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96–537 PDF 2004

MOVING FROM ‘‘NEED TO KNOW’’ TO ‘‘NEED TO

SHARE’’: A REVIEW OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

AUGUST 3, 2004

Serial No. 108–217

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on August 3, 2004 ............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Kerrey, Bob, Commissioner; and John F. Lehman, Commissioner, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States ............ 20

Light, Paul C., Robert F. Wagner school of public service, New York

University; Bob Collet, vice president, engineering, AT&T Government

Solutions; Daniel Duff, vice president, Government Affairs, American

Public Transportation Association; John McCarthy, executive director,

critical infrastructure protection project; and Jim Dempsey, executive

director, Center for Democracy and Technology ........................................ 201

Regenhard, Sally, family member of September 11, 2001 victim; Beverly

Eckert, family member of September 11, 2001 victim; and Robin Wiener, family member of September 11, 2001 victim .................................... 111

Walker, David, Comptroller General, Government Accountability Office ... 156

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Collet, Bob, vice president, engineering, AT&T Government Solutions,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 218

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 5

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Illinois, prepared statement of ................................................................ 61

Dempsey, Jim, executive director, Center for Democracy and Technology,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 250

Duff, Daniel, vice president, Government Affairs, American Public Transportation Association, prepared statement of ............................................. 231

Eckert, Beverly, family member of September 11, 2001 victim, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 122

Harris, Hon. Katherine, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Florida, prepared statement of ................................................................ 97

Kanjorski, Hon. Paul E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Pennsylvania, prepared statement of ...................................................... 19

Kerrey, Bob, Commissioner; and John F. Lehman, Commissioner, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 24

Light, Paul C., Robert F. Wagner school of public service, New York

University, prepared statement of ............................................................... 203

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 46

Prepared statement of Family Steering Committee ............................... 134

McCarthy, John, executive director, critical infrastructure protection

project, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 243

Miller, Hon. Candice S., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Michigan, prepared statement of ............................................................. 68

Platts, Hon. Todd Russell, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Pennsylvania, prepared statement of ...................................................... 153

Regenhard, Sally, family member of September 11, 2001 victim, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 116

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of ................................................... 147

Walker, David, Comptroller General, Government Accountability Office,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 160

Watson, Hon. Diane E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 106

Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 11

Wiener, Robin, family member of September 11, 2001 victim, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 127

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MOVING FROM ‘‘NEED TO KNOW’’ TO ‘‘NEED

TO SHARE’’: A REVIEW OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS

TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tom Davis, Shays, Ros-Lehtinen,

McHugh, Platts, Schrock, Miller of Michigan, Turner, Carter,

Blackburn, Harris, Waxman, Kanjorski, Maloney, Cummings,

Kucinich, Davis of Illinois, Tierney, Watson, Lynch, Van Hollen,

Ruppersberger, Norton, McCollum.

Staff present: David Marin, deputy staff director/communications

director; Ellen Brown, legislative director and senior policy counsel;

Jennifer Safavian, chief counsel for oversight and investigations;

John Hunter and David Young, counsels; Robert Borden, counsel/

parliamentarian; Robert White, press secretary; Drew Crockett,

deputy director of communications; John Cuaderes and Victoria

Proctor, senior professional staff members; Mason Alinger, Brian

Stout, Jaime Hjort, Susie Schulte, Shalley Kim, and Brien Beattie,

professional staff members; John Brosnan and Randy Cole, GAO

detailees; Sarah Dorsie, deputy clerk; Allyson Blandford, office

manager; Kristina Sherry, legislative correspondent; Corinne

Zaccagnini, chief information officer; Phil Barnett, minority staff

director; Karen Lightfoot, minority communications director/senior

policy advisor; Anna Laitin, minority communications and policy

assistant; Michelle Ash, minority senior legislative counsel; Rosalind Parker and David Rapallo, minority counsels; Earley Green,

minority chief clerk; Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk; and

Cecelia Morton, minority office manager.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Good morning.

The committee will come to order. I want to thank everybody for

coming.

We are here today nearly 3 years removed from that terrible day

of September 11th to simultaneously look back and look forward.

We grieve again for the men and women who lost their lives and

pray once more for their loved ones. But it is also a time to remind

ourselves of the important challenges ahead, the tasks of securing

our Nation and eradicating terrorist networks around the globe.

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I want to commend the work of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, for its hard work and dedication in issuing its report on

the 2001 terrorist attacks, once again bringing reforms to the Federal Government and that structure to the forefront of the homeland security discussion.

Yesterday, the President endorsed the creation of a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed National Intelligence Director as well as the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center

to coordinate and monitor counterterrorism efforts. The President’s

call to action demonstrated that the administration, like Congress,

is working overtime to move forward with the 9/11 Commission’s

recommendations.

The key to success in implementing the Commission’s recommendations is making sure we are not simply repackaging what

we have now. We need to avoid creating another layer of bureaucracy. We need to align authority with responsibility to make sure

information is reaching all the people that it needs to reach.

While the creation of a National Intelligence Director and a National Counterterrorism Center are the most highly publicized aspects of the Commission’s recommendations, this committee will be

focusing on the broad range of recommendations made by the 9/11

Commission. The National Intelligence Director will be the subject

of considerable debate in the coming weeks and months, but the

Commission’s recommendations regarding border security, information-sharing data bases, emergency preparedness, homeland security funding and intergovernmental coordination are at least as important if not more so than the higher profile recommendations.

We have before us today a diverse group of panelists, from Commissioners and family members of victims of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks to Federal officials, public policy experts

and industry representatives. The collective expertise of these witnesses along with the expertise and experience that exists among

members of this committee will no doubt lead to an interesting and

fruitful discussion on the future security of our Nation. We need to

hear from our witnesses which recommendations they view as most

urgent, which they see as important but dependent on other acts

or events and which they think will require sustained effort over

time to achieve. We need to discuss what is achievable administratively and what needs congressional action.

The Commission’s report and the focus of this hearing are especially timely given the recent elevation of the threat advisory levels

for the financial sectors of New York, Newark, and Washington,

DC. The news articles about the intelligence information that led

to the elevation suggests the decision was the result of shared information between the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency,

DIA, and other senior military officials. Even if the intelligence information that the threat elevation was based on was dated, this

type of coordination is critical to the future security of our homeland, and the purpose of today’s hearing is to discuss whether or

not it’s possible to institutionalize this type of interagency coordination.

As we move forward, today, next week, next month, next year,

we should be encouraged that Congress, frequently through this

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committee’s oversight, has already laid a sound foundation on

which we must build.

Even before September 11, the committee held hearings on impediments to information-sharing and analysis. As part of the

Homeland Security Act, we passed legislation aimed at encouraging

the critical infrastructure industry to share information about

vulnerabilities with each other and with the Government.

Beginning anew today, we need to examine what’s preventing

better and more accurate sharing and analysis between Federal

agencies, between Federal, State, and local governments, and between the private and the public sectors.

How can we overcome those impediments? Is the voluntary information-sharing mechanism between the private sector and the

Government that we established in 2002 working as we envisioned?

Unlike much of the debate and press coverage and committee

hearings, we need to be talking about more than just intelligence

information per se. It’s not just, ‘‘intelligence information’’ that impacts our ability to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks.

The realm of information that’s not being adequately shared is not

merely the province of the CIA or the FBI or NSA; nor is it encompassed by the public sector alone. What about information on public health coordination between Federal, State and local providers?

What about the fact that the private sector owns and operates 85

percent of the Nation’s critical infrastructure?

This committee has also been looking long and hard at Government organizational challenges. Part and parcel of moving from a

system of need-to-know to need-to-share is the need to restructure

the executive branch to match the 21st century needs and requirements.

The Commission rightly recognized that we need a Government

better organized than the one that exists today, with its national

security institution designed half a century ago to win the cold war.

I believe the Commission’s report makes the need for reauthorization of Executive Reorganization Authority all the more urgent.

The absolute, redundant and duplicative nature of the Federal bureaucracy is the single greatest impediment to moving from a system of need-to-know to need-to-share.

An editorial in last week’s Federal Times framed the issue well.

It said,

Take any mission, say counterterrorism intelligence gathering and analysis, and

divvy it up among a dozen or so agencies. Then let those agencies set their own

goals and priorities, follow their own standards and practices and decide their own

resources and budgets. What you end up with is a design for failure.

That’s what exists now in Government, not only with counterterrorism, but with

many missions, job training, combating homelessness, environmental care, food safety inspection, to name a few.

To take on a mission successfully, there must be a cohesive strategy, coordination

in planning and practices, effective sharing of information, common priorities and

budgeting and clear direction by a competent, accountable leader.

That’s why 18 months ago the Volcker Commission called for all the Government

to be reorganized around distinct mission areas. As the 9/11 Commission points out,

this lack of leadership and cohesive management also plagues one of the Government’s most pressing missions now, counterterrorism.

The problem of Government ineffectiveness in counterterrorism and other important missions is not a lack of solutions. The solutions to effective Government are

obvious and articulated compellingly by both the 9/11 and the Volcker Commissions.

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Let’s be clear. I don’t think any discussion of impediments to effective information-sharing can be complete without discussing the

need to reorganize the executive branch. This committee has held

several hearings on the need to reauthorize Executive Reorganization Authority, which expired in 1984. The authorities existed off

and on for a period of 50 years, giving Presidents the ability to submit executive branch reorganization proposals to Congress for a

guaranteed up or down vote without amendment. In doing so, executive branch reorganizations could come before Congress without

getting buried in congressional committee jurisdictional turf battles

that has spelled the demise of many governmental reorganization

proposals in recent history.

I may take some heat for saying this, but we need to look no further than deliberations that led to the creation of the Homeland

Security Department for evidence that Congress is not terribly

well-equipped to tackle organizational challenges: Too much turf;

too many egos; far too much time.

The recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission make reauthorization of this authority all the more urgent. The obsolete, redundant and duplicative nature of the Federal bureaucracy is the

single greatest impediment to improving information-sharing. As

hearings held by this committee over the past 2 years have shown,

the same problem of poor organization exist in Federal food safety

oversight, Federal child welfare functions and multiple homeland

security functions.

In our battle to move forward to better protect ourselves, there

are no Republicans or Democrats, only Americans. Talking to my

kids and countless others in northern Virginia, one thing is clear,

a whole generation of Americans will grow up with September 11

as its most formative experience. This younger generation is no

longer cynical about the idea of ‘‘We, the people.’’ They realize that

these attacks were not just on the people who were killed and injured but also on the very things that define us as a society—religious freedom, equality, economic opportunity, and political choice.

And this generation will know that the ruthless will not inherit the

Earth.

Without further adieu, I welcome all the witnesses to today’s

hearing. I look forward to their testimony.

And I now recognize our distinguished ranking member, Mr.

Waxman.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This does feel awfully good to sit here. Well, I want to thank you

for holding this hearing. This is a timely and important hearing.

Understanding and acting on the recommendations of the 9/11

Commission should be an urgent national priority.

Let me begin by welcoming the family members of the September

11 victims, those testifying today and the thousands of family

members you represent. Without your resolve, the 9/11 Commission

would not have been established and we would never have learned

as much as we now know about the truth of what happened. And

without your commitment, we would not be considering the Commission’s recommendations or even holding this hearing. Because

of you, our Nation will be safer, and we thank you.

I also want to thank John Lehman and Bob Kerrey who served

on the 9/11 Commission and who will be testifying today. The 9/

11 Commission produced an extraordinarily important report, with

dozens of concrete recommendations for fighting terrorism and

making our Nation safer. And the Commission did so unanimously,

achieving a rare bipartisan consensus. We owe Secretary Lehman

and Senator Kerrey a debt of gratitude. And we ignore their recommendations at our peril.

The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission are getting attention right now. In fact, the House has over a dozen hearings scheduled this month alone. I have been around long enough to know

what is likely to happen next: Without sustained public pressure,

Congress will vacillate, and the administration will temporize. And

we will end up with a pale shadow of the bold action recommended

by the 9/11 Commission.

Indeed, this may already have started to happen. The 9/11 Commission recommended major reforms in our intelligence agencies.

The Commission recommended the creation of a National Intelligence Director who would be in charge of a new National

Counterterrorism Center. The Commission proposed giving the National Intelligence Director the authority to wield real power. The

director would control the budgets of the intelligence agencies and

would have direct management authority over the head of the CIA

and other intelligence agencies. But this doesn’t appear to be what

President Bush had in mind. The President yesterday spoke about

giving the National Intelligence Director the authority to coordinate and monitor the actions of the intelligence agencies, but he

made no mention of giving the intelligence director the authority

to control the intelligence budgets. And he specifically said that a

new intelligence director will not be in, ‘‘the chain of commands.’’

In this city, if you have a fancy title but you are not in the chain

of command and you don’t control the budget, you are a figurehead.

And another figurehead is not what the 9/11 Commission recommended and what our Nation needs.

The 9/11 Commission made over 40 concrete recommendations.

Its recommendations cover a wide range of crucial subjects, how to

protect our borders, how to safeguard our transportation systems,

how to support our first responders, how to conduct an assessment

of risks and vulnerabilities. All of these recommendations are essential. We will be doing the Nation a grave disservice if we ignore

any of them.

10

Let me give you an example of why I am so concerned about the

fate of the recommendations. The 9/11 Commission warned about

the dangers of weapons of mass destruction getting into the hands

of al Qaeda. Here is a quote from the report, ‘‘Our report shows

that al Qaeda has tried to acquire or make weapons of mass destruction for at least 10 years. There is no doubt the United States

will be a prime target. Preventing the proliferation of these weapons warrant a maximum effort by strengthening counterproliferation.’’

Here is what the Bush administration did last week: It killed

international efforts to strengthen nuclear weapons inspections.

This is a quote from a front-page article in the Washington Post

on Saturday, ‘‘In a significant shift of U.S. policy, the Bush administration announced this week that it will oppose provisions for inspections and verification as part of an international treaty that

would ban production of nuclear weapons materials. An arms control specialist said the change in U.S. position will dramatically

weaken any treaty and make it harder to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorism.’’

Well, the cynicism is breathtaking. A week after the 9/11 Commission recommendedx greater nonproliferation efforts, the administration undermines an international nonproliferation treaty, and

then it says it is doing everything possible to fight terrorism and

implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Despite their merit, many of the ideas in the report from the 9/

11 Commission have encountered resistance. Nearly 3 years ago, a

bipartisan group of members from this committee urged the administration to develop a coherent strategy based on a comprehensive

threat and risk assessment. Over 2 years ago, Representative

David Obey, the ranking member of the House Appropriations

Committee, and I wrote the Bush administration to recommend the

creation of a White House office that could unify the collection and

dissemination of intelligence.

Over 1 year ago, Representative Jane Harman, the ranking

member of the House Intelligence Committee, introduced legislation to establish a National Director of Intelligence. And over the

past year, Representative Jim Turner, the ranking member of

Homeland Security Committee, has repeatedly proposed initiatives

that closely parallel recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

But all of these suggestions have fallen on deaf ears. Secretary

Ridge never even bothered to respond to the letter that Mr. Obey

and I sent over 2 years ago, in fact, recommending what we now

have before us. It could have been done 3 years ago. It could have

been put into effect 2 years ago. It could have been effective 1 year

ago. We rushed into creating a Homeland Security Agency, and we

ignored the problems of coordinating the intelligence, which we all

knew from September 11th, was the biggest problem we had.

With so much at stake, we can’t let that happen again. The 9/

11 Commission has spoken. Now, it is Congress’ turn and this administration to work with us in order to act to make those recommendations become the law of this country.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. I wasn’t sure I was

going to get the chair back that easy. But thank you very much.

I understand our first witnesses are not here yet. So what I am

going to do is—and when we get our commission members here, we

will go immediately. But until that time—Mr. Waxman, with your

concurrence—we will alternate with opening statements.

And I will go with Mr. Shays, whose subcommittee has led the

way on so many of these issues.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a good day, and

it can be a partisan day.

As the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks approaches, we finally have a credible, comprehensive picture of what

went so horribly wrong and what needs to be done to prevent further tragedy. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission rise

from the ashes of Ground Zero to the rubble at the Pentagon and

the wreckage in Pennsylvania, demanding action by the living in

the cause of those who died.

The task of implementing the major reforms outlined by a unanimous bipartisan commission will not be easy. As the Commission’s

vice chair observed, the status quo always has an entrenched army

of defenders. But the September 11th families that we will hear

from today have no patience with apologists for a system which

failed them so totally and so personally, nor should they. Their status quo changed forever that September morning. They ask now

only that we act quickly to change the dated structures and flawed

practices that contributed to their profound grief.

Many of the recommendations strike familiar chords. In the

course of 20 hearings on terrorism issues before September 11th,

the National Security Subcommittee which I chaired discussed the

need for unified threat assessment, sharper strategic focus on the

real enemy and the need to restructure Government to meet the

threat. Three national commissions—Bremer, Gilmore, Hart-Rudman—presaged the Commission’s call for structural and operational reforms within and between levels of Government. Many of

these recommendations went unheeded until it was too late.

It took unimaginable tragedy to bring us to this moment. Only

courage, foresight and imagination will propel our actions in time

to prevent the next calamity. These recommendations should be a

unifying force, a mandate to put past divisions and biases behind

us and heed the lessons so sadly learned.

In closing, I congratulate the 9/11 Commission for a job extraordinarily well done, and I thank the families for their courage and

determination and love for this country and their efforts to make

sure that life will be different for the next generation.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Shays.

We will have one more opening statement, and then we will go

right to our panelists. Thank you all for being with us.

Mr. Kanjorski.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Waxman.

I appreciate the opportunity to offer my views at the first hearing in the House on the final report of the National Commission

on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

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Late last month, the 9/11 Commission released its much anticipated final report which examines the circumstances surrounding

the September 11th attacks and provides recommendations for preventing future terrorist strikes.

This report is the culmination of 19 days of public hearings, a review of 21⁄2 million pages of documents, interviews with 1,200 individuals in 10 countries and public testimony of 160 witnesses. As

we begin our review of the 9/11 report, I would urge my colleagues

to consider the recommendations of the Commission as a whole

rather than identifying a single proposed reform for review or examining these matters on a piecemeal basis. By focusing only on

certain aspects of the report, we risk losing the overall intent of the

Commission’s recommendations. We need to see the forest and the

trees, not either the forest or the trees.

Nevertheless, today’s hearing is intended to consider recommendations of the Commission regarding the creation of a National Intelligence Director and the formation of the National

Counterterrorist Center within the Executive Office of the President. These recommendations have already sparked considerable

public debate. On the one hand, the National Intelligence Director

and the National Counterterrorism Center must have independent

budgetary authority and the ability to make personal changes necessary. In addition, the director must have the ability to do so

without pressure from the intelligence agencies under its jurisdiction.

On the other hand, placing the center and the director within the

executive office of the President may shift the intelligence operations closer to the politics within the White House and may influence the intelligence-gathering system. Such a result could cause

considerable concern for me.

Moreover, I am very troubled by recent press reports that indicate that the President may unilaterally issue an Executive order

to create the position of National Intelligence Director. In doing so,

no congressional confirmations would be held to ensure the director

is properly vetted. In implementing the recommendations of the

Commission, we must provide the appropriate checks and balances.

As we begin our review of the recommendations included in the

9/11 report, we also need to ensure that Congress adequately addresses these matters in the long term. I have therefore joined with

many of my colleagues in supporting legislation to extend the 9/11

Commission for 18 months in order to oversee the implementation

of its recommendations. I would urge the other members of our

panel to also support this bipartisan bill.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Paul E. Kanjorski follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Kanjorski.

We have our panelists with us today.

And let me just thank you on behalf of Mr. Waxman and myself

for your work on this Commission. It is a very important report.

Both of you had long distinguished careers in public service before

you came to this Commission, which I won’t outline now, but we

are very pleased to have you with us today.

It’s our policy that we swear in members before you testify. So

if you would rise with me and raise your right hand.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

So Senator Kerrey, I think we will start with you, and then Secretary Lehman.

And thank you both for being with us.

STATEMENTS OF BOB KERREY, COMMISSIONER; AND JOHN F.

LEHMAN, COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES

Mr. KERREY. Mr. Chairman, right off the bat, I am going to disobey and have Secretary Lehman lead off, if you don’t mind. I came

off vacation as per your request, and he is much better prepared

than I am.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is fine. All right. You don’t need to

take your full 5 minutes. So if you just want to be here for questions, that is fine as well.

Admiral LEHMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We have together submitted a statement for the record. I won’t

belabor you with that and re-read it to you. But I would like to

start by thanking all of you for the support that you have given us,

both in bringing us into existence and then helping us to carry forward our responsibilities.

This has been a remarkable experience for all of us. We are five

Democrats and five Republicans. None of us have been particularly

known as being pussy cats in the past, and we had our strong

views and positions. And through the process of deep study of these

issues and the facts of the investigation, we have ended up entirely

unanimous. Not a single dissent, not a single additional view and

with total unity of purpose. And I am very pleased to see that this

committee is approaching the issues, our findings and our recommendations, in exactly the same nonpartisan spirit, with a unified purpose to get these changes done to make this country safer.

We are very pleased, all of us, with the reaction of the leaders

of Congress, the reaction of Senator Kerry and his campaign, and

the reaction and action of the President in moving out very smartly

to analyze and implement these recommendations. They are very

important. And while the organizational recommendations are the

ones that naturally attract the most attention, they are not the

most important. The most important are the recommendations that

we lead with: What to do, the strategy, the objectives and priorities

that are needed to win this war against Islamist terrorism.

You will never ensure security by moving around organization

charts. You will never determine human behavior by trying to design a better organization chart. But it’s unacceptable to have institutions that have evolved since the Second World War, built over

21

time to deal with the cold war and its threats, hemmed in with a

variety of restrictions and regulation over time that were appropriate when put in but are no longer appropriate.

It’s time for an entirely new system of providing our Nation’s

leaders and the congressional leaders with the intelligence they

need to make wise policy and decisions.

Our recommendations are not a Chinese menu; they are a whole

system. If all of the important elements are not adopted, it makes

it very difficult for the others to succeed.

And one last comment before going to your questions after hearing Senator Kerrey’s comment. I would strongly recommend these

be viewed as a whole and that the powers needed to carry out

these recommendations be enacted as a whole package. And I am

sure that this will result in a far more effective means of providing

intelligence to this Nation going forward if they are implemented.

Senator Kerrey.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Senator Kerrey.

Mr. KERREY. Well, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, let

me first of all say what Secretary Lehman just said, which was

that a remarkable thing happened in this Commission. There were

10 of us selected by, as you know, elected officials in the city of

Washington, DC, where there is a considerable amount of partisan

strife. And we reached a unanimous conclusion in spite of that.

And I would say, I’ve scratched my head and tried to figure out

why.

It is in no small measure due to the assistance of the families

who aren’t responsible for this legislation but were present at every

single one of our hearings and present with us in spirit at all of

our deliberations, as well as a careful reading of the narrative. If

you read the narrative, and I know that it is a long narrative including the footnotes. But if you read the narrative, I believe it will

put you in the right mood. And I think that’s what happened to us;

we got back in the mood of that terrible day, and the mood that

happened for 60, 90, whatever it was afterwards, days afterwards.

And the Nation and the world truly were united.

I mean, I live in New York City today, and it was remarkable

for me to see the Yankees get cheered at Kaminski and get cheered

at Fenway because—not because people love the Yankees, but because people felt a unity with New York that was truly moving.

And I think the narrative puts you in that spirit. The narrative allows you to go back to that terrible but also wonderful moment

when the Nation rallied together.

Of the things that I have noticed in the news that has been covered—there are several that have not been covered. I presume that

you will have a lot of questions on the structure of the Government, and a lot of that is dealt with in our opening statement.

The foundation for what we are talking about, however, is the

belief that this is not a war on terrorism. It really is a war on, in

this case, a narrow and small group of radical Jihadists that believe that killing infidels is something that’s a good thing to do and

believe that the United States of America is, to use Osama bin

Laden’s words, the head of the snake.

22

And we unanimously conclude that a vigorous and relentless

military and law enforcement effort are going to be necessary. We

unanimously concluded that we are going to have to engage in the

ideas that we have for too long left in the shadows. We unanimously concluded that we need to also develop an agenda of hope

that the United States of America leads to try to implement in the

world.

Of the five areas of action, again, I know that the restructuring

of the Government is the dominant one. But I call to your attention, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that there are

a number of areas where funding is the problem, especially border

security, especially having to do with these paper documents that

we all carry around called passports. There are significant

vulnerabilities that still remain simply because the time lines and

the implementation of the U.S. Visit visa program extends all the

way out to 2010. There are management issues that have to be addressed. That’s a constant problem that you, Mr. Chairman, and

this committee are constantly dealing with, with the executive

branch.

Third, there is the issue of secrecy. In my strongly held opinion,

secrecy is an enormously difficult problem for us. I think we overclassify to a fault. But, more importantly for the Congress, as a

consequence of there being secrecy, you do not have investigative

journalists doing the kind of oversight that you have in every other

walk of life when it comes to the Federal Government. Simply, you

don’t wake up in the morning and read the Washington Times and

the Washington Post and see some investigative story that’s out

there that provokes you to do oversight. It’s not there with our intelligence agencies. And you need to recognize, I think, the limitations that imposes upon Congress.

Fourth, there is a number of areas where further investigation

is necessary. Time merely ran out on us. I love John Kerry; I intend to vote for him. My confidence in him was shaken when he

said that we ought to work for 18 more months. One of the reasons

that I think that came about is that we were actually—because we

had subpoena powers. In this unique position, we were doing congressional oversight. I would urge you to think about that and try

to come up with an alternative way to do that on a permanent

basis.

I know that Congressman Shays was frustrated in trying to exert

oversight over the intelligence agencies. There is a rightful place

for Congress here, which brings me to my fifth point: Those things

where law—changes in the law are going to be necessary. I am

strongly of the view that what Congress needs to do is to see this

as a moment when you have to push back on the executive branch.

You need more power and authority.

My first preference is a joint intelligence committee that is created in law, not by congressional resolution. These intelligence

agencies respect the law and are much less respectful of congressional resolutions. Second, that law should say that Congress has

to be kept fully and completely informed, not informed when there

are intelligence failures, but fully and completely informed. In my

view, again, because of secrecy, this committee should be required

to report on an annual basis of the status of our intelligence agenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:42 Dec 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96537.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cies. There is no such thing as an operational readiness inspection

as there is with our military. There needs to be some public declaration of where we are. I believe a joint committee would be the

preferable way for Congress to push back. It is a much stronger position, Congress versus the executive branch, than perhaps the executive branch would want. But from my evaluation, the stronger,

the better, the more likely it is that Congress is going to get the

kind of oversight necessary to make certain that we sustain this effort to strengthen our intelligence capabilities over the long term.

Mr. Chairman, I think—I don’t know if I went 5 minutes or not.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kerrey and Mr. Lehman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. That’s fine. Thank you very much.

Well, let me start the questioning. Let me ask you both what

your views are on the President’s announcement yesterday. The

Commission proposed establishing a Senate-confirmed intelligence

director in the White House. The White House proposed establishing such position outside the White House. We get into the line of

budget control and the like. Do either of you have a reaction to

that?

Admiral LEHMAN. Well, I think it is a very good start, a good

opening bid. It is a responsible first step to start the process which,

most importantly, I think, in working out the details, will go on up

here in Congress, in your committee, and in your Senate counterparts.

The rationale for creating a National Intelligence Director is not

based on creating a new layer of bureaucracy. Far from it. It makes

no sense at all, unless it has the power to break up bureaucratic

layers, to remove bureaucratic layers, to dismantle the vertical

stovepipes that make it impossible, in many cases, for the real

sharing of intelligence between agencies. That’s the purpose.

So to carry it out, this National Intelligence Director has to have

hiring and firing power. He has to have not just budget coordination power but budget and appropriations and reprogramming

power—must have power over the IT protocols that now provide

enormous technological barriers between our intelligence agencies

and the sharing of data and have the power to bring rationality to

the security system of classification, compartmentalization, declassification, security clearance granting and background investigations. Those four powers are essential. Without them, it will become just another layer.

Mr. KERREY. I think it’s a very good start. I am pleased to see

it begin. I do think that lesson under law—my mic’s not on? Can

you hear me now?

I think it is a very good beginning. The President deserves credit

for coming out of the box with endorsement of the NID and the

NCTC. This is not a new argument, especially the NID. We all who

were here during the 1990’s remember when the Aldridge Ames

spy case broke, and suddenly, we had a commission to investigate

what went wrong. Les Aspin first and then Harold Brown chaired

that.

They came out with a set of recommendations, and indeed, Brent

Scowcroft at the start of the Bush, the second Bush administration,

did the same thing, evaluated what needed to be done. And everybody that looks at it comes to the same conclusion: The person that

has the responsibility needs the authority. And, absent that, they

are not going to be able to get the job done. I mean, it is a fairly

simple rule in life, and it is especially important in Government.

And, right now, the person that has the responsibility, the person

that gets called up to the Hill, the person that gets the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to do an evaluation and gets kicked

the bejesus out of him, in the House as well, is the Director of Central Intelligence. But he doesn’t have budget authority or hiring authority. And after Aspen Brown, we tried to get some of it done,

and what happened was that the Department of Defense and the

Armed Services Committee killed us. That’s what happened.

35

We had to take the Armed Services Defense Authorization Bill,

the Senate Select Committee did, on sequential referral in order

just to get concurrent review. That’s what happened. And for the

rest of my time in the Senate, I didn’t get a damned thing out of

the Armed Services Committee because it made them mad, especially the staffers were quite upset with us for taking that bill on

sequential referral. And that’s the fault line.

I know that Secretary Rumsfeld is going to oppose this. If DOD

wins one more time, then next time there’s a dust-up and there’s

a failure, don’t call the Director of Central Intelligence up here.

Kick the crap out of DOD. Because they are the one with the statutory authority over budget. Appropriations goes to DOD for national foreign intelligence. Please don’t tell me it’s going to deteriorate our capacity to support the warfighters. We don’t touch tactical intelligence in this recommendation.

So, if it’s not done, if DOD and the Armed Services Committee

one more time, then the next time you have a problem, don’t call

the Director of Central Intelligence up and blame them, because

they have responsibility but they don’t have either budgetary or

personnel authority to be able to get the job done.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

The recommendations for reorganization in the report focus

largely on the intelligence-related functions, but Senator Kerrey,

let me ask you, wouldn’t you agree that we don’t necessarily have

to stop there, that the problem goes deeper than just the intelligence community?

A number of Federal functions out there that are organized just

as haphazard functions, functions that could impact Homeland Security.

Mr. KERREY. Yes. I mean, I say, it’s sort of the preamble to the

Constitution, we are always trying to be a more perfect union and

not a perfect one. So, if somebody tells me the Government screwed

up, I say, ‘‘Yeah, OK, it screwed up.’’ It’s a constant process of trying to make it better, and it is never a process where you expect

that it’s going to be perfect.

And, by the way, Mr. Chairman, I have no reason to blow smoke

at you guys and gals here. But this committee can perform a very

important function in providing oversight. I’m going to underscore,

I believe one of the reasons that there’s consideration being given

to extending the 9/11 Commission is we really were doing oversight. People were nervous when we were showing up. They were

afraid, going, ‘‘Oh, my god, what are they going to say about us?’’

Well, they ought to have the same sort of respect and fear, at

times, when you all show up with your subpoena powers. And it

seems to me that tucked in there is a very important point.

I was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for 8 years.

I was vice chairman under Senator Shelby and under Senator

Specter. I think the committee did good oversight up to where it

could. But it’s not created under law. It doesn’t have the kind of

authority that it needs to have. It can’t demand full and complete

accounting. And there is no investigative journalism out there

digging up stuff that we are missing.

So it seems to me, in this area, there’s a real need for Congress

to say: We have to create stronger capability on our part in order

36

to be able, in this particular area where you don’t have the kind

of investigative journalistic oversight, where you can influence

what the executive branch is doing, regardless of who is President,

more than you currently can.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I appreciate the work the two of you and

your fellow members of the Commission have done and your presentation here today. You both seem passionate that we need somebody in charge of intelligence. And then you both said you thought

the President’s proposal was a good start.

Don’t you think we need to get on to doing what we need to do

fast? Because we are going to only be here another month or two

or three; and if we are going to pass a bill, we ought to pass a really good bill.

Would either of you be satisfied if we passed a bill like the one

the President suggested yesterday? Because he suggested what we

need is to have a director who could coordinate the budgets—not

control them. Let’s start with that one. Do you think that’s good

enough? I don’t think your mic is on.

Admiral LEHMAN. Well, the devil is in the details. I think that

the fact that, here we are a day after the President proposed this

and you are hard at work preparing to begin to do this legislation

is very encouraging. It is not enough to coordinate, and I don’t

think the President really was drawing the line there at all. I think

that in order for him to have all hands on deck there supporting

these initiatives, that he didn’t have to jawbone every one of them

into every last detail of our recommendations. There is time to

bring them along, and you are going to play an essential roll in

bringing them along.

So I don’t see anything that is contradictory. I think, by the end

of the process, I’m confident that the word coordinate, while it

might still be there, will be subservient to direct in the executive

sense. Because those powers must be given. And I don’t believe the

President will oppose them. I think, you know, unlike the rest of

us, he has a whole administration that he has to kind of herd along

and keep consensus in.

Mr. WAXMAN. I appreciate your optimism about it.

But, Senator Kerrey, what are your views? It seems to me that,

unless the Commission demands that we act and keep in tact their

proposal and not have it watered down and made ineffective, lest

the families of the September 11 victims continue to press in the

next several months, isn’t it more likely than not, from your experience as a Senator, that this is all going to get watered down into

coordinate and the lowest common denominator to satisfy the bureaucracies that don’t want change?

Mr. KERREY. Yes.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, that was a forthright answer. That seems to

me——

Mr. KERREY. You gave me the opportunity to go yes or no, Congressman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, what about the management authority of

this National Intelligence Director, that the President suggested

that there be no operational responsibilities with this new

37

counterterrorism center, and they wouldn’t have control over State

Department, CIA, FBI, Defense, Homeland Security, and other

agencies. Do you feel that there has to be more than just control

over the budgets but management control over these other agencies?

Senator Kerrey, why don’t we start with you this time?

Senator KERREY. Well, yes I do. I mean, in this case, I will align

myself with the executive director of the 9/11 Commission who

said, in some instances, and this would be one, it would be better

to do nothing.

The NCTC is in response to the observation. The National Security Council’s budget has gotten 50 percent bigger since September

11, but they are now down to weeds, doing operational things. They

are doing planning. They are doing J–3 work to use a DOD phrase.

And what we envision is to create the NCTC, not to make it a larger bureaucracy but to enable the National Security Council to get

back to what it is supposed to be doing, which is the larger policy

disputes. And the larger policy debates are always going to break

out between DOD and the Secretary of State and others in the national security structure.

