. Chairman, is to protect particularly sensitive, in my judgment, particularly sensitive sources and operations. But my judgment is that, in my experience, in most instances when a Cabinet secretary asks the Director of Central Intelligence those kind of detailed questions, they are answered. So I am not quite sure what the legal basis would be for the administration's proposal. Chairman Lieberman. OK. Thanks very much. Now we go to General William Odom, U.S. Army, Retired, former Director of the National Security Agency, now at the Hudson Institute, and I am proud to say, part of the year teaches at Yale University. General Odom. TESTIMONY OF LT. GEN. WILLIAM E. ODOM,\1\ U.S. ARMY (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR (1985-1988), NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA) General Odom. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be here to testify before you. I have decided in the name of time to condense my remarks considerably, particularly in light of the comments that you and others have made on the Committee. I think an interaction directed towards specific questions may be more useful, now that I am better aware of where you are in this process. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of General Odom appears in the Appendix on page 156. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As general comments, I would just make the following points: The issue of whether or not we should have the agency, is an open-and-shut argument. If we do not make the changes, we cannot really improve anything. If we make a new Department, we at least create the possibility to make effective changes. Right now, we are organized in ways that prevent progress. I would also say there is another factor you should keep in mind. It is improper to focus only on terrorism. This Homeland Security agency is very much needed for the drug war, for immigration, for contraband trade and other kind of things. It has uses that have not gotten much attention, but which needs attention. So you should think broader than just dealing with terrorism. I would also say that terrorism cannot be defeated. It is not an enemy, it is a tactic. We often can be confused, if we do not keep that clear in mind and realize that we are after specific enemies. To explain why the present organizing arrangement cannot work, I will take an example from my own experience in the Intelligence Community--supporting the drug war. Assume, we receive intelligence that a big drug shipment is coming out of Country X somewhere across the ocean. The first problem I had in distributing the information was deciding to whom do I give it? Do I give it to DEA? Do I give it to Customs? Do I give it to the FBI? Do I give it to the Coast Guard? Do I give it to all of them? The second point, do they have the secure facilities and the trained and cleared people to receive it and not misuse it so that we either lose the sources because the information is disclosed in a way it should not be, or it is used in a way that prevents prosecution after they have taken action on it? Another problem you have then is the competition among agencies to use intelligence. The DEA will probably want to make the bust in the foreign country. The Coast Guard will want to make it at sea. Customs will want to make it at the port. The FBI will want to make it internally. I have seen that competition lead to no action with very good intelligence. So I do not care what you do to fix intelligence. Until you have somebody who can orchestrate the arrest and preventive operations under one head, rather than across Cabinet departments, I do not see how much progress can be made. The second example, if you have had experience with procuring modern IT systems within the U.S. Government, you will discover that Cabinet departments cannot even make their own sub-departments by the same IT systems and use the same security systems. But at least in principle, a Cabinet official ought to be able to make his department interoperable. If he is trying to create a common IT system in several small agencies in eight or nine different departments, the prospects of any success on this approach is zero. So I would just say to Senator Thompson, your questions are right about what we are going to get out of this. I do not have a perfect solution for this, but I do believe you cannot make any significant progress without some major regrouping agencies with responsibilities for border controls. Let me say in ending, that if you look at the history of these agencies, they go back to the 18th and 19th Centuries. We have not had a restructuring of them the whole of the 20th Century. And when they were established, you could not have expected the people who created them to have anticipated the needs of the 20th Century, much less the 21st Century. So it seems to me it is very compelling that we reorganize as soon as possible, and I do not think you will get it right the first time. They did not get the National Security Act for the Defense Department right the first time. The Congress has amended it several times. I think that will be the case with homeland security, that is the basis for my argument to go ahead, do the best you can, solve as many of these problems now as possible, and later with trial and error and experience you can improve it. My second point is intelligence. In dealing with that, I do believe that the issue of intelligence reform and the issue of intelligence for Homeland Security have to be separate issues. Intelligence is just not one thing. There are several functions in intelligence. There is the collection. There is the processing and analysis. And then there is the distribution to people who use it, act on it. The model that has developed to some degree in the Intelligence Community, a model which is very deeply rooted in the military organizations, separate collection from analysis. Every commander from a battalion on up has an analysis section on his staff to produce intelligence particularized for his uses. They all draw collected intelligence from any sources, some from higher echelons, some from organic collection capabilities. As we have developed more complicated and technical means for collection, we have learned that we can allow every one of those analytic elements to subscribe to the national collection systems, to receive distribution. That model is most advanced in NSA because it had the advantage of having a big communication system. We need a national system of the same kind for imagery and in human intelligence. There is no reason to not give raw intelligence to users at very low levels and let them put it together. I am weary of this talk about central organizations, groups that are going to be clearinghouses and the centers, the real analytic efforts for counterterrorism information. They will ensure that all useful intelligence gets blocked or delayed, that it does not go to people who need it fast enough, and that the particular analysis is not done in a way that is tailored for local use. You can have it both ways-- central