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THE 9/11 COMMISSION HUMAN CAPITAL

RECOMMENDATIONS: A CRITICAL

ELEMENT OF REFORM

HEARING

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT 

OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 14, 2004

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

AMY B. NEWHOUSE, Chief Clerk

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL 

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

ANDREW RICHARDSON, Staff Director 

MARIANNE CLIFFORD UPTON, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

KEVIN R. DORAN, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 1 

Senator Coleman .............................................................................................. 4

Senator Pryor .................................................................................................... 15

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 19

Prepared statements: 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 4

Senator Durbin ................................................................................................. 5

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2004

Jamie S. Gorelick, Esq., Commissioner, National Commission on Terrorist 

Attacks Upon the United States ......................................................................... 7

Fred Fielding, Commissioner, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 

Upon the United States ....................................................................................... 10

Mark Steven Bullock, Assistant Director, Administrative Services Division, 

Federal Bureau of Investigation ......................................................................... 21

John Turnicky, Special Assistant to the DCI for Security, Central Intelligence 

Agency ................................................................................................................... 23

J. Christopher Mihm, Managing Director of Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office .................................................................................. 25

Paul C. Light, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution ......................... 35

C. Morgan Kinghorn, President, National Academy of Public Administration .. 37

Doug Wagoner, Chairman, ITAA Intelligence/Security Clearances Task 

Group .................................................................................................................... 39

Max Stier, CEO, Partnership for Public Service ................................................... 41

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Bullock, Mark Steven: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 21

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58

Fielding, Fred: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10

Joint prepared statement ................................................................................. 51

Gorelick, Jamie S., Esq.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7

Joint prepared statement ................................................................................. 51

Kinghorn, C. Morgan: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 35

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 98

Light, Paul C., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 35

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 88

Mihm, J. Christopher: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 25

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68

Stier, Max: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 41

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 130

Turnicky, John: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 23

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 63

Page

IV

Wagoner, Doug: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 39

Prepared statement with an attachment ....................................................... 106

APPENDIX 

Responses to questions for the Record from: 

Mr. Gorelick ...................................................................................................... 139

Mr. Fielding ...................................................................................................... 141

Mr. Bullock ........................................................................................................ 143

Mr. Mihm .......................................................................................................... 159

Mr. Kinghorn .................................................................................................... 164

Mr. Wagoner ..................................................................................................... 166

(1)

THE 9/11 COMMISSION HUMAN CAPITAL 

RECOMMENDATIONS: A CRITICAL 

ELEMENT OF REFORM 

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2004

U.S. SENATE,

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE, 

OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. George V. Voinovich, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Voinovich, Collins, Coleman, Pryor, and Carper. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Good morning. I am confident that this Subcommittee will rise to the challenge before it to report legislation 

which will enhance the security of the United States of America. 

I know some say we have spent a very short time contemplating 

reforms. I would like to say that our Chairman has done a beautiful job of vetting this issue and hearing from everyone. There are 

more hearings scheduled which will allow us to move forward in 

implementing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. 

I want to congratulate Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman 

for the work that they have done. 

I am honored that Senator Collins has asked me to Chair the 

hearing today. I am hopeful that the proposals we discuss today 

eventually will be included in the Committee’s legislation. 

On March 29, 2001, this Subcommittee held a hearing entitled 

‘‘The National Security Implications of a Human Capital Crisis.’’ 

The panel of distinguished witnesses that day included former Defense Secretary James Slessinger, a member of the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century. 

At the end of Secretary Schlesinger’s testimony, he said this, ‘‘As 

it enters the 21st Century, the United States finds itself on the 

brink of an unprecedented crisis of competence in government. The 

maintenance of American power and the world depends on the 

quality of the U.S. Government’s personnel, civil and military, at 

all levels. We must take immediate action in the personnel area to 

ensure that the United States can meet future challenges. Fixing 

the personnel problem is a precondition for fixing virtually everything else that needs repair in the institutional edifice of U.S. national security policy.’’

2

When September 11 occurred, the first thing that came to my 

mind is we didn’t have the right people with the right knowledge 

and skills at the right place at the right time. If you survey government, you will find where you have problems, this usually is the 

reason why we have those problems. 

Secretary Schlesinger’s insightful comments were reinforced by 

the 9/11 Commission. On page 399 of the report, the Commission 

recommended significant changes in the organization of the government. The Commission went on to say: ‘‘We know the quality of the 

people is more important than the quality of the wiring diagrams. 

Some of the saddest aspects of the 9/11 story are the outstanding 

efforts of so many individual officials straining, often without success, against the boundaries of the possible. Good people can overcome bad structures. They should not have to.’’ They should not 

have to. 

The 9/11 Commission specifically noted several areas for Federal 

personnel reform, including improving the Presidential appointments process for national security positions and establishing a 

single agency to conduct security clearance background investigations. As we know, there are multiple agencies that investigate 

clearances, and it takes too long. I will never forget hearing from 

people that had transferred agencies and said that the new agency 

would not accept the security clearance from any other agency. 

This meant that they had to start all over again. 

A third recommendation from the Commission is to provide some 

additional personnel flexibilities to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to reflect its increased counterterrorism intelligence responsibilities. This is another thing that we have been working on 

for a long time trying to understand if the FBI has the personnel 

flexibilities to get the job done. For a dozen years, they have been 

asking for more personnel flexibilities and have never been responded to. 

Normally, the Subcommittee would hold individual hearings on 

each of these topics; however, the Senate’s tight legislative schedule precludes this. So we are addressing all three recommendations 

today. 

First, the 9/11 Commission recommends streamlining the Presidential appointments process. This is a problem that I have been 

examining for years. When Senator Fred Thompson left the Senate, 

I told him I would continue to push for appointments reform. I 

think most of us know that once a President is elected, everybody 

throws up their hands and says, this appointment process is awful. 

Once individuals are confirmed, somehow it kind of takes a lower 

priority and just kind of fizzles out, and then you have a new President and they come in and they complain about the appointment 

process. 

It now takes an average of 8 months to confirm an appointee, up 

from 2 months during the Kennedy Administration. We can do better than this. In addition, there are now approximately five times 

the number of political appointees as there were in 1960. Secretary 

of Defense Rumsfeld has stated that he did not have his entire 

team in place on 9/11, almost 8 months after taking office. This 

process must be improved. 

3

Second, the 9/11 Commission also recommended establishing a 

single agency to provide and maintain security clearances. The 

process for investigating, adjudicating, and maintaining records of 

security clearances is disjointed and decentralized. There is no 

doubt that this system leads to delays in hiring and transferring 

employees in sensitive national security positions, which in turn is 

damaging to our national security. We must find a better way of 

managing security clearances. 

Finally, the Commission recommended that the FBI develop a 

specialized and integrated security work force consisting of agents, 

analysts, linguists, and surveillance specialists who are recruited, 

trained, rewarded, and retained to ensure the development of an 

institutional culture imbued with a deep expertise, and I quote, 

‘‘imbued with a deep expertise, in intelligence and security.’’

There is another area that I have been examining in part because of my concerns with the FBI personnel system. I sponsored 

legislation last fall that required the Office of Personnel Management to issue a report on ways to eliminate the classification pay 

and benefit disparity within the Federal law enforcement community. As you may or may not know, the Department of Homeland 

Security is now trying to harmonize all of the law enforcement employees in their agencies. My thought is if you are going to do that 

in the Department of Homeland Security, we cannot ignore all of 

the other law enforcement entities outside of the Department of 

Homeland Security. 

The FBI is on the front lines of the war on terror. Counterterrorism should be the most important mission of the FBI, and it 

must have the personnel, resources, and flexibility to get the job 

done. Congress must do all it can to make this happen. 

Commissioners Gorelick and Fielding will discuss their findings 

in greater detail, and the other witnesses will comment on their 

recommendations. There is probably widespread agreement that 

improvements in these and many other areas related to personnel 

can be made, but this discussion in no way diminishes the excellent 

work that is being done today by thousands of employees in the Intelligence Community. In many instances, they are putting their 

lives on the line for our Nation, and we owe them our heart-felt 

gratitude. 

Working with Senator Collins and other Members of this Subcommittee, I have been drafting proposals to address these challenges in addition to other legislation designed to enhance the work 

force of the Intelligence Community. It is essential that our Intelligence Community agencies have all the tools necessary to recruit, 

hire, retain, and promote individuals with the right competencies. 

I look forward to today’s important discussion, and since we have 

so many witnesses today, I have decided to follow the recommendation of the Chairman, to restrict the opening statements of Senators, but since I only have one other Senator today, I would be 

glad to qualify my colleague. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

4

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN 

I will be very brief. We have heard a lot. This is our eighth hearing, and there is more to hear and we have a number of witnesses. 

So I just have two observations. 

One, despite all the criticism about how difficult it is to get 

things through our Congress, I think we ought to make some 

progress here, and it is not that we are acting in haste. These have 

been extraordinary hearings over the summer. We have learned a 

lot. So I am very confident that we will move forward. We have 

talked a lot about structure, but structure in itself is meaningless 

without people, and I think we have to understand the whole 

human capital aspect of it. 

So I am looking forward to today’s hearing. I am looking forward 

to getting something done, and I am looking forward to America 

being a safer place. So thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Coleman. One of the 

great things about Senator Coleman is that he was a mayor for 

many years, and it seems that people who have had some administrative experience have a little deeper appreciation on how important personnel is to one’s success. 

I would also like to state that Senator Akaka’s statement will be 

entered into the record, and any of the other Senators that would 

like their statements entered into the record, will be accepted. 

[The prepared statements follow:]

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing to discuss the human capital 

issues related to reforming the Intelligence Community. You and I have worked together over the past 6 years to ensure that the Federal Government has the right 

people with the right skills in the right place at the right time. It is in this light 

that we hold today’s hearing to discuss the gaps in our human capital resources 

identified by the 9/11 Commission: understaffed counterterrorism centers, the long 

delay in training employees, and problems in recruiting employees with the requisite skills. 

Unfortunately, the need to address these gaps is not new. Discussions on how to 

reform the Intelligence Community personnel system has been going on for years. 

Since 1989, various commissions, studies, think-tanks, and outside experts have 

called for changes to the Intelligence Community’s personnel management systems. 

Recommendations include greater personnel flexibility, stronger personnel management coordination, an integrated personnel and training system for the Intelligence 

Community, common standards for adjudications, standardized background investigations, improved performance appraisal and management systems, systematic career planning and professional development, and promotion of a sense of community 

among the agencies. More recently, in 2001, the National Commission on National 

Security/21st Century, also known as the Hart-Rudman Commission, called for personnel reforms including rotational assignments for national security personnel and 

programs to recruit skilled individuals by paying educational costs in exchange for 

government service. 

While some of these recommendations have been adopted, the 9/11 Commission 

report asks for further action. It is clear that first and foremost, the management 

of human capital in the Intelligence Community must be improved. The Comptroller 

General recommends there be a Chief Operating Officer under the National Intelligence Director (NID) to handle daily agency management. Depending on where the 

NID is placed in the executive branch, I recommend we consider this proposal to 

ensure that effective human capital management, the key to any successful organization, is a high priority. Such an individual could also have responsibility over 

issues related to information security and financial management. 

Moreover, I believe that a Chief Human Capital Officers Council, similar to that 

created in 2002 which focuses almost exclusively on policies pertaining to competitive service Federal employees covered under title 5, United States Code, should be 

created for the Intelligence Community. Based on recommendations made by the 

5

National Academy for Public Administration in the 1989 report, ‘‘The Intelligence 

Workforce for the 1990s: A Review of Personnel and Compensation Systems to Meet 

Current and Future Missions,’’ such an organization would be responsible for identifying, developing, and sharing best practices in recruitment and retention efforts 

and coordinating legislative requests for personnel flexibilities. 

Mr. Chairman, as you know, there is already legislation pending before Congress 

to improve the recruitment and retention of Federal workers with critical skills. In 

both the 107th and 108th Congress, I, along with several of my colleagues on the 

Committee, introduced the Homeland Security Federal Workforce Act. Although the 

Senate passed the most recent version of our legislation, S. 589, last November, the 

House has not taken action on the measure. S. 589 would permit the payment of 

an employee’s educational costs in areas of critical national security importance—

such as foreign language, science, mathematics, and technology—in exchange for 

government service. This approach, along with advanced planning and skills assessments by Federal agencies, would allow a National Intelligence Director to hire employees with skills tailored to meet agencies’ national security needs. Although the 

FBI and the CIA have both testified before this Committee that they are receiving 

a record number of employment applicants, one of our priorities is to ensure that 

there is a large and highly qualified applicant pool from which to select employees 

possessing critical language, technical, and scientific skills, especially those possessing a combination of these skills. 

It is also critical that national security professionals have a breadth of experience 

in the interagency process and strong knowledge of substantive policy issues. Both 

elements are crucial to ensuring crosscutting policy formulation and analysis. To 

address this need, S. 589 creates incentivized rotational programs within the Intelligence Community aimed at breaking down cultural and artificial barriers to information sharing, building a cadre of highly knowledgeable professionals, and ensuring cooperation among national security agencies. 

Lastly, the majority of the Intelligence Community currently operates under a 

non-statutory internal appeals system for performance and conduct cases. Although 

I would not change this internal appeals system, as a strong supporter of employee 

rights and protections, I believe that there are certain elements that every appeals 

system should contain: notice, an opportunity to respond, employee representation, 

and a decision by an independent adjudicator. Any entity that oversees the Intelligence Community must ensure that these reasonable elements are included in an 

employee appeals system. 

Furthermore, as a leader on strengthening Federal whistleblower laws, I am concerned by the myriad of laws governing employees in the Intelligence Community: 

The Intelligence Whistleblower Protection Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the 

Military Whistleblower Protection Act, the FBI Whistleblower Protection Act, and 

the authority given to Inspectors General to investigate and report allegations of retaliation for whistleblowing. In light of the heightened need to encourage Federal 

employees to come forward with information vital to preserving our national security and protecting those who make such disclosures, there must be strong oversight 

and emphasis on investigating disclosures and protecting those making disclosures. 

As such, I recommend that there be a designated officer in the Office of the Inspector General of the National Intelligence Directorate to handle whistleblower reprisal 

complaints. Similar to the Civilian Reprisal Investigations Office in the Department 

of Defense, this office would serve as the key contact point for whistleblowers. The 

office would have whistleblower affairs officers who would conduct investigations, 

coordinate personnel management remedies, and provide outreach to Federal and 

non-Federal agencies involved with whistleblower affairs. 

Mr. Chairman, each of my recommendations would improve human capital management within the Intelligence Community, in turn, which would strengthen our 

national security. Again, I thank you for holding today’s hearing, and I thank our 

witnesses for sharing their views with us. 

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN 

Thank you, Chairman Voinovich, for holding this very important hearing on the 

9/11 Commission’s recommendations regarding their suggested changes in the Intelligence Community’s personnel structure. You have been a stalwart leader on 

human capital issues for many years, and I thank you for giving us the opportunity 

to hear from these excellent witnesses today. 

This hearing focuses on three main recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, 

namely improving the Presidential appointments process for national security officials, establishing one agency to conduct security clearance background checks, and 

6

providing additional personnel flexibilities to the Federal Bureau of Investigation 

that will reflect its increased responsibilities in the areas of counterterrorism and 

other intelligence gathering.

