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86–773 PDF 2003

S. Hrg. 108–54

CONSOLIDATING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS:

A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT’S PROPOSAL

TO CREATE A TERRORIST THREAT

INTEGRATION CENTER

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 14 AND 26, 2003

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 

DAVID A. KASS, Chief Investigative Counsel 

JOYCE RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL A. ALEXANDER, Minority Professional Staff Member 

DARLA D. CASSELL, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 1, 45

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

Senator Sununu ................................................................................................ 5

Senator Lautenberg .......................................................................................... 20

Senator Pryor .................................................................................................... 23

Senator Akaka................................................................................................. 26, 56

Senator Coleman .............................................................................................. 47

Prepared statement: 

Senator Shelby .................................................................................................. 74

WITNESSES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2003

Hon. Warren B. Rudman, Co-Chair, U.S. Commission on National Security/

21st Century ......................................................................................................... 7

Hon. James S. Gilmore, III, Chairman, Advisory Panel to Assess the Capabilities for Domestic Response to Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction ................................................................................................................ 9

James B. Steinberg, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies, 

The Brookings Institution ................................................................................... 30

Jeffrey H. Smith, Former General Counsel (1995–1996), Central Intelligence 

Agency (CIA) ......................................................................................................... 33

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2003

Winston P. Wiley, Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Homeland 

Security and Chair, Senior Steering Group ....................................................... 48

Pasquale J. D’Amuro, Executive Assistant Director for Counterterrorism/

Counterintelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ............................ 52

Hon. Gordon England, Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security .. 53

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

D’Amuro, Pasquale J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 52

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 117

England, Hon. Gordon: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 53

Gilmore, Hon. James S., III: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 76

Rudman, Hon. Warren B.: 

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

Smith, Jeffrey H.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 33

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 100

Steinberg, James B.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 30

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 95

Wiley, Winston P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 48

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 113

Page

IV

APPENDIX

Response to Senators Levin and Collins transcript request from Mr. Wiley 

referred to on page 69 .......................................................................................... 73

Chart entitled ‘‘Primary Agencies Handling Terrorist-Related Intelligence 

(With Terrorist Threat Integration Center),’’ submitted by Senator Collins .. 119

Responses to Post-Hearing Questions for the Record from Senator Akaka 

for: 

Mr. Wiley ........................................................................................................... 120

Responses to Post-Hearing Questions for the Record from Senator Shelby 

for: 

Mr. Wiley ........................................................................................................... 127

Hon. England .................................................................................................... 133 

(1)

CONSOLIDATING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS: 

A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT’S PROPOSAL 

TO CREATE A TERRORIST THREAT 

INTEGRATION CENTER 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2003

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Collins, Coleman, Sununu, Lieberman, Akaka, 

Lautenberg, and Pryor. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. The Committee will come to order. 

Good morning. Today the Committee on Governmental Affairs 

will review the President’s recent proposal to create a new Terrorist Threat Integration Center. The President’s announcement of 

this new center is the latest in the series of actions taken by the 

administration and by Congress to address the government’s serious failure to analyze and act upon the intelligence it gathers related to terrorism. 

Some of these failures have become well known. For example, in 

January 2000 the CIA learned of a meeting of al Qaeda operatives 

that was taking place in Malaysia. The CIA knew that one of the 

participants in this meeting, Khalid al-Midhar, had a visa to enter 

the United States. It failed, however, to list his name on the terrorist watch list and he entered the country just 2 weeks later. AlMidhar returned to Saudi Arabia and in June 2001 he received yet 

another U.S. visa. Although 11⁄2 years had passed, his name was 

still not on the watch list. 

The CIA did not conduct a review of the Malaysian meeting until 

August 2001. Following that review it finally placed al-Midhar on 

the terrorist watch list. By then, of course, it was too late. He was 

already in the United States and within weeks would participate 

in the September 11 attacks on our Nation. 

Failures such as these were not unique to the CIA. In July 2001, 

an FBI agent in the Phoenix field office warned his superiors that 

Osama bin Laden appeared to be sending some of his operatives to 

the United States for flight training. The agent recommended a 

number of actions the Bureau should undertake, but his recommendations were ignored. 

2

One month later, agents in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office detained Zacarias Moussaoui, a former student pilot, based on suspicions that he was involved in a hijacking plot. FBI headquarters 

denied the Minneapolis agents permission to apply for a court 

order to search Moussaoui’s belongings. According to the joint inquiry conducted by the Senate and the House Intelligence Committees, this decision was based on a faulty understanding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 

These are only a few of the most publicized and notable examples 

of the government’s failure to analyze, share, or act on critical intelligence information. The Joint Congressional inquiry into the 

September 11 attacks lamented that the U.S. Government does not 

presently bring together in one place all terrorism related information from all sources. While the Counter Terrorist Center does 

manage overseas operations and has access to most intelligence 

community information, it does not collect terrorism related information from all sources domestic and foreign. 

In addition, the Congressional inquiry found that information 

was not sufficiently shared not only between different intelligence 

community agencies but also within individual agencies, and between intelligence and law enforcement agencies. 

Now some steps have been taken to address these problems. The 

FBI has begun to place greater emphasis on developing its analytical capability. It has expanded its joint terrorism task forces and 

it is attempting to improve its relationship and communication 

with the CIA. More FBI personnel have been assigned to the CIA’s 

Counter Terrorist Center and more CIA agents now work at the 

FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. 

In addition, Congress took significant action aimed at improving 

the analysis and flow of intelligence information by creating the 

new Department of Homeland Security. One of the Department’s 

directorates will be devoted to information analysis and infrastructure protection. 

In addition to these steps, the President has announced that he 

believes a new independent entity is needed. The proposal advanced by the President would create a Terrorist Threat Integration Center that is the focus of our hearing today. The center would 

ensure that intelligence information from all sources is shared, integrated, and analyzed seamlessly and then acted upon quickly, to 

quote the President. The new center would include staff from the 

Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. 

As of yet, however, we know few details about the proposed integration center. We have many questions regarding its structure, 

the scope of its authority, how it will interact with other agencies 

in the intelligence community as well as law-enforcement agencies, 

and even where it should be located, in which department? 

I believe that there are three principles that should guide the 

center’s creation. First, the integration center should not be duplicative. Many government agencies currently conduct intelligence 

analyses. We should be working to combine these efforts, not duplicate them. 

Second, emphasis must be placed on sharing the integration center’s analytical product. Good intelligence collection and analysis 

3

currently exists. Too often, however, the information does not get 

to those people who need it in a timely manner or in a form that 

is useful. The integration center needs to focus on sharing its product with other Federal agencies and, equally important, with appropriate State and local agencies. 

Third, the integration center must be structured in a way that 

breaks through the bureaucratic barriers that exist still among intelligence agencies and not hide behind them. 

I hope that today’s hearing will help the President achieve those 

goals. We will review what we now know about the integration center, and we will ask our very distinguished witnesses today to discuss the elements that are necessary for this new entity to be the 

successful and efficient center that our President envisions and our 

country needs. 

I would now like to turn to the distinguished Ranking Member 

of the Committee, Senator Lieberman, for any opening remarks 

that he might have. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for holding 

this hearing, and also for your excellent opening statement. 

I consider the topic of the hearing to be one of the more important offensives, if I can put it that way, in the war against terrorism, which is the consolidation of information and intelligence 

regarding the threats that are received daily from an array of 

sources available to our government. The intelligence disconnect, 

some of which you described in your opening statement, Madam 

Chairman, that in part led to the September 11 terrorist attacks 

are an embarrassment that should never have happened in the 

first place and we must never allow to happen again. I appreciate 

your leadership here in calling this hearing, the first, I believe, on 

the President’s State of the Union proposal to overcome some of our 

intelligence failures which is, of course, a matter of urgency. 

I also want to join you in welcoming our witnesses, Senator Rudman, particularly, our colleague, our never-ending source of wisdom, even good humor, who has proven, as my wife keeps telling 

me, that one has ample opportunities outside of public service to 

continue to serve the public and he has done it really well. 

Governor Gilmore, thank you for being here again. Mr. Smith 

and Mr. Steinberg, the same. 

I am disappointed that we are not going to hear from an administration representative today. I gather they could not make it 

today, but I am hopeful that we will have the opportunity soon because we have a lot of questions for them. 

We are now in the midst of a Code Orange, as everyone knows, 

a high terror alert. That combined with warnings from the directors of the FBI and CIA that another terrorist attack might be imminent, perhaps as early as this week, along with official suggestions that citizens create safe rooms in their homes and stockpile 

food and water, has understandably created widespread anxiety 

throughout our country. We must take this moment to allay the 

fear, but also to galvanize our government and to motivate all 

Americans to help make our country safe again. Creation of an effective intelligence analysis center is a vital step in that direction. 

4

The disastrous disconnects among our intelligence agencies, the 

culture of rivalry rather than cooperation, turf battles rather than 

teamwork that have plagued the intelligence community have been 

well-documented elsewhere. For some time, a large number of people inside and outside of Congress have been advocates for a central location in our government where all the intelligence collected 

by the various agencies that make up the intelligence community, 

as well as open source information and information collected by 

Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies can be brought 

together and analyzed, synthesized, and shared. 

The idea is, in the familiar metaphor, to connect all the dots to 

create a full picture so that we have a kind of early warning on 

what our adversaries are up to, where they are planning to strike 

so that we can stop them before their plans are carried out. 

Last year, as part of the debate on the Homeland Security bill 

this Committee approved the creation of such an office. We were 

greatly aided in our work by Senator Arlen Specter and by the cochairs of the Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Richard 

Shelby and Senator Bob Graham. In fact after investigating the 

September 11 attacks, the Senate and House Intelligence Committees called on Congress and the administration to use the authority 

provided in the Homeland Security Act to establish an all-sources 

intelligence division within the Homeland Security Department. 

And the Intelligence Committee went on to lay out several criteria 

for this analysis center which I will include in the record, Madam 

Chairman, rather than reciting here. 

We had a bit of a debate during the last session on this. Our 

Committee originally proposed something very similar to what the 

Intelligence Committee was asking. The administration originally 

argued that the Department of Homeland Security’s role here 

should be limited to analyzing intelligence primarily to protect critical infrastructure. The final legislation created a division within 

the new department that would be a central location for all threat 

information. Now I take the administration’s proposal to have created a broad consensus and common ground that many have been 

fighting for all along, which is to create an all-sources intelligence 

analysis center. 

There remains a matter of structural disagreement, which I hope 

this Committee can consider and shed some light on, and hopefully 

extend the consensus. The President, obviously, would have the 

new center report to the Director of Central Intelligence rather 

than the Secretary of Homeland Security. I would like, in the 

weeks ahead for the administration to tell us how they think, if 

they do, that this center that they are proposing differs from the 

one created by the Homeland Security Act and why they have chosen to move in this direction rather than implementing that provision of the act. 

It needs to tell us how the so-called TTIC—as an entity reporting 

to the Director of Central Intelligence—will overcome the institutional rivalries to information sharing that has already hindered 

the Counter Terrorist Center at the CIA, and other agencies in the 

intelligence community—from becoming truly all-source intelligence analysis centers. 

5

It must answer questions about the center’s role, if any, in the 

collection of domestic intelligence, and about the wisdom of expanding the role of the Director of Central Intelligence in domestic intelligence. 

The administration needs to let the Congress know why the center’s director should not be confirmed by the Senate. I am also interested in understanding what the center’s role will be with respect to disseminating intelligence analysis to other Federal agencies and to State and local law enforcement, and how it proposes 

to collect information from them. 

As the witnesses and my colleagues on the panel know, States 

local officials complain to each of us that they have not, up until 

this time, been kept in the loop by Federal law enforcement and 

intelligence agencies. And there are many questions about the proposed budget of the TTIC; the number of analysts it will have and 

the administration’s timetable for getting it up and running. 

I know that we have extraordinary witnesses, very able and experienced who can help us illuminate and answer some of these 

questions and as I say, Madam Chairman, I look forward to discussing them directly with the administration’s representatives at 

the earliest possible date. But for now I thank you for holding this 

hearing and for moving as expeditiously as you have to examine 

what is clearly one of the most important issues we face in the 

near term in shoring up our homeland defenses. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. We will be 

having a second hearing at which administration witnesses will be 

called to testify. I, like you, look forward to hearing more from 

them on the details and the answers to the many important questions that your statement raised. 

