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97–044 PDF 2004

S. Hrg. 108–724

ENSURING THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

SUPPORTS HOMELAND DEFENSE AND DEPARTMENTAL NEEDS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 13, 2004

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL STERN, Deputy Staff Director for Investigations 

DAVID KASS, Chief Investigative Counsel 

JANE ALONSO, Professional Staff Member 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

BETH M. GROSSMAN, Minority Counsel 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Professional Staff Member 

ANDREW WEINSCHENK, Fellow, U.S. Department of State 

AMY B. NEWHOUSE, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 1

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 3

Senator Stevens ................................................................................................ 5

Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 22

Senator Coleman .............................................................................................. 24

Senator Pryor .................................................................................................... 26

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 29

Senator Durbin ................................................................................................. 32

Senator Dayton ................................................................................................. 34

Also present: 

Senator Warner ................................................................................................ 38

WITNESSES 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2004

Hon. Colin L. Powell, Secretary, Department of State ......................................... 5

Hon. Tom Ridge, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security ......................... 12

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Powell, Hon. Colin L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 43

Ridge, Hon. Tom: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 49

APPENDIX 

Questions and Responses for the Record from: 

Secretary Powell ............................................................................................... 57

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ENSURING THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY SUPPORTS HOMELAND DEFENSE AND 

DEPARTMENTAL NEEDS 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2004

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m., in room 

SH–216 Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Collins, Lieberman, Stevens, Levin, Coleman, 

Pryor, Carper, Durbin, and Dayton. 

Also Present: Senator Warner. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. The Committee will come to order. 

Good morning. This morning, the Committee on Governmental 

Affairs holds its seventh hearing on the recommendations of the 

9/11 Commission to reform America’s intelligence community. I 

commend my colleagues for their dedication to the vital mission assigned to this Committee, and I welcome the very distinguished 

witnesses that we have this morning, whose testimony will help 

guide us in this critical task. 

We meet today after a somber weekend of remembrance. The anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will forever 

be a day of tears and prayers for the victims and their families. On 

this third anniversary, tears and prayers were offered as well for 

the victims of terrorism in Russia and for their families. Now, as 

3 years ago, the grief of people of good will knows no borders. 

We, in government, have an obligation to do more than grieve. 

The massacre of the innocent school children in Beslan and of innocents in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, Jerusalem, Jakarta, and so many 

other places, reminds us that terrorism has both a global reach and 

an unlimited capacity for cruelty. 

We in government have an obligation to dedicate ourselves to the 

defeat of this enemy. The role of this Committee in this effort is 

to transform an intelligence structure built for the Cold War into 

one that meets the demands of the war against terrorism. Thanks 

to the hard work of this Committee and the many expert witnesses 

we have heard from as well as the efforts of the administration and 

other committees, this new structure is within our grasp. A recent 

news report put it this way: ‘‘The White House, both chambers of 

Congress, and members of both political parties are beginning to 

2

sing from the same hymnal on overhauling the nation’s intelligence 

agencies, but they are not all in the same key yet.’’

To continue the musical metaphor, I would add that although we 

are not perfectly in tune, neither are we tone deaf. We know that 

the American people expect a lot of us, and we know what we must 

do to meet those expectations. We know that the stakes are high, 

and we know that reform cannot wait. With each hearing, significant points of consensus are emerging. The need for a national intelligence director with sufficient authority to do the job effectively 

becomes more and more evident. The power of the National Intelligence Director (NID) position cannot inhibit the competitive analysis advantage that we gain from a vigorous intelligence community. Virtually every witness has endorsed a national counterterrorism center that will integrate our knowledge and coordinate 

our fight against global terrorism. Intelligence reform should enhance, not detract, from military intelligence and readiness. 

There is also widespread agreement that the complex threats we 

face today and into the future require a new configuration that enhances information sharing. Larry Kindsvater, the deputy director 

of central intelligence, has described the situation this way: ‘‘No 

one and no organizational entity is actually responsible for bringing 

together in a unified manner the entire intelligence community’s 

collection and analytical capabilities to go against individual national security missions and threats such as terrorism, North 

Korea, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and 

China.’’

Against that array of threats, we need unity, but we must also 

preserve the competitive analysis of the 15 members of our intelligence community. Our intelligence network needs a hub, but the 

Nation does not need a new bureaucracy. This hub, which I call the 

National Intelligence Authority, must be crafted so that we gain coordination, cooperation, and communication, and lose only our vulnerability. 

As the title of this hearing indicates, the reform we undertake 

must be designed to meet the needs of both consumers and producers of intelligence. I am pleased that we have here today the 

extraordinary leaders of two such departments, Homeland Security 

Secretary Tom Ridge and Secretary of State Colin Powell. America 

has been fortunate indeed to have two such outstanding leaders in 

the war against terrorism. 

As a nation, we should recognize how far we have come since 

September 11, 2001. The FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies 

have undergone significant internal restructuring. We have created 

the Department of Homeland Security and the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. We have expanded the Joint Terrorism Task 

Force Program as well as the resources available to our first responders. The President, Members of Congress and, of course, 

members and staff of the 9/11 Commission have enhanced the 

cause of intelligence reform and put us on the path of continued 

progress. 

Many details still must be resolved before the emerging consensus can be turned into real reform, but each day, we are advancing the goal. We know from the devastation at ground zero to 

the slaughter in Russia that our enemy is capable of anything. 

3

Surely, we are capable of enacting true reform that will help to 

make us safer. 

Senator Lieberman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman. 

In regard to that hymnal you referred to, I think probably the 

best thing I can say is amen, sister. [Laughter.] 

I think we are singing from the same hymnal, not just you and 

me but most of us who have been focused on the response to the 

9/11 Commission’s Report, and I appreciate it very much. I think 

that is encouraging. This is our seventh full Committee hearing 

since the 9/11 Commission reported at the end of July, and just as 

you said, I agree with you that not only have we proceeded deliberatively, but I believe that a consensus is emerging based not only 

on the Commission’s report but also on the testimony that we have 

heard, that we need a national intelligence director with strong 

budget and personnel authority to make sure our enormous investment in intelligence gives us the national security we need and second that we need the National Counterterrorism Center and other 

centers to achieve something like the same jointness that is now 

a reality in our military, among our military forces. 

Those are critical points of agreement that we have as we go forward, and I must say last week, the President added to the momentum and certainly deepened and broadened the consensus by, 

in fact, calling for a national intelligence director along the lines 

recommended by the Commission and similar to the consensus that 

I think is emerging here. ‘‘The President intends to give the NID 

full budget authority over the National Foreign Intelligence Program appropriation and the management tools necessary to successfully oversee the Intelligence Community.’’ That was a very significant step on the road to genuine intelligence reform. 

As we came back into session last week after the August break, 

we were a lot further ahead than most people ever thought we 

would be, not just in this Committee but in both houses; had many 

more hearings and much more deliberation than people thought. 

There are now those who are skeptical, as they were when the 

Commission issued its report about what we would do in August, 

that we will not be able to get a bill before the Senate before we 

break. I am convinced we will. 

There are those who say OK, you will get it through the Senate, 

but they will never get a bill through the House, and you will never 

conference it before we break for the campaigns. I am convinced 

that we will. And I think one of the reasons we will is that we are 

just going to keep going straight ahead, as you have directed and 

led this Committee to do, to achieve that end. 

I am very grateful to Secretary Ridge, Secretary Powell, that 

they are giving us their time and expertise this morning. Both of 

these departments, the Department of Homeland Security and the 

Department of State, will have obviously an important impact on 

our intelligence system and are also critical consumers of intelligence produced by the system. Each is affected in one way or another by the report of the Commission and by what we do. 

4

I look forward to hearing from Secretary Ridge, particularly 

about the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate that has grown up under his new department and how 

it has related to the so-called TTIC and how he expects Homeland 

Security particularly to benefit from the creation of the National 

Counterterrorism Center. 

The Commission also envisioned the Department of Homeland 

Security playing an important role in a new information-sharing 

network by ensuring among other things that State and local governments and the private sector are brought into the network, and 

that is a unique function that the Department of Homeland Security has begun to play, will play, and I think is very important as 

we talk about reforming our intelligence structures. The Commission also recommends that the Department of Homeland Security 

lead the effort to design a comprehensive screening system to improve border security, set standards for issuing birth certificates, 

driver’s licenses, and other forms of identification and also screen 

all passengers for explosives. These are important and in some 

sense still controversial suggestions. I am generally in support of 

them, and I look forward to hearing what the Secretary has to say 

about them as well. 

Secretary Powell, we are grateful that you are here. The Bureau 

of Intelligence and Research, INR, within the State Department is 

clearly an important part of the intelligence community with a reputation for real quality intelligence analysis. In the 9/11 Commission’s assessment, it is one of the bright spots. It comes out with 

some of the higher marks in the intelligence community. The Commission has, interestingly, recommended that the budget of INR, as 

you know, not be put under the new national intelligence director. 

I would like to hear your reaction to that and also, how do we 

make sure, if that is the case, that INR is at the table? It would 

be a strange result if this intelligence office, which has done well, 

is not at the table to argue as a consensus about a particular case 

that is being formed. 

Finally, we have naturally been focused on the threat of terrorism and how to beef up our intelligence with regard to terrorism. But America relies on intelligence for a lot more than the 

war on terrorism, though it is our focus today. The news from 

North Korea reminds us of how important intelligence is outside of 

the specific ambit of terrorist threats to us, and I want to ask you 

in that regard to assess to the best of your ability the impact of 

the kind of intelligence reform that we are talking about on the intelligence that you need as Secretary of State to make the judgments you need to make about a situation as complicated and as 

critical as the question of whether North Korea not only has nuclear capacity but whether it has exploded a nuclear weapon. 

So these are critical questions which you two uniquely can assist 

us in reaching reasonable judgments on. I thank you for being 

here, and again, I thank you, Madam Chairman, for setting the 

pace that you have for the Committee with the purpose that we 

have had that I am confident will lead us to the reform that we 

need. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. 

5

1The prepared statement of Secretary Powell appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

I would now like to call on our first witness, Secretary Powell. 

Again, thank you both for being here today. I know you are extraordinarily busy. 

Senator STEVENS. I hope my friend will not object, but I would 

like to just make one comment, if I may. 

Chairman COLLINS. Absolutely. 

Senator STEVENS. And that is as Chairman of the Appropriations 

Committee—incidentally, I am a monotone, so I am not sure I am 

on the same page of music that you are looking at yet. [Laughter.] 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS 

Senator STEVENS. First, let me tell you as a former Chairman on 

this Committee, I think you have done a grand job on these hearings so far. But the Appropriations Committee next week will start 

a series of hearings. I think there are people who have not been 

heard yet, and I intend to have the Appropriations Committee be 

a forum to listen to those people who are really on the edge of what 

you are doing and have some comments, I think, based upon experience that we should listen to from the intelligence community. 

Those will start on September 21. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator. We appreciate your expertise and your advice as we proceed in this important task. You 

certainly have many years of experience that you can draw on, and 

we look forward to continuing to work closely with you. 

Senator STEVENS. I will try to learn how to sing. 

Chairman COLLINS. We have signed you up for lessons. 

Secretary Powell, please proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. COLIN L. POWELL,1 SECRETARY, 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Secretary POWELL. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I 

do have a prepared statement for the record, which I would like to 

offer and then provide a shorter statement and oral presentation. 

Chairman COLLINS. It will be included in full in the record. 

Secretary POWELL. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, 

Senator Lieberman, and Members of the Committee. I am pleased 

to be here today with my colleague, Tom Ridge. I must say I am 

taken aback by all these musical metaphors. You obviously have 

not seen my performances on the international stage around the 

world. [Laughter.] 

But I am pleased to have this opportunity to share with you my 

thoughts on the reform of the intelligence community. 

I have been a consumer of intelligence in one way or another 

throughout my 40-plus years of public service. From the tactical 

level on the battlefield as a second lieutenant to the highest levels 

of the military, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National 

Security Advisor and now as Secretary of State, and I hope that I 

can offer some helpful insights from the perspective of the conduct 

of America’s foreign policy. 

Before I start, though, let me add my thanks to those of millions 

of other Americans, to the members of the 9/11 Commission for 

their careful examination of what went wrong during the run-up to 

6

that terrible day 3 years ago and for their thoughtful recommendations to ensure that nothing like that can ever happen again. And 

let me also thank you, Madam Chairman, and the Members of the 

Committee for the dedication that you have applied to this task 

over the last several weeks, and I hope that you are able to complete your work, as Senator Lieberman said, before adjournment. 