analysis and local analysis of raw intelligence. It can have the central analysis, but all of these subunits within the Homeland Security Department will need to be able to subscribe to NSA, to the National Imaging Agency, to our HUMINT services and get particularized delivery instantly. Then, analytic centers can produce intelligence that is not so time sensitive. We have to be organized to do several of those things, so no one particular solution here fully addresses the question. Chairman Lieberman. I was just going to ask, you would include the new Department of Homeland Security as a recipient immediately of such information? General Odom. Absolutely. Let me explain something. There may be problems with classification here, but I think I can say this in the open without much concern. And you might want to get the National Security Agency to brief you on the distribution system. There are many agencies in this U.S. Government that are getting direct and instant service all the time. They have their own analytical systems within. Jeffrey Smith just mentioned the State Department with its I&R. State's regional bureaus get direct feed from INR, and beyond that, they receive raw intelligence from various agencies. Now, the Defense Department pays for most of this, and sometimes the military services get upset about whether these national level agencies using soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines as part of the workforce, give their intelligence away to these non-military uses. But in practice that has not been a problem. It has been very successful. We know how to do that, but we must first be organized and wired properly for it. There are structural issues within the Intelligence Community that prevent it from providing such support as well as it could today. Now, let me move to another point about intelligence that I see Homeland Security facing. An ordinary infantry battalion, it sends out patrols, gets information about the enemy. These are not "intelligence collectors of intelligence." They are just ordinary combat units, but the information has intelligence value. Police on the street, are not known as "intelligence agents," but they pick up all sorts of information. The Homeland Security Department, with all its organizations deployed around the borders, will have access to massive amounts of this kind of intelligence. They have got to learn how to report it, analyze it, get it back, and use it. That is a problem the military deals with all the time. It is a problem the State Department should deal with in using its ordinary non-intelligence reporting from embassies properly. Such information may turn out in some cases to be as much or more important than anything the CIA or other agencies can provide. I think that is terribly difficult to achieve. The promise is always great. There is no perfect solution, organizational solution, to making that work well, but there is a big source of intelligence to be gotten there. The final point. I support what I think you mean by MI5 solution, but the MI5 model is somewhat misleading. MI5 cannot assert itself inside other intelligence agencies. It is by itself, and it ends up in competition with these others agencies. I made a proposal in an intelligence reform study, written in 1997, to create a National Counterintelligence Service and to take the counterintelligence/counterterrorism responsibility, that is intelligence against terrorists, away from the FBI, to put this new organization in the Intelligence Community as a separate agency, and to give it operational authority to look into the counterintelligence operations in Army, Navy, Air Force, also in CIA. At present there is no one in the U.S. Government who can give the President a comprehensive intelligence picture, a counterintelligence picture across the board. What is the overall view of every hostile intelligence service working against us or counterterrorism? The FBI has its view. The services have their view. The CIA has its view. The reason we have been penetrated many times in the past is that foreign intelligence services know how to go through these gaps between these agencies. They are not going to share information across agencies unless you have somebody with responsibility and authority to provide the comprehensive picture, but not necessarily to do the services' counterintelligence job or the CIA's counterintelligence job, or the FBI's criminal intelligence job. But it must put together the whole picture, and it must have a certain amount of operational responsibility for it. It must be the national manager of this particular intelligence discipline. It should have congressional oversight, and I also think it should have a special court overseeing it. I would have a court because I am very concerned about my rights and the violation of them by such an organization. Perhaps the FISA Court could serve this purpose, but Mr. Smith would know more about the FISA Court. But let me end my remarks there. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Very interesting testimony. We will come back and ask some questions. Final witness is Chief William Berger, Chief of Police of North Miami Beach, Florida, President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Obviously, as evidenced in our Committee bill, and there is some language similar in the President's bill, the relationship between the Federal Government's new Department of Homeland Security, and State, county and local officials is a very critical factor, certainly in terms of first responders, in the role of first responders. But the question we raise today is--and General Odom's comments lead right into it--is how can we better take advantage of the hundreds of thousands of police officers, for instance out there across America, who every day are observing or having contact with people or situations that might have significance in a National Homeland Security effort, to make sure it is fed in directly to them and that they receive information back from the Homeland Security Agency as well. So, Chief Berger, we welcome you and look forward to your testimony now. TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM B. BERGER,\1\ CHIEF OF POLICE, NORTH MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA AND PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS OF POLICE Chief Berger. Thank you, sir. Chairman Lieberman, Senator Thompson, Members of the Committee and a special hello to Senator Max Cleland, who I had the honor of testifying for back in December. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Berger appears in the Appendix on page 166. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am honored to be here and represent the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a 20,000 member representing law enforcement executives worldwide, created in 1894. At the onset, I would like to express my thanks to the Committee for recognizing the needs for the views of not only IACP but law enforcement in general. The structure of the proposed Department of Homeland Security and its relationship with State and local law enforcement community is imperative. It is my belief that the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to work effectively with law enforcement agencies around the country is crucial to the ultimate success or failure in its mission in protecting the citizens of this country and its communities. There can be no doubt that cooperation and coordination and information sharing between Federal agencies and State and local counterparts is absolutely critical to the ability to prevent future terrorist attacks. For these reasons the IACP has gone on record in supporting the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. It is our belief that the proposed Department, by uniting numerous Federal agencies that are tasked with protecting the safety of our Nation into one organization will significantly improve the ability of these agencies to share information and coordinate activities within each other. However, a successful Homeland Security strategy cannot focus solely on the roles, capacities or needs of the Federal agencies. It must also ensure that State and local law enforcement agencies are an integral partner in this effort. In our society an enormous degree of responsibility and authority for public security is delegated to local government, particularly to police agencies. As the September 11 attacks demonstrated, the local police and other public safety personnel were often the first responders to this terrorist attack. However, the role of State and local law enforcement agencies is not limited to just responding to terrorist attacks. These agencies can play a vital role in the investigation and most importantly the prevention of future terrorist attacks. Across the United States there are more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies. These represent and employ 700,000 employees who daily patrol our State highways, the streets of our cities, its towns, and as a result have an intimate knowledge of the communities that they serve and have developed close relationships with the citizens that they protect. These relationships provide State and local law enforcement agencies with the ability to track down information related to possible terrorist information. Often State and local agencies can accomplish these tasks in a more effective and timely fashion than many times their Federal counterparts who may be unfamiliar with that particular community or its citizens. In addition police officers on every-day patrol making traffic stops, answering calls for service, performing community policing activities and interacting with citizens can, if properly trained, as mentioned, in what to look for and what questions to ask can be a tremendous source of information and intelligence for local, State and Federal Homeland Security personnel. However, in order to make use of this capacity, it is vital that the Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies develop an effective and comprehensive system for timely sharing, analysis and dissemination of important intelligence information. The IACP believes that failure to develop such a system in the absence of guidance to law enforcement agencies on how intelligence data can be gathered, analyzed, shared, and utilized is a threat to public safety which must be addressed. Therefore, as the legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security is considered and finalize, the IACP urges Congress to take steps necessary to promote intelligence-led policing and the information exchanged between law enforcement agencies. For example, the IACP has identified several barriers that currently hinder the effective exchange of information between Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies. It is our belief that these critical barriers must be addressed if we are to truly create an agency of intelligence gathering and intelligence sharing. They are: 1. The absence of a nationally coordinated process for intelligence generation and sharing. While substantial information sharing has somewhat occurred in some of the localities, there is no coordinated national process, and therefore much potential useful intelligence is never developed or is not shared. In addition, there is little focus on the local officer that recognizes their role as an intelligence- generating source in sharing, or which trains local officers to be part of this intelligence-sharing system. As a result, much of the Nation's capacity for improved intelligence generation and sharing system goes unused. 2. The structure of law enforcement and Intelligence Communities. Unfortunately, the structure and organization of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, either real or perceived, can lead to organizational incentives against intelligence sharing and even anti-sharing cultures. At best the lack of communications between the number of intelligence agencies means that individuals in one agency may not even imagine that others would find their intelligence data useful. At worst, this diffused intelligence gathering structure creates a "us versus them" mentality that stands in the way of productive collection. 3. Federal, State and local and tribal laws and policies that prevent intelligence gathering is a third area. By specifying who may have access to certain kinds of information, these policies and laws restrict the access to some of the very institutions and individuals who might be best able to use this intelligence for the promotion of public safety. The current laws and policies that guide the classification of intelligence information and an individual's clearance to view data are one example. Others include financial privacy acts, electronic communications policies and of course fraud laws. 4. The inaccessibility and/or incompatibility of technologies to support intelligence sharing. While a variety of systems support intelligence sharing or at least the information sharing, not all law enforcement agencies have access to these systems. Most operate on a membership basis, which means some agencies may find them too expensive to join while others may not see the value to joining the organization. In addition, the systems that do exist such as Regional Information Sharing Systems, the RISS System, the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, NLETS, and the Anti Drug Network, and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, are not well-integrated and relatively archaic in terms of their capacities to provide information. In addition, addressing these barriers to effective information sharing, it is critically important that the Department of Homeland Security be designed in a manner that will ensure that State and local law enforcement agencies are fully incorporated as an integral partner in all aspects of the Department's operation. This means that the Department must go beyond simple notification and consultation with State and local law enforcement agencies, and instead, it should adopt an organizational culture that views State and local law enforcement officers and other