We are now going to move to our first panel. We are fortunate 

this morning to have two extraordinary public servants who have 

given a great deal of their time and energy and thought to analyzing our Nation’s intelligence needs. We are very fortunate to be 

joined by former Senator Warren Rudman, and former Governor 

James Gilmore. I am fighting with Senator Sununu for the honor 

of introducing Senator Rudman. I, too, consider him to be a constituent since he does have a home in Maine. But I think that your 

claim, Senator Sununu, probably goes back further so I will yield 

to you to introduce Senator Rudman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SUNUNU 

Senator SUNUNU. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. It is 

an honor to serve in the Senate, and despite having served in the 

House for 6 years, as a new member of the Senate you come with 

some deal of trepidation. We all know that we walk in the shadows 

of our predecessors and we are prepared to deal with that, but it 

does not change the fact that sitting here in this Committee room 

for our first hearing I was a little bit surprised to hear Senator 

Rudman’s name invoked a half a dozen times before I even got a 

chance to talk. And now we have a hearing scheduled, and of 

course he’s here to provide his perspective on such an important 

topic. 

But rather than be discomfited by this, I fully understand the 

reason. It is an honor to serve in his footsteps but it is also an 

6

honor to be a part of this Committee and to be able to bring him 

forward to provide his wealth of experience. 

He has served as a Korean War veteran, as Attorney General for 

the State of New Hampshire, as a U.S. Senator, and as a leader 

of this Committee during an important time in dealing with questions of intelligence, oversight, and foreign policy, that being the 

hearings on Iran-Contra. 

He has remained dedicated to public service even, as Senator 

Lieberman has pointed out, after leaving the U.S. Senate. He has 

been a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, a 

winner of the Presidential Gold Medal for his service, in particular 

in acting as an adviser and a resource on questions of intelligence. 

The reason his perspective has been so important in that regard is 

because he has worked with local law enforcement in the process 

of gathering and providing intelligence from that grass roots level. 

He has, of course, worked in a great capacity in the U.S. Senate 

dealing with Congressional oversight and our role in understanding 

how intelligence is gathered and used to provide for national security. He has served in the executive capacity as well, offering advice on the consolidation, use of intelligence, and sharing of intelligence. 

I cannot imagine someone who is more qualified to provide an 

important perspective on the challenge we now face, but I also cannot think of a challenge that is greater for the new Department of 

Homeland Security. Consolidating our intelligence resources, 

breaking down some of the cultural barriers that have existed to 

effective intelligence sharing in the past has been identified by this 

Committee and by others looking at the new Department of Homeland Security as one of the premier challenges this organization 

will face. 

Being able to rely on the expert perspective of Governor Gilmore 

and my friend Warren Rudman is essential to us doing this right 

the first time. Warren Rudman has been a great friend to me and 

a great friend to my family. There is always a wealth of pride that 

comes from that kind of a long-standing personal relationship, but 

in New Hampshire he is also regarded as a great citizen and a 

great public servant and that is why it is really a pleasure to be 

able to introduce him here today. Welcome, Senator Rudman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator Sununu. 

Our other panelist, James S. Gilmore, served as Governor of Virginia from 1998 to 2002. Since 1999, he has been the chairman of 

the Congressional advisory commission on terrorism and weapons 

of mass destruction, which everyone calls the Gilmore Commission. 

In December 2002, the Gilmore Commission issued its fourth report which focused in part on the creation of an intelligence fusion 

center. The Gilmore Commission recommended the creation of a 

national Counter Terrorist Center as a stand-alone agency outside 

of the FBI, CIA, and DHS. It also recommended that this entity be 

an independent agency with a leader appointed by the President 

and confirmed by the Senate. 

Gentlemen, I am very grateful to have you join us this morning. 

I look forward to hearing your opening statements. I would ask 

that you limit them to about 10 minutes and your longer written 

7

statement, if any, will be submitted for the record without objection. 

Senator Rudman, we will start with you. Again, thank you for 

being here. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. WARREN B. RUDMAN, CO-CHAIR, U.S. 

COMMISSION ON NATIONAL SECURITY/21ST CENTURY 

Mr. RUDMAN. Good morning, Madam Chairman, Senator Lieberman. First, let me thank my friend John Sununu for that very gracious introduction. I must tell you, though it is very elevating to 

be back in this hearing room where I spent so much time, it is a 

bit depressing to look at Senator Sununu and realize that he was 

16 years of age when he and his father and I campaigned against 

each other in a Republican primary for the U.S. Senate. That tells 

me how young he is and how old I am, and that is a bit depressing. 

I am also delighted to see my old friend, Senator Lautenberg, 

and glad to meet for the first time, Senator Coleman. 

Madam Chairman, you and the Ranking Member have really 

asked a number of questions that are the questions that have to 

be answered. I doubt very much either Governor Gilmore and I can 

answer all of those questions because, although I am very familiar 

with this proposal and how it has come to be, it is still very much 

an embryonic proposal. I think one of the reasons you do not have 

administration witnesses here today is they wanted to be prepared 

to answer those very searching questions which I think are key. 

I think maybe the most important question that you both referred to in your opening statements is simply this: We are all very 

familiar with the Homeland Security Act. Senator Hart and our 

commission proposed that department and testified many times 

here before the House and the Senate. It finally evolved in pretty 

much the shape that we had hoped it would, but I have never really quite understood how the intelligence function within the Department of Homeland Security will be discharged. I am even confounded more with the creation of this new department, or this 

new joint venture if you will, which I fully support, but there has 

to be some sort of sharp delineation between the mission of the intelligence unit mandated by the Congress within the Department 

of Homeland Security and this new threat integration center which 

will be an all-source, all-agency unit. 

If you are not careful you will start having some crosstalk here 

between these two agencies, and the last thing you need in either 

collection or analysis is not only competition but confusion. So I 

hope that when the administration comes here, and I am sure they 

will, they will set out for you precisely what that is. I tried to find 

out for the last several days by talking to some of my friends and, 

frankly, I do not think that has clearly evolved, and that is understandable. This proposal was only evolved about a month or so ago, 

presented by the President in the State of the Union. I think when 

you finally have those witnesses here you will probably get a clear 

understanding. But I think that is one of the most important questions. 

When I look back at my 9 years on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and chairing the board and looking at all 

sorts of all-source, raw, sophisticated, non-sophisticated, signals 

8

and human intel, two things occur to me. That the massive intelligence that is received by both U.S. foreign intelligence agencies 

and the FBI and domestic intelligence is daunting. The amount of 

reporting—I sometimes think we have too much reporting, not not 

enough. 

A good example, for those of you that have had experience on the 

Intelligence Committee, or in the Armed Services Committee, is the 

amount of information received by the National Security Agency. 

The amount of signal intel received there, and how it gets analyzed, and how it get compartmentalized, and how it gets separated 

is truly a daunting task. Now we are faced with a new issue, which 

is why I think this proposal has been made. 

We have two distinctly different kinds of intelligence that this 

government receives. One, foreign intelligence based on threats 

that are non-terrorist, that are state-sponsored as opposed to nongovernmental organizations which are terrorist organizations such 

as al Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and many others. It is very 

easy, or easier, to target state-sponsored terrorism, or if you will, 

state-sponsored military action, which is what the CIA and the 

NSA and all the other agencies have done well over a long period 

of time. 

It is far more difficult to try to direct intelligence, both signals 

and human intel, against people who you do not know who they are 

sometimes. They do not have an address. We do not know where 

they live. We do not know how they are organized. So first you 

have to figure that out before you know how to collect. 

So what they are now going to do, from what I understand, is 

to take and put together a joint venture, to put it in corporate 

terms. This is not going to be a new department or a new agency. 

It is going to be a joint venture of the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and all of the Defense Department intelligence agencies, from the NSA to the NRO, 

and all of them. They will be all located together and their job will 

be not collection—they will have nothing to do with collection. They 

will depend on traditional collection, foreign from CIA and all of 

the DOD agencies; domestic from the FBI, and all of their resources around the country. What they will do is to analyze in one 

place and collect in one place all the reporting on terrorism as opposed to the myriad of other things that the CIA does. 

Now one thing that has to be clearly understood by the public is 

that there seems to be an attitude out there that the CIA and the 

FBI are only concerned now with terrorism. That is hardly the 

case. There are a lot of issues in this world involving Asia, Europe, 

involving the Middle East that the CIA must report to policymakers on important intelligence. So this is not the only thing they 

have to do. The problem we have had is that it has all been amalgamated in one place even though the Director of the CIA and the 

Director of the FBI have labored mightily through the creation of 

Counter Terrorist Centers and joint terrorism centers to try to get 

it consolidated. Although that has worked, it probably has not 

worked well enough, so this proposal is before you. 

As I understand this proposal will be a group of individuals that 

will be solely charged with being the focal point for gathering collection, both foreign and domestic, on all matters of terrorism. Now 

9

1The prepared statement of Mr. Gilmore appears in the Appendix on page 76. 

curiously, although the number is classified I can tell you this, that 

the overwhelming amount of collection on domestic terrorism is collected overseas, which I think, Madam Chairman and Senator 

Lieberman, is probably the reason that the administration has decided, and I think wisely, that the Director of the CIA should be 

the person to whom the head of this new joint venture reports, because they will be dealing in the main with foreign intelligence. 

The domestic intelligence will be collected by the FBI, but since 

most of our adversaries in the area of terrorism are located overseas, although we certainly have some of them in this country, it 

is not surprising that the overwhelming amount of intelligence that 

is gathered on domestic terrorism is not gathered within the continental United States, Hawaii, or Alaska. It is collected in other 

places. 

So I think the structure is good. The problem will be, as someone 

once said, the devil is in the details, and I do not think any of us 

have enough detail now to be able to comment with any real accuracy on how it is all going to come together. My sense is that they 

have staged it about right. They are going to start small, and they 

believe they have anywhere from a 2 to a 4-year time line to get 

it fully functional, although it will be functioning as early as later 

this year. It will have representatives from the Bureau, from the 

Agency, State, and all of the DOD agencies. Their information technology will be unique in that it will connect with everyone else that 

is in this business. The Department of Homeland Security will do 

some collection through the Coast Guard, through the INS, or 

through the Border Patrol. It will also, I expect, report in to this 

unit. 

So I think that all I will say in this opening statement is that 

there are more questions right now than there are answers. I think 

the concept is very sound. I think we need a single place, not located at the FBI or the CIA, but a group of people from various 

parts of this government who form a team to analyze the kind of 

information that the Chairman referred to, which may have slipped 

through the cracks in the past. I think it is a sound proposal and 

I support it, but there are a lot of questions you are going to have 

to ask when you get the administration before you. 

Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator Rudman. Governor Gilmore. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JAMES S. GILMORE, III,1 CHAIRMAN, ADVISORY PANEL TO ASSESS THE CAPABILITIES FOR DOMESTIC RESPONSE TO TERRORISM INVOLVING WEAPONS OF 

MASS DESTRUCTION 

Mr. GILMORE. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Senator Lieberman, and Members of the U.S. Senate. Thank you for the opportunity to be here to carry out our advisory function on your behalf. 

I am the chairman of the advisory panel to assess domestic response capabilities with terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. This is a panel that was created by law, by statute of the 

U.S. Congress at the initiation of the U.S. Congress. 

10

It was initiated by Congressman Curt Weldon, who saw the need 

for this, and then it was concurred with by the U.S. Senate as we 

moved forward. This discussion went forward at the end of 1998. 

The commission was stood up in January 1999. I was approached 

as Governor of Virginia and asked whether I would chair the commission. It is staffed by the Rand Corporation. The commission is 

now and has been in the past made up not by people from inside 

the Beltway, but instead the Congress in its wisdom decided to set 

up a committee that was different. The advisory panel that we 

have is heavy on fire, police, rescue, emergency services, health 

care, epidemiologists, including retired general officers and people 

from the intelligence community. So it is a bit of a different mix. 

In the first year that we met, in the year 1999 we did a threat 

assessment, and by statute every year we report on December 15 

every year to the Congress and to the President. In that year, December 15, 1999, our first report was a threat assessment. We assessed the question of a genuine threat of weapons of mass destruction in the United States, and considerd at the end of the day that 

it was much less likely that those weapons could be acquired and 

delivered in the homeland than a conventional attack. We believed 

that a conventional attack of major proportions was much more 

probable. 

But we also refused to rule out the possibility of weapons of mass 

destruction as we had basically a 3-year commission and wanted to 

explore it further. We did say that we thought there was a need 

for a national strategy. 

In the second year when we reported in December 15, 2000 we 

did probably our most important policy work. At that time we reminded all authorities there needed to be a national strategy. We 

proposed the creation of a national office in the Office of the President to create such a national strategy. We defined that national 

strategy as not being Federal, but instead being Federal, State, and 

local all together. 

We were concerned about the issues of intelligence. At that time 

we recommended tossing out the rule that said that the CIA could 

not recruit bad guys overseas as being a fairly ridiculous rule. We 

recommended and pointed out the concern about stovepiping and 

the fact that intelligence was not being shared laterally across Federal agencies, and was absolutely not being shared vertically between Federal, State, and local authorities. 