Presidential nominations.

I agree that we need to ensure that Presidential nominees for members of the administration’s security team are approved by the Senate in a timely fashion, but I 

do have some reservations about how to go about this without diminishing the important role of the Senate in the confirmation process. I am concerned about putting 

an arbitrary time limit, in this case 30 days, on the Senate to hold an up or down 

vote on a nominee. This takes away power from the committee chairpersons and the 

minority party in the Senate to subject nominations to appropriate scrutiny. 

Also, I am concerned about why this group of nominees—as opposed to judicial 

nominees or some other subset of administration nominees—should receive preferential treatment. 

It is useful to consider the August 30 CRS analysis of the actions of the Clinton 

and Bush administrations on the topic of Senate confirmation of the president’s security team. That report showed that confirmation of this group of nominees was 

rarely delayed more than 30 days. The report shows that only 14 of the 49 nominees 

that would have fallen under this category were delayed longer than 30 days.

Security clearance.

The committee is drafting a proposal that would encompass the 9/11 Commission’s 

recommendation to centralize responsibility for security clearances in one agency, 

and I applaud those efforts. However, I think the problems that have arisen in recent months as the Department of Defense and the Office of Personnel Management 

have tried to coordinate their efforts needs to be carefully considered since the DOD 

handles about 80 percent of the background checks needed in this country. Talks 

between these two entitles broke down in May over OPM’s concern about taking on 

too much financial risk. 

There are about 188,000 people waiting for clearance, according to DOD’s files, 

and it takes about 375 days for a security clearance to make it through the background check and adjudication process, according to a recent investigation by the 

House Government Reform Committee. This is far too long and deserves further exploration as to the reasons.

FBI personnel reforms.

While the FBI has already begun to overhaul itself in an effort to create a smarter, more flexible workforce, more could be done in terms of coordination among existing staff. The 9/11 commission report found, among many other things, that FBI 

analysts were often untrained and therefore were not used to great capacity by the 

agency’s agents. It would be interesting to learn more about how the bureau will 

be improving opportunities for agents and analysts to work together.

Other legislative proposals.

I understand the committee may be contemplating legislative reform regarding 

improving and encouraging intelligence personnel to continue their education by enabling Intelligence Community personnel to receive non-taxable student loan repayments from the agency that employs them. 

I would hope serious consideration could also be given to legislation I have proposed that would authorize partnerships between local school districts and foreign 

language departments to provide intensive development for K through 12 foreign 

language teachers and incentives for students to major in math, science, or foreign 

languages. It is well-documented that the United States Government needs to bring 

personnel with a high proficiency in less commonly taught languages, such as Arabic, Farsi, and Thai. The Homeland Security Education Act would go a long way toward preparing our intelligence workforce for the linguistic challenges ahead. 

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses.

Senator VOINOVICH. I now would like to hear from our witnesses, 

and we will start with Ms. Gorelick. 

7

1The joint prepared statement of Ms. Gorelick and Mr. Fielding appears in the Appendix on 

page 00. 

TESTIMONY OF JAMIE S. GORELICK, ESQ.,1 COMMISSIONER, 

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON 

THE UNITED STATES 

Ms. GORELICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having us here 

today, and thank you, Senator Coleman for joining us as well. I 

agree with the Chairman’s observation. You ran a very well-run 

city. We worked together at the time. 

Mr. Chairman, we are honored to appear before you today. We 

want to thank you and we want to thank the leadership of the Senate for the prompt consideration of our recommendations, and we 

want to thank you for the support that you have shown to our 

Commission. 

The Commission’s findings and recommendations were strongly 

endorsed by all ten Commissioners, five Republicans and five 

Democrats. We share a unity of purpose, and we have called upon 

Congress and the administration to display the same bipartisan 

spirit as we collectively seek to make our country and all Americans safer. 

I would like to first address the issue of personnel reform and 

the FBI, and then my colleague, Fred Fielding, will address the remainder of the topics before us today. 

The FBI has been a major force and a major focus for intelligence 

reform since the 9/11 attacks. Building on the work of a Congressional Joint Inquiry, the Commission found that the FBI fell far 

short of the mark in adequately carrying out its domestic 

counterterrorism mission. It was the lead agency in investigating 

foreign terrorist groups but it did not have the capability to link 

the collective knowledge of thousands of agents in the field to national priorities. As a result, crucial information did not find its 

way up the chain of command to those who could act upon it. 

One of the startling examples of this was that the Acting Director of the FBI did not learn about the Bureau’s hunt for two possible al Qaeda operatives in the United States or the Bureau’s 

arrest of an Islamic extremist trying to learn to fly until after 

September 11, and that was too late. 

We believe that institutional change to improve the FBI’s intelligence capabilities and to focus on the Bureau’s counterterrorism 

mission is of utmost importance to the country’s national security. 

We have not recommended the creation of a new domestic intelligence agency, a MI5 type of structure, because we believe that 

creating a domestic intelligence collection agency is too risky for 

civil liberties, it would take too long, it would cost too much money, 

and it would sever the highly useful link between the criminal and 

counterterrorism work of the FBI and the work that the FBI does 

with State and local law enforcement. 

We considered other structural changes, but we decided that the 

broader changes would not be necessary if our other recommendations were adopted. As you know, as part of our recommendations, 

we proposed a National Counterterrorism Center. We recommend 

a strong center overseeing all of the foreign and domestic 

counterterrorism work, bringing it all together in one place, and we 

8

also recommend creating a National Intelligence Director who can 

set and enforce standards for collection, processing, and reporting 

of information; but I would note that if you did not have a strong 

National Counterterrorism Center or a strong Intelligence Director, 

we might well have come out with a different set of recommendations with regard to the FBI. 

We are encouraged by the direction in which Director Mueller 

has taken the FBI, and that he has created some new structures 

within the Bureau to keep its role focused. He has made progress, 

but he has a long way to go. He has established the Office of Intelligence overseen as the top tier of FBI management. He has created field intelligence groups in all the field offices to make sure 

that the FBI priorities and the emphasis on intelligence are put 

into practice. Improvements in information technology systems, 

connectivity, and information-sharing with the rest of the Intelligence Community are planned, but progress has been slow. 

These kinds of structural and technological changes, as you, Mr. 

Chairman, point out, only take you so far. Without the development of an institutional culture within the Bureau that appreciates 

that counterterrorism mission and grows strong intelligence officers 

to support it, all of the structural improvements that we suggest 

will only be half measures at best. They have to have the right people in place if they are to carry out this important mission. This 

means establishing an intelligence cadre at the FBI, a specialized 

integrated national security work force made up of agents and analysts with the necessary training and the necessary skills. 

We believe that Director Mueller understands the human resources aspect of institutional change and he understands that the 

FBI needs to recruit more broadly and that working on national security issues requires specialized training for both analysts and 

agents. He is currently establishing a program to certify agents as 

intelligence officers, a certification that will be a prerequisite for 

promotion to the senior ranks of the FBI. New training programs 

have been instituted for intelligence-related subjects. Director 

Mueller has also proposed creating an intelligence directorate to include units for intelligence planning and policy and for the direction of the analysts and linguists. 

Now, some of these changes have been slow in coming, and I 

would say to you all bear oversight and scrutiny by Congress in 

order to monitor their implementation. We think that Director 

Mueller is moving in the right direction. He has begun the difficult 

effort to shift the FBI into a new preventive counterterrorism posture, and we have to ensure that he succeeds. 

The Commission’s findings in this regard have not been entirely 

reassuring. The field offices that we visited showed that there was 

slow progress. Change so far is from the top down, and we are concerned that without sustained support and dedicated resources at 

the highest levels, the management in the field offices may return 

to focusing on local concerns over the national security mission. I 

would say, parenthetically, having been at the Department of Justice, you could see this as you visited field offices—that there was 

just enormous pressure on them locally to address whatever the 

local law enforcement priority was. We have to make sure that the 

national security mission remains strong. 

9

To support the Director’s reform efforts and to institutionalize 

sustained reform within the FBI that will last beyond Director 

Mueller’s tenure, the Commission recommends that the President 

direct the FBI to develop this intelligence cadre. To ensure that 

this work force is focused on the counterterrorism mission, we need 

personnel reform in the areas of recruitment, in the areas of hiring, 

training, and career development. 

So, first, the FBI should fully implement a selection process that 

centers on the need for agents and analysts with backgrounds and 

skills appropriate for intelligence work. This would include knowledge well beyond the traditional law enforcement background of 

most FBI agents in the areas of intelligence, international relations, language technology, and so on. 

Second, the FBI should establish basic training for new agents 

and analysts in both the criminal justice and national security disciplines. These agents should begin their careers with meaningful 

assignments in both areas so that each of them understands both 

disciplines. 

Third, the FBI agents and analysts should have the opportunity 

to specialize and follow a career track in either criminal justice or 

national security. Certain advance training courses and assignments to other intelligence agencies should be prerequisites for advancements along the national security track. 

Fourth, all senior FBI managers should be certified intelligence 

officers. This includes those managers working on law enforcement 

cases. 

Fifth, each field office should have an official at the deputy level 

for national security matters with management oversight to ensure 

that national priorities are carried out in the field. 

Finally, a dedicated team approach needs to be brought to bear 

on national security intelligence operations. The FBI should institute the integration of analysts, agents, linguists, and surveillance 

personnel in the field as well. 

Mr. Chairman, we understand that without dedicated resources, 

these personnel reforms at the FBI cannot succeed. To support 

these reforms, the Commission also recommends that the FBI align 

its budget structure to protect the intelligence program, making 

sure that the resources are managed according to national priorities. Congress has a critical role to play in monitoring these reforms. 

The FBI has 28,000 employees, 56 field offices, 400 satellite offices, 47 legal attache offices, and countless other resources. It is 

a massive institution and it has a massive job to perform. 

The Director has announced plans and programs to move the Bureau toward enhanced national security priority, but we believe he 

needs to have the full support and oversight of Congress. The 

President and Congress have the obligation to make sure that 

these essential reforms do not receive only transitory attention, but 

become institutionalized in the creation of a better, stronger FBI. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. Mr. Fielding. 

10

1The joint prepared statement of Ms. Gorelick and Mr. Fielding appears in the Appendix on 

page 00. 

TESTIMONY OF FRED FIELDING,1 COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL 

COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED 

STATES 

Mr. FIELDING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Coleman, and 

Senator Pryor. I would like to join also in a word of appreciation 

for the work this Subcommittee has done. It has been very rewarding to those of us on the Commission to know that people have 

grasped what we were hoping they would grasp and are taking the 

ball and running with it so expeditiously. 

I would like to focus my remarks on the issue of transitions and 

improvement of transitions between administrations. Mr. Chairman, last year you put forward a bill that would streamline and 

improve the Presidential appointment process, and we commend 

you for that leadership and must tell you we studied that as part 

of our deliberations as well, and we found it to be very thoughtful 

and instructive and important. And, as a personal side and aside 

from the Commission work, having labored in the vineyards of 

transitions and seen all the problems, I must say that your Section 

202 contains an awful lot of ideas and captures a lot of the wishes 

of people that work on the transition and have to work through 

this, and we hope that this goes further. 

We see a clear convergence of the Commission’s recommendations with your proposal in the following areas: First, encouraging 

Presidential candidates to begin choosing appointed officials in 

high-level positions for the new administration even before the 

election to expedite the ultimate confirmation process, to encourage 

and institutionalize them to not be afraid to show that they are 

planning, because planning is so important. 

The second thing is to reduce the number of Presidential appointed positions in national security agencies that would require 

Senate confirmation, which will alleviate the strain of the current 

appointment and confirmation system. 

And, third, to streamline and consolidate the procedures such as 

financial disclosure, reporting requirements to streamline the overall Presidential appointment process. Both you and we clearly find 

that the status quo needs change. 

We must recognize that the time of a transition is a time of great 

vulnerability for our country. I mean, as we know that terrorists 

study and look for our mistakes, this is a prime time to do something, because it is a period where there are basically people going 

out and people coming in, but nobody is in charge in certain areas 

unless everyone is vigilant and realizes the vulnerabilities this creates. The 9/11 story informed us of the understanding and importance of reforming this process. 

The 2000–2001 transition between administrations occurred at 

what we now can see was a crucial point. In the lead-up to 9/11, 

the USSC Cole had been attacked less than a month before the 

Presidential election. Almost all of those involved in the investigations told us that they strongly suspected the hand of al Qaeda—

and perhaps Bin Laden—were involved in that attack, but no action was taken to retaliate for the attack on the USSC Cole in the 

11

months before 9/11. Senior Clinton Administration officials told us 

that they didn’t have a definite answer on the question of responsibility. Senior Department of Defense officials with the incoming administration said that by the time they were in place and the 

whole Pentagon team was in place, it was stale. President Bush 

told us that he was not told and did not know that the Clinton Administration had issued an ultimatum to Taliban. 

Now we know that Bin Laden expected the United States to retaliate and expected that there would be some action, but we can 

observe how in this particular case the transition process didn’t 

serve well in the briefing and the handing over of important national security decisions from one administration to another. Each 

incoming administration crafts its own transition. It can ask the 

outgoing administration for whatever it likes, but the latter has no 

affirmative obligation. The Clinton Administration did make substantial efforts to brief its successors, but information was not 

transferred with the consistency that was necessary. 

The dispute over the 2000 election resulted, to be sure, in a far 

shorter transition period than we would have normally been able 

to enjoy, but we don’t consider the problems that have been highlighted to be unique to that particular transition. 

Jamie and I both have had considerable experience in transition 

and the transition process, that it is never a seamless one, but the 

difficulties have been exacerbated by the growing number of political appointees and positions that require Senate confirmation, 

both within the national security arena and otherwise. Appointees 

require security clearances that involve background investigations, 

security questionnaires, and sometimes polygraphs. The growing 

number of political appointees involve a vast amount of manpower 

and a huge effort and a consequent increase amounts of time needed to complete the clearance process itself. 

The delay in the confirmation in 2001 was in some cases considerable, as was mentioned by the Chairman. Deputy Secretary 

Wolfowitz wasn’t confirmed until March 2001. The Undersecretary 

for Defense for Policy wasn’t confirmed until July. Basically, Secretary Rumsfeld has told us, as he told you, he didn’t have a team 

in place, and he gave considerable credit to the expertise of the 

holdover appointees from the previous administration who helped 

him, but he observed that there was no real initiative that was possible until the new team was in place. 

National security policy-making is too important to be disrupted 

by transition between administrations or delay by an overburdened 

system. It is just too important. We need to make clear and complete communication of national security policy information to a 

new President. We need to make that a requirement, and the practice of confirming and obtaining security clearances for a new administration has to be streamlined as much as possible. 

Our 9/11 Commission recommended reforms in a number of 

areas to make sure that the transitions would work more smoothly 

and efficiently. First, even before the election, Presidential candidates should submit names of selected members of their transition teams to the FBI or whoever is the agency that is conducting 

the clearances so that they can obtain their security clearances imVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:22 May 19, 2005 Jkt 097045 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\97045.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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mediately so that once the election is over, they are getting out 

there and they can commence that transition on the day after. 