Madam Chairman, let me say at the outset that I fully support 

President Bush’s proposals on intelligence reform. A strong national intelligence director is essential. That strength is gained primarily by giving the NID real budget authority. In that regard, the 

President’s proposal will give the NID the authority to determine 

the budgets for agencies that are part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. As recommended by the 9/11 Commission, the 

NID will receive funds appropriated for the NFIP, and he or she 

will have the authority to apportion those funds among the NFIP 

agencies. 

The NID will also have the authority to transfer funds and to reprogram funds within the NFIP as well as approval authority for 

transfers into or out of the NFIP. The President has empowered 

the NID in other ways as well. For example, in addition to the 

budget authority I have just described, the NID must concur in the 

appointment of heads of intelligence community agencies if those 

appointments are made by Department heads, and if the appointments are made by the President, the recommendation to the 

President must be accompanied by the NID’s recommendation. 

Additionally, the NID will have authority to establish intelligence requirements and priorities and manage collection tasking 

both inside and outside the country, also to resolve conflicts among 

collection responsibilities and also to ensure full and prompt information sharing, to include making sure that all agencies have access to all intelligence available and needed to carry out their missions and to perform independent analysis and finally to establish 

personnel administrative and security programs for the intelligence 

community. 

The President’s proposal does not adopt the 9/11 Commission’s 

recommendation that the NID have deputies from DOD, CIA and 

the FBI. President Bush believes that we need clear lines of authority, and to have in the structure people who have to report to 

two different masters would not contribute to clarity of responsibility and accountability. The President’s proposal does put the National Counterterrorism Center under the supervision of the NID; 

moreover, if any other such centers were judged necessary, those, 

too, would fall under the NID. For example, the President has requested that the Robb-Silverman Commission look at the possibility of a weapons of mass destruction center. 

To give the NID the sort of independent help that he will require 

to do his job, the President’s proposal includes a Cabinet-level Joint 

Intelligence Community Council, upon which I and my national security colleagues would sit. This council would advise the NID on 

setting requirements, on financial management, to include budget 

development; on establishing uniform policies and on monitoring 

and evaluating the overall performance of the intelligence community. Perhaps later, Madam Chairman, as we discussed before the 

hearing, I can give you a little experience of what the Joint Chiefs 

7

of Staff are like and how they operate and how there are some parallels to how this council might operate. 

Finally, the President’s proposal would require important 

changes to the 1947 National Security Act, changes I know that 

members of this Committee will be looking at carefully. An example of such a change would be the plan to establish the new position of the Director at the CIA and to define the responsibilities of 

that agency, responsibilities that will continue to include the authority for covert action and the need to lead in the area of human 

collection. 

Madam Chairman, I know that this Committee will look closely 

at the President’s proposal. I have been in government long enough 

to know also that you and the other Members of Congress will 

make changes to the President’s proposal. Of course, that is your 

priority; nay, it is your duty as the people’s representatives. As you 

and the other Members of this Committee and the Congress are reviewing the President’s proposal, and as you are considering what 

the final product of your very important deliberations will actually 

be, I would ask that you take into account the unique requirements 

of the Secretary of State, the Department of State and of the conduct of foreign policy for which I am responsible to the President 

and to the American people. 

Let me give you some insights, if I may, on why the Secretary 

of State’s needs are somewhat unique but why they, too, would be 

well-served by such reform as President Bush has proposed. Diplomacy is both offensive and defensive in its application. At the State 

Department, we are the spear point for advancing America’s interests around the globe. We are also a first line of defense against 

threats from abroad. As such, our efforts constitute a critical component of national security. 

Our efforts must not be seen as an afterthought to be serviced 

by the intelligence community only if it can spare priorities and resources from other priorities which they consider higher. Madam 

Chairman, the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a 

pound of cure describes what I am implying to a tee. Our needs are 

as great as any other consumer of intelligence in the U.S. Government. In that regard, there are a few critical considerations that 

should be borne in mind as we, the administration and the Congress, design an intelligence establishment for the 21st Century. 

First, as Secretary of State, I need global coverage all the time. 

This does not mean that the intelligence community should cover 

Chad as robustly as it covers North Korea, but it does mean that 

I need intelligence on developments in all countries and regions. I 

need it to provide information and insight to our ambassadors 

around the world and to those of us in Washington. We all must 

deal on a daily basis with problems that range from the impact of 

instability in Venezuela or Nigeria on world oil prices to ethnic, religious, regional, and political conditions that challenge our values, 

spawn alienation and terrorists, threaten governments friendly to 

the United States and impede or facilitate the export of American 

products. 

Many times in my career, I have found myself dealing with a crisis in a country that was on no one’s priority list until the day the 

crisis hit. That is why we have to think comprehensively and not 

8

set aside any part of the world or any country of the world as not 

being of interest to us. 

Second, as Secretary of State, I need expert judgments on what 

is likely to happen and not just an extrapolation of worst-case scenarios. The intelligence community we now have provides fantastic 

support to the military, both planners in Washington and commanders in the field, and it should do that. In many cases, its organization, priorities, allocation of resources and mindset have 

evolved specifically to support military planning and operations. 

Worst-case scenarios are prudent and are often sufficient for my 

colleagues in the military, and I certainly remember the days when 

I got these kinds of analyses, and they were so useful, but they are 

generally not quite as useful to the conduct of diplomacy. 

They are not because in the world of diplomacy I need to know 

what is most likely to happen as opposed to just the worst case. 

What will influence the course of events? What will it take to 

change the course of events? And how much diplomatic capital or 

other blandishments will it take to achieve the foreign policy goals 

of the President in specific circumstances? What usually happens 

or what you must deal with is something often far short of the 

worst case. 

An old rule that I have used with my intelligence officers over 

the years whether in the military or now in the State Department 

goes like this: Tell me what you know, tell me what you do not 

know, and then, based on what you really know and what you really do not know, tell me what you think is most likely to happen. 

And there is an extension of that rule with my intelligence officers: 

I will hold you accountable to what you tell me is a fact, and I will 

hold you accountable for what you tell me is not going to happen 

because you have the facts on that, or you do not know what is 

going to happen, or you know what your body of ignorance is, and 

you tell me what that is. 

Now, when you tell me what is most likely to happen, then I, as 

the policy maker, have to make a judgment as to whether I act on 

that, and I will not hold you accountable for it, because that is a 

judgment, and judgments of this kind are made by policy makers, 

not by intelligence experts. And I think this has been a rule that 

has been very useful to me over the years, and it allows my intelligence organizations to feel free to give me the facts but also feel 

free to give me the most likely occurrence knowing that I bear responsibility for making decisions based on that middle range of information on the basis of that middle range of information on what 

is most likely to happen. 

The needs of diplomacy require more than a good ability to imagine the worst. They require real expertise, close attention and careful analysis of all source information. To be helpful to me and my 

colleagues in the Department of State, many of whom are extremely knowledgeable about the countries and issues they cover, 

the intelligence community must provide insights and add value to 

the information that we already collect through diplomatic channels. When the intelligence community weighs in with less than 

this level of expertise, it is a distraction rather than an asset. 

Third, to do my job, I need both tailored intelligence support responsive to, indeed, able to anticipate my needs, and I need inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:12 Dec 21, 2004 Jkt 097044 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\97044.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
9

formed competitive analysis. Precisely because my intelligence 

needs differ from those of the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary 

of Homeland Security or the Secretary of Energy, not to mention 

the unique requirements of our military services, I am not wellserved, nor are they, by collectors and analysts who do not understand my unique needs or who attempt to provide a one-size-fitsall assessment. 

I am well-served by my own intelligence unit; as you noted, was 

noted by many observers, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research 

or INR, and I am pleased to have with me the director of that Bureau, Tom Finger. Raise your hand, Tom. INR draws upon comparable and complementary expertise elsewhere in the intelligence 

community, and it must be able to do this in order to function at 

its best. To respond to Senator Lieberman’s point earlier, INR must 

have a seat at the table. It has a seat at the table now. Tom and 

his folks have no reluctance to engage with the other elements of 

the intelligence community, and as we put this new design in 

place, we have to make sure that this access is as great as ever. 

But INR is principally a staff agency of mine, not like all of the 

other intelligence organizations that we will be examining in the 

course of these proceedings. Any reorganization of the intelligence 

community must preserve and promote intelligence units that are 

attuned to the specific requirements of the agencies they serve. 

Such units should be designed to ensure their independence and 

objectivity but at the same time be sufficiently integrated into the 

parent organization to ensure intimate understanding of what is 

needed, when it is needed, and how it can most effectively be presented to policy makers. 

That is the relationship that I have with INR. My INR must be 

able to recruit and retain genuine experts able to provide real 

value to the policy making process. This requires appropriate and 

different career paths and training opportunities. We need specialists in INR, not generalists, late inning relief pitchers and designated hitters, not just utility infielders. 

For example, INR is in close touch with all of our embassies, in 

close touch with the regional bureau chiefs of the Department of 

State. I see Mr. Finger every single day. If he is out of town, I see 

his deputy. We have a morning staff meeting where all of my principal officers come together, and so, anything that is going on, I 

will see Tom face-to-face at 8:30 in the morning and get his assessment. 

Over the course of the day, a steady stream of INR material 

comes to me. His predecessor, Carl Ford, changed the way we were 

doing business at the beginning of the administration, where once 

a day, all of us would get a huge packet of everything that had 

been going on. We essentially disassembled it, so that, during the 

course of the day, I might get 10, 15 or so individual items from 

INR with a quick summary of what the item is all about and then 

the item underneath, so I can rapidly see if it is something I need 

to look at right then, save it for later in the day or just note it and 

move it on so that we have a steady stream of real-time information and analysis coming in to me in addition to what I get from 

CIA and so many other sources. But INR gives it to me in a context 

that fits my diplomatic and foreign policy needs. 

10

North Korea is a good example that you mentioned a few moments ago, Senator Lieberman. When the stories broke over the 

weekend about some explosion taking place in North Korea and 

some speculation as to whether it was or was not a nuclear explosion, my instincts told me it was not a nuclear explosion, not where 

it happened. It was not in a place we would have expected it, and 

so I was immediately skeptical. But within a short period of time, 

INR was able to provide me all the information I needed to make 

a judgment that I felt confident in going on television yesterday 

morning on talk shows and saying no, it was not a nuclear explosion. And as you know, the North Koreans have announced today 

that they were doing some demolition work for a hydroelectric 

project, and they are inviting visiting foreign officials, especially 

from the United Kingdom, to visit the site. 

INR kept me informed all day yesterday, and first thing this 

morning, when I got to the office at 6:35 a.m., material was waiting 

from INR, knowing not just whether it happened or did not happen 

but knowing what my specific needs were to deal with that situation. An hour and 20 minutes after INR made sure I was well-informed this morning, the South Korean foreign minister calls me 

to share notes and talk about what is happening in the area of nuclear weapons development in North Korea. And so, INR knows 

what my diplomatic needs are as well as my information, intellectual and intelligence needs are. 

Fourth, we also need to take advantage of complementarities, 

synergy, competitive analysis and divisions of labor. While it is imperative to have more than one analytical unit covering every place 

and problem, it certainly is not necessary or sensible for everyone 

to cover everything. Nor does it make any sense to pretend that 

every unit of the intelligence community is equally qualified to 

make judgments on all issues. You would not give your dentist a 

vote on the proper course of treatment for a heart problem, and we 

should not derive much comfort or confidence from any judgment 

preceded by what ‘‘most agencies believe.’’ It is not good enough 

any longer. 

What I need as Secretary of State is the best judgment of those 

most knowledgeable about the problem. INR and the Department 

of State more broadly are home to many specialists who are experts on topics of greatest concern to those charged with implementing the President’s foreign policy agenda. But INR is too small 

to have a critical mass of expertise on almost anything. INR and 

the Secretary of State need comparable and complementary expertise elsewhere in the intelligence community. I rely on all of these 

others so much. 

This additional expertise ensures that as much information and 

as many perspectives as possible have been considered, that differences are highlighted, not muted, and that the sum total of intelligence requirements can be met by combining the different expertise of all intelligence community constituent agencies. 