In the third year, our closing year, we focused on certain areas 

where we thought the national strategy could be furthered by the 

work of the advisory panel, and that included health care, the concern about border controls, the use of Federal and locals, the use 

of the military and areas like that. 

Now we were basically done about the first week of September 

and sent the report off to the printer and got ready to go out of 

business a little early in October when the September 11 attack occurred. At the time, the Congress extended our commission 2 years. 

So we have finished our fourth report in December 15 of this year. 

This is our fourth report which we have submitted to the members 

of the Congress, the Senate and the House, and to the President. 

In this fourth report we go over a number of key issues. My admonition to the panel has been to try to stay ahead of this debate 

11

so that we could be of useful advice to the Senate and to the House. 

I think we have done that. I think we have stayed ahead of the debate as we have gone along. 

I might point out several crosscutting issues in the fourth report 

that I want to emphasize. Of all of our analysis, the crosscutting 

issues we have tried to emphasize is the importance of the civil liberties of the American people, because we are deeply concerned 

that we will overreact and fix problems structurally in such a way 

that we will imply dangers to the civil liberties of the American 

people. 

The second is the importance and the value of the State and local 

authorities, their need for funding, financing, strategizing, and exercising. 

The third is the implications of the private sector and the fact 

that most critical infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector, and the need to find a method by which the private sector is 

drawn in. 

And then fourth, intelligence, and the concern of all these crosscutting issues. 

Senators and Madam Chairman, the fourth report focuses on a 

broad range of areas. These are comprehensive reports, each of 

them that have come forward. They are extensive and detailed in 

a broad range of areas as I have laid out. The fourth report—I will 

just focus for a moment on the National Counter Terrorist Center 

that we proposed. 

On the intelligence section of this commission’s report we expressed and focused our attention on the intelligence area. We saw 

a need for a fusion center. We have recommended it as the National Counter Terrorist Center. We called it the NCTC. Everybody 

in Washington has acronyms. That was ours. We recommended December 15 of this past year that there needed to be a fusion center 

to draw together information. 

The President announced in his State of the Union address the 

Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), which seems to be a 

parallel concept. We congratulate the President on his initiative. 

We believed in our recommendation that it needs to be a standalone agency. We spent the better part of the year discussing the 

issue of whether it should be in the Department of Homeland Security or in another agency. We recommended that it be in no other 

agency or department; that it be a stand-alone agency, an independent agency like the EPA or FEMA or the General Services Administration. 

We recommended that the head of it be with the advice and the 

consent of the Senate. This parallels the recommendation that we 

had on the Office of Homeland Security in the year 2000 where we 

recommended that it be at the advice and consent of the Senate in 

order to make the national legislature a full partner in all of these 

processes in the Executive Branch. 

We recommend that it not be in the Department of Homeland Security because the customers of this new agency, this new fusion 

center will not just be the Department of Homeland Security, but 

in addition, the Department of Justice, the Health and Human 

Services, Departments of Defense, State, and Agriculture. We beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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lieved that this structure of independence would make it a better 

and honest broker than having it in one particular department. 

We see the need for the States and localities to be tied in, and 

that this creates a vehicle for the fusion of information with the 

States and locals also, which is, by the way, where a broad mass 

of the information on law enforcement issues across this country is 

located. The Federal Government is poorer if they do not have the 

benefit of that information, and the States and locals are surely 

poorer if they do not have the benefit of the national collection information that is at the Federal level. 

The information we have is that it is still not a two-way street 

in terms of information going up and down the line between Federal, States, and locals but it is improving. In fact I had a meeting 

with Admiral Abbott, the President’s homeland security adviser 

and they are instituting processes to facilitate that type of information. 

Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, within our commission this 

is not controversial. This was, other than the fact that we debated 

some of the structural issues, the creation of a fusion center was 

easy; not a controversial proposal. I will not dwell on it, but I will 

point out that our commission, on the other hand, addressed the 

issue of the collection function, the gathering of counterintelligence 

information in the homeland. This was highly controversial within 

our commission. That debate is set out in its entirety in the report. 

There was a strong debate about whether or not to rely on the 

FBI to continue this counterintelligence function or whether a new 

organization should be set up. The debate was quite intense, quite 

a long discussion. I personally believe that we should require the 

FBI to carry out this function in its most effective way and hold 

them strictly accountable and build on their processes. That view 

was rejected by the commission. The commission has instead recommended very strongly that there be a new agency for the collection function here in the United States; a separate organization. I 

can discuss that in more detail as necessary, though it is not strictly, Madam Chairman, the subject of your discussion today. 

We did in our report recommend that the Congress must concentrate its oversight function. That it is too disparate. We have 

been saying it for years and continue to say it. We believe that the 

oversight function for this fusion center should be concentrated in 

the Intelligence Committees of the two houses. 

We do see this as different from some of the other proposals that 

are similar that have come forward. Senators Graham and Edwards have each suggested a fusion center also, although I believe 

they place it within the Department of Justice. Also there have 

been some suggestions that the intelligence gathering organization 

would look like the British MI5. We believe that while it is a similar concept, the American system probably would not tolerate a 

British organization quite like that. 

We believe the Department of Homeland Security should have 

the authority to directly levee intelligence requirements on this 

new fusion center. That is our recommendation. And we recommend that the Senate and House strongly urge or require the 

Attorney General to gather together all legal authorities in this 

country, which at this point are disparate and confused and misVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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understood in broad measure, in order to make sure that everybody 

knows what everybody is doing and what they should and should 

not do, so we make sure that we protect the liberties of the American people. 

That I think, Senator, sums up your official advisory panel’s recommendations. We are here at all times, naturally, at your disposal 

to continue to provide advice and counsel. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you very much, Governor. 

I was very pleased to hear your emphasis on protecting the civil 

liberties of the American people as we seek to have that organizational structure that will allow us to do a better job of connecting 

the dots. The administration is not planning to submit legislation 

to create the new center. Do you think it would be advisable for 

Congress to legislatively create the center in order to have the 

kinds of legal protections to ensure that civil liberties are not infringed upon? 

Mr. GILMORE. It would depend upon the way that the Senate and 

the House decided that they wished to define this. It is clear the 

administration believes that they have the administrative authority to, as Senator Rudman says, to create a joint venture and bring 

these organizations together. I suspect that what is at work here 

is an effort to try and experiment with this, and to draw together 

the people into one located place, as opposed to going into a legislative process at the beginning, which then at that point involves a 

great deal of bureaucracy and setting structures into place by statute. My suspicion at this point and belief is that the administration 

thinks that they would like to try it administratively, see how well 

it works. Then I would think at that point the option would be 

open to the President and the Congress to more institutionalize it 

by statute. 

Chairman COLLINS. You mentioned in your testimony that you 

did not think that this new entity should be part of the Department of Homeland Security because DHS will be a customer of it. 

You also said the commission recommended that it be a separate 

entity. What do you think of the President’s plan to have the entity 

reporting directly to the CIA Director. 

Mr. GILMORE. That is a very interesting concept. I have been trying to analyze that as I have thought about it and I am aware of 

the Senate’s concern about it. 

I believe that the commission’s feeling would be that we strongly 

approve of the separation of the CIA’s function and to not try to 

turn them into a domestic intelligence gathering organization. I do 

not know though that the reporting to the Director of Central Intelligence, who I think at the inception of his position was designed 

to be a gatherer of information in one place, would necessarily 

cross that line. Just because the Director of Central Intelligence is 

aware or is in a supervisory capacity for the fusion center does not 

necessarily mean that would then implicate the CIA with activities 

within the homeland. 

But there is, of course, this outstanding issue of how do you 

gather counterintelligence information in the homeland. But I do 

not think there is any proposal that the CIA should cross that line, 

but I do not think that reporting to the Director of Central Intelligence would cross that line. 

14

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Senator Rudman, you are very familiar with the Counter Terrorist Center that already exists within the CIA, and indeed, last 

year at a hearing Director Tenet described the Counter Terrorist 

Center as being created to ‘‘enable the fusion of all sources of information in a single action-oriented unit.’’ Do you see the President’s 

proposal for a Terrorist Threat Integration Center as duplicating 

the work that is already being done at the Counter Terrorist Center at the CIA, or do you see it as adding value and an improvement over what we have? 

Mr. RUDMAN. Madam Chairman, I think it is a broadening of 

that concept by bringing more people into it in larger numbers. 

That is essentially, as I understand it, unless it has changed in the 

last year, FBI, CIA, and a few other people. This involves a lot 

more than that. This involves those two agencies plus a number of 

other places such as State, such as all of the DOD agencies which 

are not all contained there now. So I think it is a broadening. 

My understanding is that they are going to try to co-locate that 

with this new TTIC. That is my understanding, because they believe that the functions will be complementary. I agree with Governor Gilmore when he said that they are working their way 

through to find out how this will finally look. It well may be that 

a year or two from now you might want to create a whole separate 

unit. 

I think right now the administration feels, because of the criticality of the information we are trying to put together, that we 

ought to take the corporate model and have a joint venture, or if 

you will, take the model of DOD when they have got an action that 

is going to take place in a place that requires Army, Navy, Marine 

Corps, and Air Force and put together a joint task force to accomplish a particular mission. I think that is the concept here. So, no, 

I do not think it is a duplication. I think it is a broadening and 

probably an improvement. 

I want to make just one comment that is kind of tangential to 

your question. I understand the Gilmore Commission’s position. It 

is a terrific report and I have followed their work very closely. I 

think you have got to think long and hard when you start separating collection from analysis. That’s the problem I had with their 

proposal. There have been debates within the Gilmore Commission 

about that. I do not know how Jim personally feels about that, but 

as we go down the line here we know that the TTIC will do no collection. We know collection will stay exactly where it is now. 

The question then becomes, if you were to legislate and create a 

separate unit with a Cabinet-confirmed officer for a national threat 

integration department, the problem I have with that is, and knowing this government as I know it, at that point they are separated 

from the people who do their collection. I just wonder, knowing 

what we know over the last 20 years, how much attention the FBI 

and the CIA pay to people, who even though they are mandated by 

law to do a particular job, are not part of their own team. The advantage of the joint venture is that you have got everyone there in 

line authority to the people who run the key agency. 

So it is an interesting proposal. I think you would have to give 

a lot of thought to separating collection. 

15

I also agree totally, we ought not to change the law upon the 

CIA’s authority and its lack of authority in terms of collecting 

against U.S. citizens. We ought to keep that just the way it is. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, both. We are doing 6-minute 

rounds and my time has expired so I will call on Senator 

Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thanks 

again to both of you. 

Let me read you both a statement from the New York Times

which I believe was on the day after the President made this proposal. The Times article quoted an unnamed administration official 

as stating that while the information sharing between the FBI, 

CIA, and other intelligence agencies has gotten better—and here is 

the quote—‘‘it has been by brute force.’’

You both have had some experience in this and maybe the first 

question seems like a naive one but I think we ought to put it on 

the table. What is the problem here? Why do the intelligence and 

law enforcement communities have trouble cooperating in something so critical? And apparently even still after the horror of September 11, why do we need brute force to get them to do it? 

I hesitate to repeat rumors you read in the media but one of the 

news magazines published a story that the original plan for the 

Terrorism Threat Integration Center was to announce that there 

would be co-location of FBI and CIA personnel, apparently out at 

Langley. And then both objected. So for now that has been—I do 

not know if that is true—held in abeyance. But talk to us a little 

bit about the human—not the human intelligence but the human 

problems, the cultural problems that we face to get this job done, 

because it is so critical. Senator Rudman. 

Mr. RUDMAN. That is an excellent question, Senator Lieberman, 

and the answer is fairly complicated. Let me say what it is not. I 

do not believe from my experience, now which goes over a 20-year 

period dealing very intimately with these two groups of people, 

that this is a matter of obstinacy or stubbornness or turf. I think 

these people are patriotic, hard-working Americans who are trying 

to get their job done. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Agreed. 

Mr. RUDMAN. So I do not think that they are saying, I am not 

going to share this with the FBI because I won’t get credit for it 

or vice versa. 

I think the problem is far more significant, and no one has yet 

figured out how to deal with it, although I think this new agency, 

this joint venture if you will, might help. 

The FBI and the CIA have total different missions. Until September 11, if you were to do a pie chart of the responsibilities of 

the FBI you would have a narrow sliver that would be counterterrorism or counterespionage, which they did very well during 

World War II. The big part of it would be law enforcement. Several 

thousand statutes comprise the U.S. criminal code, passed by this 

Congress, and the FBI is the primary enforcer of those laws. So 

their mission, in their own minds until that date was to investigate, go before grand juries with U.S. Attorneys, get indictments, 

and help in prosecution. When you look at all the corporate scandal 

16

over the last 2 years, who is it that is doing all the investigating? 