public safety officials as critical and an integral part of this war against terrorism. The Department must ensure that State and local law enforcement agencies have representatives within the Department with the authority to guarantee that capabilities of local law enforcement agencies are accurately represented and their needs are addressed. In conclusion, as State and local law enforcement agencies modify their traditional crime fighting and crime prevention mission to encompass antiterrorism, they will need assistance from Federal Government to cover the increased burden placed on their agencies by this new training and the equipment needs as well as the cost of assuming these additional Homeland Security duties. In conclusion, I would just like to state my belief that over the past few months we have had some limited successes in overcoming many of the artificial walls that have sometimes divided us, but there is still a tremendous amount of work that has to be done. It is my belief that the proposed Department of Homeland Security, if designed properly and led in the fashion that emphasizes the critical role of State and local enforcement agencies will dramatically improve the communication and inter-agency and intergovernmental cooperation that is so crucial to the success of our mission of protecting our communities and the citizens that we serve I thank you and I await your questions. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Chief Berger, for a very constructive forthright statement. I support the tone entirely of what you said. Each of the Members will have a 7-minute round of questions. Thank you. It has been excellent testimony. Let me see if I can focus in on what our mission is on this Committee. I do not think it is our mission to, at this point, reorganize the entire intelligence apparatus of the government. In fact, the Intelligence Committees are working on their investigations and they may have some broader recommendations, but clearly it is our responsibility to, as we create this new Department of Homeland Security (and perhaps some office within the White House) to do the best we can to improve the collection, analysis, coordination, and dissemination of information. So let me see if I can draw from the testimony, am I correct in saying that each of you feels that there should be a division, a section or office within the new Department of Homeland Security that has the right to receive data throughout the intelligence and law enforcement communities and has the capacity to analyze and disseminate it. Is that a baseline that we all---- General Odom. Absolutely. Anything less is probably inadequate. Chairman Lieberman. OK. Then the next question is, and just to clarify for me--yes, sir. Go ahead, General. General Odom. Not just one point, many points within this agency. Chairman Lieberman. Why many? General Odom. Because you will find time sensitive requirements to have the ability to receive it out in various parts of the country. It will not just be at the Department headquarters. Chairman Lieberman. But do you not want it coming into one place eventually so that there is not a danger again, to use-- -- General Odom. You want it going into all those places simultaneously. Chairman Lieberman. Then the second question, which is, as I hear you, I do not believe any of you have recommended--you correct me--that the new Department of Homeland Security itself should have the capacity to collect information. I add a caveat to that. Some of the agencies that we are talking about putting into Homeland Security such as Customs, Border Patrol, and Critical Infrastructure Protection Agencies, they themselves will be sources of intelligence. And that is not the CIA, FBI, etc., so they will collect that. But beyond that, would any of you recommend that the agency itself have the capacity do collection of intelligence as we know it? General Hughes. General Hughes. My view is that your question has been answered in a way by your postulation. Some of the agencies that will be included in the Department of Homeland Security, at least in the initial concept, already collect intelligence, and they should continue those missions and activities that they have been given in the past. An example would be port security intelligence collection by the U.S. Coast Guard, which would continue and become part of the Homeland Security effort. Another example might be police intelligence collected at the very local level as the Chief has mentioned here, and then would be fed into the larger system. That kind of information collection should continue. I do believe, as I have cited and stated in my testimony, technical collection systems that are already in the hands of responsible authorities should be put to work for this agency. Duplication and redundancy is not appropriate. Chairman Lieberman. Give me an example what you are thinking about. General Hughes. Aerial surveillance done by the Department of Defense, using aircraft in the atmospheric environment, or national technical means being used to surveil a particular place on the earth. Here in the United States, along our contiguous borders, associated islands, and other lands, and the sea. Whatever the requirement is, we should not have a Homeland Security group that goes off to build a new satellite or buy a new airplane. They should use the preexisting capability. Chairman Lieberman. Absolutely. Dr. Carter. Mr. Carter. I agree with everything General Hughes just said about duplication, but I think it would be a mistake to limit the agency to the forms of intelligence information collected already by its constituent parts. One of the purposes of bringing those constituent parts together is to focus them on Homeland Security as opposed to the other missions that they now accomplish. Inevitably that will require refocusing their organic intelligence efforts. Second, as I tried to indicate, there is information we just do not collect now at all that is germane. Some of it can be pretty mundane, but for example, the culture types for dangerous pathogens for either animals or plants. So to support the intelligence with a small "i" that I was pointing to, we are going to have to develop new kinds of information to support this new mission. It is inevitable this Department will do it. It should not overlap the old stuff, but it will be new stuff. And so to try to limit it at the beginning and say it does not collect or assemble information, I think, is a terrible mistake. Chairman Lieberman. I guess my question is, maybe to clarify it and perhaps to state it in a caricature, none of you is recommending that the new Department ought to be able to hire agents similar to the CIA or the FBI to go out and infiltrate groups or collect information. Am I correct that no one is recommending that? Mr. Smith, you want to say something, then General Odom, and then I think my time will be up. Mr. Smith. Very briefly. I want to associate with what everybody has said, but add to it one of the keys is to try to find a way to ask people on the street, the Customs