Second, immediately after the election, the President-elect should 

submit lists to fill the vacancies of his national security candidates, 

and these people can then begin getting their clearances so, hopefully, by January 20, those that need to be in place will be in place. 

Next, we recommended a single Federal agency should be responsible for providing and maintaining the security clearances. This 

would ensure uniform standards. It would ensure efficiencies, and 

it would also ensure one questionnaire, one financial reporting requirement sheet, anything that can streamline it, and you have to 

have a single data base. The agency that we are proposing should 

be responsible for administering polygraph tests on behalf of the 

organizations that require them. 

The next recommendation was that during the transition periods 

and no later than January 20, the President-elect should submit 

the nominations of his entire new national security team up 

through the level of at least undersecretary on all cabinet departments, and the Senate should adopt, we would suggest, special 

rules that require hearings and require a vote within 30 days of 

submission of these names, at least for the national security positions, and that the Senate should not require confirmation of executive appointees below executive level three. 

Last, as soon as possible after election day, the outgoing administration should provide the President-elect with a classified compartmental list that catalogs specific operational threats around 

the world and to our national security. That list should include 

major military or covert operations that are ongoing and pending 

decisions on possible use of force. Such a document would provide 

notice and a checklist inviting the President-elect to inquire and to 

learn more, and each party has responsibility in that task. 

So, Mr. Chairman, we thank you again for the opportunity to testify before you. The recommendations we have discussed before this 

Subcommittee today on personnel reform at the FBI and reform of 

transition between administrations comes directly from our studies, 

and we believe they are imperative to ensuring that our country is 

safer and more secure. We should seize the moment. We should 

move forward with this reform and with the other reforms that we 

suggested, but with your counsel and your direction, we believe the 

Nation can and will make wise choices. 

And we would be pleased to respond to any of your questions at 

this point. Thank you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

I would like to welcome Chairman Collins to this hearing. Would 

you like to make any statements before we start to ask the witnesses questions? 

Chairman COLLINS. No, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank you 

for all the work you have done in the area of human capital and 

thank you for chairing today’s hearing. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

If Congress creates a National Intelligence Director, how much 

authority should this individual have over personnel matters, for 

example transferring people from one agency to another agency? 

Along with that, I would like to quote from the DHS Inspector GenVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:22 May 19, 2005 Jkt 097045 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\97045.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
13

eral. He issued a report entitled ‘‘DHS Challenges in Consolidating 

Terrorist Watch List Information.’’ He said: ‘‘In the report, the IG 

mentions the staffing problems associated with a terrorist screening center and a terrorist threat integration center.’’ Specifically, 

the report says, ‘‘in the absence of a strategy and central leadership, there has been no effective means of coordinating among Federal agencies to ensure that the TTIC and the TSC obtain the personnel resources they need.’’ 

Does the 9/11 Commission have a similar view on this issue? Do 

you think that a chief human capital officer could fulfill an important strategic personnel role for the Intelligence Community? In 

other words, we are going to have a new Director and they are 

going to have to be evaluate the personnel in all these various 

agencies, and I would just like your reaction to whether or not that 

individual should have working for them a chief human capital officer, as we have mandated in other agencies. 

Ms. GORELICK. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a couple of 

comments. We recommended that there be four responsibilities of 

the National Intelligence Director, and one of them is personnel. 

The reason for that is that building an intelligence cadre across the 

various intelligence agencies—which could cross-pollinate and they 

could get to know each other and they could have common standards—would be enormously helpful. We didn’t address precisely 

about the ability to move people around, but the other authority 

that the National Intelligence Director would have, in our view, is 

budget authority, and that would make a National 

Counterterrorism Center, for example, much more effective than 

the Terrorist Threat Integration Center currently is or the Terrorist Screening Center, because it is borrowing people. It doesn’t 

have its own resources. It has no centralized direction to draw 

upon other agencies. 

So if you combine the personnel authority and the budget authority that we contemplate, I think both of the issues that you have 

raised would be addressed. I, frankly, was unaware and we did not 

precisely talk about a position of the sort you describe, but if I were 

the National Intelligence Director, I would certainly want one, because I would want to have someone to turn to on all of these personnel issues across this vast array of agencies. 

Senator VOINOVICH. This Subcommittee, as part of our human 

capital reform agenda, required a chief human capital officer in all 

CFO agencies, it was interesting that when agencies prepared their 

GPRA, so many of them never talked about the personnel that they 

needed to get the job done. One of the first things that the new intelligence director must do is determine whether the Intelligence 

Community has the employees that are needed to get the job done. 

Following up on that, certain agencies have more personnel flexibility than others. For example, the FBI does not have the flexibilities that others do. Would either one of you want to comment on 

that? And I will mention they do have some flexibilities that have 

been given to them under the previous law and under the new law 

that we passed, but in addition to those, do you think that they 

ought to have more flexibility? 

Mr. FIELDING. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think that it is very important that we understand what we are proposing, because it fits 

14

right into what you are saying. There has to be flexibility. There 

are a couple of things that are problems that we kept seeing. One 

of them was—I don’t know how to call it. I guess I would say there 

is a need to break down subcultures within our Intelligence Community where everyone develops their own little niche and they 

don’t talk to each other, as we have seen. The training has to be 

consistent. There has to be somebody who oversees and understands what training there are across the Intelligence Community. 

For instance, language proficiency is a horribly embarrassing situation for us right now. We just don’t have it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I hate to interrupt you, but one of the things 

that really drove me right up the wall after 9/11 was we put out 

a clarion call, can anybody speak Arabic and Farsi. I could not believe that our government was not in a position after we had 

fought Desert Storm to have those people on board. 

Mr. FIELDING. That is exactly what I am suggesting, and if you 

have a limited number of people, there has to be some way to make 

sure that they are at the right place at the right time, and there 

has to be a development of training and recruitment that is consistent so that—this is not going to be an easy task to get the people that we need. The problem that we have, candidly, with TTIC, 

for instance, right now is that, as Jamie says, they are coming from 

different agencies, but all they are doing is filling slots. That 

doesn’t mean that the person coming from that agency has the expertise that is needed. Somebody has to figure out what is needed 

across our Intelligence Community, and this is a personnel issue. 

Ms. GORELICK. If I might just add very quickly in response to 

your comment, Mr. Chairman, about the hiring of linguists and 

others, it is important to understand that the FBI for decades had 

as its model of who to hire an experienced cop. It would try to hire 

the best local law enforcement people it could find, but it did not 

have a model for an analyst. It did not have a model for a linguist. 

It did not have in its hiring criteria or its flexibilities an effort to 

bring in that type of person. 

So even when there was this outpouring of support and people 

coming forward with language skills, the Bureau was not able to 

digest and accept many of the people who volunteered because of 

the requirements that it had on the books. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Just one last issue: The security clearance process. Do you think 

with the different cultures of all these agencies, that we will ever 

be able to get one agency to assume the process? 

Mr. FIELDING. I think that agencies are sometimes responsive to 

congressional directives. 

Ms. GORELICK. This is an imperative. I have had clearances from 

the DOD, the Department of Energy, the CIA, and the Justice Department, and all of them started afresh, and that is frankly ridiculous. I think that is a common experience. It makes us inflexible, 

because it is harder to move people around. It takes a horrificly 

long time to get clearances. We impose tremendous burdens on people. 

One of the suggestions that was made to the Commission was 

that the Federal Government be more welcoming to people from 

the private sector who might come in for a period of time and go 

15

back out. If you impose transaction costs that are so high on people 

coming in and out, they are just not going to do it. Once you get 

in, you are just never going to go back out again, or it is too high 

a burden to come in in the first place, and that is a tragic loss. 

Mr. FIELDING. Yes. That is really the problem with the whole security clearance and the whole clearance process—we make it so 

difficult for people to come into government, that the very laws 

that are supposed to carry out the will of the people become the 

very instruments to inhibit the people from having their very best 

come in. And I hate to paraphrase, badly, Plato, but, ‘‘the penalty 

of wise men who decline to participate in their government is to be 

ruled by unwise men,’’ and we must not let that happen. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. Chairman Collins. 

Chairman COLLINS. I will defer to Senator Pryor. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Let me follow up with what you are 

saying there. So as I understand your recommendation, right now 

we have about seven or so departments that are doing these security clearances, but your recommendation is to centralize that and 

put it into one office. I think there are some here on the Subcommittee and in the Senate that would like to see that responsibility be put under the National Intelligence Director. Would that 

be agreeable to you all? Is that consistent with your recommendation? 

Mr. FIELDING. The recommendation, it is more important to us 

that it is in one place, whether it is directly in the NID’s control 

or whether it is a designated agency. The key is to have uniformity 

in the process and also consistency in the process and consistency 

in the clearing goals, the timing goals. 

Senator PRYOR. Some of this right now, as I understand it, has 

been contracted out to the private sector. Does that concern you 

that some of these functions are contracted out? 

Ms. GORELICK. Well, all of us, I think, have had contact with individuals who are in the contracting community who perform these 

services, and many of the services could easily be contracted out 

because they are simply verifying very mundane facts. 

Senator PRYOR. Just mundane facts? 

Ms. GORELICK. Mundane facts. At the level of judgment, you 

would want to have issues determined by government personnel, 

but we didn’t discuss this as a Commission, so in answering your 

question, we are drawing on our own experience, but I don’t personally have an objection to having some of the services provided 

external to the Federal employee base. 

Mr. FIELDING. No. I wouldn’t object to that as long as you had 

the consistency and standardization. 

Senator PRYOR. I think that is the key, yes. 

Mr. FIELDING. That is the key. 

Senator PRYOR. Yes. Because if you do contract out, you may lose 

consistency. You may get different quality of product back. Do you 

agree with that? We are giving very serious thought to the Commission’s recommendations and we are just trying to work our way 

through some of these. 

16

Let me move onto a different subject, and that is the 9/11 Commission has recommended that we remove the executive level three 

appointees from Senate confirmation. What led the Commission to 

draw the line at that level? Give us some insight on how you arrived at that conclusion. 

Ms. GORELICK. Well, we just looked at the numbers, really, and 

decided that if you were going to try to have the national security 

team in place, and I would note that our recommendations are only 

for the national security team, and you wanted to have everyone 

in place 30 days of the inauguration, we just looked at what we 

thought the Senate’s system for confirmation could handle and 

drew the line that way. There is no magic to it. What we were trying to do is put our government in a position where no later than 

30 days after inauguration, there would be an up-and-running 

functioning government. 

Mr. FIELDING. And, Senator, if I may add to that just a bit, as 

Jamie said, there is no magic to this. We were trying to become efficient, especially in the national security positions, so that we 

don’t have this very dangerous hiatus that we made reference to 

earlier. 

The other thing that you have to acknowledge is that it also imposes the requirement on the integrity of the Executive Branch. 

When they are appointing people, if there is a problem that develops within their FBI clearance, for instance, they must deal with 

it responsibly if you would do away with the confirmation hearing, 

because part of the process of the confirmation is to deal with that 

sort of issue. 

Senator PRYOR. Let me ask, if I can, on this confirmation issue 

and the dangerous hiatus that you referred to when one administration passes the baton to other administration, did you all get 

into when there is a party change, if it is worse during the time 

of a party change, or is it just inherent in changing administrations 

that you might fumble that baton? 

Ms. GORELICK. It is worse when the transaction is between parties, as you can imagine. 

Senator PRYOR. That is what I would assume. 

Ms. GORELICK. Intra-party, there have been issues. I mean, between the Reagan and Bush Administrations, it wasn’t completely 

smooth, for example, and Fred can speak to that, but it is a bigger 

problem between parties because basically the government empties 

out. You have one holdover in each department, but the White 

House is vacant. You come in the first day, and there is nothing, 

and that is an actually fairly scary scenario that we both have seen 

since we have probably, between the two of us, done more vetting 

for our respective parties than maybe anybody else, and we have 

worked, both of us, on transitions. To arrive in an office with nothing there is not a comforting picture. 

Mr. FIELDING. Clearly, to confirm your suspicions, it is much 

more difficult when there is a change in party just because ordinarily you have more than one person staying over, holding over 

or even desiring to hold over if it is the same party, but there is 

none. And what Jamie says, people don’t seem to realize when you 

go into a White House, for instance, and the policy shop of other 

departments as well, you open the file drawers and they are empty, 

17

and there is no little book left behind saying this is it. So it, again, 

requires the integrity of both parties to this thing to make sure 

that everybody hands off and understands what is going on. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. Senator Coleman. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is interesting to 

note that all the folks at the table here have been involved in running operations at a local level, State level. I was involved in a 

transition as a mayor. I walked in and there was nothing in the 

file, nothing there, and obviously we can’t afford to do that. 

I would note with interest and I would suspect that the transition recommendations are relevant even if there is a continuation 

of an administration. In other words, folks move on. There is a lot 

of discussion today of who is in, who is out. I would suspect that 

the timeliness of these things, the streamlining of process, are just 

as relevant. It may not be as much a conflict, but just as relevant 

in the transition of one administration into a second term. 

Ms. GORELICK. You are unlikely to have everyone at the State 

Department walking out the door at the same time. The President 

would be in a position, presumably, to ask his appointees to stay 

until their successors are in place. 

Senator COLEMAN. I am just looking at our end in terms of 

speeding up clearances and some of the things that we would need 

to do just to make it easier to move in so folks can keep moving 

at the same pace. 

Mr. FIELDING. Well, actually, some of the things that are proposed, especially the pending bill, are needed regardless of transitions. It is needed for the efficiency of government, for getting people in. Again, as I said, we must be sure we are getting people in 

and not making the price of entry so prohibitive that they don’t 

want to come into public service. 

Senator COLEMAN. I would also compliment you for your boldness 

in the recommendation to encourage candidates to begin choosing 

appointed officials in high-level positions before the election. I presume you have got one candidate out there looking—what is the 

message today. You have another candidate trying to get control of 

the message, and no matter what we do, it is very political. So if 

you put forth the name of anyone and that gets out, that runs the 

risk of getting off the message of creating an issue. 

Prospects of realistically getting that done, how would you rate 

that? 

Mr. FIELDING. As I said earlier, I think that the big problem is, 

from my experience, a candidate doesn’t want to acknowledge that 

he or she is so sure that they are going to win that they are picking 

their cabinet, and so you have to force them to do it, because if it 

is publicly known that they are forced to do something, then it is 

easy for them to do what they would otherwise logically do. 

Ms. GORELICK. We would like to make it be, and appear to be, 

irresponsible not to begin thinking about the next steps even when 

the election is pending and, at the very least, to identify those who 

would be responsible for a transition. 

Senator COLEMAN. If there was a way that you could assure that 

would not get caught up in the political debate, that would be helpful. I am not sure how that is done. Again, I support the recVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:22 May 19, 2005 Jkt 097045 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\97045.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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ommendation, but the reality is you put forth any name in any position and it becomes a subject of discussion at a time when you 

want to discuss something else, perhaps, so a great challenge. 

One of the issues that has come up in the course of these hearings has been the question of accountability. A number of my colleagues have said we have read the 9/11 Commission Report; there 

were some things that were not done; there was follow-through 

that didn’t happen. And yet there is the question of accountability. 

We are talking about making change and changing systems here, 

but do we need to have kind of a public accounting of who is responsible, who messed up before we go forward? That issue still 

hangs out there and I am just not sure it has been resolved. 