Madam Chairman, it is equally important to recognize and capitalize on the role departmental units such as INR play in the overall national intelligence enterprise. For example, INR is not just an 

outstanding analytical unit, it is also the primary link between diplomats and the broader intelligence community, as I noted. SpecialVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:12 Dec 21, 2004 Jkt 097044 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\97044.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
11

ists who understand collection systems and the unique capabilities 

of other analytical components anticipate, shape, communicate, and 

monitor tasking requests that ensure that I receive the information 

I need when I need it in a form that I can use. 

The links among policy makers, analysts and collection and operations specialists are very short in the Department of State. We 

have short internal lines of communication, fast lines of communication, and this is critical to ensure that my diplomats around 

the world obtain the intelligence support they need when they need 

it and the intelligence support that they deserve. 

Departmental units like INR, structured and staffed to provide 

high-value support to their primary customer sets also support 

other components of the national security team. We know that INR 

products are read and used by analysts, policy makers and commanders around the world who do not have comparable in-house 

expertise or who want a second opinion on subjects of importance. 

The de facto division of labor within the IC that results in part 

from the promotion and existence of departmental units is critical 

to the strength and health of the overall intelligence enterprise. 

Let me make one other point, Madam Chairman. The intelligence community does many things well, but critical self-examination of its performance, particularly the quality and the utility 

of its analytical products, is too often not one of them. Thousands 

of judgments are made every year, but we have got to do a better 

job of subjecting all of those judgments to rigorous post-mortem 

analysis to find out what we did right as well as what we did 

wrong. When we did something wrong, why did we do it wrong to 

make sure we do not do it wrong again? We have to have alternative judgments in order to make sure that we are getting it 

right. 

Senator Pat Roberts’ proposal, for example, talks to this issue 

and assigns responsibility for conducting post hoc evaluations to a 

new Office of the Inspector General. I think this is a good idea. One 

can imagine other places to locate this responsibility and other 

ways to achieve the desired end, but any reform scheme should include independent review of analytical products. 

One more point if I may, Madam Chairman, then, I will stop and 

yield the floor to my colleague, Tom Ridge. As you know, President 

Bush has issued an executive order to improve the sharing of information on terrorism. We need to extend its provisions to intelligence on all subjects. In this regard, simple but critical guidelines 

would include separation of information on sources and methods 

from content so that content can be shared widely, easily and at 

minimal levels of classification. 

For this to work, collectors must have clear ways to indicate the 

degree of confidence that the information is reliable and userfriendly procedures for providing additional information to those 

who need it. Changes implemented by former DCI George Tenet 

earlier in this year and incorporated into the production of NIEs 

are an important step in this direction, but we can and must do 

even better. 

Similarly, decisions on who needs information should be made by 

agency heads or their designees, not collectors. Every day, I am 

sent information that can be seen only by a small number of senior 

12

1The prepared statement of Secretary Ridge appears in the Appendix on page 49. 

policy makers who often cannot put the reports in the proper context or fully comprehend their significance. Intelligence is another 

name for information, and information is not useful if it does not 

get to the right people in a timely fashion. 

And finally, we must do something about the problem of overclassification. Today, the intelligence community routinely classifies information at higher levels and makes access more difficult 

than was the case even at the height of the Cold War. Now, by extension, I might say that my folks around the world, even on nonintelligence matters, just reporting what is going on, we tend to 

overclassify as well, and we have to do a better job of making sure 

that things are not overclassified so that these items can be shared 

more widely and therefore more effectively. 

We need a better sense of balance and proportion. It is not good 

enough for intelligence to reside on a highly classified computer 

system. If it is to be useful, it has to be available so that it can 

be used. 

One final point to respond to a point that Senator Lieberman made with respect to INR. INR has a budget of roughly $50 million 

a year. It is inside of my appropriation, but it is known and carried 

also in the intelligence community overall budget, and I think I 

would like to keep it that way, and I would protect it in that manner as we move forward. 

I have slightly over 300 very qualified folks working in INR. 

They have a tenure of roughly approaching 15 years in the work. 

So these are experts. They do not move around a lot. They are not 

part of the floating group of individuals who go around the world. 

They are both Foreign Service officers as well as civil servants, a 

large component of civil servants who have dedicated themselves to 

a particular expertise or a particular field of endeavor, and I am 

very proud of each and every one of them. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Secretary Ridge. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. TOM RIDGE,1 SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT 

OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Secretary RIDGE. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Collins, 

Senator Lieberman, Members of the Committee. First of all, let me 

thank you for including the Department of Homeland Security in 

this very important discussion. While we may be less than 2 years 

of age, we are both producers and consumers of intelligence, and 

we are pleased to testify before you with our colleague and my 

friend Secretary Powell. 

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to discuss important 

new initiatives undertaken by President Bush to enhance our intelligence capabilities and strengthen our ability to fight the war on 

terror. This is particularly timely in the wake of the thoughtful and 

thorough recommendations made by the Commission on the Terrorist Attacks on the United States. 

As the Commission recognized in the aftermath of September 11, 

it was clear that the Nation had no centralized effort to defend the 

country against terrorism, no single agency dedicated to homeland 

13

security. And as all of you know, these tragic attacks required a 

swift and drastic change to our understanding of what it means to 

secure America. 

With your help, the Department of Homeland Security was established to bring together all of the scattered entities and capabilities under one central authority to better coordinate and direct our 

homeland security efforts. In the span of our 18-month existence, 

we have made tremendous progress. And I want to thank the Commission and the Congress for recognizing and supporting the tremendous strides we have already made. That does not mean, however, that there is not quite a bit of additional work to do. And nowhere is this more important than with our intelligence operations. 

Every day, terrorists are at work to discover a vulnerability, to 

uncover a gap in our substantial network of layered security. Every 

day, hundreds of pieces of information come to us, some of which 

the public is aware, such as the recent al-Zarqawi tape and information gleaned from the tragedy of the school in Beslan, and much 

that the public never hears about. 

Intelligence gathering and sharing will always be at the center 

of our efforts to prevent an attack. That is why improved coordination and cooperation across all elements of the intelligence community has been an absolute imperative of the homeland security mission and one that the President has fully embraced and addressed 

with recent reform initiatives. 

Since the inception of the Department of Homeland Security, we 

have improved intelligence capabilities and information sharing 

with our partners across all levels of government and the private 

sector. The President has directed a number of important initiatives to be taken to further reform our intelligence collection and 

analysis. As Secretary Powell mentioned last month, he issued a 

series of executive orders implementing some of these reforms. 

The President established the National Counterterrorism Center, 

which will build on the important work already underway at the 

Terrorist Threat Integration Center or TTIC. TTIC itself was an 

initiative of this administration that recognized the need for a centralized approach to terrorist threat assessments for the Nation. 

This new center, the National Counterterrorism Center, will become our Nation’s shared knowledge bank for intelligence information on known or suspected terrorists. It will centralize our intelligence efforts and help to ensure that all elements of our government receive the information they need to combat terrorist threats. 

It will provide a better unity of effort within the intelligence community and improve our linkage with law enforcement. 

By enhancing the flow of critical information, we will greatly enhance our ability to do our job protecting Americans and securing 

the homeland. 

The President has also directed that additional actions be taken 

to improve the sharing of terrorism information among agencies 

and that needed improvements be made in our information technology architecture. Last week, as has been previously mentioned 

by both Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman, the President announced yet another important step in his reform agenda. In a 

meeting with senior Congressional leadership, he conveyed his 

strong support for the creation of a national intelligence director. 

14

The creation of both the national intelligence director and the 

new counterterrorism center were recommendations by the 9/11 

Commission and embraced by our President. They are critical 

building blocks to enhancing our Nation’s intelligence system. 

Under the President’s plan, the national intelligence director would 

be given full budget authority over the national foreign intelligence 

program appropriation. The director will also be given responsibility for integrating foreign and domestic intelligence and would 

be provided with the management tools necessary to effectively 

oversee the intelligence community. 

The director will report to the President and serve as the head 

of the U.S. intelligence community. He will be assisted in his work 

by a cabinet level Joint Intelligence Community Council. The council is critical to ensuring sound advise to the national intelligence 

director as well as the opportunity for departments to shape priorities together. The new director provides centralized leadership for 

our national intelligence efforts and will ensure a joint, unified effort to protect our national security. 

The Department of Homeland Security will play an important 

role within this new structure and will directly benefit from the 

centralized leadership and the enhanced flow of information it will 

provide. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Information Analysis will participate in the new counterterrorism center. 

As a member of the intelligence community, it will have full access 

to a central repository of intelligence information. 

DHS and other members of the intelligence community will now 

go to one place that will formulate an integrated approach to consolidated threat assessments and related intelligence and planning 

support. This centralization is critical to our efforts. The new integrated structure will create a more open flow of information, leaving DHS better-informed regarding terrorist threats and better 

able to address vulnerabilities and therefore secure our country. 

Just as important, we can effectively and efficiently channel that 

information to those who need it by using new communication tools 

such as the Homeland Security Information Network. Again, as 

several of you have previously described, it is important to get this 

information to those who can act upon it, and one of the responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security was to not only 

participate in the interdepartmental sharing of information at the 

Federal Government but from a top to bottom information sharing 

scheme with our partners in State and local government as well as 

the private sector. 

The Homeland Security Information Network is a real-time, 

Internet-based collaboration system that allows multiple jurisdictions, disciplines and emergency operations centers to receive and 

share the same intelligence and the same tactical information. This 

year, we have expanded this information network to include senior 

decisionmakers such as governors and homeland security advisors 

in all 50 States as well as the top 50 major urban areas. 

It was an ambitious goal but one that we met ahead of schedule, 

and we are still working, namely to provide increased security 

clearances and secret level connectivity not only at the State level 

but also for private sector leaders and critical infrastructure owners and operators. 

15

In order to increase compatibility and reduce duplication, we are 

also working to integrate this information network with similar efforts of our partners in the Federal Government, particularly the 

Department of Justice, to include the Law Enforcement Online and 

the Regional Information Sharing System. And all of our Federal 

partners as well as many others participate in the Department’s 

new Homeland Security Operations Center. This 24-hour nerve 

center synthesizes information from a variety of sources and then 

distributes the information, bulletins and security recommendations as necessary to all levels of government and to the private 

sector. 

Our progress in intelligence and information sharing, I believe, 

demonstrates the links we have made between prevention and protection. By establishing a comprehensive strategy combining vulnerability and threat assessments with infrastructure protection, 

we are taking steps daily to protect the public and mitigate the potential for another attack. 

The focus today is on the President’s actions to strengthen and 

to unify our intelligence efforts. However, there is a whole breadth 

of issues that are covered by the findings and recommendations of 

the Commission which I think are both indicative of and also insufficient to capture the full scope of the department as well as our 

mission. This Committee faces the important work of building upon 

the President’s initiatives and the 9/11 recommendations to 

strengthen and improve our intelligence capabilities. I commend 

your efforts in this area and in examining and assessing the important work of the 9/11 Commission. 

We at DHS look forward to working with this Committee and 

with the Congress as a whole in this extremely important endeavor. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

I am going to call on Senator Stevens first for questions, because 

he has to leave at 10:30. Senator Stevens. 

Senator STEVENS. Well, thank you very much. 

I have just one question to my two friends: During my time here, 

I think I have been exposed to intelligence briefings on economic, 

particularly financial, political—particularly in the area of the 

threats to some of our basic friends and allies throughout the 

world— and scientific—particularly in terms of new technology. I 

think it has come from not only the State Department but the Energy, Commerce, Justice Departments, and other entities. 

Now, you have INR, Secretary Powell. Do these other agencies 

continue to have a need for the ability to collect their own intelligence, and if so, should that be in any way under, or should the 

people be responsible to the NID if we create one? 

Secretary POWELL. I am reluctant to speak for all of my other 

colleagues in the Cabinet. I think every Cabinet officer, Treasury, 

Energy and others, has their own unique requirements. And they 

should be in a position to make a judgment as how to best satisfy 

those requirements in their own internal intelligence organization 

that analyze those requirements. 

What we have is a collection system, CIA and so many other collection agencies, that bring in information. And that information 

has to be sorted through and analyzed, and it has to be organized 

16

in a way that serves these different parochial needs. Secretary 

Snow, Secretary Ridge, and Secretary Abraham have a different 

need than I do. And so, they have to be able to have an organization or some means of getting that part of what has been collected 

that is relevant to them and then to analyze that in greater detail. 