So I think, in my view—by the way, on the NID, this has been

studied and studied and studied. So the fault line will always be

between the Department of Defense and the national foreign intelligence. And the question will be whether or not, in this particular

instance, we can rise to it. And I think you’ll see—not just John

and I. I think you will see the 9/11 Commission stay very unified—

respectful, Congressmen. I mean, we have to be respectful of the

President. It is an initiative that he has taken. We have to be respectful of that initiative. But in that moment of being respectful,

point out that, if all it is is consultative, if all it is is advisory, then

you are better off not doing it. You are better off not taking action

if the action produces another agency that doesn’t have real statutory authority.

Mr. WAXMAN. I share your concern. And if you look at the failures in our intelligence, they are really quite breathtaking. Not

only in September 11, where we had some clues, but we forgot to

or we were unable to connect the dots. But you look at what happened in Iraq, where they were desperately trying to find evidence,

not ignoring evidence, but trying to find evidence to fit into a preconceived political notion.

And in the late 1990’s, we had the FBI looking for a plot by the

Chinese to interfere with our elections and our political process at

the same time that Hanssen was selling information to the Russians and endangering our national security. And the intelligence

agencies didn’t know about the underground tests in—if I can just

complete my thought, Mr. Chairman—in India, and the Chalaby

debacle.

All these things, it seems to me, cry out for us to enact the kind

of recommendations you have given us so we can put this intelligence system back into some coherent place.

I urge you all to continue pressing the Congress and the President to get these reforms enacted.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Shays.

38

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

In spite of some of the partisan rhetoric that I know we are going

to be hearing in the weeks and months to come, I think we are

going to get the job done, and I think we are just by the tone that

both of you are setting today. You are not getting tempted to take

political shots at either side, and your report doesn’t, either. And

it’s almost sacred to me what you guys have done—and ladies. I

mean, it is almost sacred. And I believe it’s going to lead to some

great things.

When I look at your recommendations, I wonder what can be

done administratively, what can be done through Executive order,

what can be done through regulation, what can be done through

law, statute, and what can be done or has to be done through

House and Senate rules. And I just want to parenthetically say, I

will not vote for any rule of the House that doesn’t have these reforms next year.

For instance, if we don’t create a committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security, that has total oversight, I’m not

voting for a rule. And I’m not going to because I think, if I did, I

would be putting my country in danger. That’s basically my

mindset.

Tell me, what are the things—I realize this is a package. But

what are the things you want us to do first? Because I don’t think

it’s all going to come out in one bill. What would you want to see

us do first before anything else?

Admiral LEHMAN. Well, I would say that the—ironically, the

most important thing to do is to fix the congressional issues, as you

say, the Homeland Security. We strongly endorse a joint committee

on intelligence with appropriating powers. Fix that first if there

has to be a priority, because the rest of the system that we are recommending will not function properly without Congress fixing its

own committee structure and jurisdiction.

Next, I would say, enact the joint or the National

Counterterrorism Center and the National Intelligence Director

with the powers that we recommend. Again, our model here is not

a super-consolidated, making one big agency or a new bureaucracy.

The model is the kind of general electorate and other large successful corporate model, where you have a very small, powerful CEO

at headquarters staff, where you don’t try to micromanage the refrigerator division and the jet engine division. You give them objectives. You provide them the tools. If they don’t produce or they

don’t pursue the corporate policy, you remove the people who are

obstructive and replace them with people that do it. You don’t try

to run the operations themselves. That’s the model that we are recommending here.

And it’s of a piece. It all goes together. The National

Counterterrorism Center and the other national centers, for instance, for proliferation that we are recommending all are enabled

by a powerful National Intelligence Director. So it is of one piece.

And those two, if you want symbols, are the most important.

Mr. KERREY. Well, I don’t know, Congressman. I mean, I agree

with John. I do think, if you can get the congressional oversight

piece done and create a much stronger committee under law, with

much greater enforceable requirements that we currently have, I

39

think a lot of it’s going to take care of itself, especially since one

of the—I strongly believe that one of the things that’s really difficult in democracy is, it is oftentimes the little things that are

most important. So it may not be a big enough deal for the Times

or the Post or somebody to cover it, and because it passes unanimously, nobody is going to pay attention to it. But those little differences oftentimes determine the difference between success and

failure.

The only thing, when it comes to doing things first, that I would

recommend, among the things that I found to be most helpful in

getting in the right mood to—you know, to agree with John. But,

you know, you’ve got to be in the right mood to agree with John.

And he has to be in an even better mood to agree with me.

If you read the sentencing statements of the 1997 trial of Ramzi

Youssef, the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, and

read the sentencing statement of Judge Duffy in that trial. There

is an ideological fault line there, and you’ve got to come to terms

with it. And if you don’t come to terms with it, you get it wrong.

It’s not about a mechanical response to a mechanical problem.

There are ideas that are being argued on the planet today, and

those ideas are gaining currency and gaining ground in areas that

we think that they shouldn’t be gaining currency and gaining

ground.

I mean, I would urge you—the report itself is too darn long to

process in a short period of time, but ask your staff to get the 1997

sentencing statement of Ramzi Youssef and the sentencing statement of Judge Duffy, because it describes the fault line and describes where these arguments are.

I’ve heard people say, ‘‘Well, these guys are all evil-doers, and

they’re all cowards.’’ Read this statement, and what you will see is

a political argument, distorted, and messed up and dangerous, but

you’ll hear a political argument that was confronted, I think, in the

absolute correct way by Judge Duffy, but you hear it in a way that

I think will enable you to sustain the motivation that you are going

to need through all—you know, all the difficulty of trying to change

these laws.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Kanjorski.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If I could just ask a few questions about, how you envision the

national director? Is he going to be of Cabinet status, or is he replaceable and fireable by the President? Does he have a term of

years? How do we make sure that he isn’t just a tool, as perhaps

some people have suggested Mr. Tenet became in the last several

years of responding to the needs of the White House rather than

having an independent mind?

Admiral LEHMAN. Well, we are silent in our recommendations as

to Cabinet membership. I think most of us think that Cabinet

membership is not a particularly good idea. But Cabinet level, that

is, executive level, one, is essential.

Mr. KANJORSKI. But would he have a term that is

independent——

Admiral LEHMAN. No, we have not recommended that he or she

have a specific term, because he will have such power that he

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needs to serve at the pleasure of the President. He must be confirmed by the Senate, must be responsive to the Congress to——

Mr. KANJORSKI. But we would be retreating from the precedent

of the Director of the FBI and the present CIA Director. They have

a term of years.

Admiral LEHMAN. Well, the CIA Director, I don’t believe has a

term of years. The FBI does, and I’m not so sure that’s a successful

model to pursue, myself. But we did not address that. We are silent

on the issue of term.

But I would like to follow what underlies your question.

It is essential to keep policy and intelligence separate; and in the

structure that we are recommending that is maintained in the allsource National Counterintelligence Center and the other centers

for fusing intelligence by professional analysts, providing the purely objective, as much as humanly possible, product; and, if you will,

the National Intelligence Director is the person the President holds

responsible for the integrity of this process, to bring forward to the

National Security Council.

I personally think the practice that has grown up in the past few

years of the President requiring that professionals be brought along

for the daily briefing, that he gets to see and hear the professional

analysts who are most expert in the particular area or subject matter, this provides an ideal setup for that, where the President will

have visibility.

The National Counterterrorist Center Director will be confirmed

by the Senate. He will be known to the President. So you will not

have the danger of a National Intelligence Director becoming the

monopoly source of information to the President.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Secretary, I am sort of worried. As I gather,

the conclusion of the Commission is that this is a threat above and

beyond what we have imagined it to be, this fundamental Islamic

movement worldwide. I don’t have enough information to make the

judgment myself. But we have to balance that with the Constitution and the preservation of the Constitution.

The one thing that worried me, I was thinking of the old NKVD

leader in the Soviet Union, Beria, who succeeded to become prime

minister by virtue of the fact that he ran the secret police.

If we centralize that authority and give them a $40 billion-plus

budget to control at will, does that not eschew the authority that

it may become uncontrollable, and the protection we are doing all

this for, to save the Constitution, may be dissipated?

Admiral LEHMAN. It is a very legitimate question to raise and to

address, and I think the answer to it is the control must be exercised by the Congress. That is why we insist that he or she be confirmed and accountable to and at the beck and call of the committees of Congress. But it is no different—in fact, if you compare the

powers, the inherent powers of the Secretary of Defense, compared

to this intelligence director, the intelligence director’s pale in comparison to what we have put into the centralized Secretary of Defense. So we believe it is manageable. We are recommending other

protections of civil liberties, an oversight board in Justice and so

forth, because these are real, legitimate issues that have to be kept

constant. We can’t let the pendulum swing totally over to security.

41

Mr. KANJORSKI. Some people suggested there may be a political

idea in Congress. If I may extend this, for 6 years of the last administration, all I did was sit on committees and in hearings and

oversight, but I cannot remember anything in the last 3 years of

oversight. We can’t even get subpoenas for the Defense Department.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Schrock.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and, Commissioners,

thank you both for being here. Thanks for taking the politics out

of it. Thanks for being brutally frank. It is most welcome and most

refreshing, I can assure you.

Throughout your report, comparisons are made between the

Joint Chiefs of Staff and the new structure that advocates for the

NID. The Joint Chiefs are used as an example of a successful joint

operations planning agency that is the type of capability that we

hope to instill in our intelligence community. I don’t have the exact

numbers, but I know the Joint Chiefs is very large, numbering in

the thousands, and exists as a separate robust agency that draws

on the finest officers from the various military services.

If this type of capability is desirable, why did the Commission

recommend a modest NID directorate with a relatively small staff

and is just another Presidential adviser? Why not advocate a more

robust capability that can truly steer the multiple intelligence

agencies and make meaningful demands for their resources and

budgets?

The joint duty is currently sought after, you know, a prestigious

assignment for many military officers and a requirement for promotion to a general or admiral rank. Should similar joint intelligence analysis and operation and planning experience be required

for promotion above a certain level in the intelligence community?

Mr. KERREY. Well, Congressman, I appreciate the question. I

think the recommendations that we are making for the NID, even

though we do envision it being a relatively small agency, has substantially enhanced powers. We do cross the line and say that we

think that DIA, that NRO, that NGA, that NSA, that these agencies, the directors, should be recommended by the NID Director or

the NID Secretary. Whatever you end up, they should have the

power to make the recommendation.

Under current law, they have consultative authority, and that is

all. Under current law, the appropriation goes to the Department

of Defense, and we are recommending the appropriation go to the

new Director or Secretary. I mean, it doesn’t take a lot of intelligence to figure this out, but that will give this Director and this

individual a substantial amount of power and authority.

But I also want to use this as an opportunity to point out—although I don’t want to be filibustering you with my answer, I did

want to point out that, in my case, my vision for this is not so

much that we are creating new structures or a czar or super-agency but that we really need to be building the network that allows

the person with the question to get in contact with the person that

has the answer.

I would urge you again to read—there is a memorandum for the

record produced by Major General Russel—I think his name is

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Honore. I think he was the CINC of NORTHCOM in 2003 when

we did our memorandum for the record.

Basically, what he is saying is we are heading toward a train

wreck of computer interoperability, where the first responders

won’t be able to make contact with the person at the top. And nothing in this whole thing was more painful than listening to Mohammad Atta say, we have planes. American Airlines knew it, and the

Department of Defense didn’t. I mean, all the way through that

day you see this interoperability problem.

So some of this is not so much giving somebody the authority but

having a vision for a management network that enables that person that has the question out there, wherever they are, to get in

contact with the person that has the answer, especially the person

who has the answer with the capability of deploying resources to

help that individual solve their problem.

Admiral LEHMAN. By the way, your idea of joint tours, that

works so well now after Goldwater-Nichols, is a very good one, and

I hope we will see some language to that effect in the legislation,

which is why we recommend and believe firmly that the National

Intelligence Director has to have personnel authorities to ensure

that kind of thing happens.

Mr. KERREY. The point that John actually made right after we

did our interview with former President Clinton, that one of the

problems, however, with Goldwater-Nichols, and I have heard some

of the concern about the NID that is sort of on this point, one of

the problems you have with Goldwater-Nichols is the President is

sitting there talking with his Joint Chiefs of Staff and said what

is our options, and you only got one person in the room today.

Twenty years ago you had four people in the room telling you a

range of options. It limits the President’s capabilities. We got down

to this. Either we have to invade or we have to send in T-LANS.

There were a lot of options in between that were never fully considered and I think were tragic consequences.

Mr. SCHROCK. In your minds, is it desirable that the term of this

Director overlap different administrations so as to take advantage

of institutional knowledge and experience? I have heard a lot of

members of the services and the service secretaries—and you were

one of those—Mr. Secretary, who said after 4 years you are just

learning the job and then you are gone. Should it be an 8-year

term? What should it be?

Admiral LEHMAN. My view is that the professionals, the heads,

for instance, of these national centers, should have long terms, and

not necessarily in statute but at least an accepted policy that it

should be at least a 4, maybe a 6-year term. But I personally do

not think—and, again, we, the Commission, have taken no position

on terms. It could work with terms. It could work without terms.

I personally do not think terms for the most powerful position is

a good idea. I think it must serve at the pleasure of the President.

Mr. KERREY. I agree with that. The challenge, of course—Warren

Buffett has this great line. He says he likes to buy companies that

an idiot would run, because eventually one will.

Well, you have the same problem. You have to write the law understanding that every now and then somebody is going to put a

real stinker in there to run the joint. You have to hope that the

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body across the way catches enough of it and be able to, you know,

exercise some judgment beyond just ideology.

So I think you have to—I think the NID—if you create an NID

with this kind of power, I think you have to let that individual

serve at the pleasure of the President.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling these hearings so quickly. It is important, and I thank the Commission members.

I truly do believe that the 9/11 Commission is an example of government at its best. We certainly need to act on your recommendations. We do not have time to wait. The terrorists are certainly not

going to wait for us to be ready.

As one who represents many of the families of September 11, and

some of them are here today to testify, we thank you for your continued determination. They have expressed their desire that all of

your recommendations be implemented, and they have stated they

will not rest until that happens. They have even more recommendations, and I look forward to their testimony, and I certainly support their efforts.

I would like to turn to one of the areas that, Senator Kerrey, you

have spoken about, many, many times, and that is the high-threat

funding formulas.

Secretary Ridge testified at your Commission hearings in New

York City that he believed that our Homeland Security resources

should go, ‘‘Where the threat exists.’’ And, clearly, that is New

York City. We are again in the cross hairs of al Qaeda.

But the administration has never offered a plan to Congress for

actually fixing the homeland funding formulas to keep them in line

with the recommendations of the Commission, that they be based

on threat and risk assessment. Instead, they have continued in an

almost discretionary total way of allocating these funds. Specifically, in the basic homeland form grant formula, 60 percent of it

is discretionary in the hands of the administration. Yet they have

not allocated that on risk assessment. I would like to know whether you believe that should be changed.

Second, they have ballooned the number of high-threat cities

from the original 7 to now over 80, which resulted in aid to New

York City, to give one example—and other high-threat cities have

the same example—it was cut 69 percent, from $150 million in

2003 to $47 million in 2004.

The fire grant resulted in 9 cents going per capita to New York,

with over $9 in Montana. The basic State grant for New York is

roughly $5 and in Wyoming is over $38.

Just last week, the chairman of the House Select Committee was

getting ready to introduce a bill that was supposed to provide

homeland funding based on risk, but not all of the details are

known. It is not even open to the public yet. But we know that it

goes away from all high-threat funding and would still guarantee

a minimum to each State without the State needing to justify the

need for a minimum or even being high threat.

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So, in your opinion, is that the approach Congress should be

adopting to avoid distributing homeland funds as pork-barrel, as

you have talked about? Would you elaborate on the work on the

committee on high-threat formulas and how the funding should be

distributed?

Mr. KERREY. Well, Congresswoman, I spent 8 years on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and I am an advocate of pork. So

I think it is basically 535 people in Congress trying to figure out

how the money is going to be spent. I have argued strenuously with

those who say, well, we ought to do it all by formula and turn it

over to the bureaucrats and let them decide. So my hands are not

clean on this one.

I don’t think you are going to change that, and I am not honestly

that familiar with the formula itself. It sounds like—you go from

8 to 60 cities. It does sound like one of those mistakes that are so

obvious that you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

But my own view on this is unless and until we recognize that

the likelihood of an attack in New York City and northern Virginia

or the Nation’s Capital, Washington, DC, again, is very great, unless you come to terms with that, it is going to be very difficult to

do the right thing.

In my view, the right thing is to create, if possible, a separate

line in DOD and defense appropriations. Because anybody that is

involved with fire effort or police effort, OEM effort up in the State

of New York is doing the Nation’s work. New York City has been

attacked twice, there have been at least two additional attempts

that were intercepted, and if the Nation gets attacked again, it is

likely New York City is going to be attacked.

I just don’t think I don’t have much confidence—I am not wildly

enthusiastic about getting into the mess of trying to figure out how

to make Congress work better when it comes to doing appropriations. Therefore, the conclusion I reach is that what we should consider is creating a separate line in the DOD authorization so that

you recognize right up front that in New York City it is the frontline of our defense efforts against terrorists.

Admiral LEHMAN. If I could just followup on that, that is a very

good point. Because what we lack on today is in the connectivity

among the firemen, policemen and the first responders and between them and as it escalates up through the FEMA, through the

National Guard, which are going to be needed to respond in potential attacks in the future, on up into the military.

This is something where the Department of Defense has tremendous expertise, has procurement, has technology, has R&D. Fort

Monmouth, NJ, the head of the Army Signal Corps, is just outside

of New York. So this is something I think should be a Defense Department responsibility, to provide that kind of support to the first

responders in the high-risk cities like New York.

Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, I request permission to place in

the record a letter to Congressman Cox urging that the formula be

based on assessment of risk and vulnerabilities, and also the statement from this important report, which I hope does not gather dust

but is implemented in its entirety, the statement that Homeland

Security should be based, the funding formula, strictly on assessment of risk and vulnerabilities——

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Without objection.

Mrs. MALONEY [continuing]. And statements of other areas that

are totally within the discretion of the administration now.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Without objection.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. McHugh.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Gentleman,

thank you and to your fellow Commissioners for your bipartisan

approach to this very, very important issue.

Obviously, as a New Yorker and as someone who was in New

York City just yesterday, the pain will never go away, nor should

it. As Senator Kerrey said in his comments, this entire examination

has helped remind us of that desperate day and the emotions we

felt.

Just for the record, I listened to Senator Kerrey’s comments

about his intention to vote for President. Secretary Lehman, you

are under oath. Who will you vote for for President?

Admiral LEHMAN. I am going to vote for President Bush.

Mr. MCHUGH. The record will reflect it is a tie.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That reflects the national polls, by the

way.

Mr. MCHUGH. Following up, the gentleman from Pennsylvania

made some comments about civil liberties and concerns that many

have expressed. You gentleman are aware that some of your recommendations—the biometric, national ID card, driver’s license,

etc.—has caused some concerns.

Next year, major portions of the Patriot Act are set to expire. It

is going to be very controversial. I happen to believe that if you had

to live under, as a Commission, pre-Patriot Act, and had to abide

by the barriers that existed in Intel sharing, you probably could not

have done your report.

From the perspective of the bill and the need to have a National

Intelligence Director and a counterintelligence center, that ability

to synthesize, how would you comment as to the efficacy and the

need to maintain at least the spirit of the Patriot Act?

Mr. KERREY. Well, Congressman, first of all, I think that I have

to declare that anything that has to be called the Patriot Act, I sort

of felt like I probably would have voted against it without even

reading the darn thing. But having examined it—and I didn’t examine it at all until I got on this Commission—I think it has been

misdescribed by both, in many cases, extreme supporters and extreme opponents.

What we concluded was that if you just put the burden of proof

on the executive branch, don’t give the government more investigative powers than are absolutely necessary, if you can get in that

quiet moment where you say tell me what value added is occurring

here, because if there is value added, there is no question we have

gotten value added in breaking down the walls and expediting

FISA, although with FISA right now we got a backlog because we

don’t have enough people to process the applications.

Just like if you are sitting over there right now working for the

National Geospatial Agency with a Top Secret clearance, the private sector will pay you $20,000 because there is a 15-month backlog on security clearances. So there is a number of areas here it

seems to me that the Patriot Act provokes us to examine, beyond

just what the law itself does.

I mean, I think if it is possible to get to that moment where conservatives that are concerned about excessive government power

and liberals that are concerned about excessive government power

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can actually examine the details of the statute, then I think you

will extend those things that need to be extended and won’t extend

those things that don’t. I am afraid, based upon my reading of it

and my knowledge of it, which is pretty limited, that is the best

I can do.

Admiral LEHMAN. I would just add I think overall it has provided

a tremendous increase in our security, but, in doing that, it has

raised the specter that in the future there could be abuses, which

is why we have recommended that we set up in the Justice Department a board of oversight specifically to protect privacy and civil

liberties and so forth.

But its contribution in dismantling ‘‘the wall’’ and the whole

criminal justice mentality of no sharing has been invaluable. So it

is important that those essential things be continued and made

permanent and at the same time not losing sight that civil liberties

must always be a consideration.

Mr. KERREY. Like I say, there will come a day—we may not be

able to imagine it today, there will come a day when the war on

terrorism is sort of back to background noise, 20 years from now,

25 years from now. You are always going to have terrorism as a

tactic being used by individuals against more powerful people.

There is going to come day when we are going to hear cases where

the Patriot Act is sort of used like RICO, not for its intended purposes but for other purposes.

I mean, really, I know that there are times when conservatives

that are concerned about the power of the government and liberals

that are concerned about the power of the government can come together, and that is what I trust the most, it is that conversation

that I trust the most when it comes to trying to figure out how to

get the Patriot Act reauthorized so it can do what John says, it can

add value where value is being added, but where it is not necessary, don’t extend it.

Again, I don’t come here with any very specific recommendations,

but if it really isn’t necessary, I urge you not to extend it.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you both very much. I guess that is the efficacy of sunsetting.

I would say just, Senator, I would say I suspect a lot of people

voted for and against it without reading it. So, business as usual.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

First of all, I want to thank both gentleman for serving on the

Commission and, for each of you, for your long, distinguished career in public service, which certainly informed your work on the

Commission.

I want to pick up a little bit from Mr. McHugh and the question

that he raised. I am pleased that the 9/11 Commission identified

civil liberties as an area of major concern. As a matter of fact, on

page 394 of the report, it says, ‘‘While protecting our homeland,

Americans should be mindful of threats to vital personal and civil

liberties. This balancing is no easy task, but we must constantly

strive to keep it right.’’

Of course, those of us who are involved in the debates over the

Patriot Act and have worked to pass amendments to it were guided

by the spirit of Ben Franklin, who said, ‘‘Those who would give up

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essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.’’

Now the Commission, continuing with its recommendations, on

page 395 said that we should ‘‘look across the government at the

actions we are taking to protect ourselves, to ensure that liberty

concerns are appropriately considered.’’

You recommend, as Mr. Lehman has mentioned, ‘‘At this time of

increased and consolidated government authority, there should be

a board within the executive branch to oversee adherence to the

guidelines we recommend and the commitment the government

makes to defend our civil liberties.’’

Now I have not yet seen, members of the committee, the administration concur with this recommendation, and I would dare say

that we are really faced with a challenge here, so that we do not

permit fear of terrorism to erode our basic liberties and thereby undermine the spirit of America itself.

The Commission says, page 395, ‘‘If our liberties are curtailed,

we lose the values we are struggling to defend.’’ Part of what we

are dealing with is terrorism, and the other part is fear of terrorism.

Senator Kerrey, you mentioned in your remarks a moment ago

about there is two sides to the question of the Patriot Act, and we

have the Patriot Act, which I opposed, these color-coded threat systems. You know, Americans are forever wondering, what does this

mean, Code Orange? The CAPS program, total information awareness, discussions about that, there are real concerns out there

around the country about the potential of these structures to curtain our essential liberties and whether or not these structures

open the door to manipulation of information for political purposes.

So I think that, aside from the obvious duty that we have as

Members of Congress taking an oath to defend the Constitution of

the United States, this Commission recommendation to create a

strong board to oversee the government initiatives and protection

of our civil liberties is something that is absolutely critical and is

something we should consider incorporating possibly in the form of

an amendment.

I would like to ask if either Mr. Kerrey or Mr. Lehman would

like to elaborate on your vision for what could be called a Federal

civil liberty ombudsman, somebody to make sure that this quality

that we have, that is so essential to who we are as a Nation, is not

eroded.

Mr. KERREY. Well, the idea, Congressman, came actually from—

at least the first time I heard the idea discussed, it came from a

discussion of the detainee policy right after September 11, where

we were unable to ascertain any security value added from all

those detainee efforts and felt that there was going to be a need,

regardless of what the effort was, to create a force inside the Justice Department that could do this kind of evaluation in an objective fashion.

I also have to say, if Ben Franklin were around today, if he had

been on this 9/11 Commission and come to terms with Ramsey

Yusef and Osama bin Laden and other guys who sit around and

talk sort of casually about killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, I do think that he would say, well, wait a minute, we can’t

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sit around and worry about violating Osama bin Laden and

Ramsey Yusef’s civil liberties.

Remember, in 1998 and 1999——

Mr. KUCINICH. Senator, with all due respect—this is my time.

Mr. KERREY. No, Congressman, I don’t need you to say ‘‘with all

due respect’’ as you interrupt me.

In 1998 and 1999, we sat around and tried to debate whether or

not we were going to pull the trigger to kill Osama bin Laden. We

had that great debate because we were worried about collateral

damage at the moment he was planning to kill 3,000 Americans,

trying to acquire nuclear weapons to kill maybe a million. It is

right in the report.

You have this stark language of us being concerned. I embrace

that concern. I am glad we lead in those areas. I am glad we have

this concern about civil liberties. It needs to be there. But the

enemy has no concern for civil liberties. The enemy has no concern

for the Geneva Convention.

You have to come with that—and I know you do in that debate—

we have to come with that hard-headed attitude, or are not going

to get this thing balanced right. All we are going to do is score a

point to an audience that is apt to be sympathetic to our viewpoint.

Mr. KUCINICH. You did not answer my question with respect to

the balance.

Mr. KERREY. Well, I answered as best as I can, or as far as I am

going to go today, I guess, Congressman. I mean, where do you find

my answer to be inaccurate?

Mr. KUCINICH. How do you protect civil liberties?

Mr. KERREY. I don’t think you protect civil liberties absolutely.

I don’t have an absolute civil liberty to speak freely, to operate

freely. I always have to balance what I am saying against the interests and the rights of another individual.

So if I am sitting in a mosque somewhere having a conversation

that I think it is a pretty good thing what happened on September

11, to kill Americans, and I would like to perhaps support other

people who are doing the same sort of thing, as far as I am concerned, I just forfeited my right, it seems to me, to not have the

government of the United States interfere with either that conversation or my effort to do so.

So I can’t balance it in general, unfortunately. I have to get to

the specific thing that we are talking about in order to be able to

do that balancing.

That is why I say, Congressman, I do think both the mechanism

that we are recommending and the general thing I said earlier

with the Patriot Act, you got to get to that place where you have

both liberals and conservatives who say we don’t want the government to have too much power, because that is, in the end, what you

are dealing with. It is not so much civil liberties as it is the power

of the government to investigate us without any control over that

government, regardless of what it is you are doing. And I think you

need—in our system of government, I think we need real limitations on what the government is able to do with individual citizens.

At the same time, we are fighting a war against individuals that

don’t feel that way.

Mr. SCHROCK [presiding]. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the gentlemen for your service to our country and all the

Commission members for rising above the political rhetoric and the

bashing and all of the partisanship that goes on, even as you have

heard in this committee. You have produced a truly bipartisan report that rises above that and honors the thousands who died on

September 11, honors their grieving family members and also gives

hope to our men and women in uniform throughout the world who

are fighting those Islamic extremists who seek our destruction and

who corrupted their religious teachings in such a distorted way

that they can state that they are killing for their creator.

I wanted to raise two issues that were raised in your report that

is currently being debated in our committee on International Relations, and we will have you appear before us in the coming days.

These legislative proposals we are putting forth have to do with the

information-sharing component of your report and the need for executive branch reorganization. I wanted to ask you if you believe

that each agency involved in counterterrorism efforts should reorganize their own infrastructure to better integrate and coordinate

the intelligence, the policy, the operational components, and should

each agency essentially have a single dedicated office or division

working exclusively on U.S. counterterrorism policy that will serve

as a point of contact for other U.S. agencies in the soon to be created terrorism center.

Also, another proposal that we are looking at is your observation

of the Commission that has to do with the need to transform the

system of need-to-know to one of need-to-share. But there are concerns that increasing the number of individuals with access to intelligence could jeopardize sources and methods; and, in turn, that

could jeopardize not only our intelligence gathering capabilities but

our operational response as well. How would you address those

concerns and safeguard against these potential problems?

Thank you.

Admiral LEHMAN. I will start, if I might, to answer that. One of

the most essential things in reforming our current structure is to

rationalize the current security system, as you rightly put it, to

change from a need-to-know to a need-to-share culture. That is one

more very strong remedy for a National Intelligence Director who

has that power that cuts across agencies.

Today, too many agencies do all their own classifying, do all their

own background investigations, do all their own stamping, and

when in doubt stamp it one level higher than it should be. What

we are recommending is a cultural change, and that goes to the

first part of your question, should each of the 15 agencies change,

reorganize themselves.

I believe that the only reason for making these organizational

changes is to bring about a cultural change, to provide an environment in the whole community and in each of the agencies where

people can become innovative, can do the right thing. Because we

have fabulously talented people in each of these agencies that are

kind of in shackles because of the bureaucratic process.

So if we can change, give the power to somebody at the top to

break up these shackles, to remove these obstacles, then each of

the agency heads will be able to reorganize their own agencies and

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bring about a culture of sharing and of putting proper responsibilities where they belong.

Specifically, in the classification issue, one of the greatest tyrannies in the classification system is what is called originator control. If NSA originates a piece of intelligence, they get to control it,

nobody else. If CIA originates a piece, they get to control it, it is

called ORCON. That has to be totally changed.

We have to have a system where sources and methods are detached as soon as the intelligence is gathered and then it is fed into

the system of sharing free, so everybody don’t have to maintain

this ORCON compartmentalization throughout. That is why you

are getting an idea why we believe this is a whole. It is not a Chinese menu, these recommendations.

Chairman TOM DAVIS [presiding]. Thank you.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I

want to thank you and the ranking member for convening this

hearing. I also want to thank the witnesses for the tremendous

work you have done as part of the Commission. I want to commend

the family members for the role that they played in bringing the

Commission about.

On Saturday, the Washington Post ran a front-page story that

described a significant policy shift by the Bush administration. It

announced that it will now oppose inspections and verifications as

part of an international treaty that would ban the production of

nuclear weapons.

Senator Kerrey, could you give us your views on this? Is the administration going in the right direction, the wrong direction, appropriate direction? What do you think about this?

Mr. KERREY. I wasn’t in town Saturday, so I missed that story.

I am not sure, Congressman, honestly what the administration is

proposing. I do think that the chem/bio nuclear threat is very real,

especially nuclear. It is almost a question of when, not if, one of

these gets used. At the same time, I must tell you, I think the likelihood of the United States being attacked by a terrorist using just

straight conventional weapons is a more likely thing.

You all were terrified by a couple of snipers here for a number

of months, and that wasn’t weapons of mass destruction. So it can

still be pretty easy for me to go out and get a couple hundred

pounds of C–4 and a time stick and put it someplace where it

would do a lot of damage. There are a lot of conventional

vulnerabilities.

So I don’t think that is the question that you asked me, but it

is about as far as I can go to answer your question. I don’t know

what the administration proposed.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Let me proceed. The article went on to

say the administration’s position will dramatically weaken any

treaty and make it harder to prevent nuclear materials from falling

into the hands of terrorists.

Mr. Lehman, do you have a view on this?

Admiral LEHMAN. First of all, I do believe that proliferation efforts have to be redoubled and intensified, that this really is the

most serious long-term threat. I agree with Bob that the more immediate is conventional but the catastrophic is in nuclear. So I am

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a true believer in nonproliferation, and we are recommending one

of the national centers be a nonproliferation center.

However, I also believe in President Reagan’s dictum, ‘‘trust but

verify.’’ When you are dealing with nuclear materials, we have

found—I mean, I was sent by President Reagan to try to threaten

President Sia of Pakistan not to proceed with nuclear weapons. I

sat right across from him at dinner, and he looked me straight in

the eye, and he said I give you my word, we are not developing nuclear weapons. And about 2 years later, they had their first test.

So I used to be, in one incarnation, the Deputy Director of the

Arms Control Agency. I believe in arms control. I believe in treaties. But they must be verifiable. We cannot take the words, we

cannot trust a toothless international organization to verify. We

have to have an international organization or national means, such

as we developed with the Soviets, that are intrusive but reliable.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Let me just ask—finally, the article said

that the administration came to its conclusion because such a system would cost too much. The Commission report says that preventing proliferation of these weapons warrants maximum effort by

strengthening counterproliferation.

I assume that the Commission felt that the cost would be warranted if we could prevent further proliferation of these weapons.

Is that your understanding?

Admiral LEHMAN. The principle, as opposed to its specific—because I don’t think any of us on the Commission addressed this

specific move by the administration—but money spent on reducing

proliferation, regardless of the cost, in my judgment, if it is effective means it is money well spent.

Mr. KERREY. It does look from the article that this weakens verification. Frankly, Congressman, I would want to ask Senator

Nunn what he thought of this or somebody else that steeped themselves in trying to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation.

Indeed, in our discussions, we pointed to the Nunn-Lugar Act as

something that, with the corrections Congress made through good

oversight, is something that needs additional funding and additional support. So I would seek to deflect your question to somebody that is more knowledgeable than I. As is oftentimes the case

when I see something on the surface, my surface reaction would be

this is going to weaken our capability to stop proliferation. I would

check it with somebody more knowledgeable than I.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mrs. Miller.

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.

Let me just say to the panelists here how much we certainly appreciate your dedication to our Nation. You have all had terrific careers, but I think certainly what you have done with the 9/11 Commission will be a mark of your careers as well. I appreciate your

coming.

I appreciate our chairman calling this hearing and the leadership

of our Speaker as well. There are a number of different committees

that will be having hearings on this remarkable report that you

brought out. I think it was very appropriate. I had some consternation about the Congress going on recess right as you were delivering this remarkable piece of work, and so I think there are a number of things that our committee should be looking at with your

recommendations.

I am going to go to something that is so almost ridiculously simple but so fundamental in one of your recommendations and something I have a little bit of expertise in as well.

Before I got this job I was a Michigan Secretary of State and in

that my principal responsibilities—one of my principal responsibilities was serving as the chief motor vehicle administrator, issuing

drivers’ licenses, State identification, etc.