Ms. GORELICK. We talked about this. We decided that for purposes and our charter, the best thing we could do is lay out all the 

facts. If we, ourselves, tried to decide who should remain in government and who should lose their jobs, it would be a morass from 

which we might not ever re-emerge, and it would detract from our 

efforts to do the things that we thought were more important. But 

if I were running any one of the executive agencies whose conduct 

is the subject of our very detailed findings, I would review them 

and determine whether there should be accountability on the part 

of anyone who continues to work for me. I just think that is basic 

management, and that material is there for everyone to see. 

Senator COLEMAN. Looking at the changes, one of the concerns 

with regard to the FBI, the Commission noted the concern about 

the sustainability of the change. Right now, it appears Director 

Mueller is moving in the right direction, right attitude, right approach, but there is concern about the long-term sustainability, and 

the issue then comes about all this bears oversight. 

Do you have any suggestions about how we do a better job on 

oversight? I think we are moving forward on a lot of these recommendations, but the one area that is probably going to take a 

little more time is on our end. With all that we have to do and the 

demands on time, can you just talk a little bit about the type of 

oversight that you would like to see? What should we be doing that 

we are not doing now? 

Mr. FIELDING. Our experience with the intelligence oversight in 

particular was that everyone, when the door was closed and the 

cameras were off, acknowledged to us that the system was inefficient and was ineffective. We made what were considered to be 

bold recommendations, in all due respect, to how Congress should 

reform itself, and maybe they were bold and maybe they were unattainable, people would tell us, but given the background and 

given the subject matter that we were discussing, if we couldn’t 

make such bold recommendations out of September 11, when would 

we ever make such bold recommendations? 

So just to wrap up, there is a need to reform. There is a need 

to take the politics out of oversight, and we hope that you will 

study it and come up with a solution. 

Ms. GORELICK. If I might add to Fred’s comments, one of the reasons that we were so prescriptive in our suggestions and recommendations with regard to the FBI is that we were quite conflicted given the performance we saw there. We concluded if the 

FBI moves in these very clear directions and there is pressure from 

19

Congress to do so, then it can get where it needs to go. We have 

outlined what we think oversight of the FBI and its progress 

should look like in the near-term; we were very specific. In general, 

our observation with regard to congressional oversight is that oversight committees should ask of each agency, ‘‘What is your biggest 

challenge?’’ ‘‘What is your strategy to meet that challenge?’’ and 

‘‘What are the obstacles to your achieving that strategy?’’ What 

happens too often is that members and staff try to mimic what the 

Executive Branch is doing and try to oversee particular programs 

and activities. At the same time, no one is looking more strategically at the overarching obstacles. 

I would suggest that you look at the larger picture, force the 

agencies to tell you what their strategies are and hold them to it. 

Mr. FIELDING. If I could just add one more thought to that, the 

problem too often is that oversight means ‘‘come tell us when you 

did something wrong,’’ and I think oversight has to be more than 

that. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Madam Chairman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin 

again by commending you for all the work that you have done on 

human capital. There is no one in the U.S. Senate who understands better than Senator Voinovich that the people are the key. 

I was struck in the 9/11 Commission’s Report by many phrases, 

but one that stuck in my mind was the phrase ‘‘good people can 

overcome bad structures; they should not have to.’’ I am hoping 

that the work that this Subcommittee and others have done in the 

past 6 weeks will produce the kind of good structure that enhances 

the ability of good people, and I want to thank both of you for all 

of your efforts and all of your contributions to the Commission’s 

work. It really is critical. I think there is nothing that is more important that we will do before we adjourn than the reform of our 

Intelligence Community, and I really appreciate your being here 

today. 

Earlier this year, I visited what is known as TTIC, the Terrorist 

Threat Integration Center. In many ways, the National 

Counterterrorism Center is a beefed up, more robust version of 

TTIC. I was struck when I visited TTIC by the fact that with the 

exception of the director and a few of his deputies, everyone else 

that I saw, everyone else who briefed me, was so young, and what 

had occurred to me that what the agencies that were supporting 

TTIC were doing is they were sending very bright eager-beaver 

young people, but people who had very little experience, and as we 

know, it takes a great deal of experience to develop the judgment, 

the intuition, and the ability to be effective. 

So one of my concerns is making sure that the NCTC gets the 

best people. How will we bring that about? Should we give the director of the center direct personnel authority he does not have 

right now? At present, John Brennan has to rely on the goodwill 

of the CIA and the FBI and all the agencies that support him. If 

I were the CIA director, why would I want to send my best people 

over to this agency? I need them. 

20

So how will we ensure that the National Counterterrorism Center has the high quality analysts? I don’t mean to in any way disparage of the ability of the people now working at TTIC, but how 

can we assure that we get the kind of experienced analysts that is 

necessary, in my view, to really bring the center to that next level? 

Ms. GORELICK. Senator Collins, your having visited TTIC and 

looked at this ensures that you have the same perspective on TTIC 

that we did. We came to the same conclusion. It is not what it 

needs to be. You can ensure that it will be what it needs to be 

when it is the National Counterterrorism Center, first, by making 

sure the person who runs it is of a very senior level. We recommend that it is headed by someone at the deputy secretary level 

person, not someone buried in the bureaucracy. Second, it has to 

have its own dedicated personnel, and you can ensure that it gets 

the best personnel because if, as we recommend, the National 

Counterterrorism Center reports directly to the National Intelligence Director and he or she has budget authority. That is a pretty good lever for getting the very best people. 

Third, one of our observations was that there are too many different fusions centers all over town. So if you are in the Defense 

Department, you are building a fusion center and bringing in people from everywhere else, and the same is true at the State Department, at the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and it is a bewildering alphabet soup of fusion centers. Well, everyone who wants those personnel wants the very best, and everyone who has the personnel 

doesn’t want to give the very best to a different agency’s center. If 

you can eliminate the other fusion centers, you could save those 

precious experienced analysts for the National Counterterrorism 

Center. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Fielding. 

Mr. FIELDING. And there again, just by giving the authority to 

one person and having uniform procedures set up and uniform policies, you enhance the chances that you are going to get the people. 

As I said earlier, unfortunately, and I don’t mean to disparage anybody that is at TTIC now either, but some of them are brought 

there simply to get the numbers in, and as somebody observed, you 

are not going to send your best person if you can keep them by 

your side. You are going to send somebody else. 

The other thing that may help this is if the National Intelligence 

Director also has the authority to establish across the Intelligence 

Community a single senior intelligence service so that this is a career and these people can move where they are needed, if you will, 

across the government. And I think that would make some sense 

too. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. We could have you 

stay here for another half hour, but we have two other panels. We 

really appreciate your being here today, and I was really impressed 

with your testimony. Thank you very much for the great service 

you have given your country, the hours and hours that you have 

spent. Thank God we have people like you. 

Ms. GORELICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FIELDING. Thank you, and thank you for your support. 

21

1The prepared statement of Mr. Bullock appears in the Appendix on page 00. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The second panel will come forward, and it 

consists of Mark Bullock. He is the Assistant Director of Administrative Services Division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

Mr. Bullock, I understand that you were in my home town. 

Mr. BULLOCK. Yes, I was. 

Senator VOINOVICH. He took over after Van Harp, and I thought 

to myself isn’t it wonderful that we have somebody that is in administrative services that has actually had some real work experience. 

Mr. BULLOCK. Absolutely. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Our other witnesses are John Turnicky, a 

Special Assistant to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency 

for Security, and Christopher Mihm, the Managing Director of 

Strategic Issues for the Government Accountability Office, who I 

have worked with for the last 51⁄2 years, since I came to the Senate. 

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir. It has been an honor. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you for all of your efforts and the 

great help that GAO has given me in this Subcommittee. 

Mr. MIHM. Thank you, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you for being here, and we will begin 

testimony with Mr. Bullock. I would ask you to keep your statements to 5 minutes. We will continue with 6-minute rounds of 

questioning for the Members of the Subcommittee. 

Mr. Bullock, thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF MARK STEVEN BULLOCK,1 ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

Mr. BULLOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be 

here, and thank you to, although Madam Chairman has departed, 

to the other Senators for having me. 

Again, as you stated, I am Mark Bullock. I am Assistant Director 

for Administrative Services with the FBI. 

And, also, I am the Human Capital Officer for the FBI. I am responsible for recruiting and hiring. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Pardon me. You are the Chief Human Capital Officer at the FBI? 

Mr. BULLOCK. Yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. 

Mr. BULLOCK. I am responsible for recruiting, hiring, personnel 

policy administration, our career development program, and our 

background investigations, be they FBI employees or executive appointments from the White House. Again, I am pleased to have the 

opportunity to address this body. 

The terrorist attacks of September 11 have brought about profound changes in the FBI, not only in terms of realigning our priorities and resources to prevent another terrorist attack, but also in 

transforming our work force to carry out our intelligence and investigative missions both in the near term and in the future. The FBI 

success in preventing terrorists acts and preventing U.S. National 

22

security is intrinsically linked to our success in elevating and integrating the role of intelligence in our operational programs. 

As stated by Jamie Gorelick, I will extract some of the words 

from the primary 9/11 human capital recommendation affecting the 

FBI. Basically, we have to establish a specialized and integrated 

national security work force, consisting of agents, analysts, linguists, and surveillance specialists who are recruited, trained, and 

rewarded and retained to ensure the development of an institutional culture with a deep expertise in intelligence and national security. 

The Commission’s recommendations and implementing actions 

are fully consistent with the intelligence directorate, the intelligence career service, and newly-formed career tracks of special 

agents that were announced by Director Mueller in April 2004. 

These changes reflect the vision and direction that he has set for 

the FBI in its recently revised FBI strategic plan covering the next 

5 years and the Bureau’s first ever human capital plan. Additionally, these changes begin to implement the guiding principles that 

are set out in the FBI’s human talent for intelligence, production, 

and concept of operations. 

Underlying the changes in career tracks announced by Director 

Mueller is the concept of an integrated intelligence career service 

within the FBI that is fully compatible with the Bureau’s investigative mission. From a human capital standpoint, there are three 

critical elements to building that capacity: Formal career tracks, including intelligence for special agents; formal career tracks for intelligence analysts, linguist, and surveillance specialists; and the 

intelligence officer certification program. I would like to briefly describe some of the elements of these programs. 

For the agent career track, we will have four core tracks. What 

we envision is four core tracks: Counterterrorism, counterintelligence track, an intelligence track, cyber and criminal track. A 

candidate would be selected for new agents training. They would 

go to Quantico, and upon graduating Quantico, they would go to 

one of our small- to medium-sized offices, which are 41 offices out 

of our 56 field divisions, and they would serve in those fields divisions for approximately 3 years. They would receive various assignments, becoming a generalist for those 3 years. Then they would 

be transferred to one of our top 15 offices, where they would be assigned in compliance with their core track designator, be it intelligence, counter-intelligence, cyber, and so forth. They would begin 

the specialization process. They would receive advanced training 

and more complex assignments. 

For all agents, the new agent training curriculum has been modified to integrate core intelligence objectives, and that is at this 

point now down at Quantico. 

Our analyst track would be very similar to the agent track. We 

would bring people in, in a centralized fashion, meaning that you 

would compete on a national basis. They would be selected based 

upon the skills as deemed needed by program managers. They 

would go through an interview and assessment process and then 

the background investigation. Upon being selected, they would go 

to the College of Analytical Studies for their basic training. I would 

like to add that at the College of Analytical Studies, the curriculum 

23

1The prepared statement of Mr. Turnicky appears in the Appendix on page 00. 

was just revised and started with these revised processes this 

week. After completing the College of Analytical Studies, they 

would be assigned to a headquarters or field office in a system 

fashioned to the agents. They would be assigned to one of the four 

core tracks, just like the agents, and they would have their assignments in line with all-source analyst, a reports officer, or an operations specialist, the all-source analyst being more of a strategic 

analyst, the reports officer preparing the reports, and the operations specialist being an analyst that is more technical in nature, 

working on particular cases. 

The Office of Intelligence would establish the standards and criteria for professional development opportunities for our analysts. 

The analyst’s career development would include rotations among 

field offices, headquarters, and our legate offices, and analysts 

would have to be provided with the proper work environment. We 

have to staff our offices so our analysts and agents can have the 

access to the classified materials that they would need. They would 

have to be provided with the appropriate analytical tools to successfully do their job; and assignments within the Office of Intelligence, agents and analysts at some point would have to become 

interchangeable. Eventually, that would extend to management 

and supervisory positions as well. 

We envision the special agent career track in intelligence and the 

intelligence analyst career tracks intersecting at the intelligence officer certification program. The FBI intelligence officer certification 

program would be a set of formal requirements satisfied through 

a combination of advanced education and specific intelligence-related disciplines or problem set. The completion of progressively 

changing and complex assignments in all three of the analytical 

work areas that I mentioned previously. 

The FBI currently is the only Intelligence Community partner 

that does not have an intelligence officer certification process. We 

feel in developing this process, which we will have developed by 

January 2005, that would make the FBI more attractive for members of the Intelligence Community to be detailed to the FBI. It 

will make our intelligence officers more attractive to be received as 

detailees in other Intelligence Community organizations. 

That completes my opening statement, and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. Mr. Turnicky. 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN TURNICKY,1 SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO 

THE DCI FOR SECURITY, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

Mr. TURNICKY. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished 

Members of the Subcommittee. I am dual-hatted in my current position, one as the Special Assistant to the DCI for Security, which 

is the Intelligence Community role, and secondarily, I am the Director of Security for the CIA, which is the internal CIA role. 

In my role as the Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence for Security, I would like to share with you ongoing initiatives that have already improved security processes in the Intelligence Community. The war on terrorism has underscored the 

24

need for the Intelligence Community to facilitate the sharing of intelligence information while protecting sources and methods. The 

Intelligence Community’s security professionals play a pivotal role 

in monitoring the impact of security actions on intelligence operations and analysis. We believe the Intelligence Community had 

made significant strides in standardizing policies and procedures 

that provide a much stronger foundation than that which existed 

prior to September 11, 2001. 

In March 2002, the Director of Central Intelligence envisioned 

the need to centralize the management and oversight of Intelligence Community security policies and procedures, and he endorsed the formation of a Director of Central Intelligence Special 

Security Center, the DSSC. The center is pursuing initiatives to 

produce more effective and efficient security practices within the 

Intelligence Community. The center is working to ensure that existing common security investigative and adjudicative practices are 

consistently implemented. As facilitated by the DSSC, the Intelligence Community security directors have collaborated on strategies to improve and strengthen common security policies and practices, using the common guidelines for background investigations 

and adjudications, specifically the Director of Central Intelligence 

directives, executive orders, and national security directives. The 

Intelligence Community security directors strive to meet the requirements for consistent security processing while reducing redundant processes and remaining flexible enough for unique requirements. 

Some ongoing actions include performing policy review to promote standardization and reciprocity within the Intelligence Community, conducting oversight on the implementation of security 

policies, standardizing personnel security training to foster uniformity throughout the clearance process, and improving interagency reciprocity and security clearances to reduce adjudicative 

processing redundancies across the Intelligence Community. In addition to the ongoing actions outlined above, a central security 

clearance data base repository is in operation at over 100 facilities 

worldwide and will become the single source for the Intelligence 

Community’s security professionals as the clearance and validation 

data base. The repository may also support a number of information-sharing activities within the Intelligence Community, including intelligence dissemination, expedited personnel security clearance processing, and our common badge initiative. 