And I think if we did anything that damaged that process or 

damaged that system, we would regret it later. So in the case of 

INR, I think INR has demonstrated that it does that very well for 

me. It is protected in the President’s proposal, and frankly, it is 

protected in all of the other proposals that are before the Congress. 

At the same time, I believe INR has to be seen not just as my organization but as an organization that participates in the work and 

the processes of the overall intelligence community, and I think the 

NID should have the ability to concur in who I select as the director of INR. If he and I have a disagreement, then we will take that 

to the President. 

And so, I am prepared to do what is necessary to show that INR 

is a contributing member to the overall work of the intelligence 

community but first and foremost serves my diplomatic needs. 

Senator STEVENS. Do you have collection as well as analytical capabilities? 

Secretary POWELL. My organization—and Tom will shake his 

head one way or the other as I say the following—is principally an 

analytic organization, not a collection organization. It uses the information that has been gathered by the CIA, by NSA and by service organizations, by energy-specific collectors. We are an analytic 

organization that takes this body of information and extracts from 

it that which INR knows I need and the President needs and other 

Cabinet officers need with respect to foreign policy issues and the 

diplomatic perspective. 

Senator STEVENS. Secretary Ridge, do you have any comment on 

that? 

Secretary RIDGE. Yes, I do, Senator. As you well know, not only 

is our Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis a part of the 

intel community, but the U.S. Coast Guard is. And we look at both 

of these entities as generating intelligence that at some point in 

time is quite relevant to the National Counterterrorism Center. I 

might add that within the Department of Homeland Security, we 

have other agencies that acquire transactional information that ultimately may be helpful to the threat assessment and the responsibilities of the NCTC. 

For example, at our borders, we often secure information about 

individuals as well as conduct, and so, we have the Customs and 

the Border Patrol and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

And as we continue to build and then sustain the relationship we 

have with the State and locals, conceivably, we might collect information up through that chain from either the private sector or the 

State and local government with regard to surveillance, reconnaissance or unusual activity that may be necessary for the National 

Counterterrorism Center to know. 

So I would say to you that we both produce and consume, but 

I think it is very important, given the unique responsibilities of the 

Department of Homeland Security that we do not cede this authorVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:12 Dec 21, 2004 Jkt 097044 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\97044.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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ity to the NID, particularly in the transactional piece as well as the 

Coast Guard. 

Senator STEVENS. Well, my mind goes back to an interagency 

briefing we had for the Senate, Senate Appropriations, in preparation for an international economic meeting. And it was multiple 

agency, and they had multiple collectors within those agencies. I 

just wonder what could happen to that expertise that is out there 

in almost every agency that is related to the future of the country 

as much as, probably not as significant, but as much as counterterrorism and the military intelligence. This intelligence of economic and scientific basis really has a lot to do with our future economic development, and I do not see anyone yet talking about how 

or if they survive and whether they are subject to control by the 

NID. 

I understand what you say, Colin, about your checking your director with the NID, but does he have to approve your people that 

you employ? 

Secretary POWELL. No; the way it has been visualized to this 

point INR works for me just as it always has in the past. There 

is no change to INR. I justify its staffing before committees of Congress and its funding before committees of Congress, and we want 

it to be a player in the interagency process with the community, 

but INR will keep doing what it has been doing. 

Senator STEVENS. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your courtesy. 

Secretary POWELL. I might make one point before the Senator 

leaves, and that, of course, there is another collection that is taking 

place that is not CIA or NSA, and that is just all of the diplomatic 

reporting that comes in from our embassies all over the world, and 

those cables come in, and they contain information that often adds 

to the intelligence collection system not often for that purpose. 

And that will always be there, and so, we are in a sense a collector as well as all of the other intelligence organizations. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lieberman, why do you 

not go next? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Again, thanks to both of you for excellent testimony. 

Secretary Powell, as I said in my opening remarks, you really 

have a unique position in the intelligence community, and it is very 

important to us to have heard from you today, because you are not 

only a producer of intelligence; you are a consumer in areas other 

than terrorism, and you give us in your testimony, I think, some 

very important guidelines and directions that we should follow to 

achieve the broader reform of intelligence that we want. 

I am struck by some of the things you said, and I just want to 

highlight them—that the goal of the NID, you say, is to ensure full 

and prompt information sharing, to include making sure that agencies have access to all intelligence needed to carry out their missions and to perform independent analysis. My own interpretation 

of some of the things that you have said later in your statement 

is that we have not achieved that goal yet, and that is part of what 

we need from the NID. 

I was particularly struck by your comparison of the needs of the 

military for intelligence and the needs of other agencies, including 

18

particularly your own, and part of what is going to happen if we 

create this national intelligence director correctly is not, I hope and 

I am sure you hope, that we diminish the intelligence available to 

our war fighters, but we make sure that there is equally relevant, 

helpful information to other decisionmakers in our government, including the Secretary of State in your capacity to both form our foreign policy and advise the President of the United States about the 

decisions that he has to make. 

And I am struck that you are saying that the intelligence community, we have provided fantastic people to the military, but by 

those standards not as useful, as you say, in the world of diplomacy. And I think that really should guide us as we go forward. 

Am I reading you correctly or hearing you correctly? 

Secretary POWELL. Yes, the war fighters have to be given what 

they need when they are going into combat, and you have to be 

able to count things, see the battlefield, get all you can about 

enemy intentions, what the enemy is going to do. That is becoming 

more difficult. In the old days, when I was a much younger man 

and a soldier in the field, they told me about where divisions and 

corps were and how I would fight them. When I was a corps commander in Germany, I knew all I needed to know about the Eighth 

Guards Army that was facing my corps, the Fifth Corps, and I 

knew where they were coming, how they were coming, at what rate 

they were coming. I knew how to attrit them as they came. 

But that enemy is gone. It is a different kind of enemy now that 

does not quite give you that sort of target. So our war fighters have 

much more challenging needs now, and the intelligence community 

has to change in order not just to be able to count the Eighth 

Guards Army along the Iron Curtain but what is happening, for example, inside Sadr City, a much more difficult target. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Secretary POWELL. But as we chase those targets, as we try to 

get to the bottom of that, do not forget that the diplomacy of the 

United States and the diplomats I have around the world and the 

judgments I have to make also require dedicated assets and the 

best we can do to divine the intentions of foreign leaders and their 

ability to act on those intentions. And it tends to be a softer, not 

quite as pleasant a task, and we cannot have an intelligence system that is so focused on one of the needs of the government overall that it ignores other needs. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I appreciate the answer. 

In other parts of your opening statement, you go, I think, quite 

strongly into the questions of the way in which information is classified, and maybe it is overclassified now. You make a very important distinction that if we separate information on sources and 

methods of intelligence so that we can share the content without—

and I am not talking about the evening news; I am talking about 

making sure you get it and you get it, Secretary Ridge—then, we 

are all going to be a lot better off. 

And, the 9/11 Commission focused, obviously, on the pre-September 11 failure of, for instance, the CIA and FBI to share information. I am hearing you to say that it is not as easy as it should 

be for you to get all of the information that you need to form our 

19

foreign policy from all of the other intelligence agencies of our government; correct? 

Secretary POWELL. I think I get everything I can possibly read 

in one day from all of our other intelligence agencies. That is not 

the problem. The problem is making sure that others can access it 

and use it. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Who are you thinking about? 

Secretary POWELL. My assistant secretaries or even lower, my 

ambassadors, political officers out at different embassies. We have 

to make sure that we are classifying these things at high levels and 

in great quantity because we do not want to lose the source, the 

method——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Secretary POWELL [continuing]. By which the information was acquired. And so, the point I was making, and it is a point that has 

been made many times, is that we have to find a way to protect 

the source and the method while using the information and therefore delink the source and the method from the information. 

Very often, we will find a leak in a newspaper where a source 

and a method has been given away, and we have really hurt ourselves. And what we have to do is to find ways to sanitize the information so that we separate source and information from method so 

that the information can be used more widely. And then, there is 

just a general bureaucratic tendency to overclassify things because 

it is easy to do. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. And that is what we want the new NID to 

overcome. 

I want to ask you a final quick question to make it in real time. 

When the head of INR put that memo in front of you this morning 

about the questions about the North Korean explosion, did he have 

the fullest access to all the other information available to our government? And just to give you another example which we have 

heard in some of the other testimony, if you, to advise the President about what happened, wanted to make sure that we got adequate satellite-based imagery, are you confident that you could 

make sure that the satellite took the picture that you wanted it to 

take and that it was not—well, was not where the Secretary of Defense wanted it to be, because he thought that was more important 

at a given moment? 

Secretary POWELL. To be precise, it did. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. The satellite was there. That is good. 

Secretary POWELL. The point is Tom did not come to work this 

morning and have the ability to go see what happened in North 

Korea as INR. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Sure. 

Secretary POWELL. What he did was dial into what the intelligence community’s holdings were overnight, so it is not something 

that INR did that was so brilliant; it was what the rest of the intelligence community did that was brilliant that INR was able to 

draw upon, analyze, look at and give me what they knew I would 

need. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Absolutely. And that is my question, that 

you need to know that he had the access to the total information 

available to all elements of the intelligence community, and hopeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:12 Dec 21, 2004 Jkt 097044 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\97044.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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fully, NID and the centers that we are talking about, I know the 

Commission talked about possibly creating a center on North 

Korea; a center on WMD would be very helpful. 

Secretary POWELL. I think others should talk to whether or not 

there are needs for all of these centers, but the one caution I would 

offer is that there are just so many experts and analysts around. 

So you can create all kinds of structures. In the military, we would 

say you can create all kinds of spaces, but there are a limited number of faces with the expertise needed for these spaces. 

So be careful about creating any structures that might really not 

be necessary if all you are going to end up doing is competing to 

get the best people from organizations that are doing good work 

now to fill these new spaces. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I agree; it is a good warning. Of course, the 

advantage is for you, if you have a center on North Korea, you 

have got the faces in the same space in our government who know 

anything about it, so they are going to pool their information, 

argue with one another, and then give you and the President the 

best advice possible. 

Secretary POWELL. Yes, but you are going to be taking those 

faces from some other organization that will not be able to argue 

a little later on. It is just a caution, Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes, I hear it, and that is the balance we 

have to strike. 

Thanks very much. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. 

That is a good lead-in to the bottom line question that I want to 

ask each of you before I go into some of the details of the Commission’s and the President’s plans for reorganizing the intelligence 

community. In the case of the North Korean explosion, it sounds 

like the current system worked well. There are obviously other recent examples where the current system did not work well to 

produce the kind of quality intelligence that we need. 

A bottom line question for both of you: Do you believe that a 

strong national intelligence director with enhanced power to set 

collection priorities and to task the collection of intelligence, will 

improve the quality of intelligence that you both need in your capacity as policy makers? Because that is really what this is all 

about: Making sure that we have the structure in place that will 

produce high quality intelligence when you need it. 

Secretary Powell. 

Secretary POWELL. Yes, I do. We need a stronger, empowered 

quarterback. 

Chairman COLLINS. Secretary Ridge. 

Secretary RIDGE. I concur, and it would also probably facilitate 

access, so improving the quality and then facilitating access for the 

multiple agencies within the intelligence community to each other’s 

information flow would certainly be a plus-up. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. That is very helpful, because 

that really is why we are here, and we do want to get this right. 

As you both know, the President has announced that he believes 

the national intelligence director should be assisted by a Cabinetlevel Joint Intelligence Community Council, and Secretary Powell, 

you described this in your testimony as giving the director the sort 

21

of independent help that he will require to perform the job. I would 

like to have you both expand on what you see this Joint Intelligence Community Council doing, what you see as its advantages. 

Secretary Powell, if there are analogies with the Joint Chiefs, that 

would be of interest to us as well. We will start with you, Secretary 

Powell. 

Secretary POWELL. Yes, I think this is a very useful corporate 

model to use. The counsel should advise the national intelligence 

director, identify corrections and tell him whether him or her that 

he/she is moving in the wrong direction. The NID is not going to 

be omniscient, and therefore, this senior body will play a very useful role. 

The parallel I was suggesting was with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, particularly as empowered by GoldwaterNickles in the mid-80’s, and I was the first chairman that had really full authority under Goldwater-Nickles from 1989 to 1993. It had 

been implemented by the time I took over. But in effect, you took 

the four service chiefs, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, 

Coast Guard on occasion, and then, the Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff and the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Each of those four service secretaries came in, and they are responsible for the training and equipping of their forces. So the 

Chief of Staff of the Army is worrying about the Army, and the 

same thing with the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps bosses. But 

when they came together as the corporate body, the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, they were expected not only to represent their service interests but go beyond that and to represent the interests of the 

joint body of the Nation as a whole. 