Actually, in your Commission’s report, here on page 390 you have

a recommendation ‘‘secure identification should begin in the United

States. The Federal Government should set standards for the

issuance of birth certificates, sources of identification, such as drivers’ licenses,’’ etc.

I wonder, during the course of your hearing, as you were taking

testimony there, if you found that there was—at least it has been

my experience that there really has not been a Federal standard

on how we are issuing drivers’ licenses or State ID cards. This I

think is the foundation of your identity.

You have a driver’s license, that is how you are going to enroll

into a flight school or get on an airplane or what have you. Yet all

of the various States—there are a number that have very high secured drivers’ licenses, essentially fraudulent free, but there are

still a number of States who are issuing drivers’ licenses, first of

all, without requiring any really good, essential primary documentation as to the identity of the individual that they are issuing

these licenses to, and I think we have a serious problem with that.

For instance, with commercial drivers’ licenses, just reading this

latest terrorist threat, we see that there is quite a bit of consternation that much of this terrorist threat could manifest itself in people in trucks, in cars, with bombs.

You have I think the possibility certainly with not having the

kind of secured licensing system that we need to have with people

getting commercial drivers’ licenses, for instance, with hazardous

materials endorsements. They are literally using our own freedoms

against us. Yet the technology does exist out there for us to have

not only secure licenses but biometrics, the retinal scanning,

whether or not we would put fingerprints on licenses.

I think we all have to be very concerned as we use technology

about privacy concerns. At the same time, there certainly is technology there, and it would seem appropriate, and as you say in

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your recommendations here, that the Federal Government should

be issuing Federal standards to the various States.

Again, I know we are talking about national security directors,

etc., but this is such a fundamental thing that every American has

and needs to have, and I do think the Federal Government would

have a very appropriate role in this. I am just looking for a little

comment from you two individuals on that.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Candice S. Miller follows:]

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Admiral LEHMAN. Well, I am very pleased that you single this

out, because I think all of us on the Commission are very proud

of this recommendation, because it came from some very interesting intellectual disputation on the Commission. Because there were

some of us who were sympathetic to the idea of a national identity

card and others that were very concerned about the privacy and

civil liberties issues.

We believe we came up with what is as near to a perfect solution

as you can with this national standard, because this is not a national identity card. It keeps in the States the responsibility for

those documents and for the administration that goes behind that.

There will be no national identity card. Yet it gives all the security

benefits that a national identity card would give. And it does not

have to be enforced by the Federal Government. If there are Federal standards, it becomes enforced by the insurance industry and

by private industry. If a State doesn’t adhere to national standards,

insurance rates are going to be a lot higher.

Similarly, we recommend the adoption of national standards for

building safety and fire codes and so forth. Similarly, the Federal

Government doesn’t have to enforce it. It gets enforced by insurance underwriters and private industry. So we are very pleased

with that and hope it will get enacted.

Mr. KERREY. I actually would have gone further with the recommendations. Just for all those folks that are worried that the national identification card is going to impinge on your privacy, get

rid of your credit cards first, stop using the public e-mail second,

don’t travel anymore, third, and then tell me what the hell you

think of it.

I mean, the problem is we have given away so much of our privacy already without knowing it; and the trouble is, absent our capacity to in a much more sophisticated way tell who that small

fraction is—there is no more than 1 percent—in fact, it is less than

1 percent of the 500 million visitors of the United States of America we believe have criminal intent.

The trouble is, yes, they are slowed down a bit, but it is the 499

million others that are slowed down that cause us to basically impose upon ourselves more regulatory costs than we ought to and

more regulatory delays, etc. This is about as far as we could go on

a Commission.

But I will just tell you, on the Democratic side of this Commission, there was enthusiasm to push this envelope even further.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just as the members of the families who are here today and all

they represent have turned their personal pain into public service,

and we thank them for that, I want to add my remarks to the Commission members, the two people here before us, and thank them

for their public service. You have done a great public service to the

country, and we all appreciate that.

There is no reason in my mind, having looked at all the exhaustive work the Commission has done to date, that we couldn’t have

in place by September 11, 2004, on the anniversary date, some legislation to move us forward, and I really hope that this Congress,

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the majority, takes a direction on that, and certainly we will work

with them to get that done.

In your report, you had a strong desire for a National Intelligence Director that had control over budgets, the ability to approve and submit nominations for the heads of initial agencies, a

counterterrorism center that had responsibility for operational

planning. I think all of those things make absolute sense, but I

think they also demand incredible oversight, which is a point you

both made today.

In your report, you give two suggestions of how we might do

that. One is a joint House-Senate committee for intelligence, and

the other, of course, is one committee in each body designated toward that goal, with combining authorizing and appropriations

powers. What is the preference and why?

Mr. KERREY. Well, it is most unfortunate, from my standpoint,

you found the two——

Mr. TIERNEY. Is your mic on, Senator?

Mr. KERREY. It is, yes. The two people that are the strongest advocates of a joint committee are sitting before you today, so when

we say what are the preferences, we are going to leave out the

preferences of the other Commissioners as we respond, because we

favor the joint committee.

I favor the joint committee because I think is the strongest of the

options. It gives Congress a stronger play. It gives Congress the

strongest possible play.

If you go back and look at the joint Atomic Energy Commission

model, the critique that was the loudest and eventually shut it

down was that Congress was treading on the privileges over the executive more than it should.

In this area, where classification is the rule, you don’t know what

is going on. Congress has to have a strong committee.

Regardless of which option you pick though, Congressman, I

would make sure it is written into law. Don’t do with congressional

resolutions. No matter what the critics of the CIA will tell you, the

men and women who work there follow the law, and they are just

a little less persuaded by a congressional resolution.

Second, require full and complete accounting. Require that in the

statute. Especially if it is in law, it will be done.

The third thing is. Because it is classified, because you don’t

have the oversight, whichever model you pick, require in law that

the committee issue a public report once a year that is not classified, that lets people know what the status of these agencies are.

Are they funded well enough, where is the weaknesses, where is

the strengths, etc. Get something out there that is public.

The principal reason I think that Congress may find the joint

committee appealing, however, and it is a very important one—

again, I was on the Appropriations Committee, and I know that

combining authorizing and appropriating—in the Senate, you could

probably get 60 people privately to tell you that is a great idea. But

the only people who are going to vote for it when it comes to the

floor are people who are, A, not a member of the Appropriations

Committee or, B, hope to get something from the Appropriations

Committee for the rest of the time of their career in the Senate,

which is probably less than 10.

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So what I believe you can do to accomplish that end is again in

statute require that the committee have representation from the

Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee, Judiciary, and I would say Defense Appropriations as well.

We have additional language that keeps, as much as possible,

the politics out of it. One of the things I heard earlier, our Commission had power because we had subpoena power, and it was real

subpoena power. Tom Caine was willing to use it. We got access

to documents, we got movement, we got things.

This is not a whack on President Bush. President Clinton probably would have done the same thing. No matter who the President

is, who the executive leadership are, they are going to say, we have

Executive privilege; you can’t come and look at these things.

So that subpoena power and the willingness to use it—if you

have a round in the chamber and they have it on ‘‘safe’’ all the

time, nobody is going to be afraid of you. So in this particular case

you have to take as much of possible the politics out of it so that

subpoena means something to the executive branch.

Admiral LEHMAN. I totally agree with Bob. I am a year older

than he is, so I go all the way back to actually dealing with the

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy when I was on Kissinger’s staff

and a Deputy Director of the Arms Control Agency.

It was a powerful committee. It was very searching and probing,

and it got the issues out before the Congress and provided tremendous guidance to the executive branch. It was almost a perfect

model, in my judgment, of how the equal partnership between the

two branches was. It attracted people like Mel Price and Scoop

Jackson and Craig Hosmer. So I am equally enthusiastic with that

as the proper solution.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. Chairman, I am going to make a general point.

I appreciate there has been a lot of public attention putting pressure upon you all to hold hearings during—one of the most unfortunate names that you all have—the American people have to refer

to a time off as recess. You guys need a vacation. You need to get

away every now and then.

One of the things we discovered is, had more of us read Tom

Clancy, we might have been able to figure this out. Had more of

us read Blackhawk Down or seen the movie, we might have understood that bin Laden was either directly or indirectly responsible

for shooting down our helicopters on October 3rd and 4th, 1993.

Part of the problem is that you are so pressed for time, constantly getting briefings, constantly reading this stuff coming

through your in-boxes, that when we say failure of imagination,

that is what happened to all of us.

So one of the unfortunate things is you have a lot of pressure to

hold these hearings during recess, and God bless for being able to

do it, but take some time off. Rename it a vacation. Say we need

vacation, too. We got to go away and shut down and throw our cell

phones away and our BlackBerries away and not make contact

with anybody other than the fiction that we are going to take with

us and read.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. You can have as much time

as you need it here. If you want more time, you can have it on that

subject.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to thank you

for holding this hearing on this important issue, and I want to

thank the family members for their effort to focus on advocating for

issues that will make America safer, and I want to thank the Commissioners for their effort in putting together a bipartisan Commission report and their efforts to continue the recommendations in a

bipartisan manner.

One of the questions earlier I think inadvertently diminished the

President’s call for a National Intelligence Director, focusing on the

words ‘‘coordinate.’’ I just for a moment for the record wanted to

state what the President said.

I have in front of me his statement from that day where he

called for the National Intelligence Director. He said, ‘‘The National Intelligence Director will serve as the President’s principal

intelligence adviser and will oversee and coordinate the foreign and

domestic activities of the intelligence committee. Under this reorganization, the CIA will be managed by a separate Director. The National Intelligence Director will assume the broader responsibility

of leading the intelligence community across our government.

Of course, we all have to wait for the final specifics of what we

are going to receive in that recommendation, but I didn’t want the

record to reflect a diminishing of what the President’s efforts were.

Senator Kerrey, twice today in listening to your testimony you

have said things that relate to how I felt in reading the report.

One, you said that in reading the narrative it will take you back

to where you were that day and give you really the commitment

of moving forward on these issues.

On that day I served as mayor for the city of Dayton. Our city

the prior month had a weapons of mass destruction terrorist response exercise upon the urging of one our city commissioners, the

late Lloyd Lewis, who thought we in the community needed to be

prepared for this looming threat. Attorney General John Ashcroft

attended that event.

In reading the 9/11 Commission report, I was struck that your

recommendations were very similar to the recommendations that

came out of our Dayton Domestic Preparedness Action Report on

what was needed for our first responders. Those recommendations

were for issues of training, protection, equipment, intel on the local

level, interoperability and command structure.

I know our chairman of the National Security Subcommittee,

Chris Shays, similarly before the September 11 event had held

hearings on the needs of our first responders.

The second thing that you had said was the issue of the statement by the terrorists that ‘‘we have planes’’ and the time period

within which the Department of Defense was able to respond, in

fact not respond.

Assuming that we put all this intelligence structure together, intelligence only provides us knowledge, knowledge of which we have

to take some action with, and assuming that a terrorist event is occurring or unfolding, both our first responders and our Department

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of Defense are going to need to have the resources necessary to be

able to protect us and to work through a crisis.

In looking at the report, it notes that at 8:25 a.m. was the first

notice of the hijacking; at 8:46, F–15s were scrambled; at 9:25, they

were over New York City’s air space; at 9:39, the Pentagon was attacked.

So my two questions relate to if you can comment further and

expound on your issues you saw in the resources and the needs of

our first responders and also, second, on the issue of our ability for

the Department of Defense to have a national defense system that

can respond if we do have intelligence of an unfolding event.

Mr. KERREY. Well, you know, first of all, I think there are significant vulnerabilities that are still here.

As a former mayor of Dayton, you are apt to have a greater sense

of urgency in coming to terms with the training needed to prepare

first responders. You can’t just put an ad in the paper and hire

somebody and bring them in and all of a sudden Mary or Jim or

Sue can do the work. They have to be trained. If you want them

to be effective against an effective biological weapon, they have to

be trained to do it. Yet among all the additional things you have

to do is to be able to identify somebody who can be a suspect or

try to deal with the crisis once it starts going forward. So there is

a huge amount of training that is required.

My experience with law enforcement is it’s the one area that oftentimes gets shorted. It’s hard to do. It’s hard to constantly allocate the more money that’s necessary for police and fire, and, in

our case in New York, an Office of Emergency Management Personnel, to keep their skill level up.

Congressman, I really would urge you to look at—and I’m now

trying to pronounce General Honore’s name the second time. I hope

I got it right the second time. He produced a memorandum for the

record. He was CINC of NORTHCOM, Commander in Chief of

NORTHCOM at the time, and it’s a terrific memo because he’s

talking about exactly what you’re talking about, I think, which is

the first responder is the first line of defense.

And what I was talking about, when I was talking about this

agony of listening to American Airlines here, where we have

planes, is the issue of computer interoperability. Honore deals with

it very, very passionately and very clearly, that he believes we’re

still headed toward a train wreck.

The second individual that I would urge you to talk to, I would

call into your offices, I don’t want to recommend you bring her here

to a hearing, that’s the last thing I want you to do, the woman who

led our team in the border security, Susan Ginsburg, because

Susan talks passionately and with great capacity about the shortcomings we have again in training our personnel so they are prepared to do the job, and talks as well to Congressman Miller’s point

earlier that we have significant vulnerabilities at the border dealing with identification; that we have significant vulnerabilities still

remaining with people out there having to make a decision that

don’t get the intelligence that they need to make a decision on the

spur of the moment.

So the fact that your former mayor of Dayton prepares you enormously well to help other Members of Congress figure out what

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those responders have to do because they are the ones we are going

to rely upon the most to keep the country safe or, God forbid, to

handle the next crisis.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, at the outset I want to thank you and Mr. Waxman for your promptness in responding to the 9/11 Commission report.

Commissioner Lehman and Senator Kerrey, I would also like to

thank you again and extend our gratitude, to join the echo of the

chorus up here for the great efforts of your Commission and yourselves personally on behalf of our country.

Today’s hearing offers the first opportunity for the House of Representatives to review the various proposals, both structural and

policy-oriented, set forth in the 9/11 Commission final report. And

I would just like to respectfully urge my colleagues when weighing

these proposals to abide by the bedrock principles upon which our

Nation was founded, namely our government’s responsibility and

obligation to ensure the basic security of our people, as well as

maintaining the delicate system of checks and balances that guarantees our government’s accountability to our people, and also, of

course, a profound commitment to safeguarding the civil liberties

that have come to be inseparable from the American way of life.

To this end, and in consideration of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, I think we must dedicate ourselves to devising a

National counterterrorism policy that truly promotes information

sharing and cooperation and, above all, accountability, as both you

gentlemen have testified to today. And I would agree with others

who have noted that the 9/11 Commission, and yourselves in particular, have offered to the Congress a shining example of what bipartisanship can accomplish, and that is reflected in your report.

I think all of us here are committed to developing an effective

counterterrorism policy regardless of where those recommendations

may come from, whether it is the Commission or the Congress or

the administration.

And, last, I would be remiss if I did not say to the families of

those loved ones who were lost on September 11 that we thank you

for your persistence and your loyalty and your dedication throughout this process. You have contributed greatly to this process, and

it is my only hope that the weight of your sorrow will in some way

be lightened by knowing that it is shared by both your neighbors

and your Nation.

My question to the Commissioners is simply this: This committee

has previously investigated goings-on at the FBI in the Boston office, and we found during that investigation that there was an institutional, a cultural resistance to information sharing. We found

that intelligence was actually the currency of career advancement

for many of those FBI agents and supervisors.

Is there one proposal, is there one formulation in your own

minds that will break down that resistance to information sharing

that we have seen at least in the FBI and I believe is probably

prevalent through all of these intelligence agencies?

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Admiral LEHMAN. This was one of the most long-considered

issues that we debated and thought about and took testimony on.

It certainly was a contributing factor to September 11. It is a deep

cultural reality that good law enforcement people do not share evidence. It is ingrained in their professionalism, and it is needed in

the law enforcement community. That is what makes it so difficult

to blend or to share intelligence gathering and analysis on the one

hand and law enforcement on the other.

We thought very hard about creating an independent agency, an

independent domestic intelligence agency, on the MI–5 or some

other similar model, like Australia or Canada has. We ultimately

decided not to recommend that, but to recommend something that,

we think, neatly addresses exactly the problem that you found in

Boston and that we found endemic in the domestic intelligence

problem in the FBI. We are recommending a semiautonomous service within FBI that is protected by the NID; that has either the Executive Assistant Director for National Security and for Intelligence

perhaps combined in one strong Deputy Director of FBI that is

dual-hatted to both the National Intelligence Director and to the

FBI Director so that we retain the strengths of the connections of

the FBI with the local law enforcement community, which is one

the great gatherers of domestic intelligence, and we keep the protections of civil liberties that the Justice Department provides, yet

we protect that intelligence function within FBI from exactly the

dominance of the law enforcement culture of no sharing and of case

development and so forth, rather than this sharing culture of intelligence analysis.

That is another reason why this is all of a piece. If we proceed

with the National Intelligence Director and do not give him hiring

and firing authority over that FBI Intelligence Deputy, and give

him or her that authority over the budget and appropriations for

the FBI intelligence function, then you have not really made much

difference. You have not brought FBI into the fusion of our intelligence.

Mr. KERREY. And may I say, we were very impressed, the Commission was very impressed, John can shake his head if I’m wrong,

but we were very impressed with the progress that Director

Mueller has made in a relatively short period of time to change

that culture.

Part of the culture is just understandable human nature. I mean,

I don’t want to tell you something because I’m afraid you’re going

to screw me with it.

Mr. LYNCH. Either that or you’ll get credit for it.

Mr. KERREY. Or I won’t get credit for it. But there is also another

one that I just—there are times when secrecy doesn’t equal security. There are times when secrecy equals the opposite. It makes

us less secure.

Ninety percent of the foreign policy stuff that we get today to

make decisions that you get today you get from open sources, and

the more we keep these things secret, the less debate we have. And

in my view, the reason we didn’t identify bin Laden as public

enemy No. 1 prior to September 11 is we kept the details about

who he was secret. After September 11, the full story’s out there.

And 75 percent of what we knew about bin Laden we knew in

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1997, 90 percent we knew in 1999, and we knew 100 percent by

2001. We kept it secret, and, in my view, it made it exceptionally

difficult to do what we needed to do to reduce that threat.

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. The gentleman’s time is up.

Admiral LEHMAN. One very briefly anecdote.

Mr. SHAYS. Please be brief.

Admiral LEHMAN. Very brief.

In the 1993 World Trade Center, the Justice Department had to

turn over to the defense counsel the names of the coconspirators

that intelligence had gathered. It went straight to bin Laden, but

they could not share it with CIA.

Mr. SHAYS. Amazing. Very interesting, your responses.

At this time the Chair would recognize Judge Carter.

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I want to thank

you, like everyone else here, for a really exceptional piece of work

here. Bipartisanism is fantastic in this town, I commend you for it,

and I’m going to treasure this.

I’m going to try to couch questions that I got back home, and one

of the first questions I want to ask you is, we are in a war on terrorism. Can we lose this war on terrorism? And what would be the

results of losing the war on terrorism for the American people?

Or even better, what do they expect to win? When would they

say ‘‘we win’’ on the war on terrorism? Because the concept of a

war for the American people is not fitting with what we are doing,

and I think your report does fit what we are doing.

Mr. KERREY. Well, Congressman, first of all, I presume that

home is—help me a little bit. You said when you go back home. I

can tell it is not New Hampshire, but——

Mr. CARTER. Well, I’m from Texas, and we take war real seriously in Texas.

Mr. KERREY. Well, I mean, the first thing I’d say, Judge, is a war

on terrorism is inappropriately named. Terrorism is a tactic. It

would make as much sense for us to declare war on zeroes after

December 7, 1941. Terrorism is a tactic. It is used by individuals

to try to accomplish some objective. It’s hard to get your head into

that, but that’s what’s going on here.

And one of the more controversial things we dealt with, and

you’ll see it in the report, we used the language we believe that

what we are dealing here with is radical Islamic jihadists who have

made the decision—in this particular case they made the decision

that killing Americans is the most important thing to do. They

have targeted Americans.

Now, they have spread, and they have hit Spaniards in Madrid,

they have gone beyond that, but the thing that made bin Laden

unique was his decision to say, we’re not going to try to destabilize

Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or other Muslim nations, we’re going to

try to destabilize the United States of America by taking this tactic

right to the head of the snake.

Mr. CARTER. So then would you say their purpose is to kill Americans, which they have declared; and by killing Americans, make

us reach a point where they control policy in this country by

threats or taking actions of terrorism?

Mr. KERREY. Yes. I think there is a combination of things. First

of all, they say, well, you’re all going to go to heaven and hang out

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with virgins for eternity. If bin Laden believed that, he’d be sending his kids, and he’s not. So, apparently, it’s a device that works

from time to time.

But understand, if you examine terrorism, especially in the

1990’s, it’s been developed in very sophisticated ways. How do you

disguise explosives on your body, etc? But I believe you have to go

to the ideological argument that underlies it. That’s why I said earlier, to look at the Ramzi Yousef statement and compare it to—confront it by Judge Duffy’s statement, I think you get the battle right

there.

And we can’t be unafraid to argue that point, that central argument that you hear Yousef using in trial. It is wrong, it is deadly,

it’s cowardly, put whatever you want on there, but you’ve got to get

to the argument itself.

In my view, the only way to confront it successfully is to understand that you may never get to a perfect world where we’re never

vulnerable to terrorists. That is not likely to happen, in my opinion. Second, I think you’ve got to understand that vigorous military

and law enforcement effort have to be used.

I had an interesting exchange earlier with Congressman

Kucinich over this thing. Bin Laden doesn’t, these guys don’t sit

around and say, geez, what about civil liberties and what about the

Geneva Convention and so forth. They’ve got to be vigorously pursued and relentlessly pursued, because if they feel like we’re going

to apply moral relativism to what they do, then I think the game

is over.

Third, I think we do have to have—whether you call it diplomacy

or debate over the ideas or whatever, we can’t just paper over these

arguments. And the last thing, I think the United States of America has to continue to say that democracy, that free markets can

provide you with an opportunity agenda. And we have to show it

can. Whether that’s trade policies or advocating good safety nets or

whatever it is, if democracy doesn’t make life a little bit better for

the individuals who are inside of that democracy, we have a heck

of a problem.

And we can’t ask our law enforcement and our soldiers, sailors,

airmen, and marines to fight this battle if, for example in 2006, the

farm bill comes up and we say we want business as usual, just to

put it right like I think it is. Now, that may not sell back down

in your congressional district in Texas, I don’t know, but we can’t,

I think, win this unless we can honestly say to the world that democracy and free markets can be a vehicle to make your life a little

bit better regardless of where you live on this planet.

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Chairman, may I have just a little bit extra

time?

Mr. SHAYS. The gentleman’s time has run out. Is that OK?

Mr. CARTER. All right, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

At this time we would recognize Chris Van Hollen from Maryland.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank both of you gentlemen for your incredible service to our

country, and I, too, want to thank the families of the September

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11 victims for everything you’ve done for our country and making

the Commission possible.

Secretary Lehman, I was encouraged by your comment that your

recommendations are not a Chinese menu, and that the devil is in

the details, and I ask that you continue to evaluate proposals,

whether they come out of the White House or the Congress, in the

days ahead to see if they meet that test, because I don’t think it’s

partisan in any way to ask you to evaluate those proposals, whether they be out of the White House or out of the Congress, and I

thank you for that.

There’s a line in your report on page 406 that says, ‘‘The most

serious disadvantage of the NCTC is the reverse of its greatest virtue,’’ and you go on to say that ‘‘in fighting this war against Islamic

terrorism, we may have to concentrate more power in a certain entity, but we may concentrate too much power in one place,’’ and,

therefore, you call for checks and balances.

I want to ask both of you gentlemen with respect to your recommendations and observations for the Congress, because, in my

observation, Congress is very good about telling other people how

to change themselves and reform themselves, but it does not have

as good a track record when it comes to making reforms of itself.

And, Senator Kerrey, you mentioned the challenges you had with

the Armed Services Committee and others during your service in

the Senate. I’m interested in your advice as to how you create pressure within this institution to create some of those changes, No. 1.

No. 2, in addition to the changes you recommended, it requires

the political will of the Congress to exercise that accountability.

And you mentioned the subpoena power you had. The fact of the

matter is, in the last couple of years, the Congress has not issued

any subpoenas with respect to Federal Government agencies. And

it gets to the question—and I don’t mean for this to be partisan because it could happen whether you had Democrats in control of the

White House and the Congress or Republicans in control of the

White House and the Congress—but the fact of the matter is we

need as an institution, the Congress, to strengthen and see our role

as a coequal branch of government and not necessarily endorse—

see ourselves as someone who is an endorser or cheerleader of all

the policies that come out of the executive branch.

I only mention the subpoena issue because I think it’s a reflection of the fact that Congress has maybe not exercised its full powers, and I ask for your observations on that.

And the final question I have relates to the other part of what

I see as intelligence failures. You examined intelligence failures

dealing with September 11. We, of course, have a number of groups

that are looking at the issue of weapons of mass destruction and

failures in intelligence, or oversight of intelligence, or interpretation of intelligence in that regard. My one concern with some of

your recommendations is the very thing that may have lent yourself to supporting a good response to the intelligence failures with

regard to September 11, I would ask you gentlemen whether they

could exacerbate the intelligence failures with respect to weapons

of mass destruction in that you would have more homogeneity,

more cookie-cutter approaches if you have one Director; and whether that would create additional pressures for everyone to salute

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and say, yes, sir, we agree with your analysis, instead of having

different centers of analysis.

Admiral LEHMAN. Well, I’ll take the last part of that and let Bob

deal with the first part.

I think that homogeneity is something we absolutely must get

away from. Time and again through our investigation, we found

that group think in the community prevented imaginative perception of what the real threat was. We think that the recommendations we are making here, the system that we are recommending

ensures competitive analysis, not homogeneity, not agreement.

When there are going to be national intelligence estimates, there

need to be dissenting views in those intelligence estimates when

there are, and there usually are. DIA is very likely to have a differing perspective on some aspects of the same facts than CIA. And

we want to make sure that many senior leaders, where there is

honest differences of perception and analysis, they get to see them,

that it is not an enforced consensus.

One of the tremendous things about our report is, I am sure as

you read it, this is not a ground-down homogeneity of views. It is

a sharp-edged report with a lot of bold statements and facts in it,

yet we reach unanimity on it. That is what we have to get, and to

do that you have to have someone who ensures that the environment is such that people aren’t afraid to speak out, that there is

entrepreneurial spirit by analysts, and that there is a willingness

to take risks.

Mr. KERREY. Well, honestly, I forgot what the first part was.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, just based on your experience, how you

would propose the Congress go about enforcing your recommendations? What would you do as a Member of Congress? And is there

an institutional problem when—do you sense that Congress has in

any way lost its ability, its more traditional role acting as a separate branch of government with respect to national security oversight?

Mr. SHAYS. This is a repeat of the same question.

Mr. KERREY. Yes, based upon my own experience, I think there

is a tendency to yield ground on national security when ground

shouldn’t be yielded by Congress. I think, though, again, to hit the

one issue I have talked about several times in this area, it’s even

more typical because it’s all classified. I mean, you’ll see ferocious

debates going on in the open press about whether or not our military is at the readiness levels they need to be at. There is no such

debate going on in intel. None.

Earlier, one of the members of this committee made a reference

to the failure to detect the Indian nuclear detonation. We detected

it the year before. We missed it by a hair the second time. And

then you say, wait a minute, Vajpayee campaigned on a promise

to detonate a nuclear weapon. We shouldn’t need the CIA to tell

us he’s going to do it. He’d promised to do it, unless we expect in

India they don’t keep their promises, or something. I don’t know.

Third, find those areas where you’re doing good work and do

more of it. As you know, oftentimes it’s someone in a position of

power that wants to make the government work better that you’re

not going to see them out in the press. Right now in intel, I think

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sight on the Defense Appropriations Committee. They care about

the subject matter. You never see it out in the press. And as a consequence, in this case, I believe that unless Congress changes the

law in intel to create a much, much stronger committee than you

currently have, I think you’re always going to be frustrated.

And the last thing I’d say is that I don’t really think that we

should be extended for 18 months. I don’t think it works for us to

be extended for 18 months, even if I had 18 months to give to the

task, because in many ways we were doing what now Chairman

Shays, who is about ready to gavel me down, was trying to do with

this committee. This committee can do oversight of the intelligence

agencies where you see failure happening, and I think can be a

very substantial force to make sure that these changes occur.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Senator.

At this time the Chair would recognize Marsha Blackburn from

Tennessee.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for

your time and patience in being with us today to talk to us. We

appreciate the report and appreciate your working with us through

this.

It is interesting listening to you talk about the need to fix the

committee structure, to fix the vulnerabilities with immigration,

and the importance of not just moving around the organizational

chart, Mr. Lehman, as you had said, the need for our Intelligence

Director or Czar, whatever the name may be, to have control of the

budget, appropriations, of the technology protocol. And in listening

to all of this, I feel that what I’m hearing you say is that through

the decades government has grown far too bureaucratic, far too unable to respond quickly or in an effective and efficient manner; that

the process is far too bureaucratic, and that instead of just shifting

the power around and reorganizing, that you feel we need to go

about recreating a different way for government to work. And I

guess in all of this, we are paying a price for underfunding intelligence through the years.

One of my questions is very similar to some you have had; how

you would envision this agency working without the traditional

constraints of government that we address each day? I know some

of the questions I am going to get from my district, where much

of Fort Campbell is located, is if some of our military intelligence

units would be answering to the Secretary of Defense or to the intelligence czar. I’m interested to hear your take on how this would

operate without those traditional constraints of bureaucracy.

Also, Mr. Kerrey, in responding to that, I noticed on page 25 of

the executive summary, you talk about the proposed need for reforms and to speed up the nomination process. And you have

served in the Senate, you have served as vice chairman of Senate

intelligence, and I know that you brought your background of some

of the successes and failures in that committee to your view on the

Commission and used that kind of as background. And I would like

to know how you think that we could speed up that nomination

process, with the rules of the Senate allowing a single Member to

stop the process from moving forward, and if you had any thoughts

on that?

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And, Mr. Lehman, if you would first address how you would approach the structure, and then, Mr. Kerrey, how you think we can

speed the nomination process.

Admiral LEHMAN. Thank you.

Yes, we are not recommending a structure that would not have

the traditional Constitutional restraints and congressional oversight, and the committee reorganization is a major part of that. But

it will also be subject to each of the agencies that make up the intelligence community, their own inspectors general, their own internal controls, and their own oversight within the executive

branch.

But all good corporations have to regenerate themselves, have to

go through reengineering. What has transformed the productivity

of American industry is constant improvement, total quality, lean

manufacturing, which is a cultural change that you never leave the

organization alone. It is constantly changing and improving. The

government tends not to go through those kinds of renewings and

reengineerings, but when they do, they have shown—the government has shown that they can create the same kind of innovation

and new energy and new ability to deal with the modern world,

just as corporations can.

That is what we are recommending, a reengineering of the government process to break up the concrete layers of bureaucracy

that have ossified over the last 60 years, to take apart the vertical

stovepipes that have built up between the agencies to prevent the

sharing. So we are not—we don’t see this either a funding issue.

You will look in vain for large declarations that we have underfunded intelligence over the years. Certainly there have been periods in the last 10 years when parts of intelligence, for instance

HUMINT, have been very underfunded, because I’m sure very few

of you have been collared by lobbyists for HUMINT, yet I would be

willing to bet you’ve all had lobbyists from satellite manufacturers

and other intelligence collection technologies. So there have been

gross imbalances.

As to the service, what we are recommending here—first of all,

the naval intelligence and the service intelligence corps are among

the best in the intelligence community. They have their own esprit

de corps, their own training program, and their own professionalism. They report to Defense Intelligence Agency as well as the

Chief of Naval Operations, and they, in turn, report to the—in theory, but not in practice—to the Director of CIA. Now they will be

part of an integrated yet decentralized intelligence community,

each with its pockets of excellence under a National Intelligence

Director.

Mr. KERREY. Well, I mean, changing the rules in the Senate having to do with one person being able to put a hold on a nomination

is exceptionally difficult to do. And I think, as well as almost all

the recommendations that we have made in our report, they are all

difficult to do. They all have real problems and barriers in front of

them.

There are areas, for example, in funding, where funding is the

answer. I have dealt with deficits the whole time I was in the Congress practically, so I understand how difficult it is. But to look at

our border security recommendations, the U.S.-Visit program, to

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have it fully implemented by 2010 is just too darned slow. There

are some management weaknesses that have to be addressed.

There are still some oversight lapses where secrecy is a barrier.

Additional investigation has to occur. We just ran out of time. We

couldn’t get to it. And there are some changes in the law, all of

which have problems attached with it. I would just urge you, again,

to get into this narrative.

Nineteen guys hijacked four commercial aircrafts on September

11 using box cutters and legal knives, and it wasn’t even a close

call. All the defenses that were put up against them, all the security measures that we have in place failed to prevent them from

attacking the United States of America. It wasn’t even close. If you

look at the images at Dulles Airport that were released by, I guess,

the lawyer who is bringing a case against somebody, if you look at

those images, we saw those images and didn’t want to put them

out there because we were concerned that it would give away some

security issues. But if you look at those images, you say, my God,

it looked like they could have walked on to practically anything

that morning.

All of us—anybody that was here in the 1990’s, we all need to

sort of join hands and walk to the podium and say, we screwed up,

and in that attitude understand we might be doing it again right

now. We presumed we had time, and we were wrong. Every step

of the way we’d say, well, I think I have a little more time; certainly this can wait until some other time. Maybe we can get another study or something.

If you find somebody saying, I don’t want to yield privilege,

which is what you’re talking about with the Senate rule; I don’t

want to yield power; this is going to be too uncomfortable for me;

I may no longer be chairman, or whatever, then you’ve got an argument where you just have to turn to us, I think, probably, and say,

you guys have to stoke the fire a little of the public so we can do

what we have to do.

Chairman TOM DAVIS [presiding]. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Yes. First, I thank you for your service, and

I want to thank the families also for all that you’ve done. I think

the country is really learning a lot about what we need to do, and

I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for having

this hearing right now so we can get started.

I think when you look at what we need and your recommendations, both very important, to have a National Intelligence Director,

you have to start at the top. You have to have one boss. You have

to have that boss who will hold other agencies accountable for their

performance. But in order to do that, you also need budget authority, and I would hope that the President would listen to these hearings and understand that this is very important. Just like he is the

boss of the United States of America, we need to have that focus

here.

Now, I would like to talk to you about another phase, and let me

ask you this, too. There was a group of members on the Intelligence Committee that introduced H.R. 4104, that is the Intelligence Transformation Act, and that was in March. Did you have

a chance to review that?