In response to the Subcommittee’s request for views on its propose legislation to create a centralized investigative service under 

a national intelligence director, it is premature at this point to provide an official position on legislation until the President presents 

his proposed intelligence reform legislation which will address 

many of these issues. The President has already issued an executive order to strengthen the management of the Intelligence Community, which includes the direction to the DCI in its role as the 

leader of the Intelligence Community to establish common security 

access standards for managing and handling intelligence systems, 

information, and products. The President agrees with the 9/11 

Commission’s recommendations for improving information sharing 

while protecting national security information. 

25

1The prepared statement of Mr. Mihm appears in the Appendix on page 00. 

The Intelligence Community’s security directors believe that 

changes implemented by the security community since September 

11, 2001 have significantly improved the use of common standards 

and practices. We will continue to work together to streamline and 

improve the security process. 

In closing, I thank the Subcommittee for providing the Intelligence Community the opportunity to testify on this important 

issue, and I will be happy to address any questions as we go on. 

Thank you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. Mr. Mihm. 

TESTIMONY OF J. CHRISTOPHER MIHM,1 MANAGING DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. MIHM. Chairman Voinovich, Senator Coleman, and Senator 

Pryor, it is always an enormous honor to appear before you and 

today in particular to talk about how strategic human capital management can help drive some of the transformational challenges 

that the Intelligence Community faces. As you noted in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, this Subcommittee, and more generally the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, has had a longstanding interest and concern, certainly predating September 11, in 

human capital issues and intelligence and homeland security concerns. 

As a result of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, related legislative proposals, and of course the administration’s executive orders and plans, Congress and other decisionmakers confront a series of very difficult technical and policy questions related 

to intelligence in homeland security; however, as the work of the 

9/11 Commission clearly demonstrated, at the center of these questions is the need to fundamentally change the culture of Intelligence Community. As the 9/11 Commission noted, the hard and 

the important work at issue is not the wiring of the agencies, but 

the cultures within individual agencies. 

Thus, my major point today is that experience has repeatedly 

shown that in organizations where people are the most important 

asset, and which is clearly the case with intelligence agencies, people or human capital strategies must be at the center of any serious change management initiative, and that, of course, was exactly 

the point that Senator Collins was making. 

My written statement extensively details our work on the FBI’s 

human capital efforts and issues Congress needs to consider, in our 

view, in creating a single organization to handle personnel background investigations. In the interest of time, I am going to touch 

on four key human capital strategies that our work suggests to be 

critical in more broadly transforming governance, including intelligence and homeland security. 

First, key mergers and transformation practices can be used to 

help guide Intelligence Community reforms. Working with experienced leaders in the public and private sectors, including those that 

have experience in intelligence and defense-related issues, we identified a set of practices, lessons learned, and key implementation 

26

steps that successful mergers, transformations, and large scale 

change management initiatives go through in order to be successful. It is our belief that this work can also be helpful as we consider 

changes to the Intelligence Community. 

Second, and this relates, Mr. Chairman, directly to your question 

about a chief human capital officer for the NID, experience also 

shows that successful change management initiatives in large public and private organizations often take years to accomplish. I have 

had the opportunity to hear you speak of your experience in Ohio 

as governor about how it takes a lot of time to turn around an organization that has been in trouble. The appointment of agency 

chief operating officers is one mechanism that we think should be 

considered to obtain the sustained and inspired attention to make 

the needed changes. In addition to individual agencies chief operating officers, Congress may also want to consider having the National Intelligence Director appoint a chief operating officer. 

In other words, there are a range of important management and 

transformation issues, including not only those dealing with human 

capital, that warrant high level and sustained attention. This executive could serve under term appointment, to institutionalize accountability over extended periods and help ensure that the longterm change management and organizationally change initiatives 

are successfully implemented. 

A major theme of Mr. Fielding’s comments earlier this morning 

was the fact that we have greater vulnerability during periods of 

transition. In our view, a chief operating officer under a term appointment could be one, but only one, of the vehicles that Congress 

could consider in order to maintain this continuity. 

Third, one of the major challenges facing the Intelligence Community is moving from the culture of the need to know to need to 

share. An effective performance management system is a vital tool 

to aligning the organization with desired results and creating what 

we have often called a line of sight, that is showing how individual, 

team, unit, and organizational results are all aligned with one another, showing individuals how what they do on a day-to-day basis 

contributes to larger results outside the organization. The performance management system can send unmistakable messages about 

behavior the organization values and the relationship of that behavior to achieving results. We have also found in looking at the 

performance management systems around the world that these systems can be effective tools in maintaining clarity and continuity 

during periods of political transition. 

Fourth and finally, Congress has authorized significant changes 

in the last 3 years, often under the leadership of this Subcommittee, regarding how the Federal work force is managed. As 

Congress considers reforms to the Intelligence Community’s human 

capital policies and practices, in our view, it should also consider 

whether those agencies have the necessary institutional infrastructures in order to effectively implement those changes. Do they have 

a strategic plan in place? Do they have a human capital plan that 

is aligned with that strategic plan? Do they have the capabilities 

to effectively use those flexibilities? 

In summary, over the last past several years, we in GAO have 

conducted, often at the request of this Subcommittee, extensive 

27

work on government transformation and critical management 

issues that we believe could be helpful to the Intelligence Community as it considers its reforms. We would be more than happy to 

share that information with them and to continue to assist Congress in its oversight responsibilities. 

Thank you. I would obviously be happy to take any questions you 

may have. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I want to thank all of the witnesses for their 

testimony. 

Mr. Mihm, some agencies, like the CIA, operate outside of Title 

5, while others, like the FBI, still work within the confines of Title 

5. If we create a National Intelligence Director, which I am sure 

we are going to do, how much authority should that individual 

have over personnel matters? It gets back to the question I asked 

the first panel regarding transferring people and making sure they 

have that strategy that you were just talking about. Do we have 

the right people to get the job done? 

Mr. MIHM. There are a couple of issues, sir. One, as you were 

mentioning, is the different levels of authorities that agencies within the Intelligence Community already enjoy. It creates an unlevel 

playing field. Mark was talking about that in his statement. 

The second issue, though, and here we think that the model that 

Congress used for the Department of Homeland Security could be 

a good one. That is, provide the National Intelligence Director the 

authority and the responsibility to create a personnel system, Congress should not feel burdened or responsible with legislating specifically what an integrated personnel system would look like for 

the Intelligence Community; rather, Congress should place that responsibility with the NID, as you did with Department of Homeland Security, with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of OPM to come up with that system and then issue regulations and work with the employees as appropriate to define that 

system. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Would you allow them to have the power to 

move people, if he thought they were needed, from one agency to 

another? 

Mr. MIHM. We haven’t done extensive work on that, but it seems 

that certainly that is the model that Congress has used and agencies have used in other instances, and it has proven itself very successful. Obviously the way to the top in the defense community is 

the willingness to move around and accept different billets. Overseas, when we have looked at personnel systems, for example, in 

the United Kingdom, they have a program called Fast Stream 

where the way to move up and one of the keys to an individual’s 

success is their willingness and ability to be successful in a variety 

of different positions, some of them direct service delivery, some of 

them policy shops, some of them administration. That is both how 

you tap into the best talent, that is how you develop the best talent, and that is also how you make sure that you have——

Senator VOINOVICH. In other words, when they come into the 

agency they know they can be transferred, and that would be part 

of their career plan. They should understand that is what could 

happen to them? 

28

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir, and especially if you aspire to the highest 

levels of leadership. In the case of the U.K., it is an absolute requirement. It was also at least implicitly one of the thoughts behind the creation of the Senior Executive Service here in the Executive Branch—that there would be movement across agencies. Of 

course, for a variety of reasons, that hasn’t played out, but the philosophy is still the same, that we have a tendency here to assume 

that the only people that can run things or contribute to a certain 

organization are those that grew up within that organization. Our 

friends in the Partnership for Public Service have talked often 

about the need to bring in talent from the outside, but equally important in our view is the need to be able to circulate talent 

around, to realize that there are certain change management, management competencies that really do work in a variety of different 

settings, and we need to be able to have the capacity to leverage 

those. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Mr. Bullock, Congressman Frank Wolf, are you familiar with the 

personnel-related reforms that have been put in the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, Judiciary and Related 

Agencies, of the Appropriations Committee? 

Mr. BULLOCK. Yes, I am, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Most of those authorities exist in current 

law or regulation. In addition, immediately following September 11, 

the Office of Personnel Management granted the Justice Department the authority to re-employ retirees, and I am going to ask you 

a series of questions. Did the FBI utilize this authority? Is the FBI 

using the existing authority for retention and relocation bonuses? 

Has the FBI ever requested critical pay authority from OPM? Is 

the Bureau using category ranking for hiring, a flexibility that Senator Akaka and I added to the Homeland Security Legislation? 

The point I am making is that there are flexibilities that we authorized in the Homeland Security legislation that we expected 

agencies to use. I am interested in knowing are you using them 

and what additional flexibilities do you believe that you will need 

in order to get the job done? 

Mr. BULLOCK. Yes, we are using some of these flexibilities with 

relocation bonuses, retention bonuses, and so forth. We have used 

them where appropriate. We have brought individuals back on the 

roles as retired annuitants and so forth and received the appropriate authorization to do that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So you have re-employed retirees? 

Mr. BULLOCK. Oh, absolutely, sir. Where we fall short is in our 

ability to create the career track that we want to create for our intelligence analysts. Under our current performance standards, the 

OPM performance standards, we can only with our analysts go up 

to a GS–14. If you go to a GS–15, you have to be a supervisor. We 

would like to have the ability to go to the equivalent of a SES for 

our analysts and reward them for additional expertise and demonstrated ability in doing analytical work as opposed to having to 

become a manager. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The Bureau does not have the flexibility to 

create non-supervisory SES and GS–15 positions for intelligence 

personnel, and you would like to have that authority? 

29

Mr. BULLOCK. We certainly would. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. If there are any other flexibilities that you would need, I would really be interested to have that. 

Mr. BULLOCK. OK. I could get a comprehensive list for you. I 

know the others that you are aware of, the locality pay, the ability 

to have locality pay in certain cities. They are looking at that from 

a governmentwide perspective, but I can get a comprehensive list 

to you if that would be preferable. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. We are working on this right 

now and would love to have that. 

Senator Pryor. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Turnicky, let me ask you something about your repository 

that you mentioned. Tell me a little bit more about that. 

Mr. TURNICKY. The data base? 

Senator PRYOR. Yes. 

Mr. TURNICKY. We began back in 1998, 1999 to create a data 

base that would have in that everyone within the Intelligence Community who possesses a top secret SCI clearance. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. Hold on. Stop right there. So does that mean 

that when you are doing a background check, does that help you 

do the security check, background check? 

Mr. TURNICKY. What that helps me do, sir, is that if I am going 

to be receiving people into CIA, for example, from NSA, as opposed 

to having to send paper or make phone calls or do whatever, there 

are people at NSA, there are people at CIA and throughout the Intelligence Community who can check that data base to make sure 

that people have the appropriate clearances to come to a given 

meeting or to see a specific document, whatever it may be. 

Senator PRYOR. Let me stop right there, because we just had a 

couple of 9/11 commissioners, and I think one or both of them said 

that they had to go through a security clearance with a number of 

different agencies and it was cumbersome and slow and all this. 

Are you saying that you already have something in place that 

would take care of that, for lack of a better term, kind of a onestop shopping? 

Mr. TURNICKY. It is close to a one-stop shop for the Intelligence 

Community right now, and I think what the commissioners may 

also have been referring to is the fact that if an individual is 

cleared, say, by NRO and they are coming into NSA, that their 

clearance needs to be within a 5-year scope, the background investigation and if a polygraph is required. As long as it meets those 

requirements, then it can be transferred over. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. Now, is your data base open to all intelligence agencies? 

Mr. TURNICKY. It is open to personnel, some personnel, not to everyone, again because it is classified data base, but there are people at the various agencies and throughout the Intelligence Community that would have access to that data base. 

Senator PRYOR. All right. Well, I guess what I am trying to figure out is, we have a 9/11 Commission recommendation that we 

pretty much put all the background checks, all the security clearances, in one central location. Is it fair to say that you have the 

central location already developed? 

30

Mr. TURNICKY. I would say it is fair to say that for the Intelligence Community, but when you go governmentwide, that is not 

there yet. The military DOD has JPAS. 

Senator PRYOR. Well, OK, but I think what we are talking about 

today is pretty much limited to the Intelligence Community. 

And if this Congress, if we decided that this new function, this 

more centralized function, should be at the National Intelligence 

Director’s office, is your data base, is your system transferable over 

to the NID? 

Mr. TURNICKY. We would be very flexible. 

Senator PRYOR. Well, that is good to know. What are your 

thoughts on that subject, on whether we should have one centralized place to do security clearances? Does that make sense to you? 

Mr. TURNICKY. I think, speaking again from the Intelligence 

Community perspective only, is what we really require is the ability to be agile, the ability to be flexible, and to have the ability to 

prioritize. These are critical elements throughout the Intelligence 

Community. The numbers of clearances that we in the Intelligence 

Community deal with compared to governmentwide are minuscule. 

So right now, I believe we have that flexibility, and whatever we 

come up with here, from the Intelligence Community’s perspective, 

I would just like to make sure that we maintain that ability to be 

agile, to be flexible, and to prioritize. 

Senator PRYOR. How long does it take you to do a security clearance on average? 

Mr. TURNICKY. It depends on the type of clearance. On an applicant coming into the agency, the security aspect of it will take anywhere from, on average, between 90 and 105 days. On an industrial clearance, it is going to take a little bit longer. The priorities 

as they are right now are applicants followed by the industrial. 

Senator PRYOR. Well, let me ask this: We talked about this with 

the previous panel. When a new administration comes in and they 

are putting their national security team together there in the 

White House, do you prioritize those and try to get those turned 

around? 

Mr. TURNICKY. For the most part, we in the Intelligence Community would not be doing the background investigations on those 

people. That would be the Bureau. 

Mr. BULLOCK. That would be the FBI. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. And, Mr. Bullock, how long does it take you 

to do those background checks? 

Mr. BULLOCK. Those background checks are typically done within 

30 days, and understand that we have a unit in my division that 

would coordinate those assignments, and then those leaders are 

sent out to agents across the field to promptly conduct those investigations. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. Mr. Mihm, you have made a recommendation, as I understand it, that the National Intelligence Director 

should appoint a Chief Operating Officer; is that what you called 

it? 

Mr. MIHM. Yes, sir. 

Senator PRYOR. And what would those functions be? 

Mr. MIHM. It would be basically to help the NID deal with a series of large scale functional management (personnel, information 

31

technology, financial management, etc.) as well as some of the 

transformation issues. Typically what we often see, and it is not 

surprising, political appointees come to town with agendas and experiences and backgrounds in policy and programs. They don’t 

often have as well rounded backgrounds and they don’t get as thorough an examination on their management capabilities. That coupled with the long-term changes that are needed in many agencies 

in the Intelligence Community generally lead us to think that a 

Chief Operating Officer or some similar vehicle could help sustain 

change over time. 