And I found it to be a very workable and effective system. When 

we were all together in the time I was Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, I would have regular meetings with each of them 

individually where they would pound away on their service needs 

and service positions. But when I needed to know what they 

thought as professional military officers and separate it, step aside 

from their corporate responsibility or service, I would have a meeting in my office with no staff, no note takers, no agenda, and nobody on any staff knowing what I planned to talk about with the 

chiefs. 

But the chiefs knew, because I would call them. And they would 

step out. They would have sort of a slight out of body experience, 

and they would step out of their service and step clearly into the 

national need, and we got the best advice using that kind of technique. This, I can see in that same way, where you have Tom, myself, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Treasury, where each of us will come together with 

our unique parochial experience and with the interests of our department and agenda in mind but at the same time coming together as a senior-level body to provide advice, counsel, correction, 

guidance to the NID as to what the overall needs of the Nation are. 

And I am sure that we will be arguing amongst ourselves inside 

of that council, as we should. But there is no such council now that 

does that, so I think this is an important idea, and I think it will 

help this whole NID concept to have this kind of a group. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Secretary Ridge. 

22

Secretary RIDGE. It is very difficult to build on that very strong 

reasoning process, but I would add one more component to the 

analogy that Secretary Powell gave you, and that is just enhanced 

accountability to both the NID and the President with the principals in the room. Once the consensus is reached, after whatever 

exchange of priorities, debate, discussion, however, but once a consensus is reached, when you have the principals involved rather 

than an assistant secretary, an under secretary, a deputy secretary, then, I think frankly, it streamlines and enhances the credibility that whatever is decided is to be implemented, and the principal him or herself is going to be held accountable. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Levin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you and 

Senator Lieberman for not only your leadership but for your opening statements. I think you really spoke for all of us in what you 

said, and I want to thank our two witnesses for all they do. 

Secretary Powell, there were two major reports that we have 

grappled with. One is the 9/11 Commission Report setting forth all 

the failures prior to September 11, the failure to share information, 

the failure to act on it between CIA and FBI within those organizations, for instance. Then, there is also a Senate Intelligence Committee report, 500 pages of mistakes, omissions, distortions by the 

CIA, all in the same direction pointing towards the Iraqi threat 

being sharper and clearer than it was or turned out to be. 

My major focus is twofold: One is to be supportive of the reforms 

of the nature that we have talked about, and I think they are important, and they can be useful. We have got to do it right, but we 

have got to do it in many ways. I think TTIC has taken us a long 

way down that road, but I am in favor of a number of the reforms 

which have been mentioned. 

But I am also determined that we are going to do something to 

promote independent and objective analysis. Too often, we have not 

received independent, objective analysis from the CIA, and that has 

been true for a long time. This is not the first time. And by the 

way, I want to complement you, Secretary, on the INR, because one 

of the kudos given out by the 9/11 Commission was to that INR, 

and a similar operation inside the Defense Department also received some kudos, and we just wish the CIA had listened to some 

of those findings and analyses rather than going down the course 

that they went. 

But my questions to you because of what the 9/11 Commission 

found relative to the Iraqi intelligence relates to a couple of specific 

issues which the 9/11 Commission commented on. For instance, the 

9/11 Commission in their report said that there was no evidence 

that Iraq operated with Al Qaeda in attacking the United States. 

That was in the 9/11 Commission Report. The 9/11 Commission Report said that there was no evidence to support a meeting of Iraqi 

secret police with one of the hijackers, Atta. 

And yet, you were pressed, according to the press reports, prior 

to your UN speech, to include a reference to the meeting that was 

alleged to have taken place in Prague between the hijacker, Atta, 

and Iraqi intelligence, and you refused to include that reference in 

23

your UN speech despite being pressed to do so. Now, you turned 

out to be right. But that pressure, nonetheless, was there. It came 

from the CIA, apparently, in materials that were given to you 

which you decided not to utilize, and it came as late as the night 

before, according to a Vanity Fair article. While you were sleeping 

in preparation for your speech, there was still a call allegedly on 

behalf of the CIA urging you to tighten up your references to links 

between Saddam and Al Qaeda including to make reference to that 

report that you just thought was not accurate of that alleged 

Prague meeting. 

And I wonder if you would tell us if that report is accurate. Were 

you, in fact, urged to include reference to that Prague meeting 

which the 9/11 Commission said did not exist and which you concluded was of dubious evidence? 

Secretary POWELL. Several days before I made the presentation, 

the President asked me to make the presentation, and I only had 

about 5 days to get ready for it, and a lot of information had been 

assembled in anticipation that somebody would have to make a 

public presentation before the United Nations. 

When I gathered all the information that had been prepared by 

various staff agencies and the CIA, elsewhere, in the Executive Office of the President, some of the information included the ideas 

with respect to the Prague meeting or some connection between Al 

Qaeda and September 11. When I examined it all and spent several 

days and nights out at the CIA looking at the basis for all of the 

claims that were going to be put forward in my presentation, I did 

not find an analytical basis upon which to make the claim of Al 

Qaeda, September 11, or the Prague meetings, and so, I dropped 

them. 

Nobody pressured me; nobody called me and said I had to include 

it. I got this raw information, looked at it and declined to use it. 

The reason I declined to use it was that the intelligence experts 

that I spent those nights with at CIA could not substantiate it, so 

I dropped it. Nobody questioned me. 

Senator LEVIN. Did the CIA not attempt to reach you during that 

evening? 

Secretary POWELL. As you noted, Senator, I was fast asleep. 

Senator LEVIN. I know, but did the CIA attempt to reach you? 

Do you know, and have you ever talked to Tenet about that? 

Secretary POWELL. No, the reason I do not think this is an issue, 

and I do not——

Senator LEVIN. Well, it is a 9/11 Commission issue. It is right in 

their report. 

Secretary POWELL. Well, what I will say to you is that the CIA 

chopped off or concurred in everything that I said. Director Tenet 

was with me the night before my presentation in New York at a 

mockup set that we had created with all of the visuals and so was 

Deputy Director John McLaughlin, and every word that I used and 

every judgment that I came to was concurred in by the CIA. So the 

answer is no, the CIA did not try to put something into that statement. 

Senator LEVIN. Did not urge you to include that? 

24

Secretary POWELL. No, George and John were with me, and they 

bought off on my script, and they did not say you ought to put this 

in. 

Senator LEVIN. Mr. Secretary, my time is up, but I really would 

like a direct answer, though, to this question. 

Secretary POWELL. I just said no, they did not. 

Senator LEVIN. They did not urge you the night——

Secretary POWELL. No. 

Senator LEVIN [continuing]. The night before——

Secretary POWELL. No. 

Senator LEVIN [continuing]. To include something? 

Secretary POWELL. No, Senator. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Coleman. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Secretary POWELL. Let me be precise, Senator, because you are 

being precise. Nobody at any—neither George Tenet nor John 

McLaughlin the night before after we made the final rehearsal at 

about 10 that night, and we were all secured for the night, nobody 

at that level—I do not know what might have happened among 

staff people, but neither George nor John made any effort, because 

they had concurred in the presentation, and we all got up the next 

morning and did a final check. Neither George Tenet nor John 

McLaughlin brought forward any idea that this concept, these two 

concepts had to be introduced into my presentation. 

Senator LEVIN. That is why I referred to the staff level. I said 

on behalf of the CIA. 

Secretary POWELL. I have no idea what might have taken place 

at the staff level, but it never got to my attention, and I would 

have—for the simple reason that the CIA had chopped off on it and 

had chopped off on those two points for several days——

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. 

Secretary POWELL [continuing]. Before my presentation. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Coleman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Secretary Powell, you have done a very good job of laying out 

some of the specific needs that you have, and I am not sure whether my question is a resource question or a structural issue. I have, 

in my conversations as I have traveled meeting with various embassies particularly in Latin America, but I think it is probably fair 

throughout the world; post-September 11, there has been a shift, 

and the shift in focus, obviously, with good cause, is 

counterterrorism. 

But the result of that is that in other areas, some of the economic 

analysis, some of the things that you talked about that are essential, for the long-term relationships that we have with this country, 

and I would conclude for the long-term security of this country are 

still fundamentally important. But the question is are the resources shifted into one area; and we have the resources, then, to 

still do the things that have to be done in those other areas, the 

economic analysis, the resource analysis, all the things that you 

and our ambassador have to take into account? 

25

I raise that because when we look at the establishment of a national intelligence director, and in your testimony, among the responsibilities would be to establish intelligence requirements and 

priorities and manage collection tasking, both inside and outside 

the country. Is there a conflict, then, with a national intelligence 

director who has those responsibilities of establishing requirements 

and priorities and then the needs that you have in your testimony, 

and then you go into saying we need a national intelligence director; I support that, but I have some very specific needs, needs 

about global coverage, needs about kind of judgments that I need, 

and I would suspect, then, needs in terms of priorities for you that 

are important in our ability to conduct treaties, conduct negotiations, understand weaknesses and strengths of various countries at 

various times? Is there a conflict there? 

Secretary POWELL. I think it is quite the contrary, Senator Coleman. I now have somebody with the authority to make judgments 

and to change priorities and to shift assets around and to reprogram money that I can go to and make the case if I think there 

is a case to be made that something is being overlooked. 

And I am also on this council that gives him advice and counsel 

on these matters. So I think this gives me greater access into that 

requirements determination, reprogrammings and initial programming. When all the budgets come in, it is the NID who will assemble all of these budgets into a single request and then present that 

request to the Congress and get the appropriation back. 

So what you said is correct. When you have something like terrorism come along, and we had to allocate resources to it; we had 

to protect the homeland, and from a finite body of analysts and capability, something is going to come in second in that contest for 

awhile until you build your capability up to take care of it. What 

we have to do now is some capability building, bring more people 

and more resources in and make sure that I am making the case 

as to why a particular country in Latin America and elsewhere is 

not getting the coverage it needs, and notwithstanding the war on 

terrorism, we have to cover a particular country, and there are several who are deserving of that level of coverage. 

I also have to be prepared to say to the NID, and by the way, 

there are these countries where, frankly, the diplomatic reporting 

I am getting is enough, do not waste a lot of analytic capability on 

that. So, I have to be able to make the case on what is important, 

but I also have to be willing, as part of this council, to say do not 

worry about it, I will just read newspapers and get diplomatic reporting, and that will be enough for that particular country. 

Senator COLEMAN. As I reflected upon, Mr. Secretary, some of 

the earlier testimony we had, particularly with some of the former 

directors of the CIA, I got a sense that a lot of the interaction 

among some of the principals in intelligence was done in a conversational way, folks laying out their various needs. Because that 

goes on today, even in the absence of a national intelligence director. 

So what I am hearing from you is that you are not troubled by 

your lack of ability to have the power to make that decision; that 

you are comfortable with the opportunity to have input in that decision, to know that your needs would be met. 

26

Secretary POWELL. Yes, sir. 

Senator COLEMAN. Secretary Ridge, among the changes that 

have been made, and I must note that in some of the testimony we 

had earlier, particularly of some of the families of the September 

11 victims, there was a concern about have we done anything since 

September 11? And if I have learned anything, Madam Chairman 

and Ranking Member Lieberman, from these hearings, we have 

done a lot since September 11 in so many areas to make America 

safer, to make it more secure, to improve our ability to manage, to 

collect, and to analyze intelligence. 

One of those areas has been TTIC, where we have a Threat Terrorist Integration Center. My sense is that the National 

Counterterrorism Center is really more like a TTIC plus one, TTIC 

plus two. What is it that we are not getting in TTIC now that 

somehow we are going to get if we move to more than just a new 

acronym? 

Secretary RIDGE. Well, I think first of all, in the NCTC, you will 

have—there will be an originator. The analysts there are compelled 

under the President’s Executive Order to operate from a consolidated database and originate a consolidated threat assessment for 

the country as opposed to integrating, perhaps, individual assessments from multiple departments. I think you will see a much 

more robust and comprehensive approach. I think you are frankly 

going to see more people there doing more things and again having 

the National Counterterrorism Center personally accountable, institutionally accountable to the NID, who is accountable to the 

President, I think, gives us, again, a far more complete and comprehensive domestic picture as far as we are concerned. 