It is the FBI, and well they should. So that is their mindset. 

The CIA, on the other hand, has a far different mindset. Their 

mindset is, even if they are aware of crimes being committed, their 

job is not to go out and ‘‘prevent crime in the short-term.’’ Sometimes that would be counterproductive to getting the kind of the intelligence you want by connecting the dots, if you will, and connecting the people. So the agency would prefer to take a lot of time 

to get off the information to help protect infrastructure and people, 

whereas the FBI as soon as they have got enough information they 

want to go to a grand jury and get an indictment. So that is a very 

basic difference. 

Now I think equally important, part of the problem has been the 

inability of these two agencies, which I have personal knowledge of, 

to share information. My point being that if the information is in 

drawer A at the FBI and drawer B at the CIA and information 

ought to come together, the information technology has not allowed 

it to come together. With all due respect, I would say to the Chairman that although I fully agree there were oversights, I would like 

someone to go back and look at the reporting for the month before 

and the month—for 2 months before, 60-days reporting on terrorism at the FBI and the CIA. I would be willing to hazard a 

guess, Madam Chairman, there were thousands of reports. The 

problem was, how do you pick out the right ones. I mean, 20/20 

hindsight is great. Now we look afterwards and we say, sure, they 

should have looked at it. But what were they looking at? How 

much paper were they looking at? 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I think this may be one of the more interesting activities and findings of the September 11 commission. 

Mr. RUDMAN. I think it is key and I hope they will look at that. 

But I would answer your collective question that if anything will 

help, this will help. They will all be together. They will be sharing 

the same information from their respective agencies. So that would 

be my answer. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Governor Gilmore, my time is running out. 

I would just like to ask you a related question based on your experience here which is, particularly in light of the proposal for the 

new Terrorism Threat Integration Center under the DCI, whether 

you think it is time to separate the Director of Central Intelligence 

from the Central Intelligence Agency? In other words, to create a 

separate DCI and then a separate head of CIA under that person? 

Whether that will, in any measure, contribute to the evenhandedness of the DCI, or the perception of it, which will help to bring 

these two communities together better. 

Mr. GILMORE. We know, Senator, there has been some suggestion 

of there being an intelligence czar actually set aside and put in the 

Cabinet separately. We have not, in our commission, addressed the 

issue of whether the Director of Central Intelligence should be separated out from the CIA. I think that would be a dramatic change 

which I do not think that certainly as an individual would want to 

recommend or that the commission would want to recommend. 

I do want to rifle-shot in on your question to Senator Rudman. 

You basically suggested that by brute force some of these people 

have come together. I do want to share with you several things. 

17

The commission has spent a lot of time on that topic, and we do 

believe that it is primarily cultural. It is based upon the longstanding tradition that knowledge is power. If you have got it, you 

have more influence than if you do not. That there is a fear of the 

violation of security, and in fact serious legal problems if there is 

a violation of security. 

I was asked a few moments ago what I thought the administration was doing and I answered that. But that is not the same thing 

as what the commission has recommended. The commission has 

recommended there be a separate agency established, a separate 

agency institutionalized in order to be a fusion center. 

We think also that there is good faith by all people but we do 

believe absolutely that there are turf battles and that there are cultural challenges back and forth between people fundamentally. We 

believe that there are cultural, historical difficulties that have been 

set up that we are trying to find an institutionalized way of overcoming. We think the fusion center is a clear way of doing that. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you, both. Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Sununu. 

Senator SUNUNU. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

I want to talk a little bit more about the practical limitations, the 

practical hurdles in not just setting up this organization but overcoming some of the obstacles that Senator Lieberman just spoke 

about in getting information shared. 

I want to talk about the personnel, the practical question of who 

these people are, and where they come from. There are a number 

of different options but one is obviously to staff the integration center with personnel from FBI counterterrorism, from CIA counterterrorism. The other choice would be to have an independent staff 

that works only for the integration center and doesn’t rotate back 

and forth between intelligence organizations and the integration 

center. I would like each of you to talk a little bit about which kind 

of an approach you think might be better: Permanent staff or a rotating staff, and why. Senator Rudman. 

Mr. RUDMAN. The current plan, of course, is to bring in people 

from their current positions at all of these agencies who have the 

analytical skills and experience to analyze data. Now frankly, it 

takes so long to get someone to know how to do that and to do it 

well that I do not think there is much choice. There is no other 

place in the government. 

Now as to the real—underlying your question is the issue of 

independence and I think that is a very interesting question. Over 

the long run, if you could evolve into a group of analysts who essentially resided there for their entire careers that would probably 

be, in my view, much better. But you cannot do that right away, 

but maybe over a 5- or 10-year period you can. 

If they are going to get this thing stood up in the next year to 

at least have some function they are going to have to get some fairly experienced analysts from the Bureau, from State, mainly from 

the Agency, who are used to looking at masses of data, correlating 

it, and being able to reach intelligence conclusions. 

Senator SUNUNU. You want a system though where those individuals, even after a long period of time, 5 or 10 years, at some 

18

point return back to the Bureau or to Central Intelligence. Does 

that foster a stronger relationship, or do you simply want them to 

spend their career at the integration center knowing full well that 

you have got to work to make sure that the ties, and relationships 

between the integration center and the collection organizations remain strong? 

Mr. RUDMAN. My personal view is that there is a certain advantage to have people come from their parent agency and go spend 

a few years doing something else at another place, or similar work 

in another place, then go back to their agency. I think it tends to 

give people a better idea—a good example would be the Congressional fellows you have here. I know I had several that spent several years up here from various agencies. They went back to their 

agency with a far better understanding of the U.S. Congress and 

we had a better understanding of what they did. So I think there 

are advantages to that. 

Senator SUNUNU. Governor Gilmore. 

Mr. GILMORE. The position of the commission is it should be a 

separate agency. That it should have its own analysts. They should 

be employees of the new agency and that is where their institution 

should be. There is a big challenge here, a cultural challenge that 

the commission has devoted all of its 4 years to trying to address. 

This particular function that we are describing here, intelligence 

analysts on the counterterrorism side, has not been the historic career path in the FBI. This has been very influential in the thinking 

of the commission, particularly this year as it has gone on. It is a 

big challenge to try to break the institutional boundaries. To loan 

them would not be our recommendation. 

To devote them, to send them over there is our recommendation. 

The question we addressed as a practical matter is, how do you set 

something like this up on day one? How do you do that? You do 

not just do a standing start and bring in analysts and train them 

from the very beginning. You go to the places where the analysts 

exist and they have been trained, particularly the CIA which has 

made in fact its profession to do this work through its history. But 

to bring people from the other agencies as well, and to form them 

into one place, but to not loan them, but to make them part of that 

new permanent staff. 

Senator SUNUNU. Thank you. A second area that concerns me is 

a practical argument, I think a very practical one, that has been 

made against or raised as a concern when setting up new intelligence organizations, but also a concern that has been put forward 

when the question of sharing information comes up. Senator Rudman, you talked about the two drawers, information systems. You 

need a system or a process, whether it is technology-based or not, 

to actually get people to share that information. 

But in some cases there is an argument raised, we are concerned 

about providing this package of information to another independent 

group because they may then go out and compromise methods or 

sources, or share that information with someone that we as a different organization might not want them to share. They might provide it to local law enforcement when that is not really an appropriate consumer of this information. That can be willful. You can 

19

have organizations that are prone to leaks. But it could also be a 

lack of understanding of the sensitivities. 

My question is, in your experience where do those problems most 

often occur, are they well-founded, and are there different parts of 

an organization that are more likely to leak information, unfortunately willfully, or simply misapply information or share information with the wrong customer? Where might those problems occur 

in the chain? 

Mr. RUDMAN. The major problem on information sharing over the 

years has been the Bureau’s deep concern that criminal investigations would be compromised by furnishing information outside of 

the Bureau. And the CIA’s great concern, that by sharing information with the Bureau it might get somehow into hands inadvertently that would compromise sources and methods. So there have 

been cultural reasons. When Jim uses the word cultural, I agree, 

but the culture has got some basis in reality. These are people that 

have been burned on a number of occasions. 

Now you did something here in the Congress that I thought was 

very good last year in the USA Patriot Act. As you probably recall, 

the CIA was barred until very recently from keeping files on Americans. Not only could they not collect on American citizens, they 

could not even have access to the information on Americans. That, 

thankfully, has been changed. That might have been fine 30 or 40 

years ago but it is not fine now. So now at least people have access 

to the same kind of information—this is on terrorism I am speaking of. But I think the cultures, as Governor Gilmore points out, 

they have prevented it. But there has been a basis for it. 

My problem with the fusion, and we have a friendly disagreement on this, my problem with that is how in the devil are they 

going to get the FBI and the CIA to give them all the information 

they ought to be giving them when they are not part of the same 

organization? You are talking about, I think, a very steep hill to 

climb. 

Senator SUNUNU. I see that my time is up but Governor Gilmore 

if you want to address the same question, and again in particular 

how we set up this organization so that the concern of the FBI 

about compromising criminal investigations and the concern of the 

CIA regarding sources and methods are best addressed? 

Mr. GILMORE. Warren is right in his analysis of what the concerns of the FBI and the CIA have been over the years and remain, 

in my judgment, to this day. The fusion center is something new. 

It is a new device. There is today no formal coordination body in 

existence. There are efforts between the different agencies to find 

some vehicle by which they share—they sit in each other’s meetings and so on like that. 

This is an effort though to break through some of these bureaucratic boundaries, create a fusion center, and now I want to come 

to the main things here. You have got to write the rules. The rules 

have to be defined. Everybody has to understand what the rules of 

the game are. And then you have to hold people accountable for 

whether they are going to do it or not. There is going to have to 

be an understanding that information of this type of sensitive nature is going to have to be shared. If it is not shared, then there 

should be penalties connected with the non-sharing. And if it does 

20

not share and then information does not get fused and as a result 

Americans are injured, then there must be penalties or sanctions 

connected with all that. The rules have got to be written. 

And furthermore, we have not even talked about the major barrier, and that is the supreme and total distrust of the Federal Government authorities for the States and locals. The idea of sharing 

sensitive information with a police chief of a major jurisdiction or 

the governor of a State is anathema. It has to be broken through. 

So far efforts are being made to do that. Progress is being made, 

but they are trying to break a cultural barrier and it is going to 

require dramatic leadership at the Executive and Congressional 

level to make that happen. 

Mr. RUDMAN. Madam Chairman, I want to add, I agree with 

Governor Gilmore. One of the things that I would look at if I were 

still on this Committee, I know the administration said lawyers 

from Justice and the CIA and DOD have all looked at all of the 

statutes and say that everything is OK, this will work. I would 

want to maybe have a very intensive study done of all of the statutes that involve the CIA and the FBI on privacy issues, on sharing issues and other issues, to make sure that this new center operates under not only the rules, which will be written, but the laws 

that exist. 

Now it may well be that they are right, that they do not have 

a problem with the current laws, but I surely would want to take 

another look at that. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Lautenberg. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and to my 

friend. Senator Rudman said old friend. I would say friend of longstanding because the rest is apparent. It’s nice to see Governor Gilmore here. We met on TV a couple of times, had some fun. 

Senator Rudman comes with a remarkable record of confidence 

building and leadership from his years in the Senate. Universally 

respected and sought after by Senators regardless of party. The 

work that you did on your budget initiative helped us finally get 

to a point where we had a balanced budget in 1999. 

Mr. RUDMAN. For a little while anyway. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. A little while felt awful good, but that is 

what happens at times. When you sit down and you have a meal, 

it feels good and you know later on, maybe we should not have 

quite done it that way. But it is a pleasure to see you here, both 

of you, having left office formally and being called upon. 

Now I was never called upon to add my service so I decided I better run again and here I am, and glad to be here and to try and 

help solve some of the problems that we are having. The enormity 

of problems has grown in these couple years and I do not think it 

has anything to do with my departure from regular service, but the 

fact is that matters and life have become far more complicated. The 

horrible benchmark of September 11 has left a permanent impact 

almost no matter what we do. 

I wonder, Senator Rudman talked about, described a joint venture. When I was a CEO of a pretty good-sized company I liked 

joint ventures as long as we owned the joint. I think we have someVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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what that problem here in government. To me, the best way to get 

an understanding of effective participation with an agency is the 

simplest way. I think you have talked about it, Governor. The fact 

is that you have to reach into these sources of trained people. 