Senator PRYOR. Would that be a career position? In other words, 

would that continue from administration to administration? 

Mr. MIHM. There are any number of options, sir. For example, 

it could be a term appointment. This model is used very often in 

other countries where it is a term appointment with a strict performance contract. If the goals in the contract are met, the performance reward is provided. If the goals in the contract are not 

met, the euphemism is they are urged to achieve excellence elsewhere. Since we are dealing with functional management, you can 

hold people accountable. Let us get a good personnel system in 

place. Let us get a good financial management, IT system in place. 

Really having some day-to-day thinking about the internal management of the organization is what is needed, freeing up the top 

leadership to think of the policy and the programs. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Coleman. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to follow up with Senator Pryor’s comment about the 

Chief Operating Officer, COO. Is this something that needs congressional action or is this something that the President can do by 

executive order? 

Mr. MIHM. There is any number of models. The President could 

do a version of this certainly by executive order. The term appointment would probably require some congressional action. But if Congress doesn’t want to go that far yet, you could certainly urge the 

NID to appoint a very senior person that would have the responsibility for integrating functional management, elevating attention to 

these, and leading the transformation, that would help as well. 

Senator COLEMAN. And I turn to Mr. Bullock and Mr. Turnicky. 

From the Agency’s perspective, the FBI’s perspective, is there anything like this in place now, and how would you react to that recommendation? 

Mr. TURNICKY. At this point, I would not be aware of what is in 

place at the agency on that, sir. 

Mr. BULLOCK. No, we don’t have a similar position in the FBI at 

that point. 

Senator COLEMAN. Any reaction to the recommendations? I am 

not holding you responsible for making policy, but as folks in the 

field who are going to deal with a lot of stuff. 

Mr. BULLOCK. The concern I would have is seeing how that 

would actually work when you have resources from different departments and different agencies and others in the department 

with at least partial responsibility that would be redundant with 

this position. How would it actually work, and would we ultimately 

32

result in just a greater level of bureaucracy if we were to put this 

in place? So I think it would have to be analyzed and structured 

properly to avoid that. 

Senator COLEMAN. And I think that is always a concern, are we 

making changes in a way that increase efficiency and capacity or 

are we creating more bureaucracy? So I think clearly that is the 

issue. 

We have talked a lot about talent and the need to, like Mr. 

Mihm, you said, circulate talent. Is there enough talent to go 

around, Mr. Turnicky? Are there enough folks out there with the 

language skills, the educational skills, the international relation 

skills to meet the needs of this expanded focus we are having on 

intelligence? 

Mr. TURNICKY. My function, again, is in the security end of it, 

and I can tell you from the numbers of applicants and contractors 

who are coming in, there are certainly plenty of people out there 

that we are processing. I think there is always—just speaking from 

the security perspective, there is a shortage, I think, governmentwide of investigators. There is a shortage of people who are qualified in the adjudicative realm, and we are working towards training programs community-wide to train adjudicators so that they 

are all using common standards throughout the entire IC. 

But this is something we are dealing with not only as the IC. I 

think that is governmentwide, the shortage of investigators. 

Senator COLEMAN. Mr. Bullock. 

Mr. BULLOCK. I think as far as the people with the right skills, 

with our agent position, we hire with the critical skill and diversity. We have been able to meet our objective in both getting 

enough critical skills and diversity this year. With the intelligence 

analysts, we have had approximately 57,000 applicants apply since 

February of this year for our intelligence analyst position. Again, 

applicants and having the right applicants are two different things, 

and we are still sorting through those, but it looks like by the end 

of October, we will have on board approximately 800 intelligence 

analysts after filtering through those 57,000 applicants and approximately 1,200 agents with the critical skills in most areas. 

Where we are having the most difficulty is hiring the agents with 

the language skills, barring Spanish. Arabic, Urdu, Russian, Chinese, we still have difficulties finding the individuals with those 

skills that can get through our process and overcome the security 

issues with having family members that live abroad and so forth. 

That is an obstacle that is difficult to get around. 

Senator COLEMAN. Mr. Mihm, do you want to respond? 

Mr. MIHM. Senator Coleman, I take Mark’s point that certainly 

for some specialized competencies, there are in a sense absolute 

shortages; however, fundamentally, the issue is making sure that 

we in the Federal Government have hiring and recruiting processes 

that are agile enough to identify and bring on the people that are 

out there. Commissioner Gorelick spoke earlier about how the traditional model focused on having people with the law enforcement 

background. It is a whole different type of recruiting and hiring 

model when you are going for the diversity of talent that we now 

need in the Federal Government. 

33

Senator COLEMAN. It may also be worth having a conversation 

with other educational institutions in terms of what is being taught 

so as to meet the need. 

Mr. MIHM. Yes. 

Senator COLEMAN. Let me have one, in the time I have, Mr. Bullock, just one specific question for you. After the Commission 

issued the report, the FBI agreed, I think with all the Commission’s recommendations about the operation save one—I am not 

sure whether Mr. Fielding or Ms. Gorelick mentioned it, but it had 

to do with an individual at each field office; you have an official at 

the field office, a deputy level for national security matters. ‘‘Each 

field office should have an official at field office of deputy level for 

national security matters. This individual would have management 

oversight and ensure that the national priorities are carried out.’’

I believe the FBI response to the recommendation was they 

promised to look at that closely. 

Mr. BULLOCK. Yes. 

Senator COLEMAN. Can you tell us where you are on that? 

Mr. BULLOCK. We initially were to assign an Assistant Special 

Agent in Charge in each office to address national security matters. 

We would step back to look at that and to figure out how you could 

effectively control the scope of responsibility, because most of our 

effort is now in the national security arena, and inculcate the intelligence responsibility in that as well. So we are currently still reviewing to see how we can assign these responsibilities at the second level of command in each field office to deal with intelligence 

and national security matters and the criminal matters and the 

cyber matters. 

Senator COLEMAN. That is very helpful. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would like to thank everyone for your testimony. A big issue is the decision of where to put the Director of 

Intelligence, in the White House or outside of it, and then the other 

issue is whether or not that individual should have a fixed term. 

Mr. Mihm, you talked about the CFO, someone that would have 

a contract and would be there in these agencies. I would like your 

opinion on whether or not you think that individual that would be 

the National Intelligence Director should have a term that would 

carry into the next administration with some ability that after 2 

years, if there was a difference of opinion, that they could be eliminated or ask to leave. A bad word. What is your opinion on that? 

Mr. MIHM. Mr. Chairman, as you know, the Controller General 

couldn’t be here today. I know he has some views on that, and so 

I would like to be able to confer with him and give you his considered position rather than offer something from myself, because that 

really does get beyond my portfolio. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. So at this stage, you would rather 

not——

Mr. MIHM. I just need to——

Senator VOINOVICH. Let us put it in juxtaposition with the CFO. 

You are talking about having a CFO that would have a contract. 

So that CFO, say if you went that route, would be there in the department with the intelligence director. 

Mr. MIHM. Right. 

34

Senator VOINOVICH. And if that individual would be there, and 

that individual was termed out when the new President came in, 

you would still have the CFO. That is the purpose of your concept 

of the CFO? 

Mr. MIHM. The chief operating officer. What has often been 

added, is that, well, what happens if the new leadership, political 

leadership team just can’t get along with this individual or this individual can’t get along with the new leadership team. If we are 

successful in getting the right people to be COOs, these are the 

types of people who will have options elsewhere and they will 

quickly see. If they are not going to be able to integrate with the 

new political leadership, then they will see the need to move on. 

The idea here is just to provide some sort of mechanism where 

we can have continuity and someone on a day-to-day basis to worry 

about what are we going to look like as an organization 5, 6, or 7 

years out. It is just unrealistic to expect that sort of time horizon 

consistently from political leadership. 

Senator VOINOVICH. At the FBI now, the director is limited to 10 

years, but there is no other limit at all in terms of the director who 

serves at the pleasure of the attorney general. 

Mr. BULLOCK. At the pleasure of the attorney general. So, yes, 

we do operate under that system, and I think beyond that, as Mr. 

Mihm stated, we do need the consistently at the CFO, COO level. 

Beyond that, I would like too defer to the director to decide on 

the—to provide his input on where the position should be. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Right. In the case of Mr. Tenet, he worked 

for President Clinton and President Bush, continued his service, 

but he had no term. That was at the pleasure of the President. 

Mr. BULLOCK. Right. Correct. 

Senator VOINOVICH. It does show that if you get someone who is 

competent, a succeeding President many times retained them because they are top-notch people. 

Mr. BULLOCK. Absolutely. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Coleman, do you have anything further? 

Senator COLEMAN. Nothing further, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thanks very much again for your testimony. 

Our next panel is composed of Dr. Paul Light, who is a senior 

fellow at The Brookings Institution and Professor of Public Policy 

at New York University. C. Morgan Kinghorn is the President of 

the National Academy of Public Administration. Max Stier is the 

President and Chief Executive Officer of the Partnership for Public 

Service. And, finally, Doug Wagoner is the Chairman of the Security Clearances Task Group of the Information Technology Association of America. 

And Mr. Wagoner, when you get to your testimony, in the first 

minute of your testimony, would you explain the mission of your 

organization? 

Mr. WAGONER. Yes, sir. I do in my oral testimony. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. Thank you. 

Dr. Light, you have been with us before, and we appreciate your 

presence. 

Mr. Kinghorn, your predecessor worked very closely with us in 

the beginning when we were drafting our human capital reforms. 

35

1The prepared statement of Mr. Light appears in the Appendix on page 00. 

Max Stier is the head of an organization, the Partnership for 

Public Service, that has been doing an outstanding job of reaching 

out to try and get the best and brightest people to come to work 

for the Federal Government. 

So we are very happy to have you here today, and I would ask 

you in your testimony, to comment on anything that you heard 

from the other witnesses that you agree or disagree with, I would 

appreciate hearing from you about it. 

Dr. Light, we will start with you. 

TESTIMONY OF PAUL C. LIGHT,1 PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW, THE 

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 

Mr. LIGHT. It is a pleasure to be here. It is kind of like, as Yogi 

Barra said, deja vu all over again. We have been here repeatedly 

over the years talking about the management and organizational 

problems at different departments, different mistakes, events that 

prompted a flirtation with management reform. It is sad to note 

that the 9/11 Commission had to devote so much time in its report 

to our general difficulties getting persistent and deep reform 

through the Federal Government. 

And I applaud this Subcommittee’s work on this issue over the 

years. This Committee as a whole has struggled to change the 

management and organizational culture in the Federal Government. We have got a real chance here to do some important work, 

and I encourage this Subcommittee to be bold in attaching to this 

legislation broader reforms that you believe are necessary. This is 

a freight train that is leaving the station, and sometimes you have 

to put governmentwide reform on what you believe is essential, and 

I believe this is an opportunity to do so as this Subcommittee has 

been successful in the past. 

I am going to reserve most of my comments today for the Presidential appointments process, which is just a disaster. It makes absolutely no sense for us to create a new intelligence directorate 

with six to twelve new Presidential Senate-confirmed appointees if 

they have to wait 8, 10 to 12 months to get on the job, which is 

a persistent problem in the Federal Government more generally. 

On September 11, less than half of the 166 jobs that would be 

engaged in the War on Terrorism were filled with a sworn Presidential appointee. That is a remarkable statistic. Two months before September 11, the number hovered around a third. You cannot 

direct a government to perform in response to threat if the people 

aren’t there. I have characterized this facetiously too often as not 

a problem of headless government. We had our secretaries. We had 

our deputy secretaries in place. What we didn’t have were the 

undersecretaries, the associate undersecretaries, the assistant secretaries, the long list of titles that were open for occupancy at the 

top of the Federal Government and that transfer the directions 

down to the agency front lines and that transfer the knowledge and 

information back up. 

We had what I call neckless government, and we had it for a 

good long time. On average, the Bush Administration appointee 

was in office 81⁄2 months after inauguration. That is an impossibly 

36

difficult figure. It is not the kind of appointments process that 

speaks to an agile government. I worked on this issue at the National Academy of Public Administration in 1984. We pounded the 

shoe on the table about a 41⁄2 month average. We would give our 

eyeteeth for that average today. 

I strongly encourage this Subcommittee to pursue the Presidential Appointment Improvement Act, which the Chairman has 

introduced which sits before the Committee. I strongly encourage 

you to pursue meaningful reform and Senate rules regarding the 

appointments process. We have got to eliminate the use of holds as 

a device for making political points. I understand that this occurs 

in both political parties. I understand the dynamics underneath it, 

but we have got to take action to assure that the Senate and the 

White House meet their obligations to fill positions promptly. 

I also believe that we have to seek a compact with the Executive 

Branch to assure that appointments are handled in a timely fashion. I mean, the process does not end with the dumping of a nominee’s package at the Senate door. Too often, past administrations 

believed that was all their obligation requires and then it is up to 

the Senate to discharge its responsibility and wouldn’t it be nice if 

we didn’t have all these positions subject to Senate confirmation. 

Well, I am an Article One person. I believe that the Senate has an 

obligation to review Presidential appointees, has an obligation to 

inspect the records of Presidential appointees. that is part of your 

constitutional obligation. 

I do not agree with the 9/11 Commission’s broad recommendation 

that all positions under Executive Level Three should be exempt 

from Senate review. That would mean that this Committee would 

no longer have the right or responsibility to look at Inspectors General, for example, to look at Assistant Secretaries, for example, to 

look at Administrators and to look at General Counsels, CFO, Chief 

Information Officers. You have an obligation to look at positions 

that matter to this country and to the government’s performance. 

So I argue in my testimony here that you should take a look at 

each of the positions that could be exempted from Senate review 

on a case-by-case basis and develop a reasonable inventory of positions that could be dropped from the ordinary review process. I also 

recommend that you undertake a streamlining of the Presidential 

appointments process and reduce the number of appointees subject 

not just to confirmation, but actually put in place. We have too 

many appointees. We have got too many layers of needless management at the top of government. Again, it makes no sense to create 

a national intelligence directorate if we are just adding new layers 

to the Federal bureaucracy. 

I applaud this Committee and Subcommittee’s work. I encourage 

you to be aggressive in your legislating, and I stand ready to help 

you in any way that I can. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. Mr. Kinghorn. 

37

1The prepared statement of Mr. Kinghorn appears in the Appendix on page 00. 

TESTIMONY OF C. MORGAN KINGHORN,1 PRESIDENT, 

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. KINGHORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Carper, and 

Senator Coleman. 

As President of the National Academy of Public Administration, 

an independent non-partisan organization chartered by the Congress to give trusted advice to public leaders, I really am pleased 

to be here to provide you with my perspective on the recommendations for Federal personnel reforming coming out of the 9/11 Commission. The views presented today are my own and are not necessarily those of the Academy as an institution. 

The 9/11 Commission, as we heard this morning highlighted several areas for personnel reform. I would like to focus my comments 

on the issues of providing some additional flexibilities to the FBI 

in its personnel practices. However, I will also address certain 

other related 9/11 Commission recommendations, and my testimony is organized around proposals affecting the FBI, which were 

considered by a group convened by the Academy in May of this 

year at the request of Congressman Wolf, Chairman of the House 

Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State. 