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Admiral LEHMAN. Yes, we did, and we’ve had quite a bit of dialog

with the sponsors and the staff, and continue to have. There were

some good ideas, by the way, that have been incorporated in our

recommendations.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. And the reason I point that out, that is an

existing bill where I hope, in a nonpartisan way, we can review the

elements in that bill so that we can buildupon that as you all have

in your report.

Now, one of the major issues is the Deputy Director of National

Intelligence. If you look at the way intelligence is made up, and I

think Senator Kerrey referred to this, the Department of Defense,

the majority of the resources go to the Department of Defense in

the intelligence community. Now, if, in fact, you’re going to have

the teamwork integration, which is so necessary to be effective in

intelligence, you’re going to have to have the Department of Defense at the table.

And I think this bill, H.R. 4104, created what they call a dual

hat. Let me read to you and see if you agree with this provision

in H.R. 4104. Deputy Director of National Intelligence. There is a

Deputy Director of National Intelligence who should be appointed

by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The Deputy Director of National Intelligence shall also serve as

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

Now, in order for us to pull together, we know the power of the

Secretary of Defense, one of the most powerful positions in the

world. When you have that person at the table, and then you have

a Director of National Intelligence without budget authority, and

you have those two together, who is going to win? Well, I don’t

know, but I tell you, I’d say the advantage going in would be with

the Secretary of Defense. We need to pull those groups in together.

Would you be in favor of having a Deputy Director, a dual-hatted

individual as is stated in H.R. 4101, to pull all of the agencies together so that we have one unit dealing with the issue of intelligence?

Admiral LEHMAN. Yes, we support that, but we also support two

other deputies as well. We believe that your proposal for a deputy

that is dual-hatted to the Secretary of Defense and to the National

Intelligence Director is an excellent idea and can pull together all

of the agencies in defense. There also has to be hiring and firing

shared between the National Intelligence Director and the Secretary of Defense, but that deputy should not have authority over

domestic intelligence. There should be another equal deputy for domestic intelligence, and that should be the Deputy Director of FBI,

who also should be dual-hatted; that is, the Deputy Director for Intelligence National Security should be dual-hatted to both the FBI

Director and the National Intelligence. And the third should be a

Deputy for Foreign Intelligence, and that should be the CIA Director.

So we have taken your idea and added to it the domestic deputy

and the foreign deputy as well, but we think that is essential.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK. Getting back to my question, though,

do you think that by having that Deputy Director dual-hatted with

the Department of Defense will deal with the issue when there

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retary of Defense versus intelligence? Do you think that would be

enough to rectify that issue?

Admiral LEHMAN. It will be enough to ensure that this dispute

gets in front of the President to decide.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK, and that’s what’s important.

How about you, Senator Kerrey.

Mr. KERREY. Well, I agree, so long as the National Intelligence

Director has statutory authority over the appropriated moneys and

has statutory authority over hiring and firing. Absent that, they

simply are going to be too weak, and we’ll be right back where we

are today. I mean, you’re better off, in my view, with nothing than

creating something that just adds one more impression that this

person has power that they do not have; one more moment for

them to come up and answer questions from Congress about things

over which they have no responsibility.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK. I see my red light is on. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. KERREY. If I could, Mr. Chairman, can I——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Sure.

Mr. KERREY. I’m going to volunteer either in writing or the next

time I’m persuaded to leave vacation to come down and testify before the committee, there is one area in this report that I care

deeply about that is not mentioned, and it does have to do with

DOD and CIA, and that is we’re recommending that the authority

for covert operations be transferred to DOD. And if at some point

you have questions about that, I think it is sort of the last step on

jointness, and I think the exercises in Afghanistan and the exercises in Iraq demonstrate that this is a good move to make. It still

gives CIA authority, but, in my view, it will dramatically improve

the quality of those covert operations.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Kerrey and Secretary Lehman, appreciate your work and

all your fellow Commissioners and your staff, a daunting task, and

you’ve done it in remarkable fashion, both in the broad global

strategy you’ve put forward as well as specific recommendations.

My colleague talked to you about the standards for a driver’s license. I appreciate that type of detail because it is something that

amazed me when I came to learn that the majority, I believe, of

our States do not require proof of legal presence in the United

States to get a driver’s license, yet it’s one of the accepted forms

of government ID deeming you’re supposed to be here or allowed

to be here. So that type of specific recommendation, hopefully, will

help us move some legislation that’s out there and get some of

these standards in place.

To followup the discussion with the previous Member on the NID

and the personnel authority, in your statements you talk about

NID having personnel and appropriation authority, but also the

Chief of the National Counterterrorism Center. Can you elaborate

how that’s going to interact, since the Chief’s going to answer to

the NID; how their shared authority over personnel at these various agencies, how you envision that working?

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Admiral LEHMAN. Well, I think the Pentagon provides a good example. Standards for promotion and rank in each of the military

services are different. You don’t have to fly airplanes to get promoted in the Army. Each Secretary of the Department governs the

personnel policies, but they have to conform to Defense Department

standards. So you can easily take an 06 naval captain and assign

him to a joint command in an Army-commanded unit, because

there are common personnel standards to be met that allow that

kind of joint assignment.

Now, this is different than detailing, and it’s an important point.

Today, for instance, at the TTIC, the Terrorist Threat Intelligence

Center, people are detailed from all the agencies, but their fitness

reports are still being written by the people back at their home

agencies. That is a huge difference.

When a person is jointly assigned, it’s the person who, for instance, will be running the National Counterterrorism Center that

will write the fitness report and really have a huge influence on

whether that person, from whatever agency they came from, gets

promoted or doesn’t get promoted or gets assigned to a choice billet

or doesn’t get assigned to it.

Mr. PLATTS. So more accountability from the staff to the NID?

Admiral LEHMAN. But more real clout by the National Intelligence Director. The key is, currently the CIA Director has exhortation capability, and people sort of think he has authority, but he

doesn’t have authority. So he can say, oh, let’s cross-assign people.

But if you don’t have the authority to direct, and if the person

being directed doesn’t do it, they get fired and replaced by that

NID Directorate. That’s what we’re talking about. Big, big difference.

Mr. PLATTS. One of the other areas you touch on in a broad sense

is more public diplomacy; us doing a better job of kind of winning

the battle on the front with the younger citizens, I guess, of the

Muslim nations.

Is there a specific recommendation? One of your recommendations says, ‘‘In a broad sense, where Muslim governments, even

those who are friends, do not respect these principles, the United

States must stand for a better future.’’

Is there something specific; Saudi Arabia, Egypt, any that are allies that we should be looking into?

Admiral LEHMAN. There are two that I want to draw attention

to that I think would have enormous leverage. One is putting some

money into schools in these areas. There is no alternative for parents in much of Pakistan and the rest of Indonesia, for instance,

the rest of the Muslim world. If they want their children to have

a better future, i.e., to learn to read and write, they have no alternative but to one of these jihadist madrassas. We should take the

initiative, working with those governments, and put some money

behind it to create schools that can teach usable skills, and it can

be done at a very relatively low cost.

Another is international broadcasting. It’s pathetic the number of

hours that we’re on the air to just tell the truth, in Farsi, in Urdu,

and the various dialects of Arabic.

Mr. PLATTS. On the schools, is one of the challenges we have that

we give a lot of money to the United Nations, but then that doesn’t

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come back to us as credit to those parents that the United States

is helping their children? Do we need to do more unilateral partnerships with these nations?

Mr. KERREY. Well, the context here, and this is how great a job

we’ve done, we saved a Muslim nation, Kuwait, in 1991. We saved

Muslims in Mogadishu in 1993 from Pakistan, part of a U.N.

peacekeeping force. We saved a Muslim nation, Bosnia, in 1995.

We save a Muslim nation, Kosovo, in 1999, and yet you go do public opinion polling in Muslim nations, and they don’t like us. I

mean, that’s how lousy a job we’ve done of communicating to the

Muslim world——

Mr. PLATTS. And we’ve just liberated 50 million Muslims in two

nations.

Mr. KERREY. Exactly.

But there’s another issue that I think is important. Look, when

I graduated from high school, back when dinosaurs roamed the

Earth, 75 percent of the people on this planet were living in nations where democracy wasn’t the rule. Now it’s just the opposite.

Even in China they’re beginning to see democracy at local levels;

not as much as I think they’re going to need in order to deal with

their economic challenges, but that’s a separate issue.

We’ve got to stop, and I hear it sort of creeping back as a consequence of the problems in Iraq, saying that democracy is not suited for you, it’s a Western idea. You know, Greece is not in the

West, as much as we like to think. It’s much closer to Afghanistan

than we are. So we have to stop saying that democracy only works

here.

And we all know, all of us, and those of you who are still in politics, when I was in politics, the most important thing is people

need to know that democracy is making their lives just a little bit

better and their kids’ lives a little better and their communities a

little bit better. It’s not very complicated. And if it isn’t, they get

really mad, and they throw you all out of office.

Well, we’ve got to stop saying, well, I know the Saudis, every

other word from the Saudis is reform these days, and we’ve got to

stop putting our arm around them and saying, well, we understand

you can’t really be democratic because you’ve got difficulties here

and there and everywhere. We have to stop doing that, because the

people living in Saudi Arabia are mad because they don’t have

what we’ve got, which is the freedom to be able to throw people out

of office when we don’t like them.

I’m not suggesting that we have sort of a naive, pie-in-the-sky attitude that doesn’t recognize that for many people democracy is one

vote one time, but I believe that the most important thing for us

in this battle of ideas is to say that democracy and free markets,

as flawed as it is, as difficult as it is to make it work, is the best

way to make your life a little better, and the life of your kids a little bit better, and the life of your community a little bit better.

Mr. PLATTS. I agree 100 percent.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank

the Commission for the work that they have done. I learned a lot,

either being in my kitchen in the morning listening to your staff

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reports and opportunities when I had to watch the hearings on television. But most importantly, I want to thank the families. I think

because of the families and the work that you have done, the report

that the Commission generated, that I have been reading again,

and that a woman next to me on an airplane looked at, and I said,

you should read this. She said, oh, I don’t know if I’d understand.

I said you should read this, because you will understand it. It is

written in a way that provides a wealth of information, in a way

that every American citizen, every family can benefit from. So I

thank you both for the work product that you have produced. And

she agreed with me. She could read it, she did understand it, and

she is going to buy a copy.

In chapter 12 of the report, you say counterterrorism has become

beyond any doubt the top national security priority for the United

States. The report goes on to say, ‘‘The catastrophe threat at this

moment in history is more specific than just terrorism. It is a

threat posed by Islamic terrorism, especially the al Qaeda network,

its affiliates, and its ideology.’’

The other day, the President was asked the question, in what

way would his new structure, or looking at any new structure, prevent the kind of intelligence failings that preceded the war in Iraq?

I’m very, very troubled by not having the type of intelligence

failings in Iraq addressed clearly. We had the intelligence failings

in September 11, in Iraq.

The President’s answer to me, when asked that question, was

equally troubling, ‘‘And let me just say to you, knowing what I

know today, we still would have gone to Iraq.’’ And that is the end

of the President’s quote.

Prior to March 2003, would Iraq have been defined a top national

security priority for the United States based on this report’s threat

definition? Has the war in Iraq helped protect American citizens

from the threat of Islamic terrorism when Osama bin Laden, Mr.

Omar, and thousands of al Qaeda operatives remain at large?

How can the Congress and the President use what you have in

place to prevent the intelligence failure of Iraq, because it was a

failure in intelligence for the reasons we did vote, for some who

voted to go to war?

Admiral LEHMAN. Well, I think that it was a blessing that the

intelligence failures in Iraq were not part of our mandate and we

did not spend a great deal of time on those intelligence failures,

and there is now a Commission studying those. So I don’t feel comfortable testifying as a Commission member on the first part of

your question.

But the second part of the question I feel very comfortable with,

because what I’ve read in the newspapers and what those parts of

the Iraq issue that have come before our Commission’s investigation, and there are a bit of that, make it very clear that this is of

a piece with the failings we found led up to September 11; that this

is a Balkanized intelligence community that does not share, that

does not have the ability within itself to prioritize what is important; as one Commissioner said, unable to distinguish between a bicycle accident and a train wreck in terms of raw intelligence.

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tions from us, not from the intelligence community. It was we, the

9/11 Commission, that dug this intelligence out that existed in the

intelligence community, that had been gathered, was sitting there

scattered around the intelligence community. We had to put it together; we, the Commission. So that is a remarkable fact that just

illustrates that we have a dysfunctional, Balkanized intelligence establishment today.

And the failures of the intelligence system in Iraq, in WMD, are

entirely of a piece of everything else we have learned about the

dysfunctions of this system.

Mr. KERREY. Yes, I’ll stick with John’s answers as well. It was

outside of our envelope, but it does get connected in one way for

me, and that is that among the insights I’ve taken away from the

experience of being on this Commission is that—and it is hard to

deal with it, but it’s true—and that is that for the United States,

the homeland is the planet. And try as you might to say, no, it’s

just the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii, you’re not

going to get it done. If you’re trying to deal with border security,

or immigration issues, or whatever you’re dealing with, you need

the rest of the world to participate.

When schoolchildren died in a fire in Bombay here a couple of

weeks ago, it felt like it was in my neighborhood. When Spaniards

were killed on March 15th, it felt like it happened to us. One of

the mistakes that we made, in my view, with bin Laden is as long

as he was killing people over there, it wasn’t as big an issue for

us as it was when he killed people here.

In January and February 1993, we had the World Trade Center

attack where six Americans were killed, and we had two Americans

killed at CIA headquarters by a guy by the name of Kasi. We

tracked both of those guys down, brought them back to the United

States. They stood trial, and they got justice. But when it was killing Americans in Somalia, when it was killing Americans in East

Africa, when it was killing Americans at OPM-SANG in Saudi Arabia, when it was over there, it didn’t affect us as much. We didn’t

respond like we did when it was here.

And among the things I think Americans are going to have to get

their head into, and it has lots of moving parts, is that the homeland is the planet. And I understand that imposes upon us a lot

of responsibility, a burden that we perhaps prefer not to have, but

it’s our burden, and it comes as a consequence of our wealth, of our

power, and our capability.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Harris.

Ms. HARRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Once again, I want to echo what all my colleagues have said. I

want to thank you for your expeditious and timely handling of such

an important issue for the Commission. Thank you for your service.

Thank you for creating a report that may be one of the most important publications of our age, and certainly for the relatives of those

who were murdered on September 11. We can’t imagine the depth

of your sorrow or pain, but thank you for channeling that loss into

something very positive for a policy for the future and protection

of our country.

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I want to revisit the last question just real quickly. I wanted to

clarify something. In all of the reports, sometimes it’s been alleged

there was a politicization of some of the intelligence activities. And

I just wanted to make certain that you did not find that and the

report did not reflect that you found that in your findings?

Admiral LEHMAN. That is not something that particularly

emerged as a finding of our investigation.

Mr. KERREY. It is not a finding of the investigation, but if you

ask my personal opinion, I think the idea that somehow we’re

going to take politics out of intelligence, you’ll fail to get it done.

If I’m afraid of the dark, and you elect me President, I’m going to

bring that fear of the dark into my policies, and know that I’m

going to. I’m just going to. Whether it’s Bill Clinton or George Bush

or Ronald Reagan, or whoever it is, when they come in to be President, the people in intelligence know what they care about, know

what they’re concerned about, and it’s going to affect their attitude.

What’s necessary is to surround yourself with people who are

really prepared to argue with you vigorously when they think that

you shouldn’t be afraid of the dark. That’s what you need; not that

you can somehow cause human beings to behave differently than

what human beings are going to behave, which is they want to

make the boss happy.

Ms. HARRIS. I just wanted to clarify I had not found that in the

report.

The point of my question—and, actually, I have two questions.

One, particularly when you look back at the report and see your

findings that say really basically from the 1980’s the United

States—that terrorism had evolved, and it presented a threat to

our government that we weren’t really ready to counter, and yet

we’ve seen one of the largest restructurings of the Federal Government since the last half century.

The report gives us a broad array of suggestions to reorganize

the government across agencies, cooperation, and other issues, and

the President signaled yesterday that he wanted to implement

some of those through his administrative Executive orders.

When you look back and understand the urgency of implementing some of these issues and suggestions, but understanding the

deliberations that are necessary if we’re going to move swiftly, first

could you tell us what your three top recommendations are? What

should we do immediately?

And then my second question is more specific. On the CAPS

issue, Senator Kerrey, you have commented in some recent questions—in the 9/11 report it cited that Mohammad Atta and several

others of the September 11 hijackers had actually been picked up

by CAPS, so that, I guess, technology evidently was at least partially effective, but we didn’t have procedures in place prior to September 11 for followup.

Now that the Department of Homeland Security has been working on CAPPS II, which is a much more sophisticated screening

program, but recently they decided to halt that work because of

privacy concerns. And while I’m very concerned about our privacy,

I mean, I am even more concerned about being attacked by terrorists again.

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Do you think that the CAPPS II was overly intrusive of our privacy, although it was really focused not at all on—it did not cite

race; it really cited travel procedures and preferences. Do you think

that we should continue on with CAPPS II, and do you think—I

mean, just in view of protecting our homeland security, it seems

like it shouldn’t be too much to ask that we could track those. If

Amazon.com is allowed to track buying patterns for consumers,

then it seems at the very least we could track travel preferences

and behaviors of those who might be suspicious.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Katherine Harris follows:]

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Mr. LEHMAN. I will answer the top three briefly, the easy ones,

and Bob can answer the tough ones.

First, Congress has to reorganize. The reason the massive

changes that Homeland Security were to have brought about have

not been fully realized is that the Secretary of Homeland Security

reports to 88 committees. He spends more than half his time up

here on the Hill, which in itself is not a bad thing, but it is totally

fragmented, and no coherence in the process. It needs to be fixed.

We have already talked at length about the need for the intelligence oversight to be fixed. So that’s the No. 1.

Second is to recognize the nature of this problem and the policy

recommendations that we are making here on what to do.

Third is to carry out the organizational changes, which start with

the National Counterterrorism Center and the establishment of the

National Intelligence Director and the dual-hatting of his deputies.

So those are my top three, and I think that reflects the priorities

of the Commission.

Mr. KERREY. Well, I apologize. I’m not going to be very helpful

because I’m not that familiar with the CAPPS II findings, whatever

it attempted to do. But I do think that it’s worth noting that we

had two tremendous successes, human successes, in preventing

people from coming into the United States and doing bad things.

One of them was in your State of Florida.

And, John, do you remember the name of that individual——

Admiral LEHMAN. Melendes, Oscar Melendes.

Mr. KERREY [continuing]. Who made these—and then a woman

up in the State of Washington and the millennium plots, prevented

Ressam from coming across the border.

I mean, fundamentally the problem on September 11 is we

weren’t at a heightened state of alert, and we should have been.

Going back further, we let a guy declare war on us in 1996 and

then basically operate with impunity for another half a dozen

years. So—as long as he was killing people over there, it wasn’t as

big a problem for us.

But I think, in addition to not being in a state of alert, the thing

I think of when I think of CAPPS, Congresswoman, is the huge

amount of time and resources and effort that it’s going to take to

train the men and women that are going to be necessary to do this

work, because, for my money, it’s the most important thing out

there. We have 500 million visitors coming in and out of the United

States every year. That’s a big number. And their job is to basically

find the needle in the haystack. And they are not going to find it

if they don’t understand what intelligence is, if they don’t have access to that intelligence, if they aren’t trained up, etc. I mean, all

of us who have the joy of flying experience this issue every single

time we get on an airplane of coming to the terms with the fact

that the guy may not know exactly what it is that he is doing, and

he is checking you all out and so forth.

So I think you have to get the training done. And, again, I would

urge you to look at the stuff that we had in the border security,

that Susan Ginsburg did for us, because that team got access to

things—my guess is—as John said, my guess is—talking about the

Iran issue, my guess is we got access to things that you haven’t

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seen when it comes to border security and weaknesses and

vulnerabilities in borders that you haven’t seen today.

Admiral LEHMAN. CAPPS I worked, as you said. It identified six

of the terrorists that—but people were looking for explosives, so

they were allowed through. CAPPS II is much better, much more

sophisticated. It’s not perfect. And certainly civil liberties have to

be protected, but we ought to get on with it. It’s not perfect, but

it ought to be implemented, because to put it on the shelf and suspend it because of sensitivities seems—we think is not supportable.

We need to get on with it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Our last questions, Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to

add my thanks with my colleagues to the Commission, the families

and the staff. You have done a yeoman’s job. You have added your

wisdom, your experience to the volume of work that I think will go

down in history as a major response.

I am sitting here listening, and I have to be reminded that we

are spending time reorganizing the deck chairs on the Titanic and

rushing swiftly toward the iceberg. We don’t even know what the

iceberg is all about. But you reference it, and I think the most pertinent part of your report appears in chapter 12: What to do in a

global strategy. Who is our enemy? You know, your comments on

terrorism, well, where is terrorism? Who is the enemy? Are they in

what location?

I believe they live and work among us. I believe they are driving

those taxicabs here in the District. I believe they are in our institutions. And I truly believe they are smarter than we are.

And so I think, because of the work that you have put into the

Commission, that we ought to do the following: We ought to approve all the recommendations, and the Commission ought to stay

in place as applicable for the rest of this decade.

I also believe that we need to have a report on our risk assessment.

I also feel very strongly that we need an independent citizens

panel. These families that have worked with you minute by

minute, side by side, including the media, ought to be on an independent basis, not attached to executive branch or the congressional branch, so they can act out there in the public and see that

we do the right thing.

We must focus on our global strategy. You said it—both of you

did, but I happen to refer to Senator Kerrey. You know, terrorism

is global, and we live on this globe. That’s the only globe we live

on. And unless we understand how they think, unless we understand the ideology that says they don’t practice what we think, so

let’s just kill them, we will get nowhere. We can build great arms,

and we can go after their arms. That’s not going to get it.

So, what we have to keep in mind is that we need to identify the

mystic terrorist. We need to have people who look like them. And

that’s another thing, we need diversity in the State Department.

We need diversity, people who share some of the same maybe ethnic background. And we need to get into their minds. And we need

to show that we are a Nation of laws and that we indeed can share.

And that’s what you have come up with. We must share. We must

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share in this intuition that we are in. We don’t do that. What do

you call it, stovepiping? We are in two little stovepipes, Republicans and Democrats. We are afraid to offer and share.

So you said we have a tremendous opportunity. And I think of

yin and yang. We have a tremendous opportunity to take this great

tragedy that not only we face, but the world faces and turn it

around. It is going to take a decade or more to do. I think you

ought to be paid because you are not going to be able to pursue

your other careers. You are two fine gentlemen. It is going to take

time, but I don’t think you ought to meet daily. And I think you

ought to be seen as the advocates for this plan that’s going to help

us survive on this globe.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will take the comment

if there is time. And may I have permission to submit my remarks?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Without objection, all Members can submit statements for the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Diane E. Watson follows:]

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Do you want to stay on forever, Bob? I said at the end of the decade. I gave them time.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I didn’t see them jump out of their seats.

But thank you, Ms. Watson, for your comments. Thank you.

And let me just say, I think it has been incredibly informative.

It was a needed dose of reality for Congress. We get so partisanized

and political up here, sometimes we can’t reach a consensus. You

did a great job.

Mr. KERREY. Go on vacation now.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You are my cover if anybody says anything.

Finally, let me just say, you know, five Democrats, five Republicans from fairly partisan backgrounds coming together in a nonpolitical atmosphere to reach a consensus on these issues. I feel

confident that we will meet again as expeditiously as possible, but

you both, for yourselves and the Nation as well, thank you. We

thank you for your testimony as well.

Admiral LEHMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. WAXMAN. I also want to extend my gratitude. You have given

us excellent testimony and set good benchmarks for successful legislation. We are going to do all we can. I think you have given us

the thoughtfulness and the concrete platform that I think we need.

Thank you.

Admiral LEHMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. KERREY. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We will take a minute recess as we move

to our next panel. We have Beverly Eckert, Sally Regenhard, and

Robin Wiener, who are all family members of September 11. We

appreciate your patience and indeed the leadership you have

shown. Thank you all for being here, and thank you for your patience. Let’s see. We are very excited about having you here today

and your willingness to come forward and testify before this committee.

It is our policy to swear all witnesses before they testify. If you

will rise with me and raise your right hands and be sworn.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Why don’t we start with you, and we’ll

move straight on down. Your testimony was submitted. Since your

entire testimony is in here, we can take up to 5 minutes to read

it, and then we’ll have some questions.

Let’s see. Your entire testimony is in here; you can take up to

5 minutes to read it, and then we will have some questions. But,

again, I think all of the committee is grateful for what you have

done after September 11, not only with respect for your losses, but

I think some good has come out of this, and your willingness to

step forward and be leaders has made a difference.

STATEMENTS OF SALLY REGENHARD, FAMILY MEMBER OF

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 VICTIM; BEVERLY ECKERT, FAMILY

MEMBER OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 VICTIM; AND ROBIN WIENER, FAMILY MEMBER OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 VICTIM

Ms. REGENHARD. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman

Davis, Ranking Member Waxman, Vice Chairman Shays, and

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members of the House Committee on Government Reform. It’s an

honor to be here today, an honor that I appreciate very much.

My name is Sally Regenhard. I’m the founder and chairperson of

the Skyscraper Safety Campaign. I created this organization in

memory of my son Christian Regenhard, a probationary firefighter

who was lost at the World Trade Center on September 11 with his

entire Engine Co. 279, and they remain missing to this day.

The goals of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign include advocating

for a thorough investigation into the disaster of the World Trade

Center as well as making high-rise buildings safer in the future

through improved building codes, design practices, and enhanced

emergency response procedures and equipment. Today we would

like to discuss some of the findings and recommendations of the 9/

11 report. I would like to focus on chapter 9 and the some of the

recommendations in chapter 12.

Overall, I feel that the 9/11 Commissioners and staff have provided us with a great amount of detail and analysis about the

emergency response that terrible day. Their extensive text and

notes give us new insights into what went right and what went terribly wrong that day. They are to be thanked and congratulated for

their superlative and dedicated work, and they must also be

thanked for the respect and honor shown to the victims and the

family members. However, I do feel that some of the conclusions

drawn in chapter 9 are not based upon actual substantiated facts,

but rather upon unsupportable opinions.

One particular aspect of the report that is quite troubling to me

and to my organization is the discussion relating to the evacuation

orders of the North Tower on pages 322 to 323 of the report, and

the corresponding end note No. 209. It is alleged that many of the

firefighters in the North Tower heard the message to evacuate, but

chose to remain in the building prior to its collapse. To the contrary. This issue of firefighter deaths is directly tied to the lack of

radio communication capability in the World Trade Center on September 11. This has been well documented in the post-September

11 McKinsey Report, the New York Times, and numerous other

publications and firefighter comments. Yet this theory that firefighters chose to die has been advanced by some public officials,

undoubtedly hoping to deflect criticism for the inadequacy of the

FDNY radios and for the absence of a functioning incident command structure in New York City on September 11 which undoubtedly could have saved so many firefighters’ lives, including my

beautiful son Christian.

I take specific exception to the section in the Commission Report

which states, ‘‘In view of these considerations, we conclude that the

technical failure of the FDNY radios, while a contributing factor,

was not the primary cause of the many firefighter fatalities in the

North Tower.’’

I and my technical advisers of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign,

which represent a large professional field of fire-related professionals, have—and communication and evacuation specialists, have

reviewed the substantiating documentation and have found it lacking. In essence, the report makes a very weak argument such as,

‘‘It is very possible that at least some of these firefighters did hear

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the evacuation order;’’ as well as the most curious statement that

firefighters, ‘‘were likely to have known to evacuate.’’

Such statements are not conclusive. Stating that firefighters refused to evacuate the building for whatever reason and disobeyed

such an important order simply cannot be confirmed and is a disservice to their memory. These people are dead. We cannot ask

them these questions. The questionable findings of chapter 9 are

based on interviews and transcripts which the families and the

public have no access to. The information upon which these conclusions were based is secreted, is suppressed, and this information

contains key knowledge that the families of the victims would like

to have.

Myself and other family members here today are part of the 45

percent of family members whose loved ones were never, ever identified. Not one single piece of DNA was ever found from my son

and for 45 percent of the victims. If this information and this testimony that these Commission’s recommendations and findings are

based upon, I’m asking that this be made public so that at least

we can find out how these very curious conclusions have come to

pass.

I have to say that it may seem that it’s not that important to

you, this one aspect of firefighters not obeying orders, but I must

say to you to the families of the firefighters who perished that day,

including myself and the mother of firefighter Sean Patrick Tallon,

who is among the family members here today, we feel that the lack

of radio communication capability was the primary reason that so

many firefighters died. The fact is, that their equipment betrayed

them at the time that they needed it the most. The fact is well documented in a new book coauthored by a New York City Fire Department battalion chief, and this book is called Radio Silence,

FDNY. It provides a history of how these failed radios got into the

hands of the entire New York City Fire Department on September

11.

Even today, nearly 3 years later, the fire department still does

not have an adequately robust radio system that gives them the capability to talk in all high-rise buildings in New York City, in all

subways, and in tunnels. This is not just a firefighter issue, this

is an issue of public safety and grave concern for all, not only in

New York City, but in other States that also can be a target of terrorism, and we don’t know how emergency communication will

work.

I call on Congress today to hold hearings into the flawed September 11 emergency communications system and the fire department

radios of September 11 as well as the failure of the city of New

York to put useful radios into the hands of today’s firefighters. You

are the last hope to provide an unbiased critical review of this significant issue.

Another issue I would like to discuss pertains to the report’s

analysis of the incident command system currently utilized by the

city of New York. Just days prior to the 9/11 Commission hearings

this past May in New York, the city announced the creation of a

new citywide incident management system intended to meet impending Federal requirements. Unfortunately, CIMS is a fundamentally flawed command system in many respects, including its

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illogical split of HAZMAT responses between the NYPD and the

FDNY even in the case of a terrorist attack and the lack of a single

clearly designated incident commander in many emergency responses.

As a New Yorker living in this Nation’s No. 1 terrorist target, I

also have grave concerns about the amount of money flowing to

New York City for antiterrorism preparedness. We should be receiving a much larger piece of the pie, eliminating the pork-barrel

spending of the past. I agree with the 9/11 Commission in its desire

to see that a risk and vulnerability assessment form the baseline

for spending. I would further suggest that the likelihood of an attack play the predominant role in any risk vulnerability assessment.

Regarding the Commission’s recommendations, a review of chapter 12 reveals that only three recommendations deal with all of the

complex issues that surfaced in New York City and continue to

haunt us to this very day. These three recommendations can be

characterized essentially as mom and apple pie. They are two

broad, and they are lacking the specificity to deal with the complex

issues at hand. I would have hoped for many more specific recommendations dealing with each of the communications, incident

command, and private sector emergency preparedness issues raised

in this report.

Once again, this is not just about New York City. These have

ramifications for every other State or every other city in this country which could be a likely target of a terrorist attack.

For example, the 9/11 Commission should have strongly critiqued

the New York City’s incident command system rather than just

stating that, ‘‘emergency response agencies nationwide should

adopt the incident command system.’’ With all due respect to the

Commission, most cities and States have already done this. New

York was one of—was the only major city and the only State in this

country which lacked an incident command structure on September

11. Why not analyze New York City’s current system and detail

why it is so flawed rather than just state, as the Commission stated, that it, ‘‘falls short of an optimal response plan?’’ Clearly, more

work is needed in this area.

In closing, you may have noticed that I am wearing some medals

today. My son earned these medals for obeying orders as a recon

Marine sergeant during his 5 years of distinguished service in the

U.S. Marine Corps before joining the fire department. When a marine receives an order, he follows it. If told by a supervisor or superior officer to evacuate the World Trade Center on September 11,

he and others would have done so if only their radios would have

worked. All of these predominantly young firefighters lost at the

World Trade Center on September 11, with rare exception, would

have chosen life if only they were given the chance. Unfortunately,

they and the rest of the 343 cannot testify before you today. I wear

these medals to defend their honor, and, in doing so, I once again

reiterate the need for congressional hearings into the communications and radio failures of September 11. I acknowledge the role of

the first responders as far—as part of the first casualties in this

war on terrorism. Please do not overlook the important problems

still facing them today. The FDNY and the rest of our Nation’s

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emergency personnel are America’s first lines of defense in this

country. If they are not safe and well equipped, how can they protect the public in case of another terrorist attack? Please help them

and honor those who are gone by giving your attention to this most

important matter. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Regenhard follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Eckert.

Ms. ECKERT. Honorable Chairman Davis, distinguished members

of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Beverly Eckert. I am appearing here today as a member of the Family Steering

Committee for the 9/11 Commission. We very much appreciate this

opportunity. We understand it is both a privilege and a responsibility. And we also extend our thanks to the Commissioners and their

staff for their tireless work and the cogent recommendations which

are the focus of today’s hearings. Most of all, we thank the American people for their interest and support of this process. Hundreds

of thousands have purchased the Commission’s report. Tens of millions have accessed the Commission’s Web site to read for themselves the summary of what went wrong on September 11th, and

what we need to do as a Nation to correct those failings. These astonishing numbers make it very clear that it can no longer be

‘‘business as usual’’ in Washington. This committee’s presence here

today is a testament to that.

There is no recess from terrorism. And because of the transparent way the Commission operated and the accessibility of their

report in bookstores and on the Internet, ordinary citizens are now

well-informed about the failures of our national security apparatus.

And they are engaging in much-needed debate about how our government needs to change to address those failures. This is democracy alive and at work.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, the roadmap is in

front of you. There are 41 recommendations contained in the 9/11

Commission report. Neither the Family Steering Committee nor

the American people will let those recommendations suffer the

same fate as those of past commissions. There is no shelf on which

they can be hidden. You and the rest of Congress are very much

in the spotlight, as I am sure you are all keenly aware, and you

will be held accountable by the people for your actions—or inactions—as will the White House.

To help this oversight—the people’s oversight—the Family Steering Committee will make the progress of legislation, Executive orders, and agency initiatives available on our Web site. We will list

cosponsors of bills as well as who voted for and against. Our hope

is that legislation will be passed by unanimous consent after expedited hearings before the end of this year.

As this process moves forward, we challenge you—election year

notwithstanding—to resist pressures from lobbyists who might oppose reforms that add cost to their clients’ operations.

In terms of content, we respectfully require that every bill dealing with these recommendations mandate specific implementation

steps and timetables, to avoid the delays that characterize the regulatory route. Families who worked so hard for aviation safety improvements after the Lockerbie tragedy in 1988 understand this

need all too well.

We also require language in each bill that addresses funding,

and that appropriations with flexible earmarking promptly follow.

We respectfully require that the bills submitted to Congress be

unencumbered by amendments, the ‘‘pork’’ that so often is associated with controversial legislation.

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Last, we challenge the House and Senate to work together to

draft complementary bills so that there will be no need for conferencing behind closed doors.