Frankly, I would have hoped that between the FBI and the CIA 

that a task force of sorts could have been created with the authorities as delineated, to get the job done. Because one of the things 

that seems to be happening is we are adding—I do not want to 

sound critical, but we are adding acronyms because we are adding 

organizations and yet we still have that feeling of discomfort. 

I can tell you this, that the kaleidoscope of color that we use to 

warn people is just scaring the hell out of a lot of people. And yet 

we have an obligation to say, life is not exactly as it was and you 

have to be especially careful. But that muddle of things really worries me because there is no confidence yet. 

I respect the President’s initiative here, and to think that this 

problem could be solved immediately and create this giant department, jurisdictions overlapping all of that kind of thing. I am very 

involved with the Coast Guard and I was on Intelligence after Senator Rudman left, and Defense Subcommittee on Appropriations. 

There is conscientious leadership there, but the fact of the matter 

is that to have this large safety net with the holes in it that we 

ultimately saw is a shocking thing. We cannot go back retroactively 

to pre-September 11 and say, should have, could have, would have, 

I think that is a dangerous and insignificant review. 

But where we are now, still with people wondering who is 

where—the fact is that I hear from local law enforcement people, 

they are groping for information, searching for ways to be included 

in the loop. That has got to be a large part of the solution to the 

problem. That is to be able to get this data out to the communities 

out to the States so that they feel like they can do something significant if an alert does come. 

So I supported the idea of the integration center, the fusion as 

you call it, Governor Gilmore, center where the data are collected 

in one place. But I for the life of me still have a problem trying 

to figure why we cannot, within the existing structure, create the 

mechanism to solve the problem. Should this be a direct NSA report or something like that? How does it get to the President? Does 

the President have at his daily briefings a review of terrorist activity? Or is it immersed in this whole melange of things that he has 

to be concerned about? 

So I am not offering much by way of advice except to say that 

if we could only get this housed, done within the structure that we 

have, trained people, people who have knowledge and have a place 

out gathering data, and do it that way instead of creating a whole 

new structure because we cannot get through the bureaucracy. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Lautenberg follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG 

Madam Chairman, I’m glad you recognize the importance of holding a hearing on 

the ‘‘Terrorist Threat Integration Center’’ (TTIC) the President has proposed. 

Let me first welcome and thank the witnesses for coming today, and giving us 

the benefit of their expertise on this issue. Senator Rudman and Governor Gilmore 

have provided a great service to the nation. Their efforts to identify and alert us 

22

to terrorist threats and provide solutions to the vexing problem of defending ourselves from terrorist attacks are much appreciated. 

Jeff Smith and James Steinberg have wide experience in dealing with our national security agencies and I look forward to hearing their insights on what this 

new Terrorist Threat Integration Center’s role should be. 

Madam Chairman, I’m disappointed the administration did not send a representative to inform us about its plans for this new Center. We need clarity and leadership 

from the administration on this question and, with all due respect to the President 

and Governor Ridge, we are not getting it. 

What do I mean by this? 

In the wake of September 11, it rapidly became apparent that an inability or an 

unwillingness of the intelligence community to share information played a role in 

our inability to prevent the attacks. 

There was a reality that there wasn’t any single agency responsible for gathering, 

analyzing, and disseminating the information in a way to prevent and counter terrorist attacks. 

Many felt the creation of the Homeland Security Department would solve this 

problem. The notion was that the President would be briefed on potential terrorist 

attacks by the Secretary of the Homeland Security Department. 

Well, we have created the Homeland Security Department. But we still have the 

CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center. We have the FBI improving its intelligence capability. And now we have this new Terrorist Threat Integration Center. 

I think that the responsibility for determining the terrorist intelligence picture is 

becoming murkier, not clearer. Rather than reducing the number of agencies and 

bureaucracies with responsibility for this problem, they are proliferating: CIA, FBI, 

CTC, DHS, TTIC, etc. and so on. 

We are not ‘‘connecting the dots,’’ we are multiplying them. 

I must also express some wonderment about how this whole process is unfolding. 

This new Center has been created by the President outside the Homeland Security 

law. It would have seemed more logical for the President just to create this Center 

or something similar within a short period following September 11. If this has been 

an urgent problem, why did we wait for well over a year to create it? If the only 

question involving improving our intelligence processes was to beef up the CIA’s 

ability to do so, which could have been done shortly after the September 11 attacks, 

why did we go through all the trouble and disruption of creating a new Department 

of Homeland Security? 

Between the proliferating number of agencies and the kaleidoscopic color scheme 

of threats, I worry that we are spreading fear and near panic in the country without 

materially advancing the protection of the nation from a terrorist attack or raising 

the comfort level of our citizens. 

We now have the Homeland Security Department and the TTIC. Since I doubt 

we will dis-establish either, we must find a way to make them work together. 

I look forward to hearing from these distinguished witnesses. I hope they will be 

able to indicate to us that things are getting better on this front—and, if they are 

not getting better, what can we do to improve the situation. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mr. RUDMAN. Senator Lautenberg, let me just respond this way. 

I think that is what the administration is attempting to do. Now 

people may disagree with the form, but what they are essentially 

doing is saying we have had analysis of terrorism within the FBI, 

we have got analysis within the CIA. Most of the information that 

we get is foreign so the CIA is tasked with evaluating it and doing 

the analysis. But we have got all these other parts of the government that pick up bits and pieces, so rather than try to exhort people within the current boxes to do what they are doing, put together a joint venture, if you will, and have it report to the Director of the CIA, which answers your question, how does the President get informed? That is how he gets informed. He meets with 

the Director of the CIA, I am sure you know, mostly every day. 

This will be a major part of his reporting. 

Now under Governor Gilmore’s plan it would certainly work. The 

difference would be that the director of that fusion center would 

have a separate reporting line to the President. We do not have to 

23

argue that here, but the concept—the only difference between the 

two ideas is one is independent and one is not. The basic reasoning 

and the need we all agree on. The administration has chosen to do 

it in a so-called joint venture. My view is that it is better to do that 

way than to try to do it within the current structure of the CIA 

and the current structure of the FBI, to try to move all of the people dealing with domestic terrorism based on foreign and domestic 

intelligence into one place. That is what the fusion center proposal 

was, so we do not really disagree on the need. We only disagree 

about the modality. 

From your comments, I would think you would probably oppose 

the creation of a new department. That is their proposal, and it is 

a very sound proposal. But there is room for reasonable people to 

disagree. 

Mr. GILMORE. A new agency. We did not even recommend the 

Department of Homeland Security. 

But with respect to, I think the answer that I would want to provide to you, Senator is this. You have got to identify the problem. 

We have taken a lot of time to try to think through what the problem is, under no pressure from anyone. We have tried to think 

about this. The problem is that you just cannot find a vehicle in 

the present structure of government in our Federal system that is 

in a position to gather together Federal overseas information, domestic information, human intelligence, signal intelligence, State, 

locals, private people, private enterprise. There just is no vehicle 

for that. There is a vehicle for intelligence to be gathered and the 

President certainly receives his daily briefing every morning. There 

is no doubt about that. 

But then as you analyze the problem that we saw in the past, 

it is not only that there is no vehicle for gathering up all that information, but that there are institutional and cultural barriers to the 

complete sharing. This is designed to be a vehicle to overcome 

those problems. It does not solve all problems, and it even creates 

new ones with additional bureaucracies. But this is the best solution that we can come up with balancing all the different pressures. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I thank you both. Madam Chairman, we 

are developing our mandate here, and that is, as you said, write 

the rules and decide how it ought to be. This is a very helpful discourse and I thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Pryor. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR 

Senator PRYOR. Madam Chairman, thank you. I want the record 

to reflect that my father never ran against Senator Rudman. I am 

glad he did not. He is glad he did not, but he does send his greetings. It is good to see you again. 

Mr. RUDMAN. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. 

Senator PRYOR. Let me ask both of you a couple of big picture 

questions. How many employees are we talking about being necessary once the Center is fully operational? 

Mr. RUDMAN. I think it is a better question when you have the 

administration witnesses. My understanding is it is going to be 

started in phase one with probably under 100, mainly analytical. 

24

They will stage it on the basis, if you grow it too fast it will not 

grow as efficiently as it should. My sense is you are talking hundreds rather than thousands when they finally get to the final 

stage of where they want to get, which on my information is probably 3 to 4 years out. 

Senator PRYOR. Do you agree with that, Governor? 

Mr. GILMORE. Our commission has attempted to lay out what we 

think the issues are, the challenges are, and the best solution. To 

then place ourselves of the administrative people who would design 

the specific number of hirees to do the job, we have not presumed 

to do. So the short answer is that we believe there needs to be a 

fusion center to gather this information together, and I am sure 

that the appropriate Executive Branch people who would come forward with a proposal to the Congress would lay out how many people they think they need to get the job done. 

Senator PRYOR. Will this joint venture have its own budget or 

will the personnel, location, and overhead, be absorbed in other 

agencies’ budgets? 

Mr. GILMORE. We recommend that it has its own budget in order 

to continue to provide that type of independence, Senator. But the 

question of how you would actually fund it is an appropriations 

issue; a proposal from the Executive Branch and an appropriations 

issue from the Senate. We would not be surprised if you were to 

move funding for the analysis function from the different agencies 

into the new agency in order to begin its funding. But since it is 

an independent agency we believe it should have its independent 

appropriation. 

Mr. RUDMAN. Senator Pryor, the administration’s proposal as I 

understand it does not require a separate budget because it is not 

doing what the Gilmore Commission has recommended with an 

agency. It is essentially going to take people who are currently on 

the payroll of these various other agencies, co-locate them in one 

place, and make contributions to overhead. 

Now as a practical matter, although many of them will be moving to a different location doing the same job and getting paid the 

same amount of money, inevitably there will be more money involved and I assume that will appear in the budget for the respective agencies who will make a contribution. That is the way the appropriation process normally works. 

Mr. GILMORE. It does however raise an issue. If you co-locate people in that manner one might ask the analyst who he works for. 

I think his answer would be what everybody in the world would answer, the guy who writes my paycheck is my boss. Therefore, the 

fusion center will really not have employees under this proposal. 

That will create a management challenge, but I believe that there 

is a sense that once identified that the heads of the CIA and the 

FBI will be in a position to provide that management. But I think 

I have identified the management challenge to you. 

Senator PRYOR. I agree, I think it is a challenge. However, I 

think we can overcome it. It seems like something we can work 

through and work out and come up with a very positive management structure and accomplish the mission. 

I am aware you have a joint venture here where the employees 

come from different agencies. I am assuming that the creation of 

25

this center does not relieve the other agencies from doing their own 

analysis and making their own determinations. In other words, 

they do not cede their responsibility to this new joint venture. But 

it is a little bit redundant, and redundancy in this case may not 

be a bad idea because theoretically this new center may be in a superior position to analyze data coming from a lot of different 

sources. Is that the way you understand it, Governor? 

Mr. GILMORE. That is a very complicated point. It could create 

redundancies. I think that the sense of our commission is that the 

primary function for this type of analysis ought to rest in the fusion center. Now I guess that administratively it probably does not 

make sense to deprive the individual agencies of all ability to analyze information, otherwise how do they know what to give, and 

how do they know how to understand what they are getting. So I 

think I see that administrative point and I think that we would 

concur with that. 

But I think we should guard against co-locating equal amounts 

of analysis capacity in both places because then the individual 

agencies I think would have a tendency to say, who needs that? 

Mr. RUDMAN. Senator Pryor, that gets back to the Chairman’s 

position on duplication. My sense is that, although obviously both 

the Bureau and the Agency will retain some analytical ability in 

the area of terrorism, I think the overwhelming amount of analysis 

is going to be done at this new joint venture, whether it be a joint 

venture or whether it be a fusion center. It just seems to me that 

is what is going to happen, because you do not have, unfortunately, 

that many people who are all that well-trained in this area. You 

are going to have to take a lot of them over the next several years 

and move them into this new co-located position. 

Now you have a practical matter, knowing the way these places 

work, since the collection is coming through the eyes and ears of 

either the CIA or the FBI, it would be to me almost incredible if 

that would not be looked at, put in a sealed envelope and sent 

across the city electronically or otherwise. Obviously, people are 

going to be aware of it and contribute some analysis to it. 

But that is not really your question. Your question is, is there 

going to be major analytical capability still at these places? I would 

hope not because then you get into duplication and then you get 

into some competition. I would hope this would be the place where 

the threat of terrorism and all intelligence thereto is analyzed. 

Mr. GILMORE. Madam Chairman, may I add a point on that? 

Chairman COLLINS. Certainly. 