I like the ability for the NID to oversee the information sharing 

responsibilities within the respective agencies so that within the 

National Counterterrorism Center where some of my analysts perhaps with the Information Analysis Unit might have to go in and 

task or ask. It will already be there to our analysts in the National 

Counterterrorism Center. So I think this broader approach, with an 

originator of a consolidated threat assessment, and more resources 

committed to that will provide more of a push system to push more 

threat assessment out. 

It will take over a lot of the threat assessment from the Information Analysis Unit that I have. I mean we cede some of that authority. We will clearly not cede the responsibility to do competitive 

analysis as it relates uniquely to our mission, the domestic threat, 

but broader threat assessments will be done by the National 

Counterterrorism Center for us. It is a good tradeoff as far as we 

are concerned. We can use those analysts for other purposes and 

use the information analysis and infrastructure protection, frankly, 

for some of the areas where we have an important but limited role 

can be expanded. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, 

Madam Chairman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you 

and Senator Lieberman again, both of you, for your leadership on 

this issue. It is very important. 

27

Secretary Powell and Secretary Ridge, we appreciate you being 

here. I know how busy your schedules are. 

So Secretary Powell, let me start with you. I found your testimony very interesting, especially the part where you said we do not 

need, as a consumer, you do not need a series of worst-case scenarios. And I liked what you said about, talk to your staff saying 

tell me what you know, tell me what you do not know, and also, 

based on what you do and do not know, tell me what you think. 

I think that is a very healthy approach. And you also mentioned 

that it is important as we, the Congress, and the intelligence community, as we go through these reforms, it is very important that 

we get it right. 

And I agree with you 100 percent on that, and so, I guess I have 

a general question to start with of you, Secretary Powell, and that 

is what changes would you like to see that would help the State 

Department, and I am sure that there are some changes that you 

think would be a mistake if we made those changes, because they 

would, in effect, hurt the State Department. Could you elaborate 

on those? 

Secretary POWELL. I think the creation of a NID will help the 

State Department, and I will just refer to what I was discussing 

with Senator Coleman, that it now gives me somebody to talk to. 

DCI has been there before, but the DCI did not have the kind of 

authority. And in this town, it is budget authority that counts. Can 

you move money? Can you set standards for people? Do you have 

the access needed to the President? 

The NID will have all of that, and so, I think this is a far more 

powerful player, and that will help the State Department. There is 

a tendency in the intelligence community to make sure we are giving the war fighters everything they need, and I would never argue 

with that, because I used to be one of them. But I think now I am 

in a better position to point out the needs of the foreign policy experts of the department and my needs as Secretary of State, not 

only with a more powerful NID but with me and Tom and our 

other colleagues being on the council. 

I would be careful, and I do not want to get into this too deeply, 

because it really is the purview of others. I would be very careful 

if you started to proliferate too much bureaucracy, too many centers for this, and centers for that. 

Senator PRYOR. Right. 

Secretary POWELL. The conversation we had earlier with Senator 

Lieberman. I can assure you that there are only a finite number 

of Hangul speakers for the Korean language and Arabic speakers, 

and with the academic background and experience needed to do 

these jobs, and if you create a lot more structure and slice and dice 

it, it is the same group that is going to have to cover all of the new 

spaces until you grow new experts, and that is a very time consuming matter. So that would be my caution, Senator. 

Senator PRYOR. Right. 

Secretary Ridge, let me ask you, if I can, in the 9/11 Commission 

Report, it says that ‘‘Congress should be able to ask the Secretary 

of Homeland Security whether or not he or she has the resources 

to provide reasonable security against major terrorist acts within 

28

the United States.’’ It is on page 421. Do you have the resources 

necessary? 

Secretary RIDGE. You ask me, Senator, every time I come to the 

Hill. 

Senator PRYOR. I know that. 

Secretary RIDGE. And the answer is yes. 

Sometimes, we differ with regard to priorities, but the budgets 

that I have been able to request on behalf of the President, I think 

the Congress has generously supported. Sometimes, you have 

moved some dollars around, because from your perspective, we had 

different priorities within DHS, and it is our job to accommodate 

that adjustment and try to do both, but we do. 

Senator PRYOR. Secretary Ridge, you also, in the 9/11 Commission Report, it was mentioned that I believe the Department of 

Homeland Security has to appear before 88 committees and subcommittees in Congress, and one witness told the Commission that 

this is perhaps the single largest obstacle that is impeding the Department’s successful development. And again, that is on page 421. 

Do you agree with that assessment? 

Secretary RIDGE. Well, first of all, we accept, obviously, not only 

the Constitutional notion of the Congress’ oversight responsibility 

and appropriations responsibility, but the fact that we are building 

this Department together. It is a partnership. I mean, there is 

strong support for this Department on both sides of the aisle from 

the Congress, and we have continued to build it together. There is 

more work to be done. 

But I will tell you in the last year, both myself and my colleagues 

in senior leadership testified over 140 times on the Hill. Many of 

them were involved in over 800 briefings up here, and I think we 

probably responded to 700 or 800 requests for information from 

GAO in addition to hundreds, particularly hundreds of pieces of 

correspondence from individual Members of the House or Senate. 

So it is a partnership. We expect and respect the oversight. Frankly, we think it could be a much more effective partnership and 

more rigorous oversight if the jurisdictions were compressed, and 

I will leave that to the wisdom and the leadership on the Hill. 

Senator PRYOR. The 9/11 Commission said 88 committees and 

subcommittees. 

Secretary RIDGE. That is correct. 

Senator PRYOR. Is that right? 

Secretary RIDGE. If someone took a look at the 535 Members of 

Congress and said but for a handful, somebody somewhere has an 

opportunity to make an inquiry that has Homeland Security implications. 

Senator PRYOR. And the last thing I had is I know that in the 

9/11 Commission Report, it really talks about how some people 

should report to two different agency heads, and the NID’s deputy 

for homeland intelligence would be one of those, and I guess I am 

a little bit mindful of what the Bible says about not being able to 

serve two masters. Do you think that can be worked out and structurally that one person, one deputy, could be reporting to both, and 

does that cause you any concern? 

Secretary RIDGE. If that is what Congress decided we had to do, 

we would do it, but the admonition about serving two masters is 

29

a good one. And I think the President, in anticipation of that concern, in his recommendation included the Joint Intelligence Community Council, so you are not dealing with necessarily people 

serving two roles on a day-to-day basis, but you have access to the 

principals at the Cabinet level to make the critical decisions and 

to give guidance and to compete for the attention and the budget 

and everything else that will be in the control and the responsibility of the NID. 

So the dual-hatting is not an approach that I think I can—rarely 

do I speak for any of my colleagues in the Cabinet, but I do not 

think anyone supports that as a means to the most effective integration of what we do individually as departments and our working 

relationship with the NID. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Secretary Powell, do you want to 

respond to that issue also? 

Secretary POWELL. He is speaking for me, too. That is not a good 

idea. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Madam Chairman, and our thanks to 

you and Senator Lieberman for convening yet another really valuable set of witnesses here today for us. It is great to see both of 

you, and thank you for your service, and I welcome you today. 

Secretary Ridge would be disappointed if he left here today and 

I did not ask him about rail security. And I do not want to disappoint him, but I will not lead off with that, but just to give you 

something to look forward to, I will come back to that. 

A good friend of mine just passed away about 2 weeks ago. He 

was a minister, a Methodist minister and paster of churches all 

over Delaware. His name was Brooks Reynolds. And he would have 

been 89 years old on Election Day had he lived. He used to give 

the opening prayer at our General Assembly for many years when 

I was governor. And among the things I have often heard him say, 

and I have heard him say more than a few times; he used to say 

the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. 

I just want to—in recalling his words, for us, who serve on this 

Committee and are charged with developing at least a proposal for 

addressing our intelligence inadequacies, what should, for us, be 

the main thing? 

Secretary Powell, do you want to tackle that first? 

Secretary POWELL. The main thing is to do no harm to an intelligence community that is very competent; very dedicated, and 

overall is doing an excellent job. What we want to do, the main 

thing we want to do is to put these very competent, qualified people in an even better position to do an even better job. That is the 

main thing. So everything you do and every change that you make 

in the current system has to be for the purpose of putting these individuals in a better position to do a better job. 

I think that having a national intelligence director with real authority not just ‘‘bureaucratic authority’’ of the kind that the DCI 

had in the past is part of putting them in a better position to do 

the better thing. And I think with the council of the kind that we 

30

have discussed here this morning in place and functioning also 

helps us do a better thing. And I feel strongly about that. When 

Tom Ridge took over as advisor in Homeland Security and then 

took over the Department of Homeland Security, it was a brand 

new thing in the world, and it was a single place to go for homeland security issues and authority. 

And I welcomed it, and Tom will tell you I am forever sending 

him things that I need done or problems that I have that relate to 

homeland security. But at least I now have somebody to send it to. 

Now, he does not always welcome my mail, and it usually——

Secretary RIDGE. They are not always love letters. 

Secretary POWELL. They are not always love letters. The fact of 

the matter is, though, I now have somebody who, in one person, 

can deal with these kinds of issues. I think it is the same thing 

with a national intelligence director. He will be the main person 

working on the main thing and keeping our focus on the main 

thing. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Secretary Ridge. 

Secretary RIDGE. Not too much to add. 

Senator CARPER. You can repeat for emphasis if you like. 

Secretary RIDGE. I think back to, actually, the reference that Secretary Powell made when I was serving in the White House as assistant to the President for Homeland Security and was given the 

opportunity and the responsibility to coordinate; there is certainly 

a difference in terms of authority and response to that authority 

if you are part of a coordinating effort versus a command and control component. 

And as Secretary Powell pointed out, when you give the NID the 

budget authority, in this town as everywhere else, that is the ultimate command and control. The only one other dimension that I 

think this will significantly improve, and it has improved every day 

since September 11, but I do not believe anybody is to the point 

where they think we have a perfect system, and that is information 

sharing generally, not just inter-Federal Government but down to 

the State and locals. 

And again, when you have a NID who can talk about and reconsider the Cold War classification system and the handling caveats, 

obviously, with the notion that you do have to protect sources and 

methods, but we do have allies and those who can help us combat 

terrorism at the State and local level; and again, under a NID, over 

time just kind of reviewing and assessing the kinds of information 

that can be channeled down to those on the streets and in the 

neighborhoods I think will be a huge improvement over the existing approach we have now. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. I seem to be hearing the word wrong 

a lot lately in public discourse. Would you just take a minute and 

share with us as we consider the recommendations of the 9/11 

Commission, big ones and not so big ones. What would be the 

wrong thing to do with respect to following any one of the recommendations that you do not particularly agree with? 

Secretary POWELL. I think it would not be a good thing to go to 

this deputy system, and we had this conversation a little while ago. 

I also think you cannot serve two masters effectively. There are 

better ways to do that. 

31

We still have to look at exactly how the NID is placed organizationally within the Executive Branch. I think the President has 

made it clear that he thinks it is better that it not be located in 

the immediate Executive Office of the President. I also think that 

would be a wrong thing to do. I do not have any others that I need 

to touch on right now, Senator Carper, that come to mind. I do not 

know if Tom does. 

Senator CARPER. Secretary Ridge. 

Secretary RIDGE. I would concur with my colleague. Again, one 

challenge: It would be wrong to assume that we have got the system of sharing the information with the State and local worked 

out. I think the NCTC is empowered to share that information, and 

I just hope that one of the considerations that this Committee and 

others take a look at is that was initially, and I think permanently, 

a responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security, but the 

Department of Justice has a role to play. 

I mean, we have to take a look at the National Counterterrorism 

Center to see what, if any, role. We do not want to start building 

up independent lines of communication, stove pipes, if you will, getting whatever information we think is relevant and appropriate 

down to the local level. So it would be wrong to assume that with 

this configuration we have solved all of the problems. We still have, 

I think, a very critical dimension to be discussed, and it may or 

may not be dealt with in the legislation as to the points of access 

from the State and locals to the kind of information that can be appropriately distributed to them. 

I think that is important from a homeland security perspective. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Madam Chairman, my time has expired. Could I ask Secretary 

Ridge to take maybe 30 seconds and just give us a quick update 

on rail security? 

Chairman COLLINS. No. Yes, you may. 