The reforms needed to build a more secure Nation must not be

derailed. Nearly 3 years have passed since our Nation’s security

was catastrophically breached, but not enough has been done since

then to make us safer. During the September 11 hearings, we

heard from agency after agency that corrective measures have been

implemented, only to learn from incidents reported in the news

that security lapses are still rampant.

The Commission report speaks of a ‘‘failure of imagination’’ in

Washington, a failure to understand the threat and respond to it.

Going forward, we need government officials who do have imagination, who can implement legislation that’s creative, responsive, and

capable of addressing the challenges and threats of the 21st century.

A National Counterterrorism Center and a Director of National

Intelligence at the helm is at the heart of the Commission’s recommendations. Yesterday the President announced that he would

support these two recommendations, but the DNI needs to have the

necessary management, budget, and appropriations control. It’s a

critical element if they are going to succeed. And also, this control

needs to extend to the Defense Department; otherwise, the effectiveness of the DNI will be undermined. Be assured that the Family Steering Committee will be monitoring these important aspects.

The report identifies Congress itself as being dysfunctional. We

therefore call upon each of you to have the courage to be part of

the solution and embrace fundamental change in the way the congressional committee oversight system operates.

As in the days preceding the September 11 attacks, the threat

of terrorism is now high. This committee, Congress, and the President must act with great urgency. Upcoming elections must not

overshadow these initiatives. These recommendations require your

undivided attention. The American people will accept nothing less.

Whatever the outcome in November, we expect that you, our representatives, will use your full terms of office productively. We fully

support a special session of Congress to ensure that the momentum

generated by these hearings will continue. We cannot afford a lame

duck session attitude to legislation still pending after the November elections.

My husband Sean was trapped in the South Tower of the World

Trade Center on September 11th, but he was able to reach me by

phone. When the smoke and flames drew near, and Sean knew he

was going to die, he remained calm, speaking of his love for me and

for his family. I will forever be in awe of the way he faced his final

moments. In the days that followed, I felt somehow infused with

his courage and strength, and that has help me persevere through

these difficult months. So many other family members were similarly inspired. Despite our private anguish, we shared a goal: To

make this country safer so that the deaths of 3,000 people would

not be meaningless.

Too many of us lost someone we cherished on September 11th.

Too many of us also lost our faith in a government we had blindly

trusted to protect the people we loved. After September 11th, the

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country reached out to families and asked what they could do to

help us heal. We now have an answer: ‘‘Help us make these recommendations happen.’’ And our question to Congress, the President, and this committee is, are you willing to implement reforms

before this year has ended and thereby restore our Nation’s faith

in its government?

The anniversary of September 11th approaches. What better way

to honor the memory of those who perished than by enacting legislation this year, which ensures that no other family member has

to experience what we have endured. I hope I never see the day

another widow has to walk in my shoes. The time to act is now.

Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mrs. Eckert.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Eckert follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Wiener.

Ms. WIENER. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank

you for inviting us to testify today, and thank you for holding these

hearings. I’m truly honored to be here. My name is Robin Wiener,

and I appear before you as a member of the Family Steering Committee, a board member of Families of September 11, and, most importantly, as the sister of Jeffrey Wiener, who was killed the morning of September 11th while working at his desk on the 96th floor

of Tower One of the World Trade Center.

As tragic as that day was for the victims, their families, and all

of our country, America was united, strongly united, for months

after the attacks. Sadly, that unity eroded quickly as response to

the tragedy became political. In the months following September

11, 2001, the families began to advocate for the creation of a commission to investigate the terrorist attacks, with the goal of making

whatever changes would be necessary to prevent another such attack. The American spirit that drives us to seek the truth has

shown itself in the sales of the report, a bestseller by anyone’s calculation.

Unity and truth are vitally important, Mr. Chairman. They are

very powerful forces, and they are what make this country strong.

As Beverly made clear, the American people are reading this report

closely. They are absorbing the recommendations, they are watching what you do here today and what you will do in the weeks and

months ahead. And they, along with the families, will not be

pleased if they see the Commission’s recommendations falling by

the wayside.

Certainly these hearings are a wonderful start, and I appreciate

that the members of this committee have interrupted their recess

to address the most serious issue facing all Americans. This type

of response gives me hope that we are going to get things right for

the safety and security of all of our citizens. However, Mr. Chairman, the encouragement that the families in our country received

from the timeliness of these hearings is tempered by a very real

fear. The families and the American people are expecting Congress

and the administration to act expediently, but without political expediency.

It is important that the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations occur in a timeline that is drawn to protect America, not to protect incumbents of any party, Democrat or Republican. It is vital for our Nation that we avoid quick fixes that are

inadequate or incomplete.

We recognize that this puts you, your colleagues, and the administration in a difficult position. How can you act quickly to implement the Commission’s recommendations without seeming to make

political hay in the process? The solution, in my opinion, lies in the

future of the 9/11 Commission itself.

The families of victims have asked that the Commission be kept

alive to oversee the implementation of its recommendations. This

bipartisan body is uniquely qualified to monitor implementation

and to reassure the American people that the process is working;

that the progress being made by our elected leaders is furthering

our security, and that all of the recommendations are properly implemented.

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Many of the September 11 families have endorsed the Commission’s recommendations as a whole. We hope that you recognize

that all of the recommendations are important, and all are part of

a comprehensive package designed to work in concert to significantly diminish the terrorist threat facing our country.

The Commission report deals with issues that go beyond intelligence czars and counterterrorism centers, issues that have led the

news in recent days. The Commission has important recommendations that deal with such critical issues as foreign policy, diplomacy, education, foreign aid, border security, terrorist financing,

economic policy and the like. I implore you to prioritize, to enact

that which can be carried out immediately, but while also moving

forward on recommendations requiring longer-term discussions.

We, the families, challenge the members of this committee and

all Members of Congress to recognize that the unprecedented terrorist attacks of September 11th demand an unprecedented effort

on the part of Congress that will require streamlining the committee process and exceptional coordination between the House and

Senate as well as coordination and communication with the administration. We challenge you to provide the American people with a

timetable that Congress is prepared to follow to implement this report. And, last, we challenge you to put aside turf battles and partisan rivalries and act quickly to do everything that must be done

to reduce our vulnerability to another terrorist attack. In short, Mr.

Chairman, the families and the entire country are looking to you

and your colleagues to do your work quickly and to do it right, an

awesome responsibly.

You have a wonderful opportunity before you to take a leadership

role, and we commend you for calling this hearing today. We also

commend Congressman Shays and Congresswoman Maloney for

forming a caucus for Members committed to enacting all of the

Commission’s recommendations. Hearings like this can be important, but please demonstrate to the American public that you are

serious in your efforts.

Mr. Chairman, if I could take a personal moment. I was blessed

on November 23rd of last year to become the mother of a beautiful

little girl named Jennifer, named after the uncle she will never

have the good fortune to know. The seriousness by which you take

the job given to you by the 9/11 Commission will not only honor

and create a positive legacy to those 3,000 souls who so tragically

lost their lives on September 11, but will determine whether Jennifer and millions of other children like her will grow up in a safe,

secure, and strong America.

Mr. Chairman, we implore you, please do what is required. Act

smartly and act quickly. The families look forward to working very

closely with you and the rest of the committee, the rest of Congress, and the administration to do what is necessary to implement

the Commission’s recommendations. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wiener follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you all for some very moving

and compelling testimony.

I’m going to start the questioning with Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to thank the three of you for being here and giving

us your testimony. I know you speak not just for yourselves, but

for others who are in the same circumstances of having suffered a

loss as a result of the attack on September 11th.

We have had the Commission due to a great part because you

have all insisted on it, and now we have those committee’s recommendations.

Ms. Wiener, let me start with you. Secretary Lehman said that

this is not a Chinese menu, these 40 recommendations. He thought

that they ought to be considered as a whole, and we ought to pass

all of these recommendations because they fit together and they

make it work in its totality. Do you agree with that statement?

Ms. WIENER. Absolutely. I don’t believe that you can cherry-pick

the recommendations. They all, as I mentioned in my testimony,

work in concert to deal with the huge problem before us and must

be dealt with as a package.

Mr. WAXMAN. And, Ms. Eckert, is it the view of the Steering

Committee of victims of September 11 that this be done, this legislation be done and adopted into law before we leave at the beginning of October?

Ms. ECKERT. Well, we think it should be done during the terms

of office, that the people who are elected right now, before their

term of office is over to the extent that is possible. We just think

you should be productive all the way through the end of the year.

And obviously the election is going to occupy some of your attention, but we don’t want it to be totally diverted from what you need

to do today.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I would hope the fact that we have an election would be a way to drive us all together and accept these recommendations. My fear is if it gets kicked over to a lame duck session or next year, that the sense of urgency will be dissipated, and

that we won’t have the driving force that we now have to enact the

legislation in its entirety.

Ms. ECKERT. And it’s just so important. I mean, the Commission’s set such an incredible example of bipartisanship. And I

think, you know, the committee members of this room have evidenced that as well. And we need to continue in that, and we hope

that legislation will be enacted before the end of the year through

bipartisan cooperation.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I want to join you in support of exactly that

goal. I think we ought to move forward. I was somewhat critical

in questioning whether President Bush’s statements yesterday reflected that same commitment. The two witnesses that we had earlier, Secretary Lehman and Senator Kerrey, both thought it was a

good start that the President came out and endorsed doing something, but I think that—I don’t in any way mean this in a partisan

way. I think we have to work together, not to put something forward that looks like the Commission’s recommendations, but are

just as effective; in fact, the very recommendations of the Commission.

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I thank you very much for your testimony, and I look forward to

working with you and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to

accomplish what needs to be accomplished now and should have

been done much earlier, but we need it now just as much as we

ever did. Thank you so much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. You both make us a bit speechless. You have been

fighting this battle for so long, and your eloquence is still with you.

We have before us a son Christian, a husband Sean, and a brother

Jeff, and you give us some reality to what we need to be doing.

With that in mind, I know you want this as a package, but if you

told me what was the recommendation you agreed with most

strongly, even if it wasn’t the most important, I would like to know

that. I would like to know what was the recommendation that

spoke mostly to your heart and said, yes.

Ms. ECKERT. To me, I think the September 11th event could have

been stopped if intelligence had operated more effectively. So I do

believe that there are global issues that are going to take a long

time to implement; but I think right now, because of the threat,

that we really need to address integration of the intelligence stovepipes, as everybody has called them. I think that’s urgent.

Ms. WIENER. I think for me it’s a group of recommendations. It’s

the group of recommendations dealing with the global strategy, and

specifically what we need to do in the Muslim world and the Arab

world in order to prevent the future growth of terrorism. And there

was some discussion earlier about the madrassas, for example, and

of all the efforts that—the recommendations that reflect the efforts

that this government should take to provide economic stability and

a better future, I think, in the Muslim world through education

and through other such efforts. Those are the ones probably that

are closest to my heart.

Ms. REGENHARD. I agree with my colleagues in both of their

statements. And the thing that has touched my heart the most is

that chapter 9, and the look at what happened to New York City,

what happened, why 343 firefighters died is most inadequate. The

finding that the radios were not the primary cause of firefighters’

death really flies in the face of so much that we know, the families

know, and that has already been printed.

Also, the end notes, especially 209, contain information that materially conflicts with what some of the family members have been

told regarding specific units, regarding who heard what. We are

very concerned about this. And what speaks to my heart is the

need for congressional hearings into the entire communications disaster of September 11.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Regenhard, our committee has held hearings; the

chairman has made sure that we have held hearings on our whole

capacity to communicate and frequencies and equipment that’s necessary. So we are looking at technology and so on. And he had

mentioned to me that he wants us to followup on what you have

requested. But I would like you to—so I would like to say we hear

you.

Ms. REGENHARD. Thank you.

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Mr. SHAYS. But I would like to ask you to go beyond just that

area. If you could get the communication issue done, what would

be the thing that then spoke to you most?

Ms. REGENHARD. Well, certainly looking at the entire 9/11 Commission report, looking at everything in totality, what speaks to me

most is that there were levels of failure in every single area of this

government, of this country. There was no one held accountable or

responsible for what they did. I feel, and other families of the victims feel, that their loved ones died in vain, had a wrongful death

without any correction. And certainly if these recommendations

could be enacted very quickly, that would be something that speaks

to me. However——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you this, my time coming to a close here.

You did not want the report to have any redacted parts to it. You

wanted it to be all. And what I want you to speak to, if you could,

is the recommendation that less things be so-called intelligence,

classified, not available to the public. Could you all speak to me on

that issue quickly?

Ms. REGENHARD. Yes. I would like to say that myself, the families of the victims, and my organization is very, very shocked to

hear that the September 11 emergency tapes that occurred on September 11 plus the 500 interviews that were done with the New

York City firefighters immediately after September 11, all this information, instead of being disclosed to the public, instead of being

shared with the families, is going to be secreted and put into the

National Archives for a minimum of 25 years. By the time that myself and other families members are able to find out what really

happened to our sons and our husbands, we will really be perhaps

not even in a capacity to really appreciate or understand it, or certainly not to take any action. That’s one issue.

But only recently, reading the Commission report and reading

the end notes, and realizing that there is information there that

contradicts what the families of the firefighters have been told—I

have just recently learned that even that, even that information is

going to remain secreted and to be put in the National Archives—

I am calling for full disclosure. Why on Earth, with all the sensitive

declassified intelligence information that has been shared, and we

have gained so much from it, why on Earth would the city of New

York, why on Earth would the 9/11 Commission want to keep any

information about what happened in those buildings, what happened with the radios, what happened with the communication,

why would they want to keep that secret? I really call for full disclosure of all this information, of all the testimony so we can really

find out what happened and how can we correct it.

Again, this is not about New York. There is a possibility of a

massive communication failure and radio failure in any other city

in this country. I want to prevent that, and I would like full disclosure.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to thank all the family members for

their testimony and ask unanimous consent to place in the record

a statement by the Family Steering Committee regarding the

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President’s acceptance of certain recommendations, if that’s possible.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mrs. MALONEY. I would also like to followup on what Ms. Sally

Regenhard was saying. This is a lot of contradiction over the radios, and I, for one, Mr. Chairman, see absolutely no reason why

we should not look at these tapes and look at this information, especially since the preceding panel talked about the need to have

dissent, to have all of the information out there.

To this day some people say the radios worked; some people say

they don’t. One leading official in the fire department told me the

other day, ‘‘The radios that did not work on September 11 still do

not work.’’

We need to look at this information in order to protect our citizens and our first responders in other situations.

On a personal note, on September 11 I went to the One Place

Plaza, which was the temporary headquarters for response given

that our headquarters were destroyed on September 11. The one

thing I was asked to do was to get radios, because our radios do

not work. I reached out to Bill Young, chairman of Appropriations,

and he arranged to fly in military radios so that we could communicate on the mound when we were looking for survivors.

So I would like to followup on your statement, Ms. Regenhard.

What do you think we would gain from these hearings that we

have not already heard? What benefit would be going further into

exploring what exactly happened and look at all relevant documents? What would we gain?

Ms. REGENHARD. I think the benefit would be, first of all, that

we could get a true accounting of what really happened in those

buildings. What were the factors that led to this demise of so many

first responders; not only firefighters, but police officers and Port

Authority officers? We could examine all the issues and find out—

the relevance to today is we can find out what has been corrected

and what still needs to be corrected. Without a thorough, comprehensive examination of all the issues, all the facts, we will

never be able to know that we have corrected the problems.

We cannot let anything remain hidden. There is no reason for it.

We have to have the courage to really see why there was such a

massive failure, and, in doing so, protect not only the city of New

York, but, as I said, the ramifications are across this country in

every State. If there were another catastrophe, how do we know

that emergency fire radios in different States could work? How do

we know? We had so many shortcomings especially in the 911 system; when people called up, they wanted to know what should they

do, how do they get out of the building, should they stay, should

they go up, should they go down. There was no system between the

Police Department of the city of New York and the fire department

and the 911 emergency operators.

That cannot be allowed to continue. Every State needs to have

a framework whereby if there is a major catastrophe, and people

are calling and saying, what should I do, it should not be up to a

minimally trained 911 operator who has no input from the fire department or from the police department or from the HAZMAT

units or the emergency services or environmental protection. We

have to create a better system.

In the past, we said we could never anticipate what happened.

That’s very questionable. However, be that as it may, we can anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:42 Dec 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00141 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96537.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ticipate that more terrorist attacks may be coming. And another

matter that we can look into is to see what happened in that building and how did that building fail? And perhaps we can look at

strengthening building codes practices, and think, when we are

building, toward blast-resistant and antiterrorist construction.

Thank you very much.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to very briefly ask all of the panelists to comment on how you view the 9/11 Commission should go

forward. Some think it should be privately funded; some think its

responsibility should be assumed by Congress. What do you see for

the future of what has been, I think, a remarkable example of public service? And I ask all of you to comment.

Ms. ECKERT. I agree that they have a continuing role to educate

and to be available for hearings like this one. They have indicated

they themselves would prefer private funding, and we support

them in that. On the other hand, if for some reason that funding

isn’t available, I do think that their role—they do have an important role. And they are not going to stay together the same way

and operate the same way they have with subpoena power and

calling hearings that people have to attend. I don’t think they envision doing that, and neither do we. But they are an important

source of educating the public and keeping everybody aware and focused, and if it comes to pass that Congress wants to appropriate

money for that endeavor, that would be fine.

Mrs. MALONEY. Ms. Wiener.

Ms. WIENER. I would have to agree with Beverly. And I would

have to say that I would defer to the Commission itself and its

preferences in this regard for private funding. They do play a critical role in the future to keep this issue alive and make sure that

the recommendations do move forward into action. And so I would

also hope that if for whatever reason private funding does not materialize, then Congress would step in to provide the support that’s

needed.

Ms. REGENHARD. I would like to consider perhaps a combination

of private funding and the Federal Government funding, Congress.

And, also, I would like to see funding for technology for the New

York City Fire Department come really from technology that’s

available through the Department of Defense currently. I think—

and not only in the New York City Fire Department, but every

major fire department, police department, and emergency service

throughout this country. They should be able to take advantage of

the Department of Defense technology. It’s there. You know, let’s

use it to protect the American public, the people that you represent

so well.

And I want to thank you, Mrs. Maloney, for your leadership. I

want to thank every single person here for the wonderful job that

you are doing. And we appreciate what you are doing, because you

are helping to protect America. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Regenhard, when you were talking about the issues of the

equipment and the training for both the fire department and the

police department, the response, it was an issue that perhaps you

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heard in the first panel that I had raised as an issue and share

with you your concern. I notice in your testimony, you say review

of chapter 12 reveals that only three recommendations deal with

the all complex issues that surfaced in New York City and continue

to haunt us to this day, and that you would have hoped for more

specific recommendations.

My first question, the city of New York had a weapons of mass

destruction/terrorist response exercise a month prior to September

11th, and what struck me in reading the 9/11 report is that when

I reread the domestic preparedness report of the exercise that occurred in Dayton and with the September 11 incident being a real

incident, they read very similar. In the city of Dayton’s report it

says, participants agree that the amount of information transmitted in and out of the command post was overwhelming. Fire department engine or truck company personnel should be trained

how to properly support on a joint command post with the incident

command and management, managing the incident by identifying

issues and reminding them to request necessary resources required

for this type of incident. Participants agreed direct radio communications between fire department and police department units

would have been beneficial and desirable. Improving interagency

incident communications should be addressed.

All of the recommendations, all of what occurred in an exercise

occurred in the actual incident that we had in September 11th in

New York.

Ms. REGENHARD. Yes.

Mr. TURNER. And I said earlier that John Ashcroft had attended

the exercise that we had in Dayton. I know that you have a continuing concern that we are not doing enough in this.

Chairman Shays, the chairman of our national security subcommittee, has been really pushing on the issue of what we needed

to do for first responders in case all of our efforts on intelligence

still result in our need for our first responders to be there defending our country. I want to give you another opportunity to speak

on that.

Ms. REGENHARD. Yes. I want to say it’s really amazing and both

horrifying that this type of procedure exists. The knowledge is

there. You know, it wasn’t a matter that New York City, you know,

the technology didn’t exist or whatever. The knowledge was there.

What you described was something that was well known, it was an

established procedure. But yet how could a city like New York, purportedly the greatest city in the world, how could they not have

taken part in any of this technology, in any of this practice and

procedures? How could we have been left so defenseless, lacking an

incident command structure?

You know that on September 11 the police department did not

and could not communicate with the fire department, so that the—

when the second tower—the police department and the fire department and the city of New York for decades, I imagine, have had

a turf war. Instead of working together in an incident command

structure under a unified head, at times they actually engaged in

fisticuffs.

This is something that has gone on and on, and it has not been

addressed. It has been a failure of leadership in the city of New

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York for quite some time to not bring New York City up to this

level of technology and practice that you described.

I hate to—I am sorry to say this: We have made some progress

since September 11, but I have to tell you the city of New York still

does not have an adequate incident command structure, and there

is no reason for this. We really need to look at what is happening

right now in the city of New York and what needs to be done to

assure that this catastrophe will not happen again. We have a long

way to go.

The other aspect is the radios that you mentioned. The radios

that failed in the World Trade Center attack in 1993 were the

same radios that the New York City Fire Department were sent

into the World Trade Center with in 2001. This is an outrage. I

would like you to look into this. How could this happen? If this

could happen in New York City, what is happening in other States?

What is happening in other cities? Do we have such a failure of responsibility?

You know, I deeply regret the lives of these beautiful people,

these young, beautiful people—there were 97 unmarried firefighters lost in the World Trade Center. There were 17 probationary firefighters, including my son. And the rest of the 343 wonderful, beautiful people, military people, Marines, people who were the

salt of the Earth, they met a needless death because of the failure

of emergency preparedness in the city of New York—lack of incident command structure, lack of a police department and fire department that were able to work together, and lack of radios that

worked.

This is simple. This is not something that is so beyond the scope

of technology. We should have had it. We need to look at this. We

need to find out how did this happen to this city? How did this happen?

My son believed in the city of New York. He loved the city of

New York. He loved his country. These are only 3 of 12 medals and

awards that he won; and the saddest part is, when I was looking

at these medals closer last night, one of the medals in the back has

three words: ‘‘fidelity, zeal, obedience.’’ My son and those firefighters would have obeyed an order to leave that building. My son

was betrayed by a system that put him in there with radios that

did not work.

My son was a proud Marine. He obeyed orders. He was a shining

example of the best of this country. I want to know why he was

sent into a situation with equipment that did not work, a hopeless

situation. And if I can save the sons and husbands of other people

in the future, that is my goal. That is what I want to do.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Davis, any questions?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to thank all three of you for your very well-thought-out,

developed and passionate testimony. Even though you are not

elected officials, you know about timetables, you know about schedules, and you know about the legislative process. I think it may

have been you, Ms. Eckert, who indicated that terrorism did not

take a recess or did not have a recess.

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While most people that I hear are in agreement that the recommendations need to be implemented, we are already beginning

to hear some people suggest that there may not be enough time

this year or that maybe the implementation should occur after the

election. It seems to me that we need to move as expeditiously as

is possible in order to put in place as quickly as we can this set

of recommendations.

Do you think that there is—and each of you might respond—

there is actually enough time to do a good review of looking at the

recommendations, going through the process, before the election in

November, rather than after the election?

Ms. ECKERT. I do, because, even this position of director of national intelligence is not new. We are new at this, and we are trying to learn the ropes and to keep up. But, honestly, as far as I

have heard, this debate has been going on since 1947. So I think

the time for debate on something like that is over. It failed. We did

not have a director of national intelligence, and therefore the process did not work.

I think if people simply acknowledge you do have the information. The Commission worked long and hard to compile, to do these

hearings and get testimony, and I know you are going to hear from

some of the same people. It is your responsibility to do that.

But I want to use the phrase expedited. This is not a real good

example of an expedited hearing, because I know it is lasting very

long. But I think it can be done. I think it can be done, if there

is zeal, energy and commitment.

Ms. WIENER. If I could add to this, we certainly recognize that

a number of the recommendations are longer term. But longer term

does not mean you start later. You still start now. It just may take

a longer amount of time to get them ultimately implemented.

My fear is if we wait until after the election to start even discussing some of these other recommendations that we will never

get to them.

There are—looking at the list again—the ones closest to my

heart: Preventing the continued growth of Islamic terrorism, define

the message, stand as an example of moral leadership in the

world—quoting from the report—over an agenda of opportunity

that provides support for economic education and openness. You

can’t achieve those by election day. I wish you could. But certainly

the discussion has to begin now or it will never occur.

So I urge you that when we say all the recommendations have

to be done simultaneously, we are talking for some of the longerterm ones about at least starting the discussion simultaneously.

Because some of these will certainly require a certain amount of

debate, and they all don’t—for some of these, I recognize it is not

just passing a bill. There is work that has to be done within agencies. There are policy shifts that have to occur. But, please, I really

urge you to start thinking about them now.

Ms. REGENHARD. I have to say again I agree with my colleagues

on their statements. I have to also say that I really appreciated

hearing from Ms. Watson her comments regarding to keep some of

these Commission members involved. I think it would be a shame

to have this wonderful Commission just go away now and leave it

up to agencies and other people to start reinventing the wheel.

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In some way, shape or form, I would like to see people who have

become experts in this arduous process to be part of the solution

now, part of the implementation. Let them guide the agencies and

people whose responsibility it will be to enact it in some type of

way. Keep them connected with it and keep that momentum.

One of the Congresspersons said something about losing the momentum, you know? We cannot really lose the momentum, because

so much of life is in the momentum, and we don’t have time to

waste to lose it.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I certainly agree with each of you, and

I want to commend you again for your courage, tenacity and fortitude and thank you very much for your testimony.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mrs. Blackburn.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I thank you for

the extra effort today to bring us here for the hearing.

I thank all of you, each one of you, for taking your time to come

and to talk with us. I appreciate the comments that you just made

about what we need to have the debate, and there will be policy

shifts that we will need, too, that will need to take place.

I think that we can all agree that the Commission and this committee agree that information sharing is essential, that increasing

the information sharing is essential; and the report definitely

makes it very clear that has to be increased at all levels of government, the local, the State and the Federal Government, if we are

going to combat terrorism and the terrorists that are causing these

activities.

It seems like sometimes political decisions allow loopholes or

cause loopholes in that data that is available for sharing. One of

the things we have seen is that the Department of Homeland Security has made a decision to accept from the U.S.-Visit border crossing system people entering from Canada and Mexico, and we already know that al Qaeda is trying to sneak terrorists in posing

as Mexican nationals. I would like to hear from each one of you if

you agree that the U.S.-Visit system should apply to everybody

coming into this country, everyone that is not a U.S. citizen coming

into this country. Because it seems that we are only going to be

able to address the situation and make some good decisions if we

have a complete data set that we are working from.

I would like to hear from each of you on a response for that.

Ms. ECKERT. I would say—and I am not an expert on that topic—

but I would say that until we have a more effective system of

screening people that we do need to make it universal. We have,

I don’t know, 12 million illegals here already. Clearly, we make it

too easy for people to infiltrate. We need to be able to identify people who are terrorists who are already here, but clearly we need

to stop them before they enter the country.

We made exceptions before. We had—what was it called—Visa

Express, I believe, that allowed the Saudis—they actually targeted

that system and used it because they knew how easy it was to get

into the United States through that.

So I think that is just an example. We have to learn the lessons

of our mistakes before. So without necessarily elaborating on any

one system, I don’t think that we should have exceptions.

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Ms. WIENER. I am not an expert on that system either, but it

would appear to me that we would be better off without exceptions,

and it should be universally applied. But, again, I do need to state

I am certainly no expert on this system.

Ms. REGENHARD. I would like to thank you very much for that

question and tell you that the families of the victims have formed

many different groups. One of the groups that was formed by the

families of the victims—and certainly many of us are members

here—is 9/11 Families for a Secure America. This is a group of people who have lost their loved ones who are working for the driver’s

license reform legislation and for the issues that you just mentioned. And, yes, they agree, we agree, it should be across the

board. We cannot let certain people in and then not let someone

else in and pay the price of the people who sneak in some way.

We need to really get strict about our border security. We need,

of course, while looking with certainly a sharper eye at fundamental Islamic militants or people from known terrorist countries, we

certainly have to look with a more critical aye. However, we need

to have strict guidelines across the board, and whether it is Canada or Mexico or whether it is another country, yes, we have to

have that. Until we can re-refine it in such a way, we need to really get serious about immigration.

All of these issues that you mentioned today, there were failures

across the board; and if any one of them could have been, you

know, not failed, even one could have stopped it, that is how I personally feel.

So, yes, we have to get serious about immigration and drivers’

licenses.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think everybody understands the kind of loss that each of you

suffered and other victims suffered can be paralyzing. The fact that

for all of you, you have just turned that pain into public service,

as I mentioned earlier, is beyond commendable. It is absolutely inspiring, and I hope that you are able to inspire the prompt action

that I think this warrants and deserves.

One of you mentioned earlier about having a Web site or something that is going to keep people’s feet to the fire, and I think it

is a excellent idea. I commend Chris Shays and Mrs. Maloney for

forming a caucus to support the recommendations.

Just for what it might offer to you as a benchmark on it, we

could certainly have a bill drafted almost immediately with the

help of legislative counsel here that encompasses and embodies all

of the recommendations of this report can be implemented soon.

We could have committee hearings in almost no time at all.

During the Homeland Security consideration, this committee met

and marked up the bill in one long day, and at least two other committees with jurisdiction did the same, and then a select committee

that the Speaker put in place held a couple of days of hearings, and

then the matter went to the floor. So these things can move.

If it goes to the floor for debate, I obviously think we should have

more than the customary 1 hour that sometimes important matters

are given, but it need not go on for weeks or months.

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And if it isn’t brought to the floor immediately, there is a process

around here called discharge petition that you all probably have

heard of in another context where we could demand that somebody

file a discharge petition and people sign on until we get a majority

that forces it to the floor, and that would be where your Web site

or whatever would be instructive to people to see who is for moving

this bill and who is not for moving it. Not certainly who is voting

for it or who is voting against it, because we have to respect people’s opinions about what they feel about the actual legislation, but

who is moving it forward for consideration and debate and deliberation, during which time it could be amended or amendments

could be offered, and then it could be passed.

This certainly, in my estimation, could be done before the anniversary date of September 11, 2004, but definitely by the end of

this year, and that is even with time off for other things.

So if that is any kind of a benchmark to you, I offer it to you,

and we have past examples of how we have moved rather quickly

on things.

Getting aside from some of the particulars on the security matters, I wanted to ask for your respective opinions about the broader

issue of Islamic terrorism and the comments made in the report

about the fact that we have to move and do something about that.

What generally has been the reaction of the families with respect

to those statements to talk about offering an agenda of opportunity

that includes support for public education and economic solution

and openness, defining the message and standing with it, moral

leadership in the world and those types of things? Is the Steering

Committee and other families solidly behind those statements? Do

you want to expand on those at all?

Ms. WIENER. Two comments. First of all, on the first point you

made about how quickly you can move, I just want to say thank

you. I hope that happens.

Also, the Family Steering Committee and the families in general,

through our Web site as well as other means, are very prepared

and willing to help you in whatever way we can to help legislation

move through grassroots action. We are certainly most of us are located in the Northeast corridor. There are relatives everywhere.

We are throughout the country.

Mr. TIERNEY. Let me just inject, you should know, so it hopefully

gives you some comfort on this, that there have been bills filed by

Members of this Congress, without mentioning the names, but

there have been bills that have been sitting there for months without yet being moved for hearing or not. So there are people willing

to act on that, and you know who they are, can find out who they

are. But there are certainly vehicles already filed for parts of this,

but I think we can get one solid vehicle that encompasses it all and

move that, too.

Sorry to interrupt you.

Ms. WIENER. I appreciate that, and I think we would very much

welcome an opportunity to sit down with you outside the hearing

process, sit down with you in your offices and talk about the bills

that have been filed and which ones we should help move. That

would be something we would be very anxious to do.

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With regard to your second point or your question, I can’t speak

for all the families on that, but I know that there has been discussion certainly in the Family Steering Committee and beyond where

families are concerned with regard to the issues raised by the Commission in terms of the global strategy. And certainly we are concerned not only with protecting our homeland and doing everything

we can to reorganize the debt shares—I think someone used that

term earlier—but we also need and fully recognize there needs to

be significant policy shifts and actions taken by our government to

prevent the future growth of terrorism. Because, as we have all

heard from the Pew opinion polls and other studies that have been

done, there certainly is not a love for us in the rest of the world

and certainly in that part of the world. If we do nothing about that

the problem becomes even much larger than we can imagine right

now. That failure of imagination the commissioners talked about I

think is only going to grow.

So certainly there is a recognition on the part of a lot of the families that we need to do something in order to address that. I use

the term ‘‘something’’ because something I know I have been struggling with ever since the Commission came out with its report is

how do you address those things. This is where a meeting might

be helpful. I don’t know that it is simply legislation, because some

of these are policy initiatives. But there are also some very simple

things that the Commission mentioned in terms of additional funding, for example, for broadcast and TV broadcasts in the Islamic

world to get our message out. The funding of the schools has been

mentioned already several times.

So there are certainly small things that can be done and large

things as well. I think Commissioner Kerrey mentioned this morning we shouldn’t forget those small things. But in terms of the larger group of recommendations and the concept of a global strategy,

certainly the families, as far as I am aware, are certainly behind

that. When we say all the recommendations need to be implemented, we certainly include those recommendations.

Mr. TIERNEY. I may leave you with the thought that I think leadership has a great deal to do with that in setting the tone of the

Nation.

Ms. REGENHARD. I would like to add, regarding your question,

that we can never forget that fundamentalist Islamic militants

hate us; and their main goal is to destroy this country. That being

said, I favor a multi-disciplinary approach. In addition to the

awareness and the hyper-vigilance that we must have against our

enemies, I also favor a disciplinary approach of education and

many other different ways to deal with this serious problem.

But these people are in our midst. They proved that on September 11. The recent terrorist plot or the information that we found

out only yesterday proves these people are here, they are taking

pictures, they are planning, they are here. We have to do a better

job of tracking these people, finding out where the money is going.

We need to do that. That is No. 1.

No. 2 and No. 3 can be the multi-disciplinary approach to try to

change their philosophies and try to stop them from hating us and

trying to kill us.

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Ms. ECKERT. I have one short comment, and that it is an overall

policy issue. It has to do with our dependence on foreign oil. I think

that we really need some changes in that regard, because it has

caused this country to make unholy alliances and support corrupt

regimes. So I think we can—every American can address that by

fuel consumption. But we can address it as a Nation by alternative

sources of energy.

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, the Chair recognizes Mr. McHugh.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ladies, let me just add my words of welcome and admiration. I

am in awe of your courage, of how you have taken a tragic circumstance and made it a positive force in memory of your lost

loved ones.

One of you said earlier that your loved one died in vain. I understood the reference, but I think through your work and through

hopefully the work of this Congress and this committee, we can ensure that on a very important level that doesn’t happen. I know

that is a great motivation for you.