Mr. GILMORE. Because I want to address this issue of duplication 

which has emerged. I think that it is important to keep your eye 

on the ball. Focus on the issue. The issue is, what is the problem 

here? How do we share information? How do we get this information co-located in such a way that we share the dots. So that something significant from CIA combined with something from FBI suddenly has meaning where in the two pieces it may not. That is the 

issue. 

The fusion center, the President’s proposal, all these things are 

very much the same proposal. It is just a matter of administratively how you are going to shape it. They are intended to address 

that issue. Therefore, the question is does duplication become a disVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
26

qualification of the solution? It does not. It merely becomes a challenge that has to be worked through and minimized. 

Senator PRYOR. I agree with you. I can live with some duplication if we accomplish the goal we are setting out to accomplish. The 

question is always how to do it in the most efficiently, and effectively manor possible. That is a challenge that we all wrestle with 

here every day and I know you will too. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator. Senator Akaka. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, very much, Madam Chairman. I 

thank you for this opportunity and I welcome Senator Rudman and 

Governor Gilmore. Senator Rudman, I knew you when I was in the 

House, and I know of your work in the Senate and you have really 

served our country well as a Senator, and even after the Senate. 

My concerns have been that we may have too many centers. The 

President in his State of the Union speech did add a new key component though which he called a Terrorist Threat Integration Center. I can see his intent there, and especially when we think that 

we have many centers. Yesterday I met with Dr. Cambone. He was 

nominated to a new position in the Defense Department and that 

position is undersecretary of intelligence. Now here is another effort in facing the threats of our country, not only domestic but foreign threats. So my concern is there may be too many centers trying to do the same thing. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Akaka follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Thank you Madam Chairman for organizing today’s hearing. I am pleased that 

the Committee is continuing to focus on critical issues relating to our national security. 

I am disappointed that the administration could not be with us today. The President’s proposal to establish a Terrorist Threat Integration Center was one of the key 

components of his State of the Union address and the administration has issued 

several briefing papers on the concept. 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Steve Cambone who has been 

nominated to the Defense Department position of Undersecretary for Intelligence. 

This is a new position at Defense is one of many additional efforts underway to improve intelligence management. 

I am concerned that there may be too many centers being created to respond to 

the same threat. For example, the CIA has its Counter Terrorism Center—the Defense Intelligence Agency has its counter terrorism center—the new Department of 

Homeland Security will have an Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection 

Directorate—the Army has an Information Dominance Center—DOD is developing 

a Total Information Awareness program—and the FBI has a Counter Terrorism Division. Now the President proposes a new Terrorist Threat Integration Center. 

When this Committee marked up the Homeland Security bill, I worked with Senators Lieberman, Levin, and Thompson to craft an intelligence division to ensure 

the Department received sufficient information concerning domestic threats and had 

the capability of responding to those threats. Unfortunately, that proposal was later 

rejected by the administration. My concern then—and now—was that there would 

be duplication of effort in the intelligence arena. 

There can be only so many cooks in a kitchen.I think we have already reached 

our limit when it comes to analyzing intelligence information. We have a limited 

number of qualified intelligence analysts and a limited number of agents in the field 

developing information. Creating numerous centers in Washington—all looking at 

the same information—does not mean we will be better prepared for countering terrorist threats. 

27

We have an esteemed group of experts this morning, including our former colleague, Senator Rudman. I look forward to their comments on this subject and I 

commend our Chairman for holding this hearing.

Senator AKAKA. Under the administration’s plan, and I would 

like to direct this to the Governor, the Director of the CIA will inform the President about threats, but who is responsible for ensuring domestic investigation of threats that take place, and State and 

local enforcement are kept in the picture? Governor Gilmore, am I 

correct in thinking there is currently a disconnect? 

Mr. GILMORE. Yes, Senator, there is a disconnect. I think that 

most people have understood that since September 11 as they have 

tried to analyze the problem and are trying to find ways to address 

that. 

Just to touch on your Department of Defense comment just as a 

potential for more and more centers trying to do the same thing. 

It certainly is contemplated, I think, that this fusion center, this 

integration center, or however it is defined or structured would include people from the Defense Intelligence Agency, from the Department of Defense as well as from the CIA and the FBI and 

hopefully a place also for State and local people. It is a desire to 

begin to combine things in a way that structurally we have never 

done before. 

I might point out, by the way, that I have spoken to some leaders 

in law enforcement from some of the major municipalities of the 

country and they have indicated that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism 

Task Forces are doing some more of that communication and that 

they do feel like they are having an opportunity to work on the 

same team with that program. So that seems to be a program that 

is making some progress in terms of the collection efforts, in terms 

of the team for gathering information. 

But at the end of the day I think there is a near virtual consensus everywhere that there needs to be some type of integration 

center or fusion center so that everybody has a centrally located 

place to learn all the information gathered from all the disparate 

areas as you have described. 

Senator AKAKA. Senator Rudman, I know because of your background and experience as a Senator and your participation in security matters as well, I ask for your assessment and also your thinking about—and if you can explain to me what you know about the 

Terrorist Threat Integration Center that the President is proposing 

and whether that would answer my question, which officially is in 

charge of bringing together all foreign intelligence concerning 

threats inside the United States and the domestic law enforcement 

information about domestic threats and ensuring first that this information is thoroughly evaluated and that a timely investigation 

takes place? 

And second, who ensures that local officials who might be affected by a threat are kept in the picture? I am hoping that the 

President’s proposal on integration will bring that about. I was 

thinking of it in terms of the interagency coordinating group that 

would do this. Can you give me your views on that? 

Mr. RUDMAN. I will, Senator Akaka. Thank you for your gracious 

comments. I enjoyed our service together. 

28

Let me tell you that I do not think that I necessarily know the 

answer to that and I think that is a better question for the administration witnesses. But I think I know what the answer will probably be, so on that basis I will tell you what I believe the answer 

is but I just do not know for certain. 

I am sure that this new threat analysis center will carry out the 

function that you are speaking of. I think theirs is purely analysis. 

The question then becomes, what happens to their product? Let us 

assume that their product produces a specific threat to Honolulu. 

The question is, how does the chief of police of Honolulu and the 

Governor of Hawaii get to know this information? That is really 

your question. 

I think there are two answers to that question, or at least there 

should be. It is, I believe, now the primary responsibility of the FBI 

and the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate with local 

communities to make sure that the kind of information they have 

not been getting they will be getting. 

It is my understanding that there is currently a program underway in which the police authorities of major cities are getting Federal security clearances, which is a very unique new program. It is 

not a classified program. It is known. It was spoken about publicly 

at a meeting I was at yesterday. So that there is more ease of passing on that information to people. 

For instance, it is hard to believe that when Governor Gilmore 

was Governor of Virginia it would have been a Federal crime for 

an agent to share certain classified information with him because 

he did not have the clearance. Now it certainly seems to me that 

the mayor and the chief of police of New York ought to be able to 

get classified information. So I think they are working in that direction but not through this center. I think those questions are better directed at the FBI and Governor Ridge to see if they are upping their efforts to get clearances and find ways——

And finally let me say just one other thing that was inherently 

contained in your question. I have long believed that the balance 

between protecting sources and methods and protecting the American people from great harm has to be rationalized in some way. 

Where I come out on it is simply this. I believe that if we have a 

specific threat, as opposed to what we have right now, a specific 

threat based on good information of a major terrorist action against 

a particular city during a particular time frame, that sources and 

methods ought to be compromised if necessary to protect that population from that injury. That is a debate you will have to have 

within the community. 

Senator AKAKA. Governor Gilmore. 

Mr. GILMORE. Senator, if I may just add, in my discussions with 

Admiral Abbott he has indicated that they in fact are starting a 

program where they are beginning to go through the process of 

clearing the governors and clearing of major law enforcement key 

personnel in the respective States. Then you begin to put in all the 

safeguarding rules, all the penalties for violation of that, all of the 

training that goes along with that. I think that it can work and 

should work. 

I think that if a politician in a State, the same thing as a politician at the Federal level—politicians are politicians, if they reveal 

29

information in order to gain some type of political advantage and 

so on, there ought to be penalties involved with that. I think once 

you set up this kind of structure then everybody is going to understand what the rules are and how they are supposed to adhere to 

them. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you so much for your responses. Thank 

you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator. 

Before I let this distinguished panel go I just want to follow up 

on the issue of how the new center would interact with State and 

local law enforcement officials, which both of you have talked about 

as well as several of the members of this panel. Recently in Portland, Maine, for example, the local police detained a foreign national who was visiting on a tourist visa who was spotted photographing an oil tank farm on the Portland waterfront, obviously an 

action of some concern. The local police, however, had an extremely 

difficult time getting information from the FBI about whether or 

not this individual was on any watch list or if his actions were a 

matter of concern. So I think we still have long ways to go as far 

as information sharing and developing the trust among various 

agencies at various levels of government. 

Do you think that State and local law enforcement officials 

should have direct access to this new center or a way to somehow 

tap into information directly? Senator Rudman. 

Mr. RUDMAN. I do not, Senator Collins. I think that the nature 

of the information they will be having to compile, their analysis 

product based on foreign and domestic intelligence, cannot be 

shared on a demand basis. What I do believe is what you intended 

in the Department of Homeland Security legislation. I believe that 

DHS primarily is going to become responsible for liaison, both information technology and verbally, with local law enforcement. I 

believe that they ought to be on the front line, and I expect they 

will have people in this new center who can pass on to the chief 

of police of Portland, Maine that this person is on a watch list and 

do it in real time. 

But I think that is the way it ought to be done. I think you have 

got to limit access to this product. Not limit access to those who 

need it, but limit general access to it. Then you get into some 

issues that I think would cause a lot of problems. 

Chairman COLLINS. Governor Gilmore. 

Mr. GILMORE. If I understand Senator Rudman, I think that our 

commission would disagree. We believe that there ought to be colocated people, representative people from States and local organizations to begin to understand the nature of what is going on in 

the States. There is a serious cultural problem here. We identified 

it years ago. It remains to this day. It is the inherent feeling of 

Federal law enforcement authorities that they are superior. 

The reason that they think they are superior is because they are 

better funded by the Congress than local law enforcement agencies 

are able to be. They have, therefore, access to more people and 

more resources. Therefore they think they are superior. 

But that is balanced by the fact that local law enforcement people are in more places, seeing more things across this Nation each 

and every day. Therefore, the Federal authorities are not superior. 

30

1The prepared statement of Mr. Steinberg appears in the Appendix on page 95. 

They are just different. Therefore, culturally, things have got to 

work out in a way that can harmonize these two things together. 

I think the recommendation of our commission would be that the 

fusion center creates a vehicle for the gathering together of all the 

different organizations. There even should be some facility or some 

ability to have an open channel of communication with private enterprise. 

Chairman COLLINS. I want to thank both of you very much for 

your testimony this morning. Both of you have been extremely generous with your time and your experience and we very much appreciate your appearing this morning. So thank you, both. 

I now would like to call forth our second panel of witnesses this 

morning. James Steinberg is the vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. He served as deputy national security adviser in the Clinton Administration as well 

as director of policy planning staff and deputy assistant secretary 

for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Department of 

State. 

Jeffrey Smith is a formal general counsel of the CIA and formal 

general counsel of the Senate Armed Services Committee under 

Senator Nunn. He is now a partner at Arnold and Porter. 

We welcome you both here this morning. We very much appreciate your taking the time to appear. Mr. Steinberg, we are going 

to begin with you. 

TESTIMONY OF JAMES B. STEINBERG,1 VICE PRESIDENT AND 

DIRECTOR OF FOREIGN POLICY STUDIES, THE BROOKINGS 

INSTITUTION 

Mr. STEINBERG. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I very 

much appreciate the opportunity to be here, and I commend you 

and the Committee on having these hearings because I think this 

is one of the most critical topics that we as a Nation face. As you 

pointed out, although a number of actions have been taken concerning homeland security, one area that has not gotten the degree 

of attention that I think it deserves is the organization of our intelligence efforts, so I think this is very welcome. 

I have a longer statement for the record and I will just summarize a few points for you. As you heard from the previous panel I 

think there is a general agreement that there is a need for greater 

integration of our efforts to analyze the threat and the nature of 

the challenges that we face in the area of counterterrorism. Where 

I differ from my distinguished colleagues who you heard from in 

the previous panel is that I believe that this effort should be focused in the Department of Homeland Security, and I think that 

is consistent with the intention of the Congress when it created the 

department, and particularly the Office of Intelligence Analysis and 

Infrastructure Protection. 