Secretary RIDGE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I liked your first 

answer. [Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Secretary RIDGE. Senator, as you well know, under the President’s directive, we are obliged by the end of this year through the 

Transportation Security Administration to come in with a National 

Transportation Security Strategy. Clearly, railroads are an integral 

part of that strategy. But we are not waiting for the strategy document to be developed to take some immediate action, and during 

the past several months, working with Amtrak, working with Congress but working with Amtrak, working within our Science and 

Technology Unit, we have got certain pilot programs to test—they 

are basically explosive portals to see if we can pick up traces of explosives on passengers or baggage. 

We have deployed, and again, these are pilot programs but sensing technology at different places. We, frankly, have built up the 

supply of canine teams at railroads around the country; pretty reliable, old technology. They are well-trained, and they do a darned 

good job. But there is still much more that we need to do, and as 

I know it is a very high priority for the Senator, I look forward to 

continuing to working with the Senator in that regard, particularly 

once the complete analysis is done within the railroad industry. 

32

They have had a representative within our critical infrastructure 

protection unit since day one. They are very well organized. They 

are very helpful in this assessment effort, and we look forward to 

sharing the product with you. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much. 

Madam Chairman, you know the old saying you cannot teach an 

old dog a new trick, and as it turns out, these dogs are pretty good 

sniffers, and we just need a few more of them, and I am pleased 

to hear that they are being more broadly deployed. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

I would note that we have been joined by the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We thank you for your commitment to this issue and for joining us this morning. 

Senator Durbin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN 

Senator DURBIN. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator 

Lieberman for this hearing. 

Secretary Powell, Secretary Ridge, thank you for your service to 

our Nation, and thank you for being here today. 

Secretary Powell, I am a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, as several are on this panel. Part of the invasion of Iraq, 

I listened carefully to day after day of information being given in 

that Intelligence Committee with a growing degree of skepticism. 

The hyperbolic statements about the threat to America, both public 

and private, the slam dunk certainty about weapons of mass destruction, I took with growing skepticism and ultimately voted 

against the use of force resolution. 

There was one moment that shook my confidence in my position, 

and that was when you appeared before the United Nations. And 

it is because of my respect for you. And I thought if Colin Powell 

is convinced, maybe I ought to think about this again. Now, Senator Levin has raised the question about your discerning judgment 

in what you said before the United Nations. But I think in reflection, I hope I am saying this accurately, but looking back on that 

testimony in light of the reality, the failure to find any evidence of 

weapons of mass destruction or a nuclear program as was described, that you were not given good intelligence. 

And I think the bottom line to all that we are about here, as Senator Collins and Senator Levin have talked about, is whether or 

not making changes, pursuing the 9/11 Commission goals will lead 

to better intelligence, our first line of defense in the war on terrorism. We talk a lot about the wiring diagrams and the boxes and 

the charts and whether we are changing email addresses and 

spaces and faces. 

What is it about the reforms that you have read that lead you 

to believe that either you or some future Secretary of State will not 

be put in the same compromising position, being given intelligence 

data to tell the world and America in preparation for a war that 

turns out to be at least fragmented and perhaps just plain wrong? 

Secretary POWELL. Intelligence is always something that there is 

some risk with, because you are dealing with a target that is doing 

everything he can to keep information from you. So you will never 

have a perfect picture of what is actually happening. With respect 

33

to the presentation I gave, over a period of years, a body of intelligence information had been built up that said that this is a regime that has used this kind of capability in the past against its 

own people, against its neighbors. They have gassed people. This 

is a regime that has not accounted for stockpiles and quantities of 

materials that they were known to have or have not accounted for 

previously and could have accounted for but chose not to, so they 

are trying to keep something from us. 

This is a regime that has never walked away from their intention 

to have such capability. A reasonable person could have thought 

that, in my judgment, anyway, that Saddam Hussein, if not constrained by the threat of force or constrained by international sanctions or international pressure, all that went away, would not use 

his intention and the capability that he had to have such stockpiles. We know that he had dual use facilities. We know that he 

had been going after precursor materials; we knew all of that. And 

it was not just what we knew; it was what other intelligence organizations knew, and it was the conventional intelligence wisdom of 

the international community. 

When we presented all of this, I think that was solid information, frankly; notwithstanding criticism of the presentation and our 

intelligence picture, it stood the test of time. What has not stood 

the test of time was the judgment we made that there were stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. On the nuclear side, there 

were real questions as to how much we really knew. Tom Finger 

and my INR guys and Carl Ford kept suggesting to me that it is 

not that clear a case, and that is why, in my presentation, I indicated some uncertainty with respect to the centrifuges and the nuclear capability, although others in the intelligence community felt 

more strongly about it than INR did. 

But we all believed that there were stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. There was no real dispute within the community 

except how large they might be, and there was also no dispute 

about the fact that there were large gaps in information and questions that were unanswered by the Iraqis over all these years: Why 

are they not answering these simple questions about what they did 

with some of this material? 

INR also agreed with that. INR did not say there were no stockpiles. INR said there were stockpiles. It has every reason to believe 

there are stockpiles. We could question the size of stockpiles, but 

we all believed there were stockpiles. It turned out that we have 

not found any stockpiles; I think it is unlikely that we will find any 

stockpiles. We have to now go back through and find out why we 

had a different judgment. 

What I have found over the last year and several months is that 

some of the sourcing that was used to give me the basis upon 

which to bring forward that judgment to the United Nations were 

flawed, wrong. 

Senator DURBIN. I am running out of time. 

Secretary POWELL. Yes. 

Senator DURBIN. But I want to bring it to this conclusion——

Secretary POWELL. But it was an important question, and I have 

got to——

Senator DURBIN. But what is it about——

34

Secretary POWELL. I am going to get to it. 

Senator DURBIN [continuing]. Our agenda that will change that, 

that will make us more accurate in describing and understanding 

our enemy? 

Secretary POWELL. I am not ducking. I am going to get to the 

question, but I have to do it this way. 

Senator DURBIN. OK. 

Secretary POWELL. What troubled me was that the sourcing was 

weak, and the sourcing had not been vetted widely across the intelligence community. What also distressed me was that there were 

some in the intelligence community who had knowledge that the 

sourcing was suspect, and that was not known to me. It did not all 

come together in a single way with a powerful individual and a 

powerful staff who could force these people to make sure that what 

one person knew, everyone else knew. That is what we have been 

talking about all morning. 

There were some intelligence communities that had put out disclaimers about some of the sourcing that were not known to the 

people who were giving me the analysis and the conclusions. Now, 

it seems to me that if you have a powerful, important, empowered 

national intelligence director, you are less likely to have those 

kinds of mistakes made, and if you focus this new system, this new 

approach to business on sharing all information openly, widely, and 

without fear of busting your stovepipe, then, it is less likely that 

you will have the kind of situation where I go out there, and I am 

saying something, while there are people in one part of the intelligence community not connected well enough to another part of 

the intelligence community who know—they knew at the time I 

was saying it that some of the sourcing was suspect. 

That is what we have got to make sure we do not allow to happen, and I think an empowered NID that has the authority to direct, move money around, move resources around, we are in a better position to avoid that kind of problem. 

Excuse me for taking time to get there. 

Senator DURBIN. No, it was an excellent answer, and it leads to 

about a dozen followup questions, which I am going to have to wait 

for. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Dayton. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON 

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Thank you both, and I think when all is written, and much has 

been written already, you two will be seen as true heroes in this 

whole operation. 

I want to pick up on something that Senator Durbin was just referring to, and that is this multiplicity of function and responsibility, because my father, who is a very successful businessman, 

said once that if someone is not responsible, then, no one is accountable. And it seems to me we have this dilemma here with 

whether or not to create or allow to continue this plethora of different operations with various people responsible, and now, we are 

talking about a coordinator or director or somebody with partial 

authority but not complete or a monolith. 

35

And given the reality that a preponderance of the budget and 

therefore the operations are under the Secretary of Defense, I do 

not see how realistically, unless you extract every one of those intelligence operations out of the Secretary of Defense’s authority you 

can give that to any director or anyone else as a practical matter. 

And then, we get into, and I am going to refer to one of these 

sources, a book called the Pretext for War by James Bamford, because frankly, even as a Member of both this Committee and the 

Armed Services Committee, most of what I find out, whether it is 

accurate or not, but most of what I find out that gets into the depth 

of what is either going on or is alleged to be going on comes from 

these external sources. It does not come from information that I get 

directly from anybody who is involved. 

And the point I am making here, and I will give you a chance, 

hopefully, at the end of this time to respond to it, but I want to 

put it on the record because it gets, to me, to the core of the dilemma that we have where we have these different actors carrying 

out these different functions. And then, as Senator Durbin said, 

somebody else is dependent on that for the validity of the information. 

He writes, and I am editing a little bit here, but I am keeping 

the integrity of it, I believe: Beginning in the mid-1990’s, Chalabi 

and his crew of INC directors were shunned by the CIA and the 

State Department. They considered them little more than a con 

man trying to wrangle large payments and to get them to start a 

war so he could be installed as president. 

The Pentagon, however, had a different agenda, and in the 

spring of 2002, both Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld began seeking Bush’s 

intervention to grant Chalabi $90 million from the Treasury. While 

the Congress had authorized $97 million for Iraqi opposition groups 

under the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, because of State Department 

objections, most of that had not been expended. State had argued 

that it would be throwing good money after bad, because Chalabi 

had not accounted for previous monies given to him. 

Nevertheless, a major effort was made to use Chalabi’s reliable 

defectors and hyped anti-Saddam charges to channel 

disinformation to the media and help sell their war to the American public through the press. One man, a former Iraqi engineer, 

claimed that he had personal knowledge of hundreds of bunkers 

where chemical, biological and nuclear weapons research was hidden throughout Iraq. It turned out that he had worked previously 

extensively for Chalabi and the INC, making anti-Saddam propaganda films. Worse, he had also worked for a shadowy American 

company, the Renden Group, that had been paid close to $200 million by the CIA and Pentagon to spread anti-Saddam propaganda 

worldwide. 

The firm is headed by John W. Renden, a rumpled man often 

seen in a beret and military fatigues, who calls himself, an ‘‘information warrior and perception manager.’’ His specialty is manipulating thought and spreading propaganda. Soon after the attacks of 

September 11, the company received a $100,000 a month contract 

from the Pentagon to offer media strategy advice. 

Among the agencies to whom it provided recommendations was 

the Office of Strategic Influence, which is apparently intended to 

36

also be a massive disinformation factory. That is the editorial comment of the author. In the end, nothing was found, not a single 

bunker. Al-Hadari claimed that the evidence had probably been 

moved. Well, gosh, how do you move an underground facility, asked 

Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq? It is the classic defense of the fabricator to say, well, they are moving it. They 

are hiding it. 

Ritter said he used to hear the same excuses from Chalabi when 

Ritter worked as a weapons inspector in Iraq: ‘‘That was what 

Ahmed Chalabi always told us every time we uncovered his data 

to be inaccurate,’’ said Ritter. He said, ‘‘well, they change scenes; 

they are too clever for us. They are too fast. They respond too 

quickly. No, Ahmed. No, Mr. Al-Hadari, you are just liars. And it 

is time the world faced up to that. They are liars. They misled us, 

and they have the blood of hundreds of brave Americans and British service members on their hands and hundreds of thousands of 

innocent Iraqis who perished in a war that did not need to be 

fought.’’

The entire story may have been little more than a U.S.-sponsored 

psychological warfare effort, the Renden Group’s specialty, to gin 

up the American public’s fear over Saddam Hussein. If so, it would 

have been illegal under U.S. law, which forbids the use of taxpayer 

money to propagandize the American public. ‘‘I think what you are 

seeing,’’ said Ritter, ‘‘is the need for the U.S. Government to turn 

to commercial enterprises like the Renden Group to do the kind of 

lying and distortion of truth in terms of peddling disinformation to 

the media that the government cannot normally do for itself.’’

Having largely shunned the CIA’s analysis, the Pentagon’s top 

leadership was instead dependent on selectively-culled intelligence 

from a man who had long pushed his own radical agenda for the 

Middle East and the bogus information from Chalabi and his defectors. It is a dangerous exercise in self-deception. Their task now is 

to frighten and deceive the rest of the country, and there is no better way than with the image of a madman a few screws away from 

a nuclear bomb. 

Now, if that is what is going on or even partially true what is 

going on, and that is over in one province, and you are in another, 

and somebody else is in another, and nobody is ultimately responsible for that, then, who is responsible, and who could possibly be 

held responsible, Mr. Secretary? 