As I said, I am in awe of you. Thank you for gracing us here

today.

I think you heard a little bit earlier some of the concerns about

civil liberties. I will say to my colleagues I have found some of the

comments earlier today and pontificating rather interesting. The

fact of the matter is we are going to have a real struggle in this

Congress when we get to issues about civil liberties, about transgression of those individual rights.

I think it was pretty well evidenced just a few weeks ago on the

House floor where we had an initiative on the floor that would

have placed sanctions on communities that today are refusing to

deal with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs

and other Federal agencies to get ahold of this immigration issue.

This House, some of my colleagues who have been most vociferous

today in their support of this blanket initiative, voted that down.

I was stunned.

We actually sanctioned in the House communities in this Nation

not dealing with immigration authorities. That is where we are,

and we have to be I think as realistic as these ladies have been

and the surviving families in general about the challenge.

One of the greatest assets I think I found in the pages of this

report is, as Senator Kerrey said, they identified the threat. It is

Islamic fundamentalists, terrorism, and to call it anything else in

the interest of PC is a huge, huge disservice. Whether we are talking about the Patriot Act, whether we are talking about the initiative to identify through biometrics or others who is coming into this

Nation, who is leaving, etc., we need to get serious about the larger

incentive. To the extent this report lets us do that and get beyond

the political correctness of the moment, I think it is important.

My simple question to you ladies would be, drawing on your experiences not just on that terrible day but through this process,

what would you say to the American Civil Liberties Union, for example, that has already expressed some concerns about portions of

this report, as to the need to step forward and judiciously but perhaps in different ways choose between those civil liberties that we

all cherish and the laws and the initiatives contained in this report? Because it is going to be a question we have to deal with.

Ms. ECKERT. I think as long as there are checks and balances,

there is oversight, there is recourse for people, that it doesn’t get

out of control. I think some of the sensitivities about our civil liberties are an extreme reaction. Let’s say for privacy, because we

don’t have a lot of privacy. Let’s say whether we fly or not, or took

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a particular airline flight. I know since I charged this to my credit

card the record is there.

So as a family member who suffered the direct consequences of

lack of security, I tend to want to try the experiment of going further than we have in terms of information that is necessary in

order to identify suspicious behavior. But, as I said, I think it is

really necessary that there is oversight.

I think another part of the equation I heard at one of the hearings, someone said we don’t need all of this, because we pretty

much know the 75,000 people or so who are suspects, and we

should be focusing on that and not everybody in the entire country.

So I think there is some merit to that.

I just hope that whatever is put into place does it. You can have

too much data, and it is not going to mean anything. So I think

we should focus on those areas where people, terrorists, are known

to utilize, for lack of a better word, methods and focus there, and

I think we need to have protection of our civil liberties. We already

do have that, but if there are going to be privacy issues that are

more in the forefront, then I think we should strengthen the protections as well.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. At this time, the Chair would recognize Chris Van

Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We have covered a lot of territory today, and I just wanted to

take my time to first thank you for your powerful and eloquent testimony and thank you for dedicating yourselves to doing everything

in your power to prevent another September 11 and to prevent

other families from suffering the terrible loss that you have.

My colleague, Mr. Tierney, talked about the potential timetable

in the Congress, and I just want to underscore that point and also

add that the parts of the reform that deal with congressional oversight can be done even more quickly in the sense they don’t even

require any interaction with the executive branch. We can do that

on our own. It affects only the Congress. It does not necessarily require getting any testimony or input from the executive branch.

Yet I predict that will be one of the most difficult pieces to put in

place, even though it is totally under control and it is our own

House.

So I ask you as you monitor the situation to make sure you hold

Congress’s feet to the fire and not just with respect to the recommendations that deal with the executive branch but our own

House as well.

I think you know better than anybody that you were the driving

force behind the creation of the 9/11 Commission. There are many

people that did not want to see the Commission established. If it

had not been for your voices, we would not have the Commission,

we would not have the recommendations we have heard today from

the Commission and from all of you.

I think the same may well be true, unfortunately, with respect

to the recommendations of the Commission. Without your continued driving force behind these recommendations, there is a real

danger, as I know you recognize from your testimony, that many

of them will be left by the wayside.

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Even today, you have heard differences, interpretations about the

remarks made by the President yesterday. I am not going to try

and interpret his remarks. I would just ask you in the days ahead,

rather than us debating exactly what he meant, to make sure you

work with us to seek clarification. Because, as Secretary Lehman

said, this is not a Chinese menu. These are all parts of a whole,

and if you take parts of the recommendation without enacting another part, it really does upset the balance within them.

So thank you for your testimony. If you have anything to add

with respect to your plans in putting—maintaining public pressure

on the Congress, I would welcome it.

Ms. WIENER. I thank you for your comments, and I want to assure you that all the families will push you as hard as we are going

to push the President and the executive branch. There has already

been discussion about how critically important congressional oversight is, and changes in the committee structure is discussed in the

Commission’s report. We will be pushing you as well, we promise.

Ms. REGENHARD. I would like to add something regarding the

bills and regarding the procession of this legislation, it being posted

on the Web site and the families during committee monitoring it.

Certainly things such as immigration reform issues will be one of

the types of things that we will be looking at and who is really supporting this and who is working against this.

I wanted to say one word about immigration reform. The families

of the victims are certainly concerned with illegal immigration. We

certainly all—I am a child of immigrants myself. I am a first-generation American. My parents were legal immigrants to this country. So a lot of times when we speak about illegal immigration

there is really a confusion regarding what exactly is said.

We are certainly for legal immigration in this country. We support it. It is a country of immigrants. It will continue to be so, to

our credit. But it is illegal immigration that has to be monitored,

it has to be stopped, if we want to remain safe.

Ms. ECKERT. I think people forget we have an incredibly compassionate immigration policy. We do let an enormous number of people here legally, and I think we have to keep that in mind. It is

important, and there are some programs—sometimes there is talk

of amnesty as some kind of solution. Before we consider something

like that, I think the public needs to know that Ramsey Yusef was

a beneficiary—he is the World Trade Center bomber in 1993. He

is a beneficiary of amnesty. So any of these programs have to be

dealt with very carefully.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

What we will do is Mr. Platts has agreed to allow Mr. Lynch to

go. I think he has to catch a plane. You have the floor.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my colleagues.

I want to thank you and all the families who have been willing

to come here and help this committee in its work.

So much of today’s testimony from the earlier panel and yourselves focuses on accountability, and so much of this report—and

it is stunning in its simplicity and directness—focuses on accountability. Whether it is the accountability created by intelligence

sharing or immigration reform which you have spoken about, by

oversight of the Commission or continuity of the Commission itself,

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it is the thread that runs through all of what you are talking

about.

I just wanted to ask you how important whatever we adopt in

the end—and we all hope it is basically what the Commission has

recommended here, but how important is that strain of accountability in getting the answers that you are looking for, at trying to find

out about your loved ones and their last hours and in terms of getting some reliability in terms of every firefighter or every public

servant who answers a similar call? How important is the fact that

accountability be in that plan that we come up with eventually

through this legislation?

Ms. REGENHARD. I would like to say that certainly accountability

and responsibility are the hallmarks of a democratic society. In

September 11, we have had an absence of accountability and responsibility, and the people who perished were pinnacles of accountability and responsibility. They led lives characterized by

that. And yet people who caused their death, through omission or

through commission, there has been no accountability and responsibility for all the levels, if it is the INS, the DOT, the CIA, the

FBI. Members of our Family Steering Committee 2 years ago sat

in the joint Intelligence Committee hearings, and we saw the FBI

person with the hood on weeping and saying he tried to tell, he

tried to share, people did not want to listen to him. He begged

them and so on and so forth.

Every time we hear that this plot could have been stopped in

some way, or at least a bump in the road, it is a knife in the heart

of the families.

Yes, accountability and responsibility mean everything to us, everything, and unless we have that, what is the impetus? What is

going to force people to do their job and to be responsible?

Yes, I want that. My son lived his life by accountability and responsibility. He deserves that as a legacy to protect people in the

future.

Ms. ECKERT. Well, I don’t really know that I can add to that. The

report is replete with a flavor that no one was in charge, so that

the Commission did not make an effort or—I am sorry, they

sidestepped I think for good reasons in order to focus on the reforms, but names were not named. But I think that is a one-time

pass.

I think we do have to have somebody who is in charge and who

is accountable, and that is why the Director of National Intelligence position, with authority, is so important, because with that

there will be accountability.

Ms. WIENER. I think what Sally said is key, in that it is only

through accountability that you can ensure that there is some

mechanism that people have an incentive essentially to do the right

thing, because if they do not, they will be held accountable. So accountability is certainly a key to make sure that this is not repeated.

Mr. LYNCH. I just want to emphasize what Mr. Tierney spoke of

earlier, and that is the good that you can do, the moral imperative

that you have at your command, the passion that you have, because of what you have gone through. Even though we talk incessantly about the politics and how things might get bogged down,

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there is no politics in the face of that type of testimony, the testimony that we have heard from you today, and it will fall away, it

will fall away. We need the power of your passion and your conviction on behalf of your loved ones, and we need to have that power

to help move this process.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. I want to add my words of sympathy to our witnesses as well as other family members here who have lost loved

ones. As best we try, there is no way we can truly feel the emotions

that you each do. Your courage in being here with us is certainly

commendable, and your ability to take very personal tragedies and

seek to turn them into public good is remarkable, and that is what

you are doing by your persistence in working with the Commission

and being here today and assuring all of us that you are going to

continue to keep the pressure on.

Because in the earlier panel Representative Van Hollen asked

Senator Kerrey, based on his experience in the Senate, how can we

succeed in transforming this place, Congress, the House and Senate. And I think the best answer to that question really is you, because you speak with that personal passion because it was your

loved ones. That is important in overcoming the innate nature of

this institution and its resistance to change and the turf battles

and the unfortunate partisanship. Your message and your efforts

will help us overcome that and truly embrace these recommendations, embrace the good work of the Commission and allow us to

truly ensure a safer America.

I personally thank you for your efforts. As the father of two

young children who wants them to grow up in a safe and strong

America, what we do with this effort is critical to their future. So

we are looking out not just for the memories and legacies of your

own loved ones but for the loved ones of all Americans. I commend

you for that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. REGENHARD. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Todd Russell Platts follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, the Chair would recognize Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Again, we appreciate and we thank you for your

sincere devotion to all of our causes.

I just wanted to say very quickly, I feel the need to move very

quickly, as you do, and I would hope that you would take an example of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which originated in

the capital, Sacramento, CA. Many years ago, a young girl was

killed, and her mother organized a group of neighbors, and now

they are nationwide.

Ms. Eckert, you said that there are relatives all over the country.

What I would like to see is you organize yourself into chapters

around the country and you visit your representatives, wherever

the locations are. You visit and you talk to each and every one of

them about what you as family members, as Americans, as citizens, would like to have them do to represent you.

MADD, as you know, is a very effective and instrumental organization that has been the basis of many of the laws we have introduced not only in California but across the country. I see you as

being a model for that kind of organization. I would like you to followup. My staff is going to give you—I have some more information

for the three of you—I will give to you privately. So we will see you

afterwards.

Thank you. I will be leaving shortly. But I hope we can stay in

close touch.

Ms. ECKERT. A real quick comment on that, it is funny, we realize we need to take quick steps. There are 12 of us on this committee, and we are here for the long haul. But we could use reinforcements. I think you have made an excellent suggestion, and we have

actually been talking about kind of a subcommittee. God knows, we

don’t want to get too bureaucratic, but we do know that there is

a need to, as the Commission is doing, traveling the country and

explaining to people exactly what this is all about. So it sounds like

an excellent suggestion.

Ms. WATSON. Some distant cousin on the West Coast of California could be the surrogate and could visit my office and the office

of our large delegation of 54, their offices respectively.

Ms. REGENHARD. I wanted to say one of the family groups, 9/11

Families for a Secure America, does visit individual Congresspeople

to advocate for immigration reform and driver’s license reform. It

is a difficult job because they are not always, you know, received

the way they would like to be and a lot of times their goals are

misinterpreted. But I think it is a wonderful idea, and we have to

continue to do that. Thank you very much for that suggestion.

Ms. WIENER. I also want to thank you. Rest assured, actually,

there are a number of family groups out there that we are all trying to coordinate, and a number of us do maintain data bases that

we have been able to put together of family members beyond this

geographic area and are trying to locate families throughout the

country so that we can be—we are in, I would imagine, almost

every district when you span out to cousins and uncles and aunts.

So we will make sure we fan out as deep as we can and try to

reach everyone.

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Ms. WATSON. I commend and congratulate you on your efforts,

your compassion. We all share your feelings. I know that something good is going to come out of this. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Before we go to our next panel, is there any last comment, brief comment, you would like to put on the record?

Ms. REGENHARD. Yes. I would like to acknowledge the firefighter

families who have come here today. I would like to ask them to

stand up.

Mr. SHAYS. Let’s have all the families who came stand up.

Ms. REGENHARD. As well as the civilian families who joined us

today. Please stand up.

Mr. SHAYS. You all have been wonderful witnesses. I would like

to give you an opportunity to make closing comments.

Ms. ECKERT. Thank you for arranging this, Chairman Davis and

the whole committee, and for hearing us.

I think what I would like you to come away with is not a sense

of just almost why is this happening to me at this particular time

but that you have an opportunity to go down in history as performing something so noble and so urgent and so monumental, that you

also have an opportunity of going down in history for doing the

right thing. I would like to leave you with that thought.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Ms. WIENER. I also wanted to just say thank you. We are so

grateful to you for taking time out of your recess and coming back.

I also wanted to echo what Beverly said, that you have a unique

opportunity before you; and we ask you to please not think of yourselves as Democrats or Republicans but to think of yourselves as

Americans and leaders trying to do the right thing and know that

we are here with you standing beside you and behind you and in

front of you, everywhere we need to be, in order to help you move

whatever legislation needs to move forward. We will be there with

you to help in any way we can.

Ms. REGENHARD. I would like to thank you also for everything

you are doing, and I would like to end by saying God bless America. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much. We have many reasons to say

God bless America, and we have a great deal of gratitude for all

three of your testimony and remembrance and the legacy of your

loved ones.

Ms. Eckert, we do know we have a solemn responsibility and a

tremendous opportunity. There would not have been a 9/11 Commission without the work of the families of September 11th. I know

that role continues, and you give us a great deal of strength and

pride in our country. Thank you all very much.

At this time, we will adjourn this panel.

We have two more panels. I am thinking that we will ask them

to join collectively—you know what? I just want to say it is now

almost 3 o’clock. We will have the GAO go separately, and we will

do it that way.

If you would stand, Mr. David Walker, thank you very much for

being here. I will swear you in. It is our policy to swear witnesses

in.

[Witness sworn.]

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Mr. SHAYS. Let me say, Mr. Walker, it is right that you testify

individually. We will have the next panel, and we will hear them

separately. But it is important that your testimony be singularly

focused on. We thank you for coming and thank you for your patience. You could have asked to speak sooner, and we appreciate

that you waited to hear from the families and to hear from the

Commission.

So, with that, you have the floor. We welcome your testimony.

STATEMENT OF DAVID WALKER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL,

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman, members of the

committee. It is good to be before you to speak to certain recommendations of the 9/11 Commission report.

As you know, GAO is in the business of trying to help maximize

the government’s performance and assure its accountability for the

benefit of the American people.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to ask you to start over again and get that

mic closer to you.

Mr. WALKER. Is that better?

Mr. SHAYS. Staff, move that other mic away.

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to be with you and

other members to discuss certain aspects of the 9/11 Commission

recommendations at your request.

As you know, GAO is in the business of helping to assure to

maximize the performance of the government and an ensure its accountability for the benefit of the American people. We issued over

100 reports on the issue of Homeland Security before September

11, 2001, and we have issued over 200 since then, with hundreds

of recommendations and almost 100 hearings before the Congress.

I have been asked to address two issues and would like my entire

statement to be included in the record so I can summarize, if that

is all right, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes, and don’t feel you have to rush. I should not say

it is getting late. You just take your time and we will take each

issue as it comes.

Mr. WALKER. Thank you. I have been asked to address two

issues, basically the need to enhance information sharing and analysis and also to discuss some of the reorganization and transformation needs dealing with the intelligence community.

As we all know, yesterday, on August 2, the President asked the

Congress to create a National Intelligence Director position to be

the principal intelligence adviser appointed by the President with

the advice and consent of the Senate and serving at the pleasure

of the President.

He also announced that he will establish an NCTC whose director would report to the National Intelligence Director and that this

center would build upon the analytic work of the existing terrorist

threat integration center.

These are positive steps. However, it is important to note there

are substantive differences between the President’s proposal and

the Commission’s recommendations.

With regard to information sharing, there is a continuing, critical

and heightened need for better and more effective and more comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:42 Dec 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00160 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96537.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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prehensive information sharing. We agree that the intelligence

community needs to move from a culture of need to know to need

to share.

The 9/11 Commission has made observations regarding information sharing and recommended procedures to provide incentives for

sharing and to create a trusted information network. Many of the

Commission’s recommendations address the need to improve information and intelligence collection sharing and analysis within the

intelligence community itself.

It is important, however, to note that we must not lose sight of

the fact that the purpose of improving information analysis and

sharing is to provide better information not only throughout the

Federal Government but also to State and local governments, its

private sector and to America’s citizens so that collectively we are

all better prepared.

I want to make it clear that such information sharing must protect confidential sources and methods and we do not propose any

changes that would infringe upon those important protections.

Nonetheless, in order to be successful in this area, the Federal

Government must partner with a variety of organizations, both domestic and international, in the public sector, the private sector

and the not-for-profit sector. As you know, Mr. Chairman, GAO has

done quite a bit of work in this area in connection with information

sharing, and I have summarized that in my full statement, but I

will move on to the organization transformation in the interest of

time.

With regard to the organization and transformation issues, on

the basis of GAO’s work in both the public and the private sector

over many years and in my own fairly extensive change management experience, it is clear to me that many of the challenges that

the intelligence community faces are similar or identical to the

transformation challenges applicable to many other Federal agencies, including the GAO.

As I touched on earlier, while the intelligence agencies are in a

different line of businesses than other Federal agencies, they face

the same challenges when it comes to strategic planning, organizational alignment, budgeting, human capital strategy, management

and information technology, finances, knowledge management and

change management. They are generic challenges faced by every

single agency and government.

The intelligence community for years has said we are different.

In some ways, they are. In most ways, they are not.

For the intelligence community, effectively addressing these basic

business transformation challenges will require action relating to

five key dimensions—namely, structure, people, process, technology

and partnerships. It will also require a rethinking and cultural

transformation in connection with intelligence activities both in the

executive branch and the Congress.

With regard to the structure dimension, there are many organizational units within the executive branch and in the Congress

with responsibilities in the intelligence and homeland security

areas. Basic organizational and management principles dictate

that, absent a clear and compelling need for competition or checks

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and balances, there is a need to minimize the number of entities

and levels in decisionmaking, oversight and other related activities.

In addition, irrespective of how many units and levels are involved, someone has to be in charge of all key planning, budgeting

and operational activities. One person should be responsible and

accountable for all key intelligence activities within the executive

branch, and that person should report directly to the President.

This person must also have substantive strategic planning, budget,

operational integration and accountability responsibilities and authorities for the entire intelligence community in order to be effective. If this person has an out-box but no in-box, we are in trouble.

In addition, this person should be appointed by the President

and confirmed by the Senate in order to help facilitate success and

assure effective oversight.

With regard to the oversight structure of the Congress, the 9/11

Commission noted that there are numerous players involved in intelligence activities and yet not enough effective oversight is being

done.

With regard to people dimension, any entity is only as good as

its people. As I stated earlier, the intelligence community is no exception. In fact, they are in the knowledge business.

Believe it or not, Mr. Chairman, there is a tremendous amount

of parallel between the GAO and the intelligence community. The

reason I say that is the intelligence community is supposed be in

the business of getting facts and conducting professional, objective

analysis that is nonpartisan, non-ideological, fair and balanced.

And, in fact, our No. 1 competitor on college campuses today for

talent is the CIA and the FBI. So there are a lot of analogies and

a lot of common denominators that can be shared.

In addition to having the right people and the right tone at the

top, agencies need to develop and execute work force strategies and

plans helping to ensure that they have the right people with the

right skills and the required numbers to achieve their missions.

They also need to align their institutional unit and individual performance measurement reward systems in order to effectuate the

needed transformation.

With regard to procession and technology dimensions, steps need

to be taken to streamline and expedite the processes and integrate

the information systems that are needed in order to expeditiously

analyze and effectively disseminate the tremendous amount of intelligence and other information available to the intelligence community.

With regard to partnerships, it will take the combined efforts of

many parties crossing many sectors and geopolitical boundaries

over many years to effectively address our Homeland Security challenges, but we must start immediately.

With regard to the cultural dimension, this is both the softness

and the hardest to deal with. By the softest, I mean that it involves

attitudes and actions of people and entities. By the hardest, I mean

the changing, longstanding cultures can be a huge challenge, especially if the efforts involve organizational changes in order to

streamline, integrate and improve related capabilities and abilities

and especially if it involves changing power bases, responsibility

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and authority, whether it be in the executive branch or in the legislative branch.

In conclusion, we at GAO stand ready to constructively engage

with the intelligence community to share our significant government transformation and management knowledge and experience

in order to help members of the community help themselves engage

in a much-needed and long-overdue transformation effort. We also

stand ready to help the Congress enhance its oversight activities

over the intelligence community, which in our view represents an

essential element of an effective transformation approach.

In this regard, we have the people with the skills, experience,

knowledge and clearances to make a difference for the Congress

and the country.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer any questions that you or other Members may have.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Walker.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. That was an excellent statement. At least for me, it

put in perspective some questions I have.

For instance, you add a director. Aren’t you adding a layer? The

message I am hearing from you is a person in charge could eliminate a lot of layers in the process of running an agency or in charge

of being in charge of a variety of agencies.

I am interested to know, and I am going to expose my ignorance

here, technically, my subcommittee has jurisdiction of the intelligence community in Government Reform for programs, for ways

to cut waste, abuse and fraud. But whenever we want the CIA to

testify, they would get a permission slip from the Intelligence Committee that said they didn’t have to testify. One of the times was

we wanted to know how well they communicated with the FBI. We

weren’t looking at sources and methods.

What kind of cooperation does the GAO get from the intelligence

community? Do you have oversight? Are you able to get in and see

what you need to? Is it a constant battle, and do you usually win

those battles?

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, with the exception of certain accounts and activities, so-called black accounts or funds, GAO has

extensive oversight authority with regard to the intelligence community.

However, during the past number of years, we have not had extensive involvement in doing work in the intelligence community

for two reasons: No. 1, tremendous resistance from the entire intelligence community, which resistance was manifested in a memo by

the then CIA Director in 1994; and, second, because there has been

a lack of request and support from the intelligence committees to

have oversight in this area for a number of years. This is a problem.

As I mentioned to you before, Mr. Chairman, sources and methods are one thing. As you acknowledged yourself, you weren’t looking at getting into sources and methods, we aren’t interested in

getting into sources and methods, but the fact of the matter is a

vast majority of the challenges that the intelligence community

faces are the same challenges that every other government agency

faces. They need attention. They need oversight.

Mr. SHAYS. When I met with Governor Kane and also spoke with

Lee Hamilton, they both expressed concern before the report had

come out with all the documents that were classified. I think Lee

Hamilton was more aware that was happening, but Governor Kane

was astounded at the documents he read that basically seemed so

mundane. And one of their recommendations is to get rid of some

of that so you know what the jewels are that need to be shared,

and this other information can be out there, digested by a community, a democracy that doesn’t get into sources and methods and so

on. Can you speak to that issue?

Mr. WALKER. Well, yes. I think there’s no question that we have

to look at the basis for classification. As you know, right now each

agency makes its own decisions with regard to whether and on

what basis to classify information. And there has been a tendency

in the past—as this committee noted in calling this hearing, there’s

been a tendency to hoard that information, and there’s been a tendency to only provide it to those who ‘‘need to know.’’ And there’s

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been a cultural barrier to sharing information, and there’s also

been a cultural barrier to providing a reasonable degree of transparency.

Let me state that there is absolutely no question that sources

and methods need to be protected. However, that being stated,

there is a need for additional transparency in this area. In order

for a healthy democracy to work, you need incentives for people to

do the right thing, reasonable transparency to provide assurance

they will because someone is looking, and appropriate accountability if they do not do the right thing. And we have work to do in

these areas.

Mr. SHAYS. What would be the benefit if you were able to see

less—if there was more openness and less classified documents,

what would be some of the benefits that would occur from that, and

what are some of the disadvantages by having classified documents

that maybe simply don’t need to be classified?

Mr. WALKER. Well, again, recognizing the need to protect sources

and methods, that’s of critical importance, and focusing the classification on that, to protect sources and methods, that needs to be

protected. However, I think we’ve seen a tendency for people to

classify beyond what is essential.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m not asking that question. I want to know benefit.

Mr. WALKER. The benefit? OK, the benefit would be, quite frankly, that the Congress would be in a much more effective position

to conduct meaningful and constructive oversight. Right now, the

Congress is not in an effective position to do that, for a lot of reasons, and that’s one.

Mr. SHAYS. My time has come to an end. Let me call on Mrs.

Maloney. You have the floor for 5 minutes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much, and welcome.

Mr. Walker, I have here a report that you issued on July 2, 2004

to Jim Turner, who is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee. He asked you to assemble in one place all of the

recommendations to improve the homeland security of our Nation

so that we could assess where we are 3 years after September 11,

and in this report you identify 104 recommendations that you consider key to the agency’s ability to effectively secure homeland security for our Nation. You have made these recommendations, you

compile them over 3 years, and is that a fair statement, that you

have issued this report with 104 recommendations; is that correct?

Mr. WALKER. We have. I don’t recall the exact number. I will say

it is my understanding that we’ve issued over 500 recommendations in total, of which at least 100 remain outstanding.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, your report states that as of June 28 only

40 of the 104 in this particular report—you may have issued other

reports—but in this particular report there are 104 recommendations, and only 40 of them have been implemented. That means

there are 64 specific recommendations that to date are unfulfilled

but that you and your department consider key to the homeland security of our country, to protect our people, our infrastructure; is

that correct?

Mr. WALKER. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but in general terms they sound reasonable.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I’ll put it in the record.

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Mr. WALKER. I’ll be happy to do that.

Mrs. MALONEY. Has anything changed over the last month since

you issued this report to Congressman Turner with respect to the

status of these recommendations?

Mr. WALKER. I have not been given an update, but let me just

assure you that one of the things we do at GAO is when we make

recommendations we actively followup on those recommendations,

because one of our basic success measures is to what extent do they

adopt them and, if so, what benefit occurs from that.

Mrs. MALONEY. Your report states that you issued 12 recommendations to the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate, and these involve both intelligence-related

functions and infrastructure information. But your report also

states that none of your 12 recommendations to this office has been

implemented. Is that correct?

Mr. WALKER. That’s my understanding, not fully implemented.

My understanding is that there has been some progress. In some

cases, they have partially implemented but not fully implemented.

Mrs. MALONEY. Your report also states that there are 33 pending

recommendations within the Border and Transportation Security

Directorate alone, and your recommendations there are key to reducing security vulnerabilities and passenger screening, border security, and ports. What is the status of these 33 recommendations?

I have them here, and I’m particularly interested in them. I just

want to mention some of them. One is to develop a risk-based plan

that specifically addresses the security of the Nation’s rail infrastructure. Has that been done?

Mr. WALKER. To my knowledge, it has not been completed.

Mrs. MALONEY. Another one you recommended was to develop a

comprehensive plan for air cargo security. Has that been done?

Mr. WALKER. I would have to check to find out. To my knowledge, it has not been completed.

Mrs. MALONEY. And it goes on and on with specific examples.

A great number of these recommendations, especially those that

relate to border security, were reiterated and became part of the

9/11 Commission report; is that correct?

Mr. WALKER. Many of them were incorporated in the 9/11 report;

that’s correct.

Mrs. MALONEY. But you made many, if not all, of the recommendations before the 9/11 Commission report; is that correct?

Mr. WALKER. In many cases, that is true.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, my question basically is, do you have any

recommendations for how we, as Congress, can help instill a greater sense of urgency at the Department of Homeland Security to implement both your recommendations and those of the 9/11 Commission? You outline these in great detail. Many of them are part of

the report. Most of them have not been implemented.

Mr. WALKER. Well, I think it’s important to note they have implemented a number of recommendations. We continue to followup.

The Department of Homeland Security has challenges along a couple of dimensions, one of which is to make sure they are taking the

needed steps to enhance our homeland security. The other is to try

to be able to integrate 22 to 23 different departments and agencies

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in what is the largest reorganization since the establishment of the

Defense Department in 1947.

I believe, relating to the subject of today’s hearing, that there are

at least four things that need to be done to help in this regard: No.

1, the adoption of a National Intelligence Director I think is of critical importance, but it has to be a substantive position with real responsibilities and authority; second, the establishment of the NCTC

as a way to make progress in integrating activities, rather than

just coordinating activities; third, to look at congressional reorganization and to enhance congressional oversight; and, fourth, and

frankly pretty basically, to complete a comprehensive threat and

risk assessment in the area of homeland security and to use that

as a basis to finalize the Department of Homeland Security’s strategic plan for allocation of resources for determination of performance measures and for effective oversight by the Congress.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. Actually, the acting chairman and I

have introduced legislation to actually achieve just that.

My time has expired. Thank you for your report.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Schrock, you have the floor.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Walker, thank you. I agree with everything you said.

But the interesting thing is, we can sit here in these hearings all

day long, but what are we going to do about it? When the rubber

meets the road and we have to stick this voting card in to vote yes

or no, what are we going to do?

You’ve sort of insinuated, I believe, that we don’t have the ability

to take charge of things, and I think you’re right. We’ve rolled over

and played dead. If you don’t think so, the Supreme Court legislates from the bench and the Federal courts legislate from the

bench. They’re taking away the responsibility we have. The way to

get some of these people under control is just to subpoena them

and bring them up here and make them do what we tell them to

do, but we haven’t done that, and I think that’s why we have a lot

of the problems that we have.

Our borders. What are we going to do about our borders? Political correctness seems to be the name of the game anymore. I was

only privileged to serve with Congressman Bob Ehrlich a short

time. He is now the Governor of Maryland, and he finally said, political correctness be damned, we’re going to do what’s right for the

people of Maryland and people like that.

It’s time we get over that sort of stuff, because it is this political

correctness that’s getting us in trouble. You’ll hear Members say

they are willing to do certain things when they get on the floor, but

political correctness will dictate otherwise when it comes time to

vote, and they won’t get things done.

But we have extremists in this country. We are really in deep

trouble in this country if we don’t start listening to people like you

and others and this 9/11 Commission that has put together this

magnificent document. I don’t know where we go from here. I am

generally worried and generally concerned about that. And this

committee can sit here all day, but unless we’re willing to take action, strong action, then we will fall back into the same old trap

we were in before.

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So I really appreciate your being here and your comments, because I agree with everything you say. And I don’t usually agree

with everything everybody says, but I really agree with what you’re

saying.

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Schrock. If I can comment

briefly——

Mr. SCHROCK. Yes, please.

Mr. WALKER [continuing]. It might be helpful.

First, I think if you look at all the recommendations of the 9/11

Commission, many of those recommendations don’t require legislation.

Mr. SCHROCK. That’s right.

Mr. WALKER. So I think one of the first things that needs to be

done is to go through and analyze which one of those would require

legislation and which one wouldn’t.

Mr. SHAYS. Would the gentleman just yield a second?

Mr. SCHROCK. Sure.

Mr. SHAYS. We would like that document. We would like you to

go through and tell us specifically what is an administrative effort,

a regulation, Executive order, law, or a rule change. That would be

very helpful.

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to talk to our staff

and see if we can come up with a first cut as to which requires legislation versus those that could be done through executive action.

Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Chairman, we might be surprised. There

might be more that can be done without legislation than we imagine.

Mr. WALKER. I think there are quite a few that can be done without legislation, so we’ll do that. That’s No. 1.

No. 2, you then are going to have to obviously prioritize what is

most important.

I mentioned four things I felt are critically important. Of those

four things, two require legislation, one requires congressional action to organize itself and to reinvigorate oversight, and the

other——

Mr. SHAYS. Can you be specific which ones are which?

Mr. WALKER. The two that I mentioned that I think require legislation would be the creation of the National Intelligence Director,

that position, to make sure it’s substantive, to make sure it meets

certain criteria. Certain aspects of the NCTC may require legislation. For example, the fact that they want to create the deputies,

the deputy positions to have certain responsibilities. That might require certain legislation.

The third item I talked about was Congress reorganizing itself

and reinvigorating oversight. That would not require legislation.

The Congress could do that on its own.

Mr. SCHROCK. But will we?

Mr. WALKER. That’s a good question.

And, last, the need for the Department of Homeland Security to

finalize its comprehensive threat and risk assessment and its strategic plan. That, obviously, doesn’t require legislation.

So what items require legislation? Realistically, you’re going to

have to focus on the most important things first and to address certain issues on an installment basis. But, in the final analysis, the

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Congress has a responsibility to address all recommendations of

the 9/11 Commission and make a conscious decision as to whether

or not it is going to accept them and, if not, why not.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. Tierney, you have the floor, if you would like to ask questions.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Walker, for your usual great testimony and hard

work that you do.

I want to ask you a little about a letter that was actually sent

from this committee to the administration on October 15, 2001. It

was a bipartisan letter that then Chairman Dan Burton and the

Ranking Member Henry Waxman, as well as Representative Shays

and the ranking member of the subcommittee Dennis Kucinich, all

signed onto.

It requested the administration to conduct a comprehensive

threat risk and vulnerability assessment, to prioritize our spending

as part of the overall strategy to counterterrorism. It was based on

large part on your agency’s work. The basic idea which you have

urged, I know, at numerous hearings on occasions before September 11 as well as afterwards was that we don’t know whether we’re

spending correctly on counterterrorism or Homeland Security efforts until we have a threat risk and vulnerability assessment. Am

I right in making that judgment?

Mr. WALKER. That’s correct. It’s pretty fundamental.

Mr. TIERNEY. My concern has been and continues to be, as I

think it has been with members on both sides of the aisle on this

particular committee, we never received a response. Today, nearly

3 years later, the Commission is making the same recommendations.

When I look at page 428: The Department of Homeland Security

should regularly assess the types of threats the country faces. Further on page 428: The Department of Defense should regularly assess the adequacy of the Northern Command strategies of planning. Page 396: Homeland Security assistance should be based

strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities.

Now, Mr. Walker, you and numerous others at the GAO have

been monitoring the progress of the administration on this. Can

you tell me why this recommendation is still necessary?