As you stated in your opening statement, the House and Senate 

joint inquiry into the attacks of September 11 really demonstrated 

the problem that we have in terms of bringing together and sharing information. I will not repeat the quote that you gave because 

I think it is exactly to the point of the challenge that we faced. BeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
31

fore I discuss the specific ways of how we should respond, it is important to spend a minute discussing the nature of the intelligence 

challenge that we face in dealing with counterterrorism, because 

only by understanding the dimensions of the problem can we develop an appropriate architecture or organizational structure that 

is appropriate to the task. 

The intelligence challenge in counterterrorism has four key components. First we need to collect timely, relevant, and in the best 

case, actionable information. Second, we need to collate or bring together the information from the full spectrum of sources. Third, we 

need to analyze the information; as others have said, connect the 

dots. And finally, we need to disseminate that information to those 

who need to act on it, policymakers, law enforcement officials, the 

private sector, and the public in a form that allows them to use 

that information to accomplish their mission. 

In the fight against terrorism these tasks are far more difficult 

in many ways than the intelligence challenge we faced during the 

Cold War. Today, terrorists threaten us at home and abroad. As 

Senator Rudman observed, they have no fixed addresses and we 

only occasionally know their identities or their targets. Technology 

and globalization have made it easier for would-be terrorists to 

bring dangerous people and weapons into the United States, and 

to conceal their activities. 

Key information that we need to detect and prevent terrorist attacks lie in the private sector, at airlines and flight schools, with 

operators of chemical plants, and high-rise buildings, with local police and community doctors, and we must increasingly count on the 

private sector and State and local governments to take the actions 

necessary to prevent attacks or deal with their consequences. We 

need to adopt our intelligence efforts and the organization of our 

intelligence community to meet this radically different challenge. 

In your opening statement you identified a number of the small 

steps that have been taken today and these are welcome. But I 

think that is true that as many of the witnesses and the Members 

of the Committee have noticed, that there is a tendency to focus 

primarily on the role of the Federal Government in carrying out 

these tasks, but in reality we see that there are a wide variety of 

actors who are crucial: Foreign governments, State and local officials, business, and private citizens. They all have access to information that may be relevant to the terrorist threat. They have expertise that can help us transform this raw information into meaningful intelligence. And perhaps most important, they are the key 

players who need to act on this intelligence, to apprehend a suspect, to prepare public health facilities in the event of an attack, 

to secure critical infrastructures, etc. 

Now the reason I have stressed the importance of understanding 

these different functions is because they provide key guidance for 

the critical question of how we should organize the intelligence efforts. The necessary elements, in my view are, first, we need a 

strategy for identifying the kinds of information we need to collect 

on threats and vulnerabilities. 

Second, we need a network, a decentralized network designed to 

permit sharing of information among the widest possible group of 

32

collectors, analysts, and implementers at all levels of government, 

and between government and the private sector. 

Third, we need a focal point for bringing all the information together to be integrated and analyzed. 

And fourth, and I think this is extremely important, we need an 

accountable organization that assures that the right information is 

being collected and the results of collection and analysis are shared 

in a timely, usable way with those who need to act on it. 

Judged by these tests, the administration’s proposed Terrorist 

Threat Integration Center represents a partial step forward in 

helping to build a network bringing together foreign and domestic 

intelligence collection and a place where this information can be 

integrated. But it fails to meet the other key tests, particularly in 

developing a structure that will increase the chances that we will 

collect the right information and that will link the collection and 

analysis to those who are responsible for taking the necessary actions to prevent attacks, protect our people and critical infrastructure, and mitigate the consequences of any attack that might take 

place. 

I think, therefore, in this respect that the Terrorist Threat Integration Center is a step backwards from the approach that you 

adopted in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 creating the Department of Homeland Security. Yes, we have closed the seam between 

foreign and domestic intelligence, and it does recognize the need to 

draw on broad expertise. But by placing the TTIC under the direction of the Director of Central Intelligence rather than the Secretary of Homeland Security, and disconnecting it from those with 

direct responsibility for safeguarding homeland security, the administration fails to develop an effective and integrated approach 

to countering the terrorist threat to the United States, and risks, 

as many of the members of the panel have suggested, creating 

more duplication that could harm the homeland security effort. 

After all, the Department of Homeland Security was created to 

be the hub of our homeland security efforts. Unlike any other official, the Secretary of Homeland Security’s sole responsibility is to 

see that the necessary actions are taken to secure our borders, to 

protect critical infrastructure, to defend against biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological attacks, and to respond to emergencies that do occur. 

Importantly, the statute specifically gives the Secretary responsibility for coordinating with State and local officials and with the 

private sector. So in order to carry out the functions that you gave 

him in the statute, he has got to be able to link the decisions about 

what information we collect and what information we share with 

his responsibility to take the necessary actions. I think that is the 

important difference between locating this effort in the Department 

of Homeland Security and making it a separate entity, whether a 

joint venture or an independent effort. 

I think the importance of this linkage is most clear in the case 

of protecting our critical infrastructures. Only by matching analysis 

of the threat against the analysis of vulnerabilities that the department is responsible for can we know how to prioritize both what 

intelligence we collect and what protective measures we must take. 

The synergy created by linking intelligence and collection analysis 

33

1The prepared statement of Mr. Smith appears in the Appendix on page 100. 

and operational responsibility can lead to better quality intelligence, more actionable intelligence, and greater incentives for the 

intelligence to flow to those who need it in a form that they can 

use. 

By taking these functions away from the Department of Homeland Security we risk having a secretary and department who have 

accountability for homeland security but no authority to assure it. 

In my judgment, this has been the consistent problem in dealing 

with threats to the homeland with responsibility widely dispersed 

throughout the Federal Government and that has seriously hampered our efforts. 

I think there is an important question about maintaining the 

independence of this analysis. Therefore this fusion center in the 

Department of Homeland Security should also have the general 

oversight of the Director of Central Intelligence just as he has oversight over the Department of Intelligence Research at the State Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency, etc. 

But along with this authority that I would give to the Secretary 

of Homeland Security there is also a responsibility to make sure 

that this information is collected consistent with fundamental civil 

liberties, because the homeland security challenge will rely heavily 

on information collected from the private sector, and from a wide 

range of domestic activities. 

Moreover, to carry out the homeland security challenge, vital information will need to be widely disseminated. It will be, therefore, 

all the more important to develop clear, public guidelines for the 

acquisition, retention, and dissemination of information, particularly personally identifiable information. 

Whether the new threat integration center is placed under the 

authority of the DCI, or as I have suggested under the Secretary 

of Homeland Security, the long-term acceptability to the American 

people of our heightened intelligence effort will depend on our ability to demonstrate that we are undertaking these new tasks with 

due regard for privacy and individual liberty. Formal guidelines 

subject to public comment and Congressional oversight, and accountable mechanisms to make sure those guidelines are adhered 

to, are essential to this goal. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I look forward to 

your questions. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Steinberg. Mr. Smith. 

TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY H. SMITH,1 FORMER GENERAL 

COUNSEL (1995–1996), CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for inviting me to appear. As with Mr. Steinberg, I have a longer statement that I 

would like to submit for the record that I will summarize very 

quickly and we can get to questions. 

This is an extremely important issues. There have been a lot of 

changes, so I think we might begin by listing a few principles that 

ought to govern the collection and analysis of intelligence for domestic security. 

First, there should be a unity of effort and unity of command. 

34

Second, there must be clear channels among collectors, analysts, 

operators, and consumers—the linkages that Jim spoke of. This 

has to be a two-way channel with information flowing up and 

down. 

Third, there has to be a smooth flow of information among other 

sources of information and between State, local and Federal officials. 

Fourth, we should avoid overlap between intelligence agencies. 

The boundaries should be clear but not impervious or rigid, and 

some competition, as Senator Pryor suggested, can be helpful. 

Fifth, intelligence analysts must be independent. Indeed, that is 

why the CIA was created in the first place. 

Sixth, the analysts and indeed all intelligence activities must be 

accountable to the political leadership of this country and to the 

Congress. 

Seventh, we must take all measures to protect the civil liberties 

of American citizens. 

Eighth, any organizational structure can be made to work even 

if it looks dysfunctional on paper. The keys to success, in my judgment, are good people, strong leadership, and stability. In that regard I am reminded of Norm Augustine’s wisdom that sometimes 

we check on the health of a plant by pulling it up to look at the 

roots, and that is not a good thing. 

Finally, an analytical organization is only as good as the information it has to analyze. There was much criticism after September 11 that we had not connected the dots. The major problem 

is, we just do not have enough dots. I think a renewed emphasis 

must be placed on collecting more intelligence, especially human 

intelligence. 

Now let me turn to a few of the specifics of the President’s proposal. It is a good idea and I support both the concept and the proposed implementation of it. However, I believe it is only a first step 

toward what I believe we ultimately need, which is a viable domestic intelligence service. The Department of Homeland Security 

clearly needs an intelligence function. I agree with everything that 

Jim has said about the need to have it linked to ultimately the responsibilities of the Secretary. However, I think for the moment I 

would leave it under the Director of Central Intelligence until ultimately it would be moved, in my judgment, to a domestic security 

service that would be part of the Department of Homeland Security. 

Indeed, as Governor Gilmore said, many people believed after 

Congress passed the homeland security bill that this function 

would be housed in the directorate of infrastructure security at 

Homeland Security. However, the President has decided that it 

ought to be under the DCI. As I understand the plans of the administration it is to create the TTIC as a fusion center that will 

ultimately combine the databanks of several agencies including the 

FBI. It will be a joint venture that will build on the strengths of 

the current organizations. People will remain employees of their 

agencies but will be secunded to this center. 

The recent changes in the Patriot Act now permit wider exchange of information between law enforcement and intelligence 

agencies and that should make it possible to permit a common 

35

database so that the chief of police in Portland could call this center either directly or through Homeland Security. But they have to 

have access to that information, you are absolutely right. And they 

ought to produce a common watch list that is available to everybody in the country who needs it. 

The President’s desire, as I understand it, is to try to build on 

what is already working. The officers who are assigned to this center will be able or are encouraged to have strong ties back to their 

home agencies including, I am told, even the right to have access 

to operational traffic within their agency, which is a very important 

element. 

At the same time, there will be much confusion as the center is 

being created. The FBI has been trying to do this, the Department 

of Homeland Security has been trying to do it, and now we have 

yet a new center. There will clearly be some confusion and Congress needs to keep an eye on it. I understand, for example, in the 

President’s budget that he has just submitted contains $829 million 

for DHS’s information analysis and infrastructure directorate. Is 

that money then to stay in Homeland Security or does that somehow get shifted to the intelligence community for this function? 

Jim and I agree, the intelligence element of homeland security 

should report directly to the Secretary, and he went through the 

functions that they need to perform with which I agree and I will 

not talk about that. 

Let me talk about a couple of specific questions the Committee 

has asked me to address. First, I do not believe that there are any 

unique legal or privacy concerns raised merely because the DCI 

will now be responsible for the analysis of domestic intelligence. 

However, I would like to point out to the Committee that under 

current law the DCI, ‘‘in his capacity as head of the CIA shall have 

no police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers or internal security 

functions.’’ Two aspects of this are worth dwelling on for just a moment. 

First, the law draws a distinction between the DCI’s role as head 

of the CIA and as head of the broader intelligence community. This 

suggests that Congress recognized that as head of the intelligence 

community he would inevitably have some role in domestic intelligence and law enforcement matters. However, Congress was 

rightly concerned about the creation of a domestic secret police, 

and thus barred CIA from having any police or internal security 

functions. 

The second clause of this provision, ‘‘shall have no internal security functions’’ is also worth a moment’s discussion. I have always 

understood it to mean that the CIA may not play any role in domestic law enforcement other than the collection and analysis of 

foreign intelligence that may relate to law enforcement or domestic 

security. Indeed, CIA has done that since its establishment. 

For example, it collects information relating to espionage directed 

against the United States, collects information relating to narcotics 

trafficking, money laundering, and so on. However, as this center 

is established it would be well to consider carefully the limits of 

what the DCI and the TTIC will do to be certain that we are comfortable with their roles. Some additional guidelines may be necessary to determine where the line is between intelligence relating 

36

to domestic terrorism, which would be legitimate areas for the center to address, and intelligence relating to purely domestic political 

groups which should be left with the FBI. 

The center should not, for example, be used to analyze information on domestic political groups such as right wing militia or hate 

groups. It must continue to follow the existing Attorney General 

guidelines on such matters as the collection and dissemination of 

information. I, for one, am comfortable with the President’s proposal but I believe vigorous Congressional oversight is needed and 

perhaps some new guidelines. 

Finally, Madam Chairman, as this Committee knows, I have 

been an advocate for some time for creating a domestic security 

service and I think this is the first step in that direction. I know 

Senator Edwards introduced a bill yesterday to this effect, Senator 

Graham has talked about the same thing. I think it is time to seriously give that consideration. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. 