Secretary POWELL. I cannot speak, of course, to any of the matters——

Senator DAYTON. Well, you would know better than I would 

whether it is partially true or not, but if it is even partially true, 

if there are these rogue actors out there, if there are private firms 

being subcontracted by various agencies of our government, and if 

they are then distilling information that then becomes the information that is provided to other secretaries, to the President, to the 

Vice-President, I do not fault them. They are ultimately reliant on 

what they are getting from these other sources. 

But then, if no one is in charge, then, ultimately, when we do 

get the problems that we have encountered, then, no one is accountable. 

37

Secretary POWELL. I receive my information from the government’s intelligence community, from the CIA and from INR. Now, 

if some of the sourcing that went to the CIA was wrong or had suspicious underpinnings, it was not known to me, and I do not think 

it was known to the CIA until after the fact. But I cannot talk 

about the Renden Group. I know nothing about it. 

Senator DAYTON. My question, sir——

Secretary POWELL. I think you are in a better position to deal 

with this kind of problem if you have somebody who, as we have 

noted earlier, has the power and the authority to make judgments 

about such matters that are removed from any one of these stovepipes. This NID, with the power of the purse and with the relationship that he will have to the President and not being in any one 

of the stovepipes I think is in a more powerful position to question 

any of the information or judgments that he is being given from 

any one of the organizations of government. 

Senator DAYTON. But, sir, is he or she sufficiently powerful to 

make all of those judgments when he or she is not going to be 

aware of all that is going on? The former director of the CIA, 

James Woolsey, testified before our Committee; was very helpful to 

me, anyway, in defining that to really be able to be held accountable, you have to have full budgeting authority; you have to have 

hiring and firing authority; you have to have tasking authority; 

and then, you have to have control of the information and its distribution. 

Well, the proposal from the President goes part way in that direction. It does not go all the way, and I guess my question is given 

that the preponderance of the budget and responsibility, then, that 

resides within the Secretary of Defense’s purview, is it realistic 

that anybody else is going to be able to be sufficiently—to have the 

sufficient authority to prevent these kinds of tangential operations, 

know they are occurring, be able to assess whether they are accurate or not and ultimately, then, give to you or to the Vice-President or the President information that can be relied upon? 

Secretary POWELL. Because this individual sets requirements, 

priorities; he can reprogram or she can reprogram funds on their 

own authority, whether it is endorsed or not endorsed by those 

whose programs are about to be reprogrammed, I think that is 

enormous authority. What I do not think you should think about 

doing is to take all of these disparate intelligence organizations 

that are now in bureaucratic entities and think that they can just 

be brought out and put in some new superintelligence organization 

that I think would be very difficult to manage and would break the 

link between these intelligence organizations that they are supporting, especially within the military context and the direct kind 

of support that NRO and DIA and similar organizations give to the 

war fighter. 

I do not think that their programs should be removed from their 

current bureaucratic entity and moved into a super, new bureaucratic entity. 

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Warner, I would like to give you the 

opportunity to question the witnesses if you have any questions 

you would like to ask at this point. 

38

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA 

Senator WARNER. I appreciate that courtesy. I will avail myself 

of that opportunity. 

Secretary Powell, drawing on the experience of the past when we 

worked together, one of our challenges was the Goldwater-Nickles 

Act, which revised a good deal of the structure, particularly in the 

Joint Chiefs and so forth. One of the provisions we put in there, 

you are very familiar with it, having been chairman at one time 

yourself, and that is in the course of the deliberations, the chairman is the principal advisor to the President, but if one of the service chiefs feels very strongly about his or her views, whatever the 

case may be, they have the opportunity to go to the President and 

express an opinion to some degree at variance with the chairman. 

I want very much to try and work with this Committee and other 

committees to craft a similar provision in whatever legislation may 

be forthcoming. Again, I feel that the NID will be a very strong 

stovepipe in collecting this information, but it may well be, for example, that the CIA director might have a view different than the 

NID’s or our distinguished colleagues with you here this morning. 

And I would like to have reassurance that those individuals in 

those respective positions and perhaps yourself could ask to be 

present at the time the NID addressed an issue at which you felt 

at variance. 

Without getting into the specifics, do you feel that such a safeguard is a valuable thing to work into this legislation? 

Secretary POWELL. Without seeing exactly what the language 

would look like, Senator Warner, I think it would be useful to consider such an idea. As you know, in Goldwater-Nickles, the chairman, and let us say now the NID——

Senator WARNER. Yes. 

Secretary POWELL. That is who the equivalent is——

Senator WARNER. We are talking about the NID. 

Secretary POWELL [continuing]. Is the principal advisor, military 

advisor, in the chairman’s case, to the President. But all of the 

other chiefs were military advisors to the President, and during my 

time, there were one or two occasions where a chief said I want to 

speak directly to the President, and we made it happen. 

Also, the chairman—I never went and gave my advice to the 

President without all of my colleagues and the chiefs knowing what 

I was going to tell the President, so they would have an opportunity to say no, I do not agree, and I want to talk to the President. 

And that is the way it works out. I think it should work the same 

way. 

Now, what I have just described to you with respect to the chiefs 

was a matter of law. Now, in the JICC, I am not sure that any of 

the Cabinet officers would be shrinking violets with respect to 

going and telling the President what they thought, with or without 

the benefit of provision of law. But you took it a little further to 

say, well, how about the director of CIA——

Senator WARNER. Correct. 

Secretary POWELL [continuing]. Or all these other folks, should 

they have the ability by law to say the law says I may do this; 

therefore, you must let me do it. I think it is an interesting propoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:12 Dec 21, 2004 Jkt 097044 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\97044.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
39

sition. I do not know that off the top of my head, I would object 

to it, but of course, I would have to see exactly how it is worded 

and how it is put in. 

Senator WARNER. Well, we will work on that principle, and I am 

going to consult, as a matter of fact, today with the distinguished 

Chairman and Ranking Member, at which time I will raise that. 

My second general question is that both of you have remarkable 

careers of public service and particularly in Federal service. The 

need for intelligence by our President and our military is daily, 7 

days, 7 nights, constant. We just cannot turn off the spigot with 

this new piece of legislation, hope to put in place all the pieces and 

then go back in whatever of time lapses to turn it back on to function. 

So some thought has got to be given to the transition from the 

present system to the new system. And I wondered if you had 

given any thought as to how that transition could best be achieved, 

and do you see that we should focus on it, because those enemies 

wishing to inflict harm will view this transitional process as possibly a time of America’s weakness. 

If either witness would care to comment on that. 

Secretary POWELL. Oh, I think you have to be very careful as you 

transition to a new system. It is a baton pass. The race does not 

stop when you hand the baton off. And so, there has to be a very 

careful plan as to how the NID will come into being. It will have 

to be tested and tried and rehearsed, and they have to be up and 

running before you can say fine, you have got the baton. And I 

think a great deal of care has to be taken to design and implement 

that transition. 

Senator WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary RIDGE. I just wanted to say, Senator, I very much appreciate the question, because with the creation of the NID and the 

accompanying National Counterterrorism Center, there has obviously got to be significant thought given to the kinds of resources 

that will be used—staffing, technology and the like—and right now, 

in response to September 11, there are so many agencies that are 

building up their analytical capacity. We are one of them; as is the 

FBI. So there is tremendous pressure out there to find the best and 

the brightest to come into our respective agencies simply to fill previously imposed or agreed upon requirements set with the Congress of the United States. 

So the transition from a good system that people admit there are 

some imperfections to it to this different system is a critical period 

where, to use Secretary Powell’s admonition, you start with the notion that you do no harm, and you could do significant harm, I 

think, to existing entities if you immediately assigned a significant 

number of analysts from them into the National Counterterrorism 

Center and the like. 

So again, it is just a word of caution, because there will be substantially more resources, people and technology involved in this, 

and it is going to take time to build up the capacity, I would presume. 

Senator WARNER. I think we should focus on that. Now, whether 

there is some—I have always been of the opinion that I think we 

will be able to achieve a measure of legislation in this Congress, 

40

and I hesitate to say it, but it may be a task left to the next Congress to look at this thing after some experience time. 

My last question would be again to Secretary Powell. You will recall very vividly during the Gulf War that on the tactical side, we 

had a lot of shortcomings, and General Schwartzkopf and many 

others came before the Armed Services Committee, and we have 

worked, and I say we, successive administrations and chairman of 

the JCS and so forth to improve that. And do you agree that we 

have made substantial improvements? 

Secretary POWELL. Yes. 

Senator WARNER. And we do not want to now, in this challenge 

before us, dismantle any of those things that we put in place. I do 

not know whether you have addressed that today or not. 

Secretary POWELL. I think we have, Senator, in the course of our 

presentations. 

Senator WARNER. All right. 

Secretary POWELL. We want to make sure that these young men 

and women we send into battle have what they need, and we do 

no harm to that system. 

Senator WARNER. I thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator Warner. 

I was just discussing with the Ranking Member that we are putting into our bill a mechanism to have a lookback to see how the 

reforms have operated so that it would be, I guess, an action-forcing mechanism to make sure that Congressional oversight stays 

vigorous in this area. And we would be happy to work further with 

you on that and look forward to our meeting later today. 

Secretary RIDGE. I thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. My colleagues, I would note that I promised 

our two witnesses that they would be able to leave by noon today 

in order to keep other commitments. So we are not going to be able 

to have time for a second round. But I would encourage—there are 

a lot of additional questions, and I would encourage them to be 

submitted for the record, and I would encourage our two distinguished witnesses to respond as promptly as possible to those questions, because we are on an expedited time frame. We do hope to 

mark up legislation next week. We look forward to continuing to 

work very closely with you. 

In closing, I want to thank you both for your extraordinary service to your country. At a very difficult time, when we are facing 

many challenges both domestically and internationally, our Nation 

is very fortunate to have public servants like you who have served 

so well and so long, and we very much appreciate your helping us 

in the vital mission that this Committee has been assigned. 

This hearing record will remain open for 5 days. I would like to 

ask Senator Lieberman if he has any closing remarks. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Again, I thank the two of you. Secretary Ridge, you are in the 

unique position of having set up a department and really brought 

together in a way larger than the NID will have to do, the new national intelligence director; I appreciate very much what you have 

done in that regard, and your counsel as we move forward to create 

41

this new coordinating body in the national security interest will be 

incredibly important. 

Secretary Powell, thanks for your testimony, which has been very 

helpful. And you said something that as we go about reforming the 

intelligence community, with all of the questions we are raising 

about counterterrorism and all of the information we need on other 

trouble spots like North Korea and WMD, it is a very simple sentence you gave us, but it is very profound. And it goes to the heart 

of what so many of the controversies, including some you have been 

questioned on today, which is the rule that you use with your intelligence officers over the years: Tell me what you know, tell me 

what you do not know, and then, based on that, tell me what you 

think is most likely to happen. 

And I think in many cases, including the most controversial regarding WMD pre-Iraq War, there has been a tendency, for some, 

to interpret the third part of your formula—tell me what you think 

is most likely to happen—as the first—what you know—and in the 

end, in many cases, I have learned a lot in these hearings, and you 

have lived with this all your life, intelligence is ultimately about 

making your best judgment based upon what you know and what 

you do not know. 

There are a lot of big decisions made which are not based on—

it is not two and two equal four. You have got this information; you 

do not have that information; the national security is on the line, 

and you do the best you can based upon what you think is most 

likely to happen. I have a running dialogue with a few of my colleagues here about WMD. I understand your concern that you were 

not told about the sources. That is a very critical component. Incidentally, Bob Mueller, the head of the FBI, made a very comparable point about what is important to know, but it seems to me 

we did know what he had, we did know what he did, Saddam, and 

there was reason to believe that he likely had stockpiles. Now, so 

far, we have not found them. But to this individual consumer of intelligence, I am still not convinced he did not have them. We have 

just not found them, and maybe they are somewhere else. 

So anyway, it is very important through all of the structures and 

discussions we are having to remember that intelligence comes 

down to the—I am going to create a new Powell doctrine here. No, 

the Powell Doctrine has other applications. This will be Powell’s 

Law. It is a very important thing for us to remember as we try to 

reform our intelligence apparatus: Better to know what we know 

and what we do not know, but ultimately, we have got to make our 

best judgment what is likely to happen. Thank you very much. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

I want to close by thanking our colleagues for being here today. 

I know Monday morning hearings are very difficult, since my colleagues and myself go home each weekend, and I appreciate the efforts that they made to be here as well. 

This hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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