Mr. WALKER. Well, first, significant progress has been made in

developing threat and risk assessments for certain sectors, but the

Department of Homeland Security has yet to complete a comprehensive and integrated threat and risk assessment, which is important, which would also be used to inform a strategic plan, which

would be used as a basis for allocating limited resources to finding

desirable outcomes and holding people accountable for results both

within the executive branch as well as congressional oversight. So

that recommendation is still outstanding.

As you know, Mr. Tierney, the transformation of the Department

of Homeland Security is on GAO’s high-risk list, and there’s good

reason for that.

Mr. TIERNEY. And the reason is?

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Mr. WALKER. Well, the reason is, because, No. 1, they have a

massive undertaking, including to complete this comprehensive

threat and risk assessment, to do a strategic plan which ends up

making sure that we’re focusing on the most important things, because there’s no such thing as zero risk and we have finite resources; and, second, because they have to integrate the policies,

the systems, the practices of 22-plus agencies that were not together until within the last 2 years, many of which, quite frankly,

their primary mission was not homeland security before September

11, 2001, and yet most of which it either is their primary mission

now or clearly a major part of their mission.

Mr. TIERNEY. I just asked you that to drive the point home, more

than anything here. This committee, as I said before, is bipartisan.

This is not a partisan statement. The letters that have gone out,

the votes that we’ve taken, the hearings and meetings that we’ve

held continue to try to pound home that point, that we think these

priorities have to be set.

Independent commissions—I think of the Bremer Commission,

the Hart-Rudman Commission—have all made the same point, but,

3 years later, we’re still waiting for that to be done. So let’s hope

that this hearing as well as others, and the Commission report,

may bring that point home and we get something done on that. Because, frankly, it’s really amazing that Congress has continued to

appropriate money and purport to give direction to different people

and they haven’t really had that kind of assessment from which to

work.

Let me ask you, from your experience and your observations as

well, the Commission has advised that the Congress reorganize

itself and set up either a joint committee on intelligence for the

House and the Senate or individual committees within the House

and the Senate that have the goal that the Commission set forth

and to have budgetary control and things of that nature. From your

perspective, is there a preference as to which would work more effectively or better?

Mr. WALKER. I hesitate to suggest exactly what the right answer

is for the Congress. I will tell you this. I think there’s absolutely

no question that you need to consolidate. You need to have as few

as necessary in order to get the job done and yet provide important

checks and balances.

Let me give you an example to what I mean by that. To the extent that you have a committee focused on intelligence and possibly

one focused on homeland security, I would respectfully suggest that

when you’re dealing with issues like personal privacy and individual liberty, that they should be in a different committee, because

you probably want checks and balances between the security and

intelligence and those other issues. They both need to be considered, but you probably want the checks and balances. So I would

say as few committees as possible.

I think it’s interesting to note that within a few days of the 9/

11 Commission issuing its report there are numerous committees

holding hearings. Now, in part that symbolizes the need to try to

consolidate things. On the other hand, in fairness, I think if you

look at the scope of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, they

cover a lot of areas. They cover foreign policy, they cover a variety

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of different areas, and all of those cannot be and should not be consolidated into one committee, obviously.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. SCHROCK [presiding]. Thank you.

I know you said, General Walker, you didn’t think that—you

didn’t want to be so presumptuous as to tell Congress what to do.

I wish you would. As Mr. Tierney said, we appropriate, but we

don’t watch over these folks, and we have to get this under control

and under control fast.

Mr. WALKER. There’s absolutely no question that there needs to

be much more extensive oversight than has been the case, and we

can help the Congress in that regard, but we can do it in a constructive way. It doesn’t have to be adversarial oversight.

Mr. SCHROCK. Well, I’m not sure I agree with that. A little brickbat once in a while.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Walker, we have had discussions about the legislative versus administrative action, but I was wondering if you

could comment on, in reviewing the Commission’s report, what do

you consider to be the most important recommendations and what

recommendations, if any, do you disagree with?

Mr. WALKER. Well, I have not had an opportunity to analyze

each and every recommendation, so I wouldn’t want to say if I disagreed with any. I agree with many.

The four actions that I mentioned that I believe are arguably the

most important are, No. 1, to create the National Intelligence Director position and to make it a substantive position and to make

sure that it is consistent with the criteria that I articulated in my

statement; second, to create this National Counterterrorism Center

to be able to integrate activities of the existing intelligence community without necessarily restructuring the entities below that;

third, to look at congressional reorganization and invigorate the

oversight activities; and, fourth, for the Department of Homeland

Security to complete its comprehensive threat and risk assessment,

its related strategic plan, which would serve as a basis to allocate

its limited resources and to help enhance congressional oversight.

So those would be four thoughts.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Kanjorski.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Walker, when I visit my district, I often get questioned on

just what we’re doing; and listening to your testimony, we’re still

drawing up plans and organizational charts 3 years after the fact.

It sort of reminds me of something that struck me in the Commission’s report that on the President’s desk the day of September 11

they had just spent 7 or 8 months reorganizing the administration’s new approach to terrorism.

Would it be reasonable to say that we just may be muscle bound

as a government and incapable of responding to this type of a

threat? Or at least over the last 3 years we haven’t displayed a potential to do that.

Mr. WALKER. Candidly, Congressman, as I touched on before, I

believe a lot of the challenges that the Homeland Security Department and the intelligence community face are challenges that are

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faced by virtually every major department and agency in this government. And to a great extent my experience, having headed two

executive branch agencies and now one legislative branch agency,

is that a large part of government is structured to focus on challenges that existed and to try to address those challenges based

upon means and methods and management models that existed in

the 1950’s and the 1960’s. We are in need of a fundamental review

reassessment and reengineering of how we do business.

Mr. KANJORSKI. I understand that, but struggling over the management in a time of peril, and taking 21⁄2 or 3 years to do it

strikes me as a pretty slow pace if in fact we’re faced with the

threats that we periodically hear from Homeland Security and from

other agencies of the Federal Government. Seems to me we’re in

the fourth quarter, the last 2 minutes, and we’re still drawing up

the game plan.

Mr. WALKER. Well, as you may recall, before September 11, 2001,

the GAO had recommended the creation of an Office of Homeland

Security within the President to try to bring together some of these

things. My view is that a lot of the things that are going to have

to happen, that require more fundamental transformation, are

going to take time. To engage in a fundamental transformation of

any organization is a 5 to 7-year effort at a minimum, no matter

whether you’re in the public sector, private sector, or not-for-profit

sector.

As a result, that’s why I think the idea of having a National Intelligence Director, trying to move with this NCTC concept and to

do some of the things I talked about are the most pragmatic and

the most meaningful things we can do short term in order to try

to help us get from where we are to where we need to be, while

you can take more time to determine whether you want to do other

things that may take considerably longer.

Mr. KANJORSKI. You talked about resources. Has anybody made

an analysis of the amount of money that will be necessary to provide border control, shipping control, rail control protection, etc.,

for the country? Has that analysis been done?

Mr. WALKER. Not to my knowledge.

Mr. KANJORSKI. We really don’t know then what the cost of the

war on terrorism is?

Mr. WALKER. Part of the thing that has to be completed is to engage in a comprehensive threat and risk assessment, because

there’s no such thing as zero risk in today’s world, and yet we have

finite resources. So one of the reasons we felt so strongly to complete that is that it would then be able to form a discussion and

debate within the executive branch and with the Congress about

what should be done and what should be appropriated.

Mr. KANJORSKI. When you say ‘‘finite resources,’’ why do you say

that? Do you have any figure on what the war on terrorism will

cost? What will it cost us for Homeland Security?

Mr. WALKER. First, it depends upon how you define homeland security in determining what the cost is. I guess when I say finite

resources what I mean by that, Congressman, is that we need to

spend whatever we think it takes in order to try to provide for reasonable security, recognizing we can’t do everything and that we’re

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facing large structural deficits that are likely to increase in the future.

Mr. KANJORSKI. I understand, but this is wartime, basically——

Mr. WALKER. I understand that.

Mr. KANJORSKI [continuing]. So we’re not necessarily going to

have the best plan, the most efficient plan, but we have to have

a plan, and we have to get on our way to do it. I mean, is this going to cost $2 trillion or $5 trillion?

Mr. WALKER. Until you have the comprehensive threat and risk

assessment and the strategic plan from the Department of Homeland Security, it is impossible to answer that question.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Absolutely impossible?

Mr. WALKER. It would be imprudent and inappropriate for me to

answer without knowing that.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Well, Senator Kerrey just suggested that maybe

10 or 20 years from now terrorism would no longer be a threat. If

it’s going to take us 7 years to draw up a plan and then take 5

or 7 years to implement it, maybe we shouldn’t do anything, because the threat may be over by then?

Mr. WALKER. Candidly, it shouldn’t take that long to draw up a

plan. And when I talk about implementation, there are things that

have been implemented already. I think it’s important to note there

are a number of things that have happened in the last several

years. I give several examples in my testimony. There are other

things that can happen quickly.

When I talk about 5 to 7 years, I’m talking about that being how

long it takes in order to effectuate a cultural transformation in any

organization; and it could be IBM, it could be the Department of

Homeland Security, whatever, that’s how long it takes. So what we

need to do is to do other actions that can be done quickly, that

move us in the direction we want to go, recognizing that some of

the heavy lifting is going to take more time if you’re talking about

cultural transformation.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you.

Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Well, first, I agree with you, there’s going

to be time for transformation, but you have to start. And I think

we have come a long way since September 11. Unfortunately, we

always tend to criticize a lot and put blame, and we have to stop

the blame game and learn from mistakes, set up the appropriate

system that’s going to work.

Now, you’ve been here most of the day and a lot of the testimony

has been about the creation of a National Intelligence Director,

which I feel very strongly that needs to be done. I think, from a

management perspective, you need one boss, one person that’s

going to hold all agencies accountable for their performance. You

also need that person, in order to be able to have really the power

to fulfill those obligations, you need to have fiscal responsibility.

We don’t need window dressing. We need results.

I’d like your opinion about whether or not you feel that the National Intelligence Director should have fiscal authority and should

that person be in the White House, outside the White House?

A good analogy that I’ve seen so far is Greenspan. He has the

independence to do what he feels based on his expertise is right for

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the country, and yet he does work with the President and the Congress. So let me have your thoughts on that issue.

Mr. WALKER. Well, first, I don’t think it would be a good idea for

this person to be in the White House.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. And why?

Mr. WALKER. Because the White House is comprised of many

very capable and talented individuals who are not just concerned

with policies, they’re also concerned with politics.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Good point.

Mr. WALKER. And I do not think you want a person to be physically in the White House, no matter what party controls the White

House, because they are going to be interacting day in and day out

for many hours of the day with people who are concerned not just

with policy but also with politics. That would be like the Comptroller General of the United States having an office next to the majority leader or the minority leader of Congress. I think that would

be a mistake, too.

I do think it’s important that this person be a Presidential appointee, Senate confirmed, report to the President, removable by

the President for cause.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. What type of term, too, 10-year term?

Mr. WALKER. My personal opinion would be is that for the top

person, the National Intelligence Director, no, that they should be

removable by the President. But then, below that, if that’s the person who is going to be responsible and accountable, you may want

to look at the players below that. You may want to look at the CIA

Director, and you may want to look at some of these others and decide whether or not they should have term appointments. Because,

right now, as you know, the CIA Director is also the DCI, therefore, the person on the point in theory, not necessarily in practice,

and that is one of the reasons they do not have a term of appointment.

So I think you could look at that. I think there has to be solidline reporting responsibility by key players to the National Intelligence Director, although they could have to report to other players as well. They need to have budget authority. They need to have

substantive authority.

As I mentioned before, if all they have is an out-box suggesting

that people do certain things or giving input, forget it, it won’t

work. They need to have people reporting to them, and they need

to have substantive authority.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I agree, and this is why I hope the President or his staff are listening to these hearings. I really applaud

the President for coming out and saying we need a National Director, because I know he had a lot of advice to go the other way. But

if you’re going to do it, you do it right, and you have to have this

person with authority.

Now the other issue that isn’t talked about a lot, but I think it’s

a major issue here, because we’re talking about integration and

teamwork, is the Department of Defense. What most people don’t

realize is that over 80 percent of the intelligence personnel and

budget and resources go into the Department of Defense—that is

a lot of people, and that is a lot of power, and that is a lot of

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money—and then the CIA and the FBI and other agencies get the

rest.

Now I think it’s extremely important that the DOD be at the

table here. There is a bill that a group of us introduced in April,

the Intelligence Transformation Act, which also recommended that

we have the national director. And that recommendation would be

to have a Deputy Director from the Department of Defense who is

dual-hatted. There would be an under secretary in the Department

of Defense but also the Deputy Director under the National Director of Intelligence. That way you do have the DOD at the table,

and yet when it comes to intelligence budgeting, they will have

input.

Because what I’m concerned about, we know that the Secretary

of Defense is one of the most powerful positions in the world. Not

as powerful as the President, but it’s close, especially when you’re

at war. Now they have sometimes a different focus than maybe

what intelligence might; and I think it’s extremely important that

all the agencies come together, CIA, FBI, NSA, military coming together.

What is your opinion about having a dual-hatted Deputy Director

for the DOD?

Mr. WALKER. Well, first, I think it’s critically important that

DOD be part of this. They, as you properly point out, represent

over 80 percent of the resources. Let’s face it, whether you’re in the

government, the public sector, or the private sector, whoever controls the people, the money, and the technology is who you pay attention to. And that’s all the more reason why there has to be substantive responsibility and authority with regard to those things or

else the position doesn’t mean anything with regard to that.

My understanding is the 9/11 Commission is recommending

three deputy directors and that one of which would be the Under

Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. And I think it’s also important that the Congress think about, if you’re going to have this

DCI, do you want term appointments for some of the other players

and what are you going to do if an administration turns over? Who

is going to be in charge?

You may have to have a principal deputy, a principal deputy

who, hopefully, would have a term appointment, who then could be

able to provide some continuity in changes between administrations. And I would be happy to provide additional information on

that.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Just one question. The only thing about—

and whether or not the director themselves—I think it might be

wise—just have your opinion on this and then my time is up—to

have everyone have a term and then they’ll be held accountable at

the end of that term to see whether they’re going to be reappointed.

It’s an accountability factor. So instead of just saying you have one

person that could be there for life, like Herbert Hoover or someone

like that, everyone has a term.

Mr. KANJORSKI. J. Edgar.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Who?

Mr. KANJORSKI. J. Edgar Hoover.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. What did I say? Herbert Hoover?

Mr. KANJORSKI. Herbert Hoover.

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Mr. WALKER. He only got one term.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. He only had one term; right. I don’t want

to get into that right now. There are fiscal issues involved there,

too.

But the Hoover issue, I think, is extremely important so that you

do have terms for all the deputies and whatever and also the director. But then they have to come back for confirmation, and their

performance would be analyzed by Congress. What do you think of

that?

Mr. WALKER. I think there are certain positions where there’s

strong merit to considering having a Presidential appointee, Senate

confirmation for a term appointment, with a performance contract

geared toward trying to achieve demonstrable results. Now I think

you have to be careful which ones. Right now, you have that for

the FBI Director.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Think it works?

Mr. WALKER. I think it works pretty well. I think you could consider it for other key positions in the intelligence community,

where you’re talking about national security, which would be a

nonpartisan issue. This is below the Director for National Intelligence. You could consider it for the CIA Director. You could consider it, possibly, for the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

But my personal opinion is that, whoever is on the point, the

President has to be comfortable. Whoever it is, the President has

to be comfortable, because that is the person they are looking to

for primary advice and to integrate different activities and to make

sure the right things are being done and the right people are being

held accountable.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Ruppersberger.

Thank you, General Walker. Thank you for your indulgence.

Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your testimony. It really makes a lot of sense. It’s just common sense stuff, and we certainly need to address a lot of things you’ve talked about, and I

think it’s incumbent on this Congress, this committee, to do that.

So thank you very much for being here.

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SCHROCK. We’ll take about a 5-minute break here while we

set up for the fourth panel.

[Recess.]

Mr. SCHROCK. We will now move on to our fourth and final

panel. We thank you all for your indulgence as well.

We are happy to have today Mr. Paul Light, who is with the New

York School of Public Service; Mr. Bob Collet, vice president of engineering, AT&T Government Solutions; Mr. Dan Duff, vice president of government affairs for the American Public Transportation

Association; Mr. John McCarthy, executive director of the critical

infrastructure protection project—boy, that’s a mouthful, critical infrastructure protection project—and Jim Dempsey, who is executive

director, Center For Democracy and Technology.

Gentlemen, it is the policy of this committee that all witnesses

be sworn, so if you will please stand and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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Mr. SCHROCK. Let the record show that all witnesses answered

in the affirmative.

We would ask that you try to hold your testimony to 5 minutes

to allow for some questions and answers, and of course your entire

statement will be made part of the record.

We’ll start with Dr. Light.

STATEMENTS OF PAUL C. LIGHT, ROBERT F. WAGNER SCHOOL

OF PUBLIC SERVICE, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY; BOB COLLET,

VICE PRESIDENT, ENGINEERING, AT&T GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS; DANIEL DUFF, VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION;

JOHN MCCARTHY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION PROJECT; AND JIM DEMPSEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY

Mr. LIGHT. Thank you for this hearing. Thank you for your work.

We have been here before.

Mr. SCHROCK. I know you have.

Mr. LIGHT. No, we have.

Mr. SCHROCK. Yes.

Mr. LIGHT. We’ve been here on a dozen issues over the last 10

years dealing with duplication, overlap, lack of communication

across Federal agencies. We were here talking about IRS taxpayer

abuse, the nuclear security issue at the Department of Energy.

We’ve talked about FBI reorganization several times, homeland security, food safety, you name it.

In my testimony, you will see a reference to these issues and my

support for reorganization authority, properly defined and properly

limited. But I believe that as part of whatever legislation you

produce that you should give the President authority to be more

proactive by way of reorganization than reactive.

We have heard a lot of testimony today. It is moving and important. I have heard these recommendations made before in other

commissions. We have on the table, for example, a number of solutions that we’ve seen before, some that have worked, some that

have not. We have had czars, some that have been strong, some

that have been not strong. We have had reorganizations that have

worked and some that haven’t.

On the issue of the National Intelligence Director, let me be

clear, and off my testimony, that I believe the position should be

separate from the White House. It should be at executive level one.

That is Cabinet-level status. That does not mean the person has to

sit at the Cabinet table. That individual should have a term of office.

A term of office does not imply you cannot be fired. It is hortatory in most cases, except for the Comptroller General, whom we

hire for 15 years and hope he will stay. But a term of office sends

a message to the rest of the Federal bureaucracy that this person

is going to be around and the presumption is in favor of continuity.

The President can always fire, the question being whether you

want it to be so strict as to fire for cause, which is a more extreme

measure, or whether you just want to give the President that authority.

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I absolutely strongly encourage you to give the National Intelligence Director some budget and personnel authority. This current

proposal that’s floating around today at least is no carrot and no

stick; and the czar is going to have to have some authority to make

agencies respond, including authority to require streamlining plans

from the agencies that he or she receives information from.

Let me suggest to this committee as you proceed with your deliberations that you be proactive so that we’re not revisiting this over

and over again in reaction by addressing reorganization authority,

that you deal with the significant thickening of the bureaucracy

that reports to the National Intelligence Director. It doesn’t make

any sense to add a new layer of bureaucracy if we don’t delayer the

existing agencies. We’ve got to do that.

In the 6 years since I last looked at these issues, all of our intelligence agencies, in fact, all agencies in the Federal Government,

have grown both taller and wider. At the FBI, we’ve added an entirely new layer of executive assistant directors. I’m sure they perform an important service and that the accountability that came

with the new layer was essential. We also added a chief of staff to

the director. You see this at the CIA, you see it at the NSA, you

see the proliferation of titles. We’ve got to do something about it.

Because it’s like the childhood game of gossip or telephone where

we’re just passing information back and forth.

We absolutely must use this opportunity to fix the Presidential

appointments process. What difference will a National Intelligence

Director make if he or she cannot be nominated and confirmed in

a reasonable amount of time? The average time to get in office for

the Bush administration was 81⁄4 months. That is a long time to

wait, especially if we are in a transformation that’s going to take

7 years.

Finally, we have to address the personnel issues embedded in the

Department. I believe you should give the national director, the intelligence director, the same authorities embedded in the defense

personnel reforms and embedded in the Homeland Security reforms. I think those are important in terms of the discipline in the

work force at the new agency. It wouldn’t be a bad thing for you

to extend those authorities down into the intelligence community

at large as part of holding people accountable.

I will submit my testimony for the record, and I will await any

questions you might have. Thank you very much for having me.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Dr. Light.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Light follows:]

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Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Collet, welcome.

Mr. COLLET. Good afternoon. My name is Bob Collet. I’m vice

president of engineering for AT&T’s Government Solutions division. Thank you for inviting us here to discuss AT&T’s view on the

need to share critical network infrastructure information. We applaud the consistent efforts of this committee to improve the overall infrastructure security of the Federal Government and the Nation.

At AT&T, we take our responsibility to protect against information or infrastructure vulnerability very seriously, and we are constantly updating our network security in response to ever-changing

threats against the network.

Following the tragic events of September 11, we have meaningfully increased our efforts by deploying new technologies and infrastructures. For the recent Democratic convention, for example, we

applied what we have done in all our critical nodes with a locationspecific network recovery strategy in case of terrorist action, and

we stationed a response team in Boston to be ready to implement

that plan if it should be needed. Obviously, we will be doing the

same for the upcoming Republican convention, and we do the same

thing for other high-profile events.

As you know, most of our country’s critical infrastructure is

owned and operated by the private sector. Thus, the private sector

does play a role in ensuring the safeguarding of the infrastructure.

Now, while our contribution can’t compare to sacrifices of the first

responders, the availability of telecommunications infrastructure is

essential, and we are concerned about well-meaning but fundamentally unsound initiatives to collect infrastructure information outside the methods and procedures that have served our Nation so

well in the past.

In particular, a concern is that critical telecommunications infrastructure information should not be collected in multiple places

where the information, in its collected form, would be vulnerable

to intrusion. With regard to telecommunications, this country has

a tested, trusted approach that we should continue to use and optimize. In this context, let me describe two of these public-private

partnerships.

First, within the Department of Homeland Security, and that is

the National Coordination Center Information Sharing Analysis

Center. The good news for telecommunications is that this sector

has been a leader in forging a public-private partnership to address

infrastructure security. Telecom carriers have shared information

informally with the NCS, or the National Communication System,

since its inception in 1984; and since March 2000, the NCS’s NCC,

or National Coordinating Center, has served as the Information

Sharing and Analysis Center [ISAC], for telecommunications. The

participants include industry and government representatives, including the FCC; and they gather and share information about

threats and vulnerabilities.

There are three reasons why this is successful. The first is the

government routinely provides specific threat and alert information

to industry representatives. Second, the NCC Telecom-ISAC has

demonstrated an ability to handle corporate proprietary information and government classified information in a secured manner.

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And, third, in times of crisis, they act as an ombudsman on behalf

of industry, helping industry complete its mission.

So, for example, during September 11, the NCC helped network

providers obtain access to Ground Zero. We have an atmosphere of

trust and cooperation in which industry feels confident in sharing

sensitive information with the government and with our competitors in times of crisis.

The second institution is another example of the partnership that

has worked and should be a model for any government industry

problem solving, and that is the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council of the FCC. This was organized back in 1992. It is

a forum where industry, consumers, and government come together

for the sharing of work-specific issues. A good example of its ability

to perform was during the Y2K. Since then, there has been a focus,

understandably, on homeland security, with teams addressing both

physical and cyberlevel security.

NRIC VII is further enhancing this work. The product is an extensive set of best practices for service providers, network operators, and equipment vendors. There are literally hundreds of best

practices that have been developed.

Now, the NRIC also monitors and analyzes information prepared

or received from the public network over the last 10 years. In order

for this effort to be successful, it must be voluntary. This is to encourage the utmost in the sharing of information and experience.

Second, it must be developed by industry experts that make it.

And, third, it must be adaptable and usable by the country’s infrastructure providers, and they are us.

Now, let me address the issue of safeguarding or sharing private

information.

As a private sector operator of a major part of one of America’s

most important critical infrastructures, we clearly have to safeguard all information about our physical locations, capabilities, and

components of our worldwide infrastructure. An ongoing major concern of the industry remains the public dissemination of the availability of critical information who has a desire to do harm to the

national communications network.

Despite these concerns, we have been asked by various wellmeaning government agencies for specific but we consider extremely sensitive information about capabilities, including maps,

network facilities and infrastructure. Now, in the wrong hands, the

compilation of this critical infrastructure assets only increases the

vulnerability of the telecommunications infrastructure. So, while

well-intentioned, we believe such requirements would greatly

hinder our ability to protect the survivability and availability of the

network.

So in order to ensure that all information provided which contains critical infrastructure information is protected from our adversaries through public disclosure, we recommend that it be routed through one Federal Government agency. We believe that agency should be the Department of Homeland Security, because of the

very good track record of the NCS.

By initially providing voluntary reporting to the DHS in the

event of a terrorist attack or an act of nature that affects all major

utilities and communications, including the communications infraVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:42 Dec 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00220 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96537.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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structure, of course, one agency would maintain the responsibility

for leadership in coordinating restoration efforts. The coordination

of a unified response should result in greater efficiency and effectiveness in the restoration and recovery process.

Accordingly, we believe the DHS process for administering the

protection of critical infrastructure should continue to reside with

those entities that have the mission to assure continuous

connectivity.

In closing, in this time of elevated terror threat levels, we must

take every step necessary to protect America’s citizens. This committee’s work, among its responsibilities to be responsive to the

issues highlighted by the 9/11 Commission, is to ensure that survivability and security be key features of the next-generation telecommunications service in the Federal Government.

We at AT&T are living up to that responsibility in the fullest

manner every day. But, in some cases, a need to know better protects America than a well-meaning but undefined need to share.

Therefore, we ask that you carefully consider the security ramifications of wider information sharing as you proceed in your deliberations.

AT&T would like to thank Chairman Davis and members of this

committee for holding this hearing on this important issue, and I

offer AT&T’s assistance in your endeavors on this matter. Thank

you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS [presiding]. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Collet follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Duff, welcome.

Mr. DUFF. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank

you for this opportunity to testify on the 9/11 Commission report

and related issues. We commend the House Committee on Government Reform for holding this hearing today.

Let me start, if I could, with just a word about my organization,

the American Public Transportation Association, which is a nonprofit international trade association of over 1,500 public and private member organizations, including transit systems and commuter rail operations and the businesses that provide the goods

and services to the industry. Some 90 percent of persons using public transportation in the United States today are served by APTA

member systems.

A few background facts about public transportation. Over 9 billion transit trips are taken annually on all modes of transit service.

People use public transportation vehicles over 32 million times

each weekday. To put this into perspective, this is more than 16

times the number of daily travelers aboard the Nation’s domestic

airlines. The vast number of Americans using public transportation

each and every day creates ongoing challenges for enhancing security within our transit environments.

Since the events of September 11, State and local public transit

agencies, in fact, all State and local entities, have spent significant

sums on police overtime, enhanced planning and training exercises,

and capital improvements related to security. In response to a recent APTA survey, transit agencies around the country have identified in excess of $6 billion in transit security needs.

These include both immediate capital investments and recurring

operating expenses related to security.

In the months following the September 11th terrorist attacks,

transit agencies of all sizes worked to identify where they might be

vulnerable to attacks and increased their security investment for

both operation and capital activities. The agencies subsequently

upgraded and strengthened their emergency response and security

plans and procedures, taking steps to protect transit infrastructure

and patrons and increase transit security presence.

All transit system buses and trains are equipped with two-way

radio communication systems that are connected to their respective

operations control centers. Many transit systems have been in the

costly process of upgrading these systems to ensure their reliability.

While many transit agencies are more secure than prior to September 11th, much more needs to be done. And one of the key

measures that the transit industry recognized it needed to do was

focus on enhanced communications. In that regard, public transportation is recognized by the Federal Government to be one of our

Nation’s critical infrastructures. And APTA is pleased to have been

designated public transportation sector coordinator by the U.S. Department of Transportation. And in that capacity, in January 2003,

APTA received a $1.2 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration to establish and fund a Transit Information Sharing

Analysis Center for its initial 2 years of operations.

This ISAC for public transit provides 24/7 a secure two-way reporting and analysis structure for the transmission of critical alerts

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and advisories. It collects, analyzes and distributes critical cyber

and physical security information from Government and numerous

other sources. These sources include law enforcement, Government

operations centers, the intelligence community, the U.S. military,

academia and others. Best security practices and plans to eliminate

threats, attacks, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures are drawn

upon to protect the sector’s cyber and physical infrastructures.

The public transit ISAC also provides a critical linkage between

the transit industry, the Department of Homeland Security, the

Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of

Transportation, as well as other sources of security intelligence.

Transit systems are public agencies and rely upon Federal, State,

and local funding. Consequently, the public transit ISAC is available without cost to all transit systems. There are currently over

130 transit systems participating in the public transit ISAC, and

these numbers continue to grow. Funding for this ISAC will, however, end by February 2005. We agree with the recent GAO report

on ISACs where it identified as a challenge requiring further Federal action the funding of ISAC operations and activities. APTA

has made a request for funding to continue the public transit ISAC

to the Department of Homeland Security in January of this year,

and we currently await their support of this request. Failure to

fund this project on an ongoing basis would mean that public

transportation systems would be without the very resource that the

Federal Government has encouraged for our Nation’s critical infrastructures.

Let me turn briefly to the 9/11 Commission Report. And with respect to transportation security, that report recommends that the

U.S. Government identify and evaluate the transportation assets

that need to be protected, set risk-based priorities for defending

them, select the most practical and cost-effective ways of doing so

and then develop a plan, budget and funding to implement the effort.

I spoke earlier about the needs that we have identified in the

area of $6 billion, and we would urge the Department of Homeland

Security to take up that initiative, because, while we appreciate the

funding that has been made available to date, in the $100 million

range, we think there are much greater needs.

One other final point I would like to make, Mr. Chairman, is that

we also think it would be useful if the Department of Homeland

Security and the Department of Transportation together worked

out a memorandum of understanding to address the roles of those

two agencies in working with public transportation security. DHS

clearly is the lead in that regard, but DOT has years of experience

in working with local public transportation entities, and DHS

should utilize that experience.

Mr. Chairman, we look forward to building on our cooperative

working relationship with the Department of Homeland Security

and Congress to begin to address these needs. We again thank you

and the committee for allowing us to testify today and your commitment to addressing the security information needs of our Nation’s critical infrastructure.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Duff follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. McCarthy.

Mr. MCCARTHY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the

committee. Thank you very much for having me today. I am John

McCarthy, the director of the critical infrastructure protection

project at George Mason University School of Law. I would like to

quickly discuss the project and give you the context of why our testimony today is relevant.

George Mason about 2 years ago started a program to build an

interdisciplinary program around critical infrastructure. The guiding principles were interdisciplinary research—to build an interdisciplinary research curriculum. It would be multi-institutional,

and that the work support the national agenda. To date, we have

sponsored close to 100 researchers around the Nation, with upwards of 70 schools to do work in the area of homeland security

critical infrastructure protection.

Two programs which are especially relevant to this discussion

today that we have spun off as separate projects and received separate funding for are as follows: One is the work we do with the National Capital Region. The Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of

Maryland and the District of Columbia have pooled their Homeland

Security research money and asked the critical infrastructure

project to provide oversight for their work in the National Capital

Region relative to critical infrastructure protection. So we are operating a consortium of scholars and researchers from some 10 area

universities looking at vulnerability assessment in the National

Capital Region. So that’s looking at the problem from a very local

perspective.

Also, we have been asked by the Department of Homeland Security to, in essence, be the executive directorate for the sector coordinators in the Information Sharing and Analysis Centers. Our goal

is to build out those private sector entities, assist them with strategic planning, assist them in organization and moving the national

agenda forward and working with Homeland Security to make logical connections between the entities that the private sector has

built, some of which have been articulated here, and what’s being

built inside the Department of Homeland Security.

Relative to the 9/11 report, I have a brief comment on three

areas that were raised in the report. First is that our Nation’s decision to consolidate Homeland Security has improved information

sharing in significant ways in the opinion of the project. DHS has

focused and energized on sharing threat information. In providing

a single point of contact, the new Department is working to provide

an efficient way to share threat analysis and disseminate sensitive

information to the right people at the right place at the right time.

I don’t want to sound like a cheerleader, because it’s not a perfect

system, and I think you will probably hear testimony relative to

this weekend as an example of some issues.

But the fact is that we have moved significantly from where we

were 3 years ago during September 11 in terms of being able to

disseminate and have discussion simultaneously with an incident

as opposed to after the fact when everyone’s either been left out of

the decisionmaking process or improperly briefed.

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A second point is that the committee should consider ways to involve the private sector in the Government-wide information-sharing reforms discussed today. This idea was mentioned by several

of the previous panels. While you are focused on the formation and

reformation of the intelligence community, one critical piece that

cannot be left out is all the work that’s being done in the private

sector, the ISACs and the sector coordinator activity and how that

can roll up in a logical way and touch these new entities.

And we at CIP project feel very strongly that this single point

of contact with the private sector right now should remain with the

Department of Homeland Security. So any mechanisms that are

built to connect to this new national director to the private sector

should be through DHS.

And the third point speaks to the technology. We vigorously applaud the 9/11 Commissioners for promoting the critical role of

technology to this agenda. Within the research project portion of

the CIP element that I mentioned before, we have invested a great

deal in the area of technology balanced with a look at the business

governance, and the economic and the legal implications of that

technology. We’ve set priority goals at CIP for looking at developing

a comprehensive understanding of infrastructure vulnerability, developing tools to assess these vulnerabilities, offering research on

complex interdependencies between the infrastructure’s sectors, developing concepts, metrics and models to support decision allocating resources, the Homeland Security initiatives, measuring

progress and developing effective systems of public-private partnership that afford true information sharing.

One key emphasis when you are looking at technology, again,

relative to the intelligence agenda, is this notion of the amount of

data that’s out there and building programs that begin to help the

decisionmakers sort. Its biometrics and other access clearance-type

technologies are very important to this, but the ability to find the

needle in the haystack—the data stream is massive and huge. It’s

a major paradigm shift in the intelligence community, and that

technology and that focus on research, I think, is very useful. And

we very much support that agenda at GMU.

One question that I would like to address that was brought up

in some of the previous testimony was the idea of moving the Commission forward. One project that we sponsored using the CIP

money was an oral history of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, another feeding commission into the

body of knowledge that’s led up to the discussion today.

And one of the key lessons that we learned in analyzing that previous commission’s work was that the commission, almost immediately after it reported out—and the result of that was the signing

of Presidential Decision Directive 63—the commission was disbanded, and there was very little interaction between the entities

that took over to implement the findings of the commission and the

former commissioners.