official, the local police officer, what is it that the Nation cares about? What is it that we want you to keep your lookout for? The British have a way of passing down the chain of command to the local bobby-on-the-beat what it is that they ought to be looking for in their neighborhoods, and that ultimately feeds back into MI5 and MI6. We need to find some system here where, as Mr. Carter says, the little "i" is identified so that people will know what it is that is in their domain that is important at the national level that they ought to report up the chain of command. Chairman Lieberman. General Odom. General Odom. I think your point is absolutely right, and I want to underscore that your assumption is right. Chairman Lieberman. Which is about not hiring---- General Odom. Acquiring new big collection agencies or systems. The issues that are being raised here, that Mr. Carter and Jeff Smith have raised, about what they need to collect, can be handled in the present system very effectively. Let me try to explain. The Intelligence Community is designed at the DCI level to respond to these kinds of changes. Take television. Intelligence is a little like the news business. It has customers; it collects information; it puts on programs and people watch them. If they do not watch, programs are dropped. You will see the changes, depending on markets, patterns, etc. The Intelligence Community has a mechanism, which it sometimes uses poorly in this regard, but which it can use effectively, and it uses effectively in some cases. There is a process of asking for requirements. All the departments of the government are asked what intelligence requirements they have. This Department would have its claim on the Intelligence Community like the State Department, Defense Department, the Energy Department, any other. Then the DCI has to prioritize requirements according to the users' demands, and issue them to the various collection agencies. I will give you an example of how this works. Back when we discovered a Soviet brigade in Cuba in the Carter Administration, we woke up to the fact that we did not have adequate collection in the Caribbean area. We had essentially neglected that area for the past 20 years. So all kinds of collection capabilities that had once been there, no longer operates. We had to go through a process of changing our capability to supply new intelligence markets. That is going to be the case with Homeland Security. We do not need a reorganization to do that. We need the DCI and the people who use intelligence asking for the right intelligence and issuing the right instructions to get the present system to respond effectively. Chairman Lieberman. I ask the indulgence of my colleagues. I want to ask a quick question and receive a quick answer, which is: Would you also give the Secretary of Homeland Security the power not just to receive raw data and then analyze material, but to give a task to the active intelligence agency, to say, in other words, "We need to know about Topic B." He has to be able to---- General Odom. He has to have that. He cannot just be passive. If he becomes a customer in the Intelligence Community, that goes with becoming a customer. He should be able to put his requirements in on a non-time sensitive annual basis. The DCI then justifies his budget based on how the Intelligence Community can collect for these changing requirements. Then there is another problem here, and that is time sensitive collection requirements. Homeland Security uses need to be looped in so that when they get timely intelligence in a fast-moving situation, so they can override to regular cycle to get rapid intelligence response. These will have problems there. Which department is at the head of the queue? There may be two or three agencies demanding to be at the head of the queue. The President will have to prioritize, and the DCI is the agent to do it. It happens in the Defense Department all the time. The European Command wants priority over the Central Command. Their officers get all upset, and you have to explain to them that it is not the Intelligence Community's choice. Their quarrel is with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense. They say they want Central Command to have priority. There is a system for regulating priorities. It is not always done effectively. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. You are a great panel, appreciate it. Senator Thompson. Senator Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. General Odom, to follow up on that a little bit, it looks like we are all talking in terms of Homeland Security being a new agency and being a customer and what that involves, but I get the impression that you are always saying basically what we need to do is use the existing system, do a better job of collecting from all the different sources, and do a better job of disseminating it. I do think that what is envisioned with this new Department is that it is, as far as intelligence and acting on intelligence in order to protect the country, it is viewed as somewhat of a super agency, that it is not just another agency out there, another customer to get in line, whether it is-- wherever it is in that line. But the idea is to create something where it all comes together. And we get into the issue of the dot connecting that we all talk about, and we all know that that is rather simplistic because the dots are in a sea of dots before you can even try to connect them, and we realize we need better analysis. But from thinking in terms of what we need to do in this particular piece of legislation and what we need to leave for other endeavors, I am wondering whether--it seems like the issue comes down to who brings all this together? Some might think that this new Department is supposed to be that entity, it is supposed to have its own analytical capabilities. I do not know where they are going to get the analysts, but they are supposed to have their own analytical capabilities and pull all this information from all these different sources that we are talking about. We have heard some discussion here today by you and others of creating perhaps a new kind of entity, an MI5 type entity that would not be part of Homeland Security, but perhaps as a connector of the dots, perhaps as a repository. Perhaps that would be where all of the information would come together, and then that analysis would be handed over to the new Department. Can we dig in here a little bit deeper in terms of our analysis of how this Department ought to be structured? What should we try to do and not do in this particular piece of legislation? What should the Intelligence Component be with regard to Homeland Security and what should it not be? How does it fit in the overall framework, in the overall scheme of enhancing our intelligence capabilities in order to better protect ourselves? General Odom. I think you have raised two questions here and mixed them a bit, and I would like to separate them. Your initial remarks seem to me to be asking the question, if Homeland Security is not being asked