Together, the group examined six proposals. Two of the six are 

consistent with the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Four were 

included in whole or in part in the Appropriation Bill passed by the 

House on July 8. Two proposals would affect the FBI, but also have 

implications for other Federal agencies in general and should be 

considered probably in a broader context. I want to offer some brief 

comments on each of the proposals. 

The first is the establishment of an intelligence career service at 

the FBI. This proposal would create intelligence career service, including SES and other senior level positions that may be beyond 

those permissible under the FBI’s current Title 5 authorities. Unlike the CIA and other intelligence services that we heard this 

morning, the FBI does not have authority to create non-supervisory 

SES and GS–15 positions for intelligence personnel. This does limit 

their ability to offer competitive pay and career advancement. The 

creation of these positions would address the FBI’s disadvantage 

when competing for talent to staff its intelligence function. 

Although the House appropriations bill did not address the 

career intelligence service per se, and we believe it should be addressed, it did authorize the FBI to pay critical intelligence positions up to an executive schedule one as a first start. 

Second was creating an intelligence decision unit within the 

FBI’s budget. The current FBI budget does not have an intelligence 

decision unit. The proposed budget structure has a separate decision unit for intelligence, which we proposed. Such a budget decision unit would propose a clear review of funding devoted to intelligence and prevent those funds from being reallocated for other 

purposes without congressional notification. The proposal to create 

an intelligence decision unit within the FBI’s budget was included 

in the House appropriations bill. Proposed legislation would collapse the ten budget units used in previous years to four decision 

units commented by the 9/11 Commission: Intelligence, 

38

counterterrorism, counterintelligence, criminal and criminal justice 

services. 

The next proposal was to waive the mandatory retirement age 

beyond 60. The director’s current authority to waive the mandatory 

retirement age at 57 is currently limited to age 60. Mandatory retirement really is intended to promote a work force consistent with 

the physical demands of law enforcement; however, limiting the director’s waiver to 60 denies the FBI the continued services of really 

highly-skilled employees. The House appropriations bill based on 

our analysis, again, would extend the authority of the director to 

waive the mandatory retirement age of agents, allowing him to 

delay mandatory retirement on a case-by-case basis up to the age 

of 65. 

The next item that was included in the bill was establishing a 

reserve program within the FBI. As you all know and we all know, 

in recent years, the FBI has faced a variety of demanding situations that have stretched the organization’s personnel capacities. 

To better enable it to react quickly and effectively to future crises, 

the FBI proposed creating a reserve program. This program would 

allow the FBI to draw quickly on a cadre of retired staff who are 

ready and able to provide assistance. It would provide a streamlined process thereby to tap a large group of retired staff with the 

targeted skills to accomplish the agency’s work on a temporary 

basis. The precedent exists for such programs in the military and 

other organizations and waivers are available for dual compensation. 

The House appropriations bill would authorize the director to 

provide for the establishment and training of the FBI reserve service that we believe would facilitate streamlined temporary rehiring 

from a pre-certified cadre of retired FBI employees. 

Finally, the Academy’s role in facilitating the review of these proposals complemented our current and ongoing work on the FBI’s 

transformation, performed by a panel chaired by the former Attorney General and NAPA fellow, Dick Thornburg. It has two major 

components. First, the panel is reviewing the FBI’s efforts to structure its counterterrorism security and intelligence components and 

to implement the programs it has designed in each of these areas; 

and, second, the panel has examined the FBI’s field structure with 

a goal of developing criteria that might be used to develop possible 

alternatives in light of the changes in the FBI’s strategic focus. We 

will report out on this earlier next year. 

In closing, I wish to emphasize that the Academy would be 

pleased to assist the Subcommittee in its ongoing deliberations regarding human capital recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. 

We have significant experience in a variety of agencies and organizations, both at the strategic level in terms of assessing where 

agencies should be going, as well as the very practical ‘‘on the 

ground, how do you implement it’’ issues that are really the expertise of our 550 fellows. 

This concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I would be pleased 

to respond to any questions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. Mr. Wagoner. 

39

1The prepared statement of Mr. Wagoner with an attachment appears in the Appendix on 

page 00. 

TESTIMONY OF DOUG WAGONER,1 CHAIRMAN, ITAA 

INTELLIGENCE/SECURITY CLEARANCES TASK GROUP 

Mr. WAGONER. Mr. Chairman, Members of Subcommittee, thank 

you for inviting the Information Technology Association of America 

to testify on current challenges industry faces in obtaining security 

clearances in support of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. 

The hearing is a positive step forward in dealing with challenges 

that have plagued this process for decades, a process that threatens 

national security by failing to fill critical positions timely and keeps 

qualified people from working in quality jobs. 

My name is Doug Wagoner, and I serve as a Chairman of the 

ITAA Intelligence Committee. I am also vice president of a small 

IT services company, and bring the perspective of small business 

to this issue. 

ITAA is one of the Nation’s leading and oldest trade associations 

focused on the IT industry, providing public policy and national 

leadership to promote its growth. Our members range from very 

large companies such as Lockheed Martin down to very small companies such as me. 

I have included in my full written statement a copy of a detailed 

white paper that ITAA and seven other industry associations have 

prepared after about 2 years of study that provides five recommendations on how to improve this vastly complicated process 

without sacrificing security. While the pressures placed on an already stretched system have been exacerbated by our government’s 

response to 9/11, the challenges we face have been the same for 

decades. Since 1981, if not earlier, GAO has reported every couple 

of years our government’s inability to quickly and thoroughly 

clear——

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Wagoner, I know we are limiting it to 

5 minutes, but you can slow down. 

Mr. WAGONER. OK. Sure. 

GAO has estimated the annual cost to government and the industry in the billions of dollars, and more worrisome is that GAO 

and others have pointed to direct risks to national security on critical projects due to a limited pool of cleared people. Since 1981, the 

affected agencies involved have proposed very few changes and 

have not been held accountable for their lack of performance. Results of a recent ITAA survey of our membership shows that industry has seen greater than a 12-month average time period for a 

new top secret clearance to be granted with almost 70 percent saying that it takes over 9 months. This average is for a clean case 

where the individual has no problems with foreign travel, credit, 

criminal, or drug history. Clearances requiring more extensive investigation, such as polygraph, are taking 16 months or more. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Just so I am clear, these are entities the 

government contracts with? You have people working for you on 

classified projects, and before they can work, you have to get a government clearance? 

Mr. WAGONER. Yes, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And you are saying it is 9 to 12 months? 

40

Mr. WAGONER. Exactly. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. 

Mr. WAGONER. And this is for a brand new top secret clearance. 

Nearly 22 percent of our respondents told us that their companies have more than 500 open positions that require clearance, and 

70 percent said that they have seen a significant increase in demand for cleared personnel from the government over the past 5 

years. 

The 9/11 Commission has made among its recommendations to 

reform the Intelligence Community several suggestions dealing 

specifically with the security clearance problem. Today, I would 

like to focus on four main points of our recommended improvements, many of which mirror those of the Commission. None of our 

recommendations water down the investigative requirements or 

processes. Industry believes that we must remain diligent to ensure 

that only those with a need to know are granted the access to 

learn. 

First, we recommend that agencies work through the procurement process to authorize what we are calling bench strength of 

cleared personnel. For example, if a contract requires 20 cleared 

positions, we recommend that the procurement official authorize 25 

cleared positions so that industry can quickly back-fill with a new 

person on that contract. This will ensure critical programs to stay 

on schedule and do not get bogged down due to clearance shortages. 

Investigation standardization is an enormous issue for industry. 

ITAA has identified more than 20 agencies with distinct clearances 

across the Federal Government that require unique items of inquiry for clearances at particular agencies. Despite regulations and 

executive orders that spell out uniform requirements, there is currently no mechanism to enforce such standards. The Industrial Security Oversight Office has done tremendous work in outlining 

standards all agencies should follow, but they do not have the enforcement capability to ensure compliance. 

We agree with the Commission’s recommendation to standardize 

investigations and feel this must be addressed in more detail in 

legislation. If there are to be new standards, there must be a new 

mechanism to keep agencies accountable to that standard. We applaud the Commission’s call to consolidate responsibility for clearances into a single entity, but we believe that the role should be 

to coordinate and enforce standard policies and programs across 

government rather than actually conducting all the investigations 

for government. 

We have concerns about the ability of a single organization to 

handle the overwhelming volume of clearance investigations that 

take place each year. OPM’s experience has shown that trying to 

absorb other agency’s investigatory responsibilities only increases 

delays. Furthermore, OPM does not have the culture of meeting 

the demands of national security, and we know the cultural shifts 

in large organizations will not occur in time to meet our country’s 

needs. 

ITAA proposes that a new security clearance czar be appointed 

with the National Security Council to both direct the development 

of and enforcement of uniform standards, that actual investigations 

41

1The prepared statement of Mr. Stier appears in the Appendix on page 00. 

continue to be carried out by agencies requiring clearances. Having 

a single entity accountable will help drive performance in a distributive process using the same criteria and can hold agencies accountable. 

On the issue of reciprocity, it would seem logical, Mr. Chairman, 

that when one Federal agency grants a top secret clearance, that 

clearance should be honored by any other government agency to 

work at the same security level. More often than not, this is not 

happening because of unique requirements or, worse, a not-approved-here mentality. Ending the multiple investigations of the 

same person would lower the caseload and approval times. ITAA 

agrees wholeheartedly with recommendation of the 9/11 Commission that the intelligence agencies accept each other clearances; 

however, we recommend that this reciprocity, or what is called 

cross-over, be mandated across all Federal agencies for similar 

clearance levels and that the legislation specify that no Federal 

agency will reinvestigate an individual who holds an active clearance from another Federal agency. 

Finally, high demand and low supply for cleared people are causing an increase in job hopping which is rapidly raising labor costs 

on government programs. Over half of ITAA’s survey respondents 

told us that they regularly pay 5 to 25 percent more for a cleared 

employee who performs the same job as a non-cleared employee. 

These increased salaries are most often passed along to the Federal 

Government and unnecessarily drive up costs. 

ITAA would also recommend that a statutory performance metric 

of 120 days be established in this legislation to complete an initial 

top secret clearance. Ninety-six percent of our survey said that they 

could better serve government and 85 percent could make the best 

and brightest people available to government under this 120-day 

metric. Our experts believe that with proper management, systems, 

and motivation put in place, this can be accomplished within 2 

years. 

Industry values its partnership with government. ITAA hopes to 

work collaboratively to improve the process that is critical to national economic and personal security. Thank you for invitation, 

and I would be happy to answer your questions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. Mr. Stier. 

TESTIMONY OF MAX STIER,1 PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC 

SERVICE 

Mr. STIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Coleman, and 

Senator Carper. I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify 

on such a critical subject. 

I had a little bit of a surprise this weekend. I was expecting a 

baby 16 days from now, but he decided to arrive on Saturday. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Congratulations. 

Mr. STIER. Thank you very much. And I must say that it is undoubtedly true that anybody who has a newborn thinks very much 

about the future. For me, the fact that my newborn came on September 11 only heightens my concern about what we are doing as 

a Nation to address these problems. I want to think very much 

42

that we are at a crossroads about how we are addressing a very 

new threat, and the work that you are doing here is to be commended because it is so vital. 

I think the Commission said it best when it said that the quality 

of the people is more important than the quality of the wiring diagrams. Unfortunately, it is much easier to focus attention on wiring 

diagrams than people issues, primarily because the people issues 

are much harder. They take more time. They can’t be resolved by 

a stroke of a pen, and they are sometimes issues of judgment and 

of simply good management. I think that many of the reforms that 

you are proposing or considering in the legislation here will go a 

long ways to improving the Federal Government’s capacity to respond to this threat, and I want to take a step back. In my written 

testimony, I offer some support and information about a variety of 

things that you are doing, but I think it is worthwhile taking a 

step back and thinking more comprehensively about what the challenges are that we face. 

I would organize these, looking at the way the government addresses talent issues, in three primary ways. The most important 

is that I think the Federal Government today does not address people issues as a management issue. They see it primarily as a transactional question that Human Resources professionals are going to 

take care of. That is a real problem, and if there is one thing that 

we could do ultimately to address the people question, I think that 

is the thing we need to have happen, to have managers and leaders 

take ownership of the talent in their organizations. 

If you look at top private sector companies, the head of GE recently said that he spends at least 30 days a year of his personal 

time on trying to get and keep the very best people. Tom Tierney, 

who turned around Bain Consulting, said that he spent probably 

half his time on people issues. That is not something that we see 

very much in the Federal environment. The oversight of this Subcommittee, I think is going to be vital to ensure that you get leaders in government to pay attention to that critical asset. 

I also think that the performance management standards that 

you are considering having the National Intelligence Director be responsible for will be important, and I think, very importantly, the 

prospect of perhaps a chief human capital officer who would be responsible for talent issues across the Intelligence Community instead of under a single agency would be very valuable. 

The second area I think that is important to focus on is the hiring process itself. Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion, particularly of late, of the hiring process, concerns that it is too slow 

and too difficult. That is all true and something that we need to 

address, and I think that whether it is security clearance issues or 

many other concerns or, on the political side, the appointments 

process, those are very important reforms. 

It is also true, though, that the hiring process comprehends a lot 

more than just the speed of hiring. For example, we will be issuing 

a report shortly about the assessment processes that the Federal 

Government uses in determining who to hire. You need to hire fast, 

but if you don’t hire well, it doesn’t matter how fast you hire, and 

that is something that the Federal Government needs to focus on 

quite extensively. 

43

It is also true that we need to see more incentives for the Intelligence Community and for the government at large to be able to 

recruit the very best people. I know that, again, you are considering a scholarship program, which I think could be very important, and also, Senator Voinovich, you have proposed governmentwide the GOFEDS legislation which would enhance the student 

loan repayment authority the government has by making it nontaxable, which I think would also go a long ways to increasing the 

Federal Government’s capacity to both recruit and retain top talent. 

The final piece that I would focus on is taking a look at the way 

that government conceives of its own talent. The historical model 

has been always that public service has been a career, and while 

that is a wonderful notion and it is terrific to have people who decide to come into government for their entire career, the fact of the 

matter is that the talent pools have changed and they no longer see 

themselves going to a single job. They view their likelihood of being 

in many different jobs. In fact, the average now is 31⁄2 years for any 

particular job. 

We need to see the Federal Government change the way it thinks 

about talent so that it becomes viewed as a career builder and not 

only a career, and that is particularly true when you look at the 

Federal Government’s needs for mid-career talent. Again, we 

issued a research report in the last month that demonstrates that 

nearly 15 percent of GS–12 and above jobs are being filled externally, and that has significant consequences for some of the issues 

that the 9/11 Commission report identified in terms of bringing in 

the kinds of skills and talents that, frankly, you are only going to 

find if you appeal to the whole range of talent markets, both internally and externally. 

It is also true that by creating the kinds of training and development opportunities, again, that you are looking at in this Subcommittee, you are going to be able to not only improve your existing talent pool, but also become a more attractive employer for 

those who are perhaps contemplating but not yet deciding whether 

they want to enter into public service. 