And one major theme that’s come out of our preliminary study

and the oral history is that you should not let that happen. And

I think I heard that message loud and clear, and I hope that was

recognized by the committee.

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And one final point, while outside the scope of the CIP project

and my testimony today, I’m sure I will be asked, in terms of the

National Intelligence Directorate and the formation of that, based

on my prior Government experience, I strongly support my colleagues and the suggestions today that it should be outside the

White House, but for another kind of reasoning. And it goes back

to a prior life as a Coast Guard officer and a commanding officer

of a ship, the notion that the CO never stands watch. When you

put a critical function like that intelligence integrator into the

White House, you are, in essence, co-locating that person with the

President. And it’s an extension of the CO’s authority. The CO

should be standing back and watching and managing and having

activity develop and be able to step in when problems arise. And

when that’s co-located in the White House, I don’t think that can

happen. And if a problem does arise, it puts it at the foot of the

President as opposed to out in the Departments where operational

decisions should be made.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McCarthy follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Dempsey.

Mr. DEMPSEY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the

committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today at this

first hearing in the House of Representatives on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. It’s a privilege to sit here at this

table following the commissioners, Secretary Lehman and Senator

Kerrey, and the families of the survivors. To both the commissioners and the families, our Nation owes a debt of gratitude for

their dedication and commitment and insight.

There are three issues confronting the President and the Congress, today and in the coming weeks, that I would like to address.

The first question is how can we better share intelligence information, law enforcement information, at all levels of Government in

order to prevent terrorism? Important progress has been made

since September 11 to improve information sharing, but still we do

not have a decentralized dynamic network for the sharing of information. Still there are technological barriers as well as institutional barriers.

The Markle Foundation has a Task Force on National Security

in the Information Age. This task force has been in existence now

for 3 years. It is made up on a bipartisan basis of experts with national security backgrounds from the Carter, the first Bush administration, the Reagan administration, and the Clinton administration, and experts from the technology and privacy fields. They’ve

issued two reports. The most recent one was in December of last

year, ‘‘Creating a Trusted Information Network for Homeland Security.’’ They spell out in that report how, using off-the-shelf technology, it is possible to build a network to better share information.

The tools are available. It’s based upon write-to-release. It’s based

upon federated searches across agencies. It’s a system that promotes horizontal sharing of information and downward sharing of

information as well as the stovepiped and upward sharing of information. It is based upon writing reports to be disclosed, for using

tear lines to protect sources and methods.

We need to get on with building this network. There are steps

that we can take beginning immediately with establishing directories and pointers so that at least we know what we know, and

so that we can find out who has the information.

The second question confronting the President and this Congress

is who should be in charge of the information and intelligence sharing and analysis effort? Now, with the recommendations of the 9/

11 Commission and with the decision of the President yesterday,

that question has been answered to some extent. If we establish

and move forward as the President has said he will with the director of national intelligence, there are many important questions to

be addressed, including eliminating duplication and correcting or

clarifying the lines of authority between existing analysis centers.

But, certainly, a key part of the role of the director of national intelligence should be the answering of those questions.

The third question is how to do this while protecting the privacy

and the civil liberties of ordinary citizens. Now, the 9/11 Commission was 100 percent clear that we can and must address this

threat of terrorism consistent with our civil liberties. They called

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for an enhanced system of checks and balances to protect precious

liberties that are vital to our way of life.

The Gilmore Commission chaired by former Virginia Governor

Gilmore reached the same conclusion. The TAPAC—the Technology

and Privacy Advisory Committee appointed by Secretary Rumsfeld

also stressed the importance of protecting privacy, as did the

Markle Task Force.

Part of the answer is in the technologies themselves,

anonymization technologies that will minimize the amount of information that is collected, quality control measures, auditing trails to

make sure that information is not being abused or misused or compromised, and also the policies. The wall is now down; no one is

proposing re-erecting it. Intelligence agencies and law enforcement

agencies are sharing information as they never did before. The

Government agencies have broad collection authority. There is really not any information that the Government does not have the

legal authority to get. But the Privacy Act and our other rules are

outdated, and the guidelines have not been put in place for this

new information-sharing environment.

And these guidelines need not tie the hands of investigators and

law enforcement and intelligence officials. In fact, the guidelines

can empower the officials as well as constrain them by telling them

what is permissible and what they are authorized to do. We will

need oversight, both congressional and in the executive branch.

This Congress was wise in creating a privacy officer and a civil

rights and civil liberties officer when it created the Department of

Homeland Security. Similar mechanisms need to be created for the

new information-sharing structures. At the end of the day, the

oversight and accountability mechanisms will benefit both national

security and civil liberties. Well implemented accountability need

not impede intelligence operations. Checks and balances result in

clear lines of responsibility, well-allocated resources, protection

against abuse, and the ability to evaluate and correct past mistakes.

As this committee moves forward to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 committee, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the members of the Markle Task Force are at your disposal to work with you and move forward in achieving our shared

goals. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dempsey follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me just thank all of you for being patient, staying with us today. This testimony is important as we contemplate where we go from here as a committee and as a Congress.

Let me start the questioning with you, Mr. Light. You are no

stranger to this committee. In addition to the other elements, you

hit on two major themes in your testimony: One, that there are too

many layers of bureaucracy in our Federal Government; and two,

that Congress needs to reauthorize Executive Reorganization Authority.

To me, these two issues seem to be intertwined. Will you agree

that much of the bureaucracy comes from congressional micromanagement and that reorganization authority would be one way

to try to diminish some of the micromanagement and free Congress

to focus on broader policy goals?

Mr. LIGHT. I agree, absolutely, with the second. The layering of

Government, this thickening that I talk about is like Kudzu; it

grows from many sources. Some of it’s micromanagement. Some of

it’s perfectly legitimate expansion due to congressional decisions

and executive decisions on policy priorities. Some, as you know,

from your hearings on the Civil Service system, reflect backdoor

pay raises. And, you know, it’s like the stalagmites and stalactites

problems. Some of it drips down; some of it rises up.

You need a mechanism that the President can take hold of to attack it. You have to be persistent about it. And I believe that reorganization authority properly constrained to allow congressional action on an expedited timetable is an appropriate device for constraining it. It’s the kind of thing that grows unless you check it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And the separation of powers is no way

to do that? Is it because it’s difficult once the Federal program gets

created? I mean, there is nothing closer to eternal life, it seems to

me.

Mr. LIGHT. Well, you need to make agencies pay a price for each

new layer they create. We don’t do that in the Government. The

private sector does. There is a price to be paid on the profit line.

So you have to be diligent about tracking it. And I think that requires a strong executive authority. And, also, the credible threat

that you are going to do something about it as you see the layering

occur.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Your testimony explains that there were

long gaps in the management during the administration change,

creating an environment where intelligence and information is either lost or misinterpreted or you lose some history. What steps

need to be taken to ensure that the appointment process runs

smoothly and within a reasonable timeframe to prevent these types

of problems?

Mr. LIGHT. Well, there is a perfectly reasonable first step that’s

already been drafted out. Your professional staff was involved in it

on the other side. We could make enormous progress from simply

streamlining the forms that we have our appointees fill out, by

making them all electronically available, by populating information

across forms. We could get the Senate and the White House to

agree on some simple technological fixes and, in doing so, lead

them toward the kind of compact that would allow for some tight

rules regarding movement of nominations forward.

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It makes no sense again to create a National Intelligence Directorate if it’s going to take you 81⁄2 months to get somebody in that

position and if the turnover is 18 to 24 months, if people are only

staying that long. And so that’s why I think a term of office encourages the kind of presumption in favor of at least staying long

enough to make an impact. But there are some very easy fixes that

I would attach to whatever legislation you push out here. And, of

course, the 9/11 Commission made recommendations on the appointments process.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask the other panelists. Currently,

the private sector really collects the information about critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and threats through the ISACs. Last

week, GAO issued a report on critical infrastructure protection

which found that this system’s ineffective, because the private sector is concerned its information being shared with Government will

be made public, and that has a lot of ramifications from business

liability. Do all of you share that concern? Mr. Collet, I’ll start with

you, from AT&T’s perspective, and move straight on down.

Mr. COLLET. Sure. As I mentioned, we have been working with

the Department of Homeland Security and the NCS since its inception, when it was organized under the White House. And during

those years we have continuously shared information with the Federal Government. It’s a very good relationship. I am unaware of

any deficiency that we have in what we report to the NCS within

DHS. So perhaps our industry is blessed, because, since 1984, we

have had the equivalent of an ISAC, and over the years a level of

trust and confidence has developed for both parties.

So today, as telecommunications expands to include things like

wireless and satellite and other media besides wireline, I think the

scope of what they do will be expanded a bit. But it seems to be

a good working model, and perhaps all that we need to do there

is continue working with what we have because it has a very good

track record.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Any other panelists want to address that?

Mr. DUFF. Just a quick point, Mr. Chairman. The public transit

ISAC is a little bit different. I think it is one of the few that is in

the public domain. Most of the members of that ISAC are public

bodies, and we are protected by a provision in the Patriot Act that

preempts any State’s Sunshine Laws. So there is an element of protection there that makes our members feel comfortable in sharing

information, and many of them have joined up with it.

Mr. MCCARTHY. Yes, sir. In working with virtually all the ISACs

and the emerging ISACs, along with DHS, what you are hearing

is three or four different business models, the NCS being a wellestablished, close relationship between the Government and private

sector. What’s behind that, when you go back historically is a very

significant amount of Government funding, along with private sector contribution, and a firm commitment on both sides.

You flip all the way over the financial sector, and their’s is a totally private sector entity without Government interaction. And

then there is everything in between, and people trying to pick.

So the issue is much more—trying to pick one as the model is

very difficult to do. The information sharing issue is, in my mind,

radically changing as we move from the PDD 63 environment

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where the ISACs were the brain child and generated from out of

the original President’s commission, and now we are in the Homeland Security HSPD 7 model where there is money on the table

with significant funding. With that comes responsibility and accountability back.

So that’s a challenge that both the private sector and the Government have to work through relative to this. If the Government

is putting money on the table to fund ISACs or pieces of ISACs or

sector coordinator activity, what kind of responsibility and information sharing comes back from that? I think that’s a key question

that I see out there for both parties.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. DEMPSEY. Mr. Chairman, I’m not familiar with the GAO

study you mentioned. I’m surprised a little bit by it. Speaking just

for CDT, I thought that the FOIA issue was taken care of in the

legislation that was passed. I have to say, quite honestly, that CDT

was skeptical that FOIA exemption was necessary or that it needed

to be as broadly drafted as it was.

But now that’s in place, and it’s in place in a very broad fashion.

If there is not sufficient information sharing still going on, then we

need to look elsewhere for the cause of that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Kanjorski.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McCarthy, when you were testifying—I now came to the realization why the unemployment hasn’t moved up. Apparently, we

are hiring an awful lot of people to do a lot of thinking and writing

a lot of articles. It seems all our entities have to go out there and

come up with these plans that we are talking about.

You heard earlier testimony today about—from Mr. Walker—this

may take 5 to 7 years to come up with a structured plan of how

to handle the war on terrorism? Do you have any experiences at

the table that could short-circuit that and get us on our way? It

struck me that the terrorists, for $500,000 and 19 men killed 3,000

Americans and drove right through the strongest Nation in the

world in a relatively short period of time, several years. Why in the

world such a sophisticated Nation as this has to struggle so hard

to get a plan and policy together to meet the challenge?

I was just commenting to one of the reporters who asked me the

question, I think General Eisenhower planned and put together

and implemented the invasion of Normandy in 18 months, and the

Manhattan Project less than 18 years. Have we become so muscle

bound as a country and as a Government that we are not capable

of re-instituting some of our institutions to be able to meet this

threat? What seems to be the problem?

Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman, if I could venture to answer that.

I don’t think it takes that long. I think we have to all recognize

and appreciate that very important strides have been made since

September 11 in improving information sharing and increasing cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The

President said it. The 9/11 Commission said it: We are safer, but

we are not safe.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Well, I think they say that. But if you get out

in the country and you talk to the first responders, they are going

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to tell you they don’t have any damned equipment to handle any

biological attack, chemical attack. They have no training. They

don’t have the vehicles.

Mr. DEMPSEY. Well, the State and local piece is often the most

overlooked piece of this on the information-sharing side as well as

the preparedness side.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Well, that’s what bothers me. I mean, that’s

where the people are going to die out there on the street. They are

not going to die in the Capitol here, or maybe a few of us will. But

the ones we are worried about are out there on the street, and the

first responders of them, and they haven’t heard any of the—I

think I talked to Tom Ridge the other day. And a minimal amount

of the Homeland Security money is starting to trickle out through

the various established State entities.

Mr. DEMPSEY. Well, I won’t comment upon the equipment issue

because that’s not really my area of expertise.

But on the information-sharing piece, we heard today from both

the commissioners as well as from members of the committee the

concern about the fact that, in the past, so much information was

tightly held, for a variety of reasons, both good and bad.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Information is power.

Mr. DEMPSEY. But we have the opportunity now to move to a situation, as the title of the hearing is, of need to share and of write

to release, and breaking down some of the rigid classification systems.

Mr. KANJORSKI. You heard some of the testimony earlier. It disturbed me, this movement to put somebody in the White House. I

agree with all of you saying, if you put it in the White House, God

forbid, you may have the next dictatorship in the United States if

you do that. And I’m not just talking about this White House. I’m

talking about any White House, putting an intelligence person who

controls that much information and money in a political home such

as the White House.

It just seems to me—I’m not old enough to remember when J.

Edgar Hoover was hired, but I know there was a great threat of

prohibition and criminality in this country, and they took this

young kid from wherever he came from, and they started the FBI,

the first Federal Bureau of Investigation. And, by God, by the time

it got to Lyndon Johnson, they couldn’t fire him because he had a

book on everybody, not only those who lived in the White House

but everybody up here on Capitol Hill. And if he lived to have been

200, he would still be the Director of the FBI.

And we are talking, right here and now, this great fear of terrorism, throw away all the protections, all prior experiences, get a

czar in place, give him all the power, all the money, and, hopefully,

this great white knight, whoever he is, will not be ambitious politically or otherwise. I mean, I don’t hear anybody talking about if

we put all this power and all this money in one person’s hands,

where are our protections that he literally couldn’t become a dictator and the very thing we are trying to save, democracy, he could

take away of from us?

Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman, the thrust of my testimony is that

director and the other structures that we are creating need to be

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nal auditing. There is no choice that we have other than to create

a web of controls and checks and balances and mechanisms of accountability. This committee and this Congress have a role in that.

The other two branches of Government do as well.

Mr. SHAYS. I want to give Mr. Schrock a chance to ask some

questions. Thanks.

Mr. Schrock.

Mr. SCHROCK. That was going pretty well, I thought.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I believe the point that the 9/11 Commission Report makes about

the inherent weakness of an identification system that relies solely

on paper-based identification such as the passport is certainly

thought-provoking. And I’m a supporter of efforts to develop a biometric-based method of identification, because I believe that it has

multiple benefits, including reduction and reducing the burden on

security screeners in a variety of settings and in making identity

theft and fraud a lot more difficult. I believe that we can achieve

a workable and secure biometric-based system that is practical and

affordable.

And I am also aware that there is great potential for infringing

upon civil liberties which we’ve heard a lot about today. But I just

cannot accept that, as a Nation, with all the dedicated people in

Government and private industry, and with all the organizations

dedicated to protecting civil liberties, that we cannot come up with

a workable solution that makes us more secure in our homes and

workplace and in our civil rights. I would like to get your thoughts

on what you believe the greatest challenges are in achieving a system of biometric-based identification similar to what the Commission recommends, any of you.

Mr. MCCARTHY. Individual acceptance. I think it boils down to

the individual accepting it. You can go back to the implementation

of any technology. Go back to seafaring. For many years, you look

at the pictures in the museums, and you see this beautiful ship

with four or three huge masts with sails and smokestacks, because

the sailors would not accept the fact that those boilers are going

to take me—get me under way. All the stories about the people not

using the ATM machines when it first came out, that it’s going to

steal your money instead of giving the money back. It’s acceptance

on the part of the people. And I’m not sure, no matter what kind

of time lines directed or driven or pushed, that’s ever going to

change.

Mr. DUFF. And reliability?

Mr. MCCARTHY. And the reliability of it.

Mr. COLLET. I also think we have contemporary examples to look

at. I think, just a few years ago, people were concerned about shopping over the Internet because they were concerned about identity

theft or security. And now, people are buying over the Internet all

the time. So there was a tipping point that was reached in which

it became very commercially viable and attractive, and you know,

e-commerce is doing very well now because of that. The same thing

might be true for cell phones.

Mr. SCHROCK. So time? It’s just timing and education and understanding and trying to accept something that they are not used to

then?

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Mr. COLLET. True. And clearly, I’m sure when you use your computer either at home or in the office you have to log in every time

to every particular application that you use, and that’s inconvenient. I think a biometric system may be coming sooner than people

think from the commercial sector because it will make commerce

easier. It will make office automation easier. It will make life more

pleasant. I think a lot of people will go for it.

Mr. SCHROCK. Dr. Light.

Mr. LIGHT. Well, I think that Chapter 12 of the 9/11 report is

quite detailed and quite important and has received almost no attention whatsoever. We have been focused on the intelligence czar

and appropriately so. But you have to talk with your Appropriations Committee chairs, subcommittee chairs about injecting some

money into this effort.

I talked to the people at DHS, and they are telling me that they

are being nickel-and-dimed to death, and they don’t have access to

the dollars they need. Now, I’m not saying you have to double their

budget, but, you know, we are at a point where you may need to

raise the budget and also allow the Department to hire more people. Much as we hate bureaucracy and big Government and so

forth, it may mean that we have to inject some more resources into

the effort.

Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman, if I could.

Mr. SCHROCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. DEMPSEY. As Mr. Light said, the recommendations of the

Commission on biometric identification and screening are some of

its most important and detailed recommendations.

At the same time, the Commission also notes that there are very

important and very difficult unanswered questions about moving

forward. They recommend what has, I think, become the accepted

path, which is strengthening the State driver’s license. The Center

for Democracy and Technology last year issued a report looking at

practices at the State DMVs, and they have a serious security problem. They have people getting officially issued but fraudulently obtained State driver’s licenses. They have people breaking into

DMVs and stealing the machines and stealing the blank cards and

then being able to mass produce their own very authentic-looking,

biometrically based ID cards. They obviously have a corruption

problem in a decentralized system where one employee can earn

some money on the side.

The National Academy of Science issued a report a couple of

years ago on IDs, and the title of it was something like, ‘‘Harder

Than You Think.’’ The process of issuing, on a massive basis, an

ID card, not a national ID card but improving biometrics, even

using the State driver’s license, is hard.

The Government is working through DHS with the U.S. Visit

Program to establish a biometric entry-exit visa system under the

U.S. Visit Program. That is beginning, 500 million visitors a year.

It’s only been partly implemented. I think we need to learn from

some of the lessons there.

The Center for Democracy and Technology and the Heritage

Foundation—which you might think of as one organization on the

left of the political spectrum and one on the right of the political

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ports that we have issued on information technology issues. We recently issued a report on biometrics, laying out some of the concerns and factors that need to be taken into account both on the

privacy side as well as on the security side.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

I will have a number of questions that—I want you to know that

sometimes the last panel—it’s the end of the day, we seem to talk

a little more softly and so on. But I learned some of my most interesting information from the panel sometimes that goes last. So I

am eager to ask you all a few questions.

I want to know—and you don’t have to go in any particular

order. But I want you to basically tell me the following: What do

you think was the most important proposal? What do you think

was the least most important, or maybe a proposal that you frankly

don’t like? And I want you to tell me where you think the hardest

challenge will be.

So the first thing, just talk about the proposal that you like the

most in this, the thing that you are happy to see in the report. And

I’m going to say to you up front, and it may be evident, I think

they did a hell of a good job. And I think it’s almost inspired, inspired in this sense: I feel like they had a higher calling. I think

they all of a sudden said, wait a second, we are out too much. We

are politicizing. This can crash. And then I think Senator Kerrey,

when he described, when they talked about the events, it kind of

woke them up. That’s the feeling I get. So I view this as a very important work, and I want to treat it with the importance it deserves.

Tell me what you think was the most important recommendation

or one or two of the most important. Who wants to go first?

Mr. DUFF. Mr. Chairman, I can say that, from our perspective,

from the public transportation industry’s perspective, on page 391,

the Commission Report talks about the need for a forward-looking

strategic plan system, systemically analyzing assets and risks and

recommending that the U.S. Government identify and evaluate the

transportation assets that need to be protected, set risk-based priorities for defending them, select the most practical and cost-effective ways of doing so, and then develop a planned budget and funding for them. So from the perspective of my industry, we felt that

was very important.

Mr. SHAYS. And that would be out of the Department of Homeland Security?

Mr. DUFF. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. And your testimony is that, if it’s happening, it’s

really in the infant stages?

Mr. DUFF. If it’s happening—we have critical transportation

needs that we have brought before the Department, and they have

begun to look at those, but we think they are not looked at in a

really comprehensive way. I think they need to look at all aspects

of transportation and, as the report says, analyze them and determine what is the best way to proceed in terms of an overall plan.

Mr. SHAYS. So you were happy to see that in the reports?

Some other comments?

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Mr. MCCARTHY. Sir, mine is actually combined. My favorite is

my least. It has the most problems or issues. And that’s the standard of care for the private sector. I think that the—it talked about

the lack of a private sector standard deemed principal factor and

lack of private sector preparedness, and they mentioned the number of standards that they endorsed.

I think that the adoption of a standards-based view of implementation of Homeland Security is the way to go. Where the report I

don’t think went far enough is that one standard doesn’t fit all

even across critical infrastructures and even within a critical infrastructure.

Mr. SHAYS. Give me an illustration.

Mr. MCCARTHY. A chemical plant. OK? The security of a chemical plant. If you have a chemical plant that’s located in a totally

isolated area away from a population, you need minimal security.

Somebody should not be able to walk on to that plant freely, etc.

All the horror stories you hear. However, do you need the same

level of care relative to a potential terrorist attack, a physical assault or a cyber assault on that plant when the plant is located in

a populated area?

Mr. SHAYS. I believe we have like 123 plants that could impact

a million people each. Is that not the statistic? In other words,

there are a number of chemical plants that are in the heart of

urban areas.

Mr. MCCARTHY. Right.

Mr. SHAYS. And if they were attacked, the outcome would be horrific.

Mr. MCCARTHY. And I think this is where the GAO is going with

the risk-based view of if you have limited resources to invest in

chemical plant security, you have to have a differentiation. If the

standard—if a single standard calls for the same level of protection

across all of them, one or the other, and where that also lacks in

the area of standards is the idea of what picks up. And we have

even, I think heard some of the reference in the testimony—previous testimony of insurance and tax incentive. Well, you know,

there isn’t in many areas relative to security——

Mr. SHAYS. You’re telling me a little more than I want to know

right now. I want to know what is the proposal that you like the

most.

Mr. MCCARTHY. It was the implementation of a standard. It

needs to be refined.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Dempsey.

Mr. DEMPSEY. The most important were two-fold, really. One is

the endorsement of the SHARE network concept and specifically

citing the Markle Foundation Task Force. Coupled with that, on

pages 393 and following of the report, a very, very strong endorsement of civil liberties protection, and of the need for checks and

balances, and in Chapter 13, the recommendations for stronger

congressional oversight.

Speaking just personally from a civil liberties perspective, I don’t

see anything that I would per se oppose in that report from a civil

liberties perspective. The thing that is going to be hardest and is

going to pose the greatest challenges——

Mr. SHAYS. We’ll come back to greatest challenges.

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Mr. DEMPSEY. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. The thing that you were most happy to see in the report, Mr. Collet?

Mr. COLLET. I also agree that——

Mr. SHAYS. Your mic is—you have a terrible mic.

Mr. COLLET. Is that better now?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. COLLET. I also agree that it’s the shared network concept.

Five years ago, none of this would have been possible. But with the

development of virtualization across network layers and information technology, it is now very doable and achievable. So, as a network company, we find that very attractive.

You are asking, what is it that we didn’t like? And I would have

to say, perhaps, maybe an overemphasis on the need to know versus the need to share. You know, as I mentioned in my testimony,

we’re concerned about the proliferation——

Mr. SHAYS. We’ll get back to the one you disliked the most.

Yes, sir.

Mr. LIGHT. Before this committee and this chamber, I think you

need to remember one statistic that just continues to echo for me.

On September 11th, half—half of the 164 senior Senate-confirmed

jobs were either vacant or occupied by an individual with less than

1 month on the job. We were so vulnerable because of the lack of

leadership at that point.

For me, before this body, I think you have to focus on the transition process and the Presidential appointments process. It’s a disaster. And we are so vulnerable in the first 6 to 9 to 12 months

of a new administration; it’s shocking.

Mr. SHAYS. I hear you. And what’s interesting is, I think, this is

one thing that will probably escape the attention of a lot of people.

Mr. LIGHT. You can’t let it happen. I mean, I have been on the

staff on both the House and the Senate side, and sometimes, House

people will say, ‘‘Well, you know, the appointments process is really

the Senate’s business.’’ You know, the White House and Senate

struggle.

But, you know what? We have been unable after 31⁄2 years of

very hard work to convince our colleagues in the Senate to move

forward on this issue. If not you, it’s just not going to happen. You

have the distance perhaps to argue favorably for action on improving the appointments process.

Mr. SHAYS. Fascinating.

One of the things that I would like each of you to suggest is, my

subcommittee, National Security Subcommittee, Emerging Threats

and International Relations Committee, is going to have two hearings at the end of this month. We want to take a part of the bill

that we think won’t get the attention that it might get from others.

In other words, there are some wonderful big fat crumbs that will

fall from the table of some more important committees. And we

want to identify those, and that may be one.

Tell me the thing that concerns you the most about the report.

Not which is the hardest to pass, but the thing that, you know, you

look at and say, gosh. I mean, I will tell you the one that concerned

me, just to give you an example of where I’m coming from, the concept that somehow the White House would have operational reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:42 Dec 16, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00270 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96537.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sponsibility. And I’m not sure I’m being fair to the Commission, but

that was the one area that I thought, you know, it just had too

much the feeling of Watergate and people in the White House and

power to—well, you get the gist. What are the areas that might

have concerned the five of you?

Mr. MCCARTHY. One area, and it speaks to the organizational

piece, not necessarily the intelligence, but the broader strategic organizational piece. And that is building into this a—just that, a

view that’s beyond the immediate threat out to the next 6 months.

How do you build into the organizations a longer view? In DOD,

you have two kind of activities going on simultaneously. One is

that immediate activity to support the needs——

Mr. SHAYS. I want to follow you, this is an important part. But

does that relate to the report? Was there something in the report

that was in there that you disagreed with, or are you talking about

something that wasn’t——

Mr. MCCARTHY. It’s something that belonged—it needed more

emphasis in the report. There are subtleties in there.

To give you an example. In critical infrastructure, if you look at

the organizational structure for Australia, for instance, for their

CIP, and you compare our IAIP to what Australia has, they have

a piece built into it that’s called the Futures Group. Their sole responsibility is to be removed from the immediate day-to-day activity of working with the private sector, trying to build the alliance

and trying to move the agenda forward. And their view is to look

at, what will the economic environment look like? What will the

threat environment look like? And then, how do you need to adjust

all the mechanisms in the Government to respond?

Mr. SHAYS. That’s interesting. You broke out of my box a little

bit, and we’re thinking of something that wasn’t being addressed

that concerned you. So, something that was addressed that you

didn’t like or something that wasn’t addressed that should have

been there.

Any others?

Mr. DEMPSEY. At CDT, we are most concerned about the border

screening and the broader screening questions. Not because of any

anything that’s wrong in the report, but just because of how hard

these issues are.

The report does not mention the question of watch lists, CAPPS

II, in a way, or the airline passenger screening system in a way

is dependent upon watch lists. The FBI has the Terrorist Screening

Center. We have 14 agencies developing watch lists coordinated by

the TSC, Terrorist Screening Center at the FBI. Completely unanswered are questions of data quality, how someone gets on the list,

how they get off the list, how they respond if they are denied a job

based upon screening.

Mr. SHAYS. So when Senator Kerrey spoke, and I’m saying yes,

you are saying, uh, oh.

Mr. DEMPSEY. I’m saying——

Mr. SHAYS. I mean, I was cheering when he spoke, inside.

Mr. DEMPSEY. Well, we already have a border screening system

through the visa process.

Mr. SHAYS. That doesn’t work.

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Mr. DEMPSEY. We have an airline passenger screening system.

We have various employment screening systems for a variety of

sensitive jobs. All of those have gaps. All have limitations. There

are efforts under way to try to improve them, and the Commission

recommends the linking together of those various screening systems into what they call a comprehensive screening system.

I think, inevitably, we are moving that direction, but the issues

that the report highlights of due process, of how you identify

people——

Mr. SHAYS. I hear you. You have some deep concerns about that.

Mr. DEMPSEY. Crucial issues that concern us.

Mr. SHAYS. And I hear you.

Some others. Yes, Mr. Duff.

Mr. DUFF. This may be similar to Mr. McCarthy, and I’ll be brief.

But it’s the issue of the roles—clarification of the roles and responsibilities of agencies. You have this huge new Department of Homeland Security, and yet you still have the U.S. Department of Transportation with somewhat overlapping roles and responsibilities.

Isn’t there some way to clarify that and make it clear which Department is responsible for what?

Mr. SHAYS. OK. So, but is that—so your concern is that they

didn’t address it deeply enough?

Mr. DUFF. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. Collet.

Mr. COLLET. We have no concerns.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. LIGHT. I have a big fat target for you.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. LIGHT. And a concern.

The target is the current structure of the intelligence community,

which was pretty much left off the table.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Mr. LIGHT. We are up against a highly agile adversary, a

networked adversary, and in many ways, we are trying to defeat

him with a smokestack, to mix our metaphor.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to pursue that point.

Mr. LIGHT. Well, just the point that, at the subcommittee level,

you need to take a look at what needs to happen in the intelligence

community to speed information to the National Intelligence Directorate. It’s the issue that the comptroller general was talking

about, about a full outbox with no inbox. And I think that the intelligence community has gotten a pass on its basic organizational

structure.

Mr. SHAYS. All of you have spoken about your concerns.

Let me tell you my concern and have you react to it. My concern

is that you have—and since there is hardly anyone here, I can say

this now. But you have an Armed Services Committee, in my judgment, that’s captive to the military. You have various committees

in Congress that develop these relationships.

I have a belief that the Intelligence Committee was a captive of

the intelligence community in some ways. But I don’t know how

they were captive, but I didn’t feel they were in control. And the

reason I can speak about that is that this is the committee that has

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360 degrees jurisdiction. My subcommittee oversees the Defense

Department. Again, we kind of pick the crumbs from what’s not

done by the Defense, the Armed Services Committee. But we are

not in the same—a four star means a lot to me, but it doesn’t mean

quite the same thing to the members of the committee. And we

don’t necessarily feel we have the same—well, I had better be careful there.

What I’m trying to say is that we don’t have those same relationships that—and so I feel like we are freer to be a little more aggressive. And what’s surprised me about this is that, frankly, if the

intelligence agency didn’t succeed, the Intelligence Committee of

Congress didn’t succeed. And yet we are saying we want to make

them more powerful and give them more responsibility. And that’s

kind of the thing I’m wrestling with. I’m wrestling with, when we

wanted to have a hearing, as I mentioned earlier, the Intelligence

Committee gave the CIA permission so they didn’t have to participate. And I went up to the chairman and complained about it, and

it was just, you know, that’s the way it was.

And so I’m wondering how we get a better handle on the intelligence community if we are basically empowering only one committee of Congress to have oversight with no judgment on whether

they are doing their job or any other committee to kind of pick up

the crumbs that they may not see falling from the table. Any reaction to that? If not, I will just take my last question. OK.

Tell me the thing you think is most difficult to achieve. The thing

that you think is, ‘‘Good luck, ain’t going to happen, or, if it happens, I will be amazed.’’ Do you think most of this report will be

incorporated? Let me put it this way, do you think most of this report will be adopted? And, if not, what are the parts that you think

will most likely not be adopted?

Mr. LIGHT. I think we are right now at the beginning of the process, and we saw yesterday with the President’s proposal a process

of dilution that happens in politics. The proposal now on the table

would create the weakest agency out of the gate that I’ve seen in

terms of a response to a problem like this. By my view, the proposed National Intelligence Directorate would be so weak, it might

as well be located in Baltimore. That’s a tough statement, but it’s

just the way it is.

Mr. MCCARTHY. We have a pattern here of too many massive

parts in play. Immediate reaction: Form TSA. Forget about DOT.

Now you have to deal with TSA. TSA started to feel growing pains.

We shifted it to form the Department of Homeland Security. And

you talk to the guys at DOT, and they are—TSA, and they are kind

of rambling around. Now the shift is going to be into intelligence.

We just keep doing this, and in the process, we leave a path of

starting to implement massive change without the follow-through,

without the piercing follow-through that’s needed both from the

oversight side and within, how do you align this up in the executive branch, budget, people, the whole 9 yards? None of the foundation’s been laid.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Some other points?

Mr. DEMPSEY. Congressman, I don’t know if it is the hardest, but

one of the hardest things will be making sure that this director of

national intelligence does not merely serve the President. I think

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one of the initial problems that the TTIC faced and to some extent

still faces is there is such a premium placed on moving information

up to the President and getting your little nugget or your piece of

analysis in front of the President. The President isn’t going to be

the one who prevents the next terrorist attack. It’s going to be

some alert Customs officer or some TSA screener at an airport. The

goal has to be to push that information down and out to all levels

of Government and to allow people who are on the frontlines—to

have that information.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s an important point to make. Just tell me the

hardest thing that we are going to—in this report to—I’m making

an assumption that you basically support the recommendations of

this Commission. I mean, for the most part, you do. What is the

part that you think—what concerns that you have expressed, what

do you think is not going to happen because it’s just going to be

too difficult or there won’t be the kind of attention to it? I mean,

your point was very valid.

Mr. DEMPSEY. This is one that I see is a very hard thing to legislate in the first place, hard to accomplish.

Mr. SHAYS. Anybody else?

Now we are going to close up here. You don’t want to—Mr. Collet?

Mr. COLLET. I really don’t have much of an opinion on it.

Mr. SHAYS. Why don’t you turn your mic on?

Mr. COLLET. I am sorry. Perhaps the most difficult thing will be

finding the money for the budget. It is as simple as that.

Mr. SHAYS. Anybody want to make a last comment before we

close up?

Mr. MCCARTHY. Not just finding the money but allocating it,

making those hard decisions about how you allocate it across the

transportation sector, for example. That will be very difficult, and

that is why we support the idea of a strategic plan to do just that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. It is going to be an interesting fall, isn’t it?

Gentleman, thank you for all your good work, and thank you for

spending your whole day with us.

If there are no further comments, we will adjourn.

[Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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