to do too much. I think there is a danger in this regard. If you want a single agency in charge of everything about security in the United States, you will have to rewrite the Constitution. We are a Federal system. And the demand for a central authority to do everything all the time will run into limits caused by federalism. And I am happy they are there. Personally, I would prefer the Federal system the way it is. There is what I would call a minimum alternative reorganization, and that is not so much a Homeland Security Department as a "border control department." Responsibilities on the border are the most fragmented, and that is where the first problems start. If you look back in 1979 and 1980, there was a proposal sent to the Hill by the President's Reorganization Project to create a border management agency. This is not a new issue. There were many arguments made for consolidation at the time. It would be a more manageable reorganization if you could shrink it a bit in that regard. The more agencies you throw in, the harder it is going to be to integrate them, the longer it is going to take. But I can see some good arguments for most every function included in the present bill. I am impressed with the comprehension where the administration's analysis. Senator Thompson. Let me get some other views on it. Mr. Smith, is this a question of who connects the dots or how do you see this Department coming together? Mr. Smith. In my judgment, Senator, the bill that creates the Department of Homeland Security ought to assign an intelligence function to that Department along the lines that we have been discussing here. I would make it responsible for the production and analysis of intelligence that relates to Homeland Security, and they should be given the primacy for that function within the government. I think it is a separate question as to whether or not there ought to be an MI5, and as I said, I am inclined to do that, but nevertheless, the Department has to have that function. That would not supplant the Counterterrorist Center. The Counterterrorist Center, at least in my mind, would still continue to function in the Intelligence Community and provide analysis, threat analysis to the Department of Homeland Security, which would then take that analysis to do its own analysis on top of that would be focused very much on what does the Mayor of Miami need to worry about based on what we know about the situation in Miami. Senator Thompson. So the Department would be fully and currently informed, to use your words, and there are separate issues out there as to how we might best make sure that they are fully and currently reformed. So we need to make changes within the CIA or the FBI or perhaps consolidate the counterterrorism centers. Perhaps create an MI5 type entity. Those would all be things that would help this new Department become more fully and currently informed. Is that a good way of looking at it analytically? Mr. Smith. Yes. Senator Thompson. Let me ask, in the brief time I have here, one more question. Dr. Carter, you mentioned all of these things that you felt, the White House should do. You mentioned the plan that needs to come forth, and the first time I have ever seen anybody get into some of the analysis that you have done there, the things that are going to be needed is very impressive. But I was sitting here wondering, why cannot the new Secretary do practically all of these things, as opposed to that being done out of the White House? Mr. Carter. The new Secretary can do some of the things that Governor Ridge has been trying to do, which presumably is one of the reasons why Governor Ridge wanted to create the new Department. The new Department gathers up some of the pieces of the Federal structure, but there will still be pieces outside of it. We have been talking about some of them--the FBI, and the CIA. There is the Department of Defense, which we have not discussed yet today which is in the area of biological, nuclear, force protection, and so forth, a big player. So there will be big players that will not be underneath this new Cabinet Secretary, and the question remains, how do the departments of the Federal Government--they have been reshuffled, there has been some consolidation--the question remains, who is going to make them all work together? That is a quintessential White House function. We cannot wriggle off that hook. Senator Thompson. Well, I understand that, and that was one of the discussions we had here in the Committee as to whether or not it was a good idea even to have a Department in light of the fact that certain very important players could not be brought inside it, so you are going to need a coordinating function anyway. But you lay out your ideas for an investment plan and infrastructure evaluation of vulnerabilities, countermeasures, intelligence analysis, science and technology, and how new intelligence means and methods should come about. It sounds to me that those responsibilities should be in the domain of the Secretary, and the coordinating function could be left to the White House. Mr. Carter. Exactly. The border, the emergency response, the science and technology part, which we have not discussed yet today, but about which the National Academy of Sciences issued a report yesterday I was privileged to be part of the NAS Committee and I commend to your attention. And the intelligence piece, big "I", small "i" we have been discussing today. Those are appropriate parts of the Department. If we set up the Department right and we aggressively put it together, they will do those jobs well, but somebody has still got to sit atop all that and decide where the money goes, so that over 5 years, 10 years, the Nation makes the investments in its own protection that we all know we have got to make. Senator Thompson. Thank you very much. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Thompson. Senator Cleland. Senator Cleland. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Two Casey Stengel quotes come to mind. First, in his last year of coaching he coached the New York Mets, a brand new team, and the ball was being dropped in center field and errors were being made, and at one point he got frustrated and stepped out of the dugout and said, "Does anybody here know how to play this game?" I mean sitting here hearing after hearing, both on the Armed Services Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee here, I sense a sense of frustration in my own view of this thing. I begin to wonder, does anybody here know how to play this game? The truth of the matter is I know that there are great people in this business, world class people, which leads to the second Casey Stengel quote, that: "It is easy to get the players, it is tough to get them to play together." And I think we have got great players. I think we are down to how to get them to play together. And the Homeland Security challenge, the challenge is how to get them to play together. When Sam Nunn headed a mock effort put on by Johns Hopkins with a mock attack of smallpox, he mentioned that he got very