So with that, thank you for the opportunity to testify. Of course, 

I am happy to answer questions, and any follow-up that we can do 

at the Partnership for Public Service, we would be very pleased to 

take on. Thank you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. I would like to thank all of the 

witnesses. 

Mr. Light, the Commission has made several recommendations 

in terms of the Presidential appointments process. You recommend 

removing positions below Executive Level Three from the confirmation process, which doesn’t have very much of a chance of getting 

through this body. At what level would you draw that line, or 

would you give the agencies the opportunity to suggest where they 

don’t think they need the approval? 

Mr. LIGHT. I believe that you can come up with a list of level four 

and level five positions that could easily be exempted without much 

agony by the Senate and the White House working together. My 

view is that the Assistant Secretaries for Public Affairs, no offense 

to the profession, that those positions may not need Senate conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:22 May 19, 2005 Jkt 097045 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\97045.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
44

firmation, but an Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS or an Inspector General, I think those positions are very important and 

ought to be subject to review. 

So I think it is just a function of actually laying the positions—

there are 500 or so of them—out on the table and saying which 

ones of these can we streamline and which ones do we need to subject to hearings. We also need to ask the Executive Branch for 

some ideas on how to reduce the numbers wherever possible. I 

think we have too many of them. The Senate has agreed with that 

in the past, but I think you have to look at each position on a caseby-case basis, and it is not such a large number that you can’t do 

it in a relatively short time. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, part of the problem always is getting 

agencies to come back and list the positions. We had a little task 

force, a bipartisan group, and the legislation failed because certain 

committees in the U.S. Senate didn’t want to give up the advise 

and consent role of certain individuals. My thought was that we 

might have an opportunity in creating this new agency. I would be 

interested in knowing from you what criteria you would use in 

drawing that line in terms of confirmation of the Senate. 

What do you think of the recommendation of confirming all national security nominees within 30 days of their submission? 

Mr. LIGHT. Well, I think it is a great recommendation. I would 

settle for 45 or 60 days. I mean, you know the challenges here, but 

I think that we ought to—we have been going the opposite direction on asking the President to forward nominees. So now we allow 

vacancies to be held by an acting official for 180 days. So we have 

upped that over the years, basically saying, OK, you we can’t get 

them up here in 6 months; at that point we will enforce some sort 

of penalty. And on the Senate side, we have sort of increased the 

level of delay as well. 

I think we ought to say as a general rule that we want these 

folks to be in office within 120 days of a vacancy. Now, how you 

sort that out, if it is 30 days in the Senate or 60 days, how you 

do that between the Executive and the Senate, I think you have 

to establish a benchmark and hold to it, and if the position can be 

vacant for 180 days, don’t we have a good rationale at that point 

for abolishing the position because it is irrelevant to have it in the 

first place? I mean, we could spur a lot of action if we were to impose on ourselves that kind of obligation. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So you think we should strive for looking at 

some level and then institute a 45-day limit on nominations. 

Mr. LIGHT. I think Senator Baker and the other Senators that we 

have talked to over the years in the Presidential appointee initiative, their view is 45 days is a pretty significant leap. I mean, set 

it wherever you can and push for it and see if you can get some 

Senate rules changes on the hold and see what you can do. 

But I wouldn’t restrict it, incidentally, just to national security. 

It seems to me that we ought to set it as a benchmark for all positions in the Federal Government. 

Senator VOINOVICH. With the urgency and the crisis, we might 

be able to at least make a first crack at it. 

Mr. LIGHT. Yes, hopefully. 

45

Senator VOINOVICH. As you know, my legislation would streamline the financial disclosure form for the Executive Branch employees. It also requires that the Office of Personnel Management provide a list of all appointed positions to the major Presidential candidates 15 days after they receive their party’s nomination. I think 

you have already said that you think that this legislation would 

help a great deal. 

Mr. LIGHT. I am absolutely convinced that you should move 

ahead with that particular bill as an attachment. I don’t see any 

reason not to push for it at this particular point. The National Intelligence Director is going to have to interact with political appointees in all departments to do his or her job. The Secretary of 

Treasury, the Secretary of HHS, and so forth, I do see the line here 

to restrict improvements in the appointments process just to intelligence positions. I see no reason not to attach your legislation to 

whatever emerges from this Subcommittee. 

Senator VOINOVICH. As you know, we were able to get significant 

human capital reforms attached to Homeland Security. We mentioned those to Mr. Bullock today. 

Mr. LIGHT. Correct. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I am concerned that agencies are not using 

those flexibilities. 

Another issue that has come up in terms of the legislation is the 

issue of the financial disclosure form. 

Mr. LIGHT. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Several of my colleagues want the disclosure 

form to be changed for all the branches of government. My legislation limits it to the disclosure form for Executive Branch only. 

Would you like to comment on that? 

Mr. LIGHT. I share the general and worthy goal of extending this 

to other positions, but it seems to me that the argument is being 

made that everybody should remain in an appointee Hades, shall 

we say, unless everybody gets out. I think we have an opportunity 

here to do something. It is not the perfect opportunity. I think we 

should move ahead and create the precedent for action on the Judicial and Legislative Branches at that time. I have long believed 

that particular objection was not reasonably given our incremental 

progress in the past. We just have to move forward where we can. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So that the bill just deals with the Executive 

Branch and, again, would be a forward step. You recommend we 

consider Congressional disclosure separately? 

Mr. LIGHT. I say go, go, go on this. I mean, push it forward as 

you can. It is an opportunity, and with all due respect to your colleagues who raised these issues, I think you just have to push 

where you can at this particular moment. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for your 

work in this area. 

I hope that 9/11 is a wake-up call. We were just going down a 

path, like Mr. Light was saying, from 4 months at one point in 

time to 81⁄2 months now and just the difficulty level and partisanship, political chips being used to put holds on things, and, perhaps, the confluence of the events of 9/11 are forcing us to say we 

46

have to move quicker with the work, Mr. Chairman, that you have 

been doing. 

I was going to ask the question that has been asked about should 

we focus this on intelligence and should we do this governmentwide, and I think the response is we take advantage of this opportunity to make the system work. So I hope that happens. I also just 

want to note how helpful this hearing has been. 

Mr. Light, you have talked a lot about folks on the outside who 

are doing work, and then typically we are thinking about within 

the government process, but in order for government to function, 

we need to work with folks outside the system and they have to 

go through the same processes, and if we don’t think about that 

and somehow clarify that, accelerate it, and make it work better, 

we are all in big trouble, and the idea, then, of government being 

not just a career but a career builder, which really just reflects the 

nature of what I give in speech after speech, that we don’t train 

people for one job anymore, we don’t educate them for one job. That 

is an expectation. Well, it should be an expectation in government 

and not just outside government. 

So this has been extraordinarily helpful. 

We didn’t talk much about the process of people, keeping them 

in government. Maybe it is because there is an election coming up, 

there is a lot of discussion about who is staying and who is leaving. 

That whole process of can you incentivize the process and encourage people to stay on, or is there just something about burnout that 

is kind of a natural process? Would anyone like to respond? 

Mr. KINGHORN. Mr. Coleman, I would love to. As you know, I 

worked in the Federal Government for 25 years and then became 

a partner in a consulting firm where I ran a practice of about 600 

consultants and 20 partners and faced the same issues from a private sector standpoint. I think you have got to look at the retention 

issues, as Max indicated, and we have done some work on it very 

differently. 

People are not going to stay, as I did, for 25 years in the Federal 

Government, but I moved around a lot at the SES level. That was 

one advantage I had. I think what you ought to do is realize they 

are going to come and go and come back, and I think your whole 

strategy and what is important about this Subcommittee’s work is 

you are beginning to look at this issue and have looked at the CEO 

and the human resource issue as a strategic management tool. 

For as long as I was in government, human resources was, really 

to me, seen as a business process and not particularly well run, but 

we have used the budget for years, decades, as a prioritizing tool. 

We used organization structure as a prioritizing tool. And now you 

are looking at using the strategic nature and the operational nature of human resource management as a strategic tool, how do 

you provide incentives for people to move up the food chain in the 

FBI, and you are addressing that. 

So I think that is part of the answer. I don’t think it is pay. I 

think pay is improving. I think we have got some ways to go. I 

think it is basically creating an environment where people can easily come and go and gain experience. For me to come back into government now, someday which I would probably love to do, it is 

going to be very difficult. It is still difficult. So I think the old rule 

47

of how am I going to keep Morgan Kinghorn here for 25 years in 

the same agency, people are realizing that is not the right question. 

I think your question is right, and I think the answer is different 

incentives, different pay mechanisms. 

The Academy doesn’t speak uniformly on this issue, but I have 

personally less concern that we have different human resources 

practices and policies, because I think each agency is different. I 

think we have to have the underlying Title 5 kinds of protections, 

because this is government, it is public service; but if you want to 

set a priority, I don’t see there is too much wrong in setting a particular priority in a particular program in the human resources 

arena. I think that is what you are trying to deal with now. 

Senator COLEMAN. Anybody else? 

Mr. STIER. Thank you. And, Senator Coleman, my own view is 

that the retention and recruitment issues are really two sides of 

the same coin. I mean, ultimately who you need, what kind of talent you need will depend on who you are able to keep, and so that 

is important, obviously, to be thinking about. I think systemically 

what you are doing on both sides and if you create a work environment that is going to be attractive for existing employees, that will 

also be a draw; and likewise, the flip side, if you don’t, you can sell 

all you want and sell very well, but you are not going to get good 

people in. 

The Partnership used data that was collected by the Office of 

Personnel Management, a hundred thousand employee survey, and 

put together a ‘‘Best Places to Work’’ ranking of Federal agencies, 

189 subcomponents. Across the board, the No. 1 issue that was 

most important for employees in terms of their own engagement in 

agencies was the quality of their managers and leaders, and I 

would say that if you were to do one thing to focus on retention, 

that would be to develop and train, attract, and keep the very best 

managers. 

And that is typically what you also see in the private sector. People generally don’t leave jobs. They leave managers, and that is 

something that the Federal Government has truly not focused on, 

hasn’t invested in that management capacity, and that is something I think would be of enormous benefit and consequence. 

Senator COLEMAN. Very good. Thank you, gentlemen. This has 

been a very helpful and very informative panel. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Kinghorn, you have really studied the 

FBI, you have seen the recommendations of the Commission, and 

you heard the testimony of Mr. Bullock. Do you believe that there 

is additional legislation needed at this time to deal with the problems at the FBI? 

Mr. KINGHORN. I think we will know more. I mean, the group 

that the Academy is studying is really under the auspices of Governor Thornburg, and some of that report will be completed later 

this fall, and I am sure the governor would love to brief the Subcommittee on that. 

From what I know from a personal standpoint, I would concur 

in the recommendations that we worked on with Congressman 

Wolf’s effort on the intelligence career service. I think that is important. I think your concept, the concept that was raised of a 

48

Chief Operating Officer, makes sense to me. I was in a similar position to that back in EPA years ago when the administrative functions, and the management functions, were really much less complex. They are now very complex. There tended to be some balkanization of management functions in the government, the creation of 

CFOs, the CEOs, CIOs. I think that is healthy because it has 

raised each of those organizations to a point of importance organizationally. 

But I think the concept of a CEO is important because nearly 

every administrative function you bring up is a new financial system, a new management system, and it is no longer tied into just 

one of those functions. When I brought up two financial systems at 

EPA and IRS, I could have done it myself because it was viewed 

as a very narrow function. We were successful. Now procurement 

is touched. Human Resources is touched. Program management information is touched. 

So the concept of a COO, Chief Operating Officer at the department level even in bureaus or in this new intelligence operation, 

I think makes sense to tie together short of the Secretary, short of 

the head of the agency, those functions because they do not interact 

particularly well. So that concept, I think would be very helpful. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Wagoner, do you think that one agency 

conducting security clearance investigations would make sense? 

Mr. WAGONER. No, sir, we do not for some of the reasons that 

Mr. Turnicky had mentioned earlier. Each agency has slightly 

higher priorities at any given time. We also believe that distributing this across multiple agencies with the right management 

processes, the right systems, and the right oversight would make 

a much better decision, and that is why we had recommended putting a national security czar at the National Security Council to be 

able to look across government and enforce these standards. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, we have had some people looking at 

that. I just checked how long it took my own two staff members 

to get clearance from the State Department. It was 8 or 9 months. 

Mr. WAGONER. Yes. It is just not getting any better. We are 

encouraged about looking at—we had not considered having this 

person report to the NID. One of reasons we did not make that recommendation was we were concerned about the other departments, 

primarily Defense, what their reaction would be in having their 

clearances being done under the NID. That is the only reason we 

did not make that recommendation. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, if you had somebody working for the 

NID that would be responsible for cracking the whip, wouldn’t that 

make sense? 

Mr. WAGONER. Yes, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. What do you think about setting a limit in 

terms of time on some of these things and just forcing people to get 

the job done? 

Mr. WAGONER. That is our primary recommendation, and like I 

said, we had studied this for 2 years on our panel. We had folks 

that actually were in leading government security clearance organizations, and again, with the right management systems and motivation, it can be done in 120 days, and we think it is time to codify 

that because this has been going on since at least 1981 and just 

49

a lot of talking, a lot of meetings, a lot of studying, but we just 

haven’t seen any changes to a process that was really invented in 

the Eisenhower Administration. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Max, you have been doing some studies 

about what keeps people from coming into the Federal Government. One of the reasons why the John F. Kennedy School of Government made human capital one of their executive sessions is the 

fact that so many of their people who had ordinarily gone into government service decided to pursue other opportunities. I would like 

you to comment on the issue of the disclosure forms that one has 

to go through and the appointment process. Also, in the intelligence 

area, is the long time that one must wait before they are cleared 

impacting our ability to attract the best and brightest to the government. 

Mr. STIER. There is no question that all those issues that you 

mentioned are related, and they reinforce a perception that many 

talented Americans have about government, that is from our research, the primary barrier for their being interested in coming 

into public service, and that is seeing the government as a bureaucracy, a place that they will get lost and a place where their creativity and their individuality will not be able to express itself and 

a place in which they themselves are not going to be able to make 

a difference. 

So, fundamentally, I think that what we see is a collection of 

misperceptions and also realities that reinforce that view of government, both of which need to be changed. The realities, the ones 

that you have mentioned, disclosure forms, security clearance processes that take very long, the appointments process that means 

that leadership is not in place, all of those reinforce objectively a 

view by talented Americans that even if government is an interesting place to go, it is not worth it because of the bureaucratic 

tangles they are going to have to experience in either getting in or 

once they arrive. 

So what is interesting about our research is that there, in fact, 

is an enormous reservoir of goodwill towards Federal workers. 

There is an enormous reservoir that cuts across both party and ideological lines about the value of public servants, but we need to 

move that into a cohort of talented people that also want to be public servants, and the No. 1 perception and reality we will have to 

change is that issue of, for lack of a better term, bureaucracy, and 

that is something that I think all the different recommendations 

that you have heard from this panel and that you are examining 

yourself are going to be very important in trying to change. 

So in terms of accessing that external talent pool and, likewise, 

in keeping the talent that you want inside government, these kinds 

of reforms, I think, will make a very big difference. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. I really appreciate all 

of you being here with us. We will see how responsive we are to 

some of your good ideas. 

Thank you very much. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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