frustrated after a few days in this mock attack with, "bureaucracy," people playing together. And then the other thing he said was, "You never know what you do not know." That goes to the intelligence piece it seems to me. I would like to focus, General Odom, on a quote that you had which I thought was quite interesting in terms of getting people to play together. How at the national level of intelligence gathering do we get people to play together? You said: "There is no one in government who can give the President an overall view of counterintelligence"--I think that was your word--"no comprehensive picture to put it all together, no king of this particular discipline." Is that what we are searching for here? Are we looking for a king or a czar or a quarterback of national intelligence? Are we looking for a director of national intelligence to relate to all the intelligence, the vast elements of the intelligence team, and to get the team to play together so that data is collected and analyzed properly, and it then comes up to a central point and then properly disseminated to the lowest level that needs to know? What are we looking for here? We are obviously searching for something. In your opinion, what is it? General Odom. The quote you just read does not apply to all intelligence. It applies only to counterintelligence. Counterintelligence is information about other people's intelligence activities. That is not all intelligence. It is increasingly including terrorist penetrations and activities too. What I am saying is that part of the Intelligence Community dealing with the counterintelligence, which gives you the intelligence which you use to find spies and keep yourself secure, as opposed to finding enemies that you can attack, that is fragmented, and we do need somebody both to pull it together. My design for it is getting CIA, the services and that organization to play together under a director of counterintelligence. And I think with certain authorities he can be an effective coach. As far as getting the other parts of the Intelligence Community for many other kinds of intelligence support together, there are problems, but if you look at how fragmented it could be compared to the CIA, the rest of the Intelligence Community is in reasonably good shape. So that would be my answer on that. And if you are talking about intelligence support for this Homeland Security, the intelligence it needs, then you want to be able to have a comprehensive counterintelligence picture. You also want other kinds of intelligence coming there. They need to be able to subscribe to every intelligence news service available. Senator Cleland. There is actual legislation that creates a Homeland Security Agency. It is out of this Committee. We voted for it in a bipartisan way. It is on the floor of the Senate, and the connectivity or the interface between that Homeland Security Agency and the Intelligence Community, however organized, is that this Committee chose to put the head of the Homeland Security Agency on the National Security Council. Is that a good idea, bad idea, no fix, good fix, or bad fix? General Odom. That is a very good idea, and not just the intelligence purposes. Sure, it gives him some access to intelligence. He can get that without NSC membership, but it is important for him to be there for the coordination among all National Security agencies. If you put too many chiefs of coordination around the White House, pretty soon the President cannot manage them all. I think this Homeland Security ought to be a coordination problem for the National Security Council. It is part of security. The Defense Department is part of it. The State Department is part of it. So the coordinating function, to me, lies within the NSC. You have seen the struggle to try to get an NSC equivalent to handle economic policy. You have seen the problem with counter drugs. So I think there is a danger of putting too many big coordinators up there at the White House and not using the one institution that has a lot of experience in this kind of coordination. Senator Cleland. And that was another question, that in terms of the recommendation, shall we say, to leave the White House Office of Homeland Security in existence, are we moving in a direction to create the domestic counterpart to the National Security Affairs Advisor? I mean there is a National Security Affairs Advisor. Are we going to create another domestic Security Affairs Advisor that is interfacing with the Cabinet Secretary? You know I begin to wonder. It seems to me that it would be cleaner, since part of the challenge is coordination, cooperation and communication, it would be cleaner to have a Secretary of a Homeland Security Agency that gave us a chance to start doing some things right, getting the players to play together and putting that individual on the National Security Council with access to what everybody else knows. And I think that is basically the posture of this legislation that came out of this Committee. Yes, sir, Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith. Senator, I want to agree with that. In my judgment, there should not be another competing coordinating czar in the White House that is subject to the advice and consent of the Senate for that job. I would leave the President free to structure his arrangements the way he chooses. I think that putting the new Secretary on the National Security Council is a good idea. That machinery is excellent. It works well. I would try to use that machinery and I would not set up a competing Senate advise and consent person in the White House. I know that is Senator Graham's initiative, and I am reluctant to disagree with him, but I think your approach is better. Senator Cleland. Yes, sir, Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. The National Security Council is a good model for doing something that is different from what we are looking for from Ridge, and therefore the National Security Council is not the answer. The National Security Council is a policy coordination body. It gets the agencies involved with national security together and they agree on the policy, essentially on a piece of paper. What we need in this phase of Homeland Security is an architect, somebody who puts an investment plan together. The NSC does not do programs, they do not do budgets. I can tell you from the Department of Defense's point of view that our program, $379 billion worth of it is not touched by the National Security Council. It has been that way since the Eisenhower Administration. The NSC is a policy coordination body. If you go up there, they have lots of gifted people, and I have the highest respect for them, but they are not program people, they are policy people. So to have given, which the President wisely did not do when September 11 occurred, say to the National Security Council, "You do it." He found someone else, and for some period of years we need that someone else. Now, I do not like to call him a czar because you know what they say about czars--the old joke about how the barons ignore them and eventually the peasants kill them. And I do not like to call him a coordinator because I said that is not what he is supposed to do, coordinate what we have. He is supposed to build what we do not have. But that is different from what the NSC does and one is mistaking an architect for a coordinator if one uses the NSC model. Senator Cleland. So who is in charge here? I mean what is going on? General Odom. I must say I think Dr. Carter is misleading us here a little. The NSC does have an effect on budgets in the Defense Department, at least they did when I was in that organization, and we did it through OMB. OMB is pulled into the NSC activities and OMB right now ends up being the organization that coordinates the budgets. And, Dr. Carter, I do not think you could say that OMB does not have any influence on the Defense Department's policy. Mr. Carter. Yes, but OMB is not the NSC. It is OMB, not the NSC. General Odom. If the President wants the OMB to take the guidance that is devised in NSC and implement it in budgets, he can do that. So the kind of coordination you are talking about that transcends this Department, there is machinery to do that in the White House if the President wants to do it. If you can put a czar there and if he does not want him to do it, it will not make any difference. Senator Cleland. Mr. Chairman, my time is up. Fascinating panel, and I wish we could just go all afternoon and into the morning. Chairman Lieberman. I agree. Senator Cleland. This is great testimony. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Cleland, and I thank the members of the panel. Our search for truth is aided by the gentlemanly cross fire that we have just heard occur. Mr. Smith. I have decided that it is better to be a baron than a czar. [Laughter.] Chairman Lieberman. Senator Voinovich. Senator Voinovich. I am still trying to get this straightened out. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is supposed to be coordinating the intelligence situation abroad and at home. Is that the individual that is supposed to keep track of all of the agencies that are collecting information, both domestically and abroad? General Odom. He is responsible for two things. He is responsible for program development. In other words, every activity that is known as part of a national foreign intelligence program has to have its program bill approved through the DCI. He can say, "You get less money or more money in your request to Congress." And then of course OMB has to sign off on it. And the other thing he has the power to do is to task them to collect and disseminate information. So those are his two major powers. And he also has the capability under him to generate nationally coordinated intelligence that is not a mere departmental view. Senator Voinovich. So that individual should know of all the agencies in the government that collect information and ascertain whether or not there is duplication and whether or not there are any holes in terms of gathering this information; is that correct? General Odom. The Director of Central Intelligence has that responsibility. The Director of CIA does not. The Director of CIA is a different man, I mean a different hat. Traditionally, we have only had one individual wear both of those hats. Senator Voinovich. Well, the issue is should that responsibility, in your opinion, be transferred to this new Department? General Odom. No, it would remain with the Director of Central intelligence. The Defense Department is the major user of intelligence. He does more for the Defense Department than anybody else, but he is not in the Defense Department. Senator Voinovich. Well, then what role would this new Department have in terms of--you all talk about collection management---- General Odom. It is going to be a user. Senator Voinovich. What is collection management? General Odom. Well, collection management means, in jargon inside the Intelligence Community, it means registering requests for collection, and somebody decides what collection agency is assigned to get the answer. So the Homeland Security Department, certainly would be hopeless if it does not have the right to make these demands for intelligence, which then the Director of Central Intelligence tasks the various collection capabilities to get the answers and deliver them back to this Homeland Security Department. General Hughes. If I could just comment here, I am very frustrated over this conversation since only part of it is right. The Director of Central Intelligence does have the kind of oversight authority that General Odom has just commented on. But he has difficulty exercising not only the program management but the operational oversight of intelligence gathering activities because there are competitors to him, the director of other intelligence agencies and indeed the heads of departments. For example, we are talking here about making a departmental level, Cabinet level officer, which would be on a par with the Director of Central Intelligence, if not slightly above that person. It depends on the administration and the way that the DCI is viewed. But this is not a line and block chart kind of issue. This is about relationships, presidential authorities, demands that are made and made in light of legal and procedural constructs. To illustrate this problem, collection management is a common issue across the Intelligence Community, and here it is in a nutshell. I tell appropriate authorities in the government, according to disciplines and responsibilities and functions, what I need in the way of information, and in collection management system that request goes, in a pervasive way, throughout the government and ostensibly information that is asked for is returned. Senator Voinovich. First of all, somebody has to decide what information we need right straight across the board. Somebody has to figure that one out. General Hughes. That is right. Senator Voinovich. Then the next issue is who gets it? General Hughes. That sort of is figured out. Who is it? There is not one person, nor can there be. Each agency, each function, each group has to decide what it needs for its own responsibilities and requirements, and these will vary from organization to organization, depending upon what it is they want to do. One simple example would be that the military and the civilian side of our government have different requirements. Senator Voinovich. But somebody said earlier, Mr. Carter, I think, you are talking about the issue of foreign intelligence, and domestic intelligence and how foreign intelligence has to have a larger impact today on domestic intelligence because we are dealing with terrorism. From a managerial point of view, somebody has to decide what information we need. Then the intelligence agencies need to collect the information. Once that information is gathered, we need to know what it is and whether or not there is duplication, for example, or a hole in our knowledge. The issue is: Where is that managed, in this new Department or in the White House? Mr. Carter. I think that is a crucial point and the answer i