Why don’t we start with the point you made last and I would like 

to ask Mr. Steinberg your judgment on whether or not we should 

create a domestic intelligence agency? Many of us have concerns 

about the civil liberties implications of that and I would welcome 

your judgment. 

Mr. STEINBERG. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think that the 

civil liberties issues that we face exist irrespective of where the domestic collection takes place. We have civil liberties issues if the 

FBI remains the principle domestic security organization or if we 

have an organization that is separate. On balance, I agree with Jeff 

Smith that we would be better off with a separate organization. 

First, because I do believe that a domestic security operation is a 

very different function than law enforcement. We heard earlier 

from the early panel about the cultural problems. I think in some 

respects that if we try to turn the FBI into something which it has 

not been, we will not get the benefit of what the FBI does well, 

which is an important law enforcement function, and will begin a 

new role from a place where they are affected by their traditions. 

So I think we need a fresh start. I think we need to look at this 

question, and I think that the advantage of having a separate organization is that we can have a public debate about what the rules 

are that should govern it. If we were to create such an organization 

we would be able to have decisions in the statute that created it 

providing clear guidelines on civil liberties measures, on accountability and the like, and it would allow us to have a fresh debate 

that I fear we will not have if we simply move the FBI into the 

domestic security function and away from law enforcement. 

I think we do have to remember the difficulties that the FBI had 

in the past when it did play a bigger role in domestic security. So 

I do not feel that just simply by keeping it in the FBI that we can 

necessarily address those problems. I think by creating an organization that is focused on the domestic security function you will 

have an organization that defines its mission as protecting the 

American people and is organized to do that in the most effective 

way. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Smith, based on your experience at the 

CIA do you see duplication between the CIA’s Counter Terrorist 

37

Center and the proposed new integration center? How do they differ? It was my understanding that the Counter Terrorist Center 

was supposed to conduct all-source analysis and in fact Director 

Tenet just last year said that it was created to enable the fusion 

of all courses, the same kind of language that is being used now 

to justify the creation of the new integration center. 

Mr. SMITH. I agree, Madam Chairman, and I think what will 

happen here or what should happen is that the current CTC should 

get much smaller and it should probably focus very much on overseas collection of intelligence and overseas operations. The analytical function currently being done by the CTC should be moved to 

this new center and combined with the analytical functions of the 

Bureau, because I do think unless that shift is made there will continue to be overlap and confusion. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Steinberg, do you have any thoughts on 

that? 

Mr. STEINBERG. I think it is a very good question, Madam Chairman, because we have to ask ourselves the question why the CTC 

has not been as successful as we want it to be, and whether creating an organization which sounds very much like what the CTC 

was supposed to be would solve the problem. 

I think that there are two reasons why the CTC has not been 

successful. First is, as you explored at length with the first panel, 

there is a problem with joint ventures. 

There is a question of what is the principal set of responsibilities 

of the people who work there, how do they think about the problem? I think it is a lesson we learned from the Goldwater-Nickles 

Act in the military context. That if you do not give a sense of 

jointness, of being on the same mission to the people who are taking on this task together, they will still feel they belong to the domestic equivalent of the Army, Navy, Marines, and the like, that 

you are not going to get the kind of coherence and integrated approach that you want. I think that has been one reason why the 

CTC has not been as successful as it should be, and that I think 

will be replicated in the new proposal for the TTIC. 

Second, I think you have the problem that there is a disconnect 

between those people who have operational responsibility and the 

analyst. That there is still a lack of understanding by the analyst 

of what is needed by the people who are out there in the field to 

do their job. Under this approach, we have lost the sense of connection between understanding what a border policeman needs to 

know, what a State and local official needs to know, what a fireman, what a doctor needs to know to carry out their job in homeland security. 

The analysts exist in some respects in a vacuum from the mission. I think that has been a problem. We have used this device 

to assure independence but it has also created a disconnect. I think 

there are other ways to get the independence and the check on the 

quality of the intelligence without creating the sense of isolation of 

the analyst from the broader mission. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Steinberg, do you think that the new 

center, if it does come into existence which I believe it will, should 

be able to direct the collection of data? 

38

Mr. STEINBERG. Irrespective of where it is located, I think that 

it is precisely the people who are trying to understand the problem 

who can help think about where do they want to fill in the holes? 

What are the problems that they see that are not being attended 

to? They have a unique ability to see what the requirements are. 

But again, when you think about it in those terms, the analysts 

are one set of the community of people who understand what the 

requirements are, but so are the users. That is, again, another reason why I would like to see the connection to the users because 

that way you have the full community of analysts and users together thinking about what the requirements are, and getting a 

more focused collection. 

Because, for example, in the area of critical infrastructure, we 

will now have in the department people who are looking at the 

questions of, what are the attacks we are most worried about? 

What are the greatest vulnerabilities we have? 

We then need to be able to have them go to the collectors and 

say, we are worried about whether the terrorists can attack a 

chemical plant, or cause damage at a nuclear facility. They will understand the problem that needs to be addressed and they can 

focus the direction of the collectors to that end. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Smith, what is your view on that? 

Should the new center be able to direct the collection of data or just 

be a recipient and analysis——

Mr. SMITH. I do not believe they should be able to direct it directly. By that, I mean they should have a key role, and indeed the 

leading role, in suggesting what needs to be collected, but that ultimately the DCI has to decide what are the priorities of collection. 

In the intelligence business there is a lot of competition for scarce 

assets. 

For example, how does one decide how the satellites are targeted? You cannot have the DCI telling a satellite to collect on 

something and have the head of the center telling that same satellite to collect on something different. That is the DCI’s role. 

On the other hand with respect to issues related to homeland security, clearly this center has to have a very strong voice. 

One other point I think is extremely important. Whether the center is under the DCI or ultimately moved to Homeland Security, it 

is also imperative that the center be able to send essentially 

tasking directives to State and local government. The British 

model, the MI5 is very good on this. They work with State and 

local—in their case all local municipalities, very directly to say, 

here are the issues that we are concerned about. Here are the people we are concerned about. Here are the organizations we are concerned about. So that the bobby on the beat in London or Manchester knows what it is that he is supposed to be looking for. That 

is something that we do not do now and that is something that 

homeland security needs to do in the future. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Pryor. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I just have a few 

short questions. This is a fascinating discussion because it gives us 

the opportunity to establish something new that theoretically we 

could do an extremely good job of setting up and that could be very 

beneficial to this country and to the world. In the discussions and 

39

proposals where do the two of you see major points of weakness in 

any proposal? 

In other words, we talk a lot about who has control over this and 

what is the job description of this entity. But what do the two of 

you see as the major point of weakness, the one thing that we need 

to make sure that we get right, or the one thing that we will need 

to work on the most to make sure this is an effective organization? 

Mr. STEINBERG. If I could start, I think that in many ways the 

challenge we face on homeland security is a little bit like the challenge we faced at the beginning of the Cold War, at the end of 

World War II, when we really had to rethink our national strategy. 

That meant both the substance of our strategy—we developed the 

doctrine of containment and it had a powerful impact on the organization of our government and how we——

Senator PRYOR. I agree with you on that. I think that is a good 

point. 

Mr. STEINBERG. There is a tremendous temptation to do this in 

a piecemeal fashion. It is hard to make big change in government. 

You know that, this is the Governmental Affairs Committee. So the 

temptation is to make incremental changes. To say, the FBI should 

do a little more here, the CIA will do a little bit more here. There 

is always resistance. There is always inertia. There are always 

costs to change. 

I think that what the Congress has done in this area has really 

pushed the administration both on the strategy and the organization to say, think about this as a fresh problem. Recognize that we 

really have never thought about the vulnerability of the United 

States as a core part of what we do. It affects our military. It affects our police. It affects the relationships between State and local 

government, the private sector and government. These are profound changes and we need to have a vision and a strategy that 

is equal to the profundity of this change. 

Mr. SMITH. I agree completely. I mentioned the British a moment 

ago. We do not need to necessarily adopt MI5 as the perfect model 

but they start and are charged by the Prime Minister with that 

very question, what are the threats to the United Kingdom, whether they originate within the United Kingdom or outside of the 

United Kingdom, that will ultimately manifest themselves within 

the United Kingdom? It is their responsibility to figure what to do 

about them. They collect, they analyze, and ultimately work with 

law enforcement officials to act. The strategy is vitally important. 

Another issue that I worry about is confusion and who is in 

charge. The issue of the unity of command that I mentioned at the 

outset, Mr. Steinberg mentioned Goldwater-Nickles. Congress made 

an enormous step forward in linking authority with responsibility 

with resources, and that is very important. A Marine general one 

time put it more bluntly which is, I want a designated neck, by 

which he meant a neck around which I can get my hands. That is 

a very useful concept, and as we organize ourselves we ought to 

designate necks that the President and the Congress can get their 

hands around when things go wrong. 

Senator PRYOR. Let us talk about MI5 for just a second. I will 

be the first to admit that I do not know a lot about MI5, but you 

have mentioned it. My perception of MI5, and maybe I am wrong, 

40

is that it is much more integrated than the U.S. counterpart. Obviously there are differences in Great Britain and the United States. 

They have a much smaller geographical area, a smaller population, 

and they do not have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights like 

we do. So there are clearly some differences. 

But you have mentioned MI5 a couple of times. Is my perception 

correct that they are more integrated and, as you said earlier, the 

agent on the corner is much more in touch with the central office 

than anybody here in the United States? And is that a good model, 

and is that what we should shoot for? 

Mr. SMITH. Let me talk about that for a moment. It has been my 

privilege to work with the British over the years so I have some 

acquaintance with it. As I say, they begin with this fundamental 

question. They report, by the way, to the Home Secretary so in that 

sense they fit ultimately with having this whole function report to 

the Secretary of Homeland Security. They develop criteria for collection, they participate in the process of what is it that British intelligence agencies should collect, MI5, the military services and so 

on. 

They do not have arrest authority. They are purely a collection 

and analytical body. Nor do I think any of us who favor a domestic 

security service here, none of us want this new service to have arrest authority. 

Senator PRYOR. Right, but then they collect and analyze, but 

they also have the authority to disseminate to the proper——

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. That is a key point. I do not know what 

happened yesterday at Heathrow but my guess is that MI5 was 

very directly involved in the decisions involving the security around 

Heathrow. 

They have in each local municipality in the United Kingdom designated police officers who work with them. They are given clearances. They are given secure communications. They are brought to 

London periodically for briefings on what is going on. There is a 

flow of information back and forth between London and the local 

police forces with respect to what it is that MI5 is interested in. 

So literally then, the bobby on the beat is informed in turn by this 

core of people in Manchester or wherever, Glasgow, on what it is 

that MI5 is worried about. He does not have a clearance but he 

knows what they are looking for, and he knows then how to report 

it. He reports it back to that group which then reports it back to 

London. It is a two-way street and it works quite well. 

Ultimately then they are very closely tied to the Special Branch 

and Scotland Yard, who actually do the police work, carry out the 

arrests and ultimately testify in court if need be. It is not a perfect 

model and there certainly are frictions and there are problems 

there as well, and it cannot be imported directly here, but I do believe it is worth looking at. As I say, I am very pleased that there 

are now serious proposals here in Congress to consider this. 

Senator PRYOR. May I ask one more question? 

Chairman COLLINS. Certainly. 

Senator PRYOR. That is, are both of you advocating that this joint 

venture be housed in the Department of Homeland Security? 

Mr. STEINBERG. I certainly am. I think it is really consistent with 

the idea of, as Jeff said, creating a responsible authority. I think 

41

that the Secretary of Homeland Security ought to have that role. 

I am very concerned that we are having a diffusion of authority. 

We have a Secretary of Homeland Security, we have an Office of 

Homeland Security in the White House which also has responsibilities in this area. We are now giving the DCI new responsibilities 

in this area. It is the diffusion that concerns me. 

Mr. SMITH. Senator, I differ with Mr. Steinberg only on that 

point. It may be a temporal disagreement. I think for the moment 

it does belong under the DCI, in part because he has got the experience, he has got the manpower to do it, and I think it makes a 

lot of sense there. It will be independent and so on. 

I also worry a great deal about the confusion that is associated 

with the start-up of Homeland Security. I think we may be underestimating how difficult this is going to be to do. So I would leave 

it there for the moment and, as I say, it may ultimately be wise 

to move it to Homeland Security but I think for the moment it belongs where it is. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator. 

Mr. Steinberg, just to follow up on the issue of where the center 

should be located. That is an issue on which we have heard diverse 

opinions today and I have not yet reached a conclusion. One of the 

arguments that I have heard against locating it in the Department 

of Homeland Security is that the department’s role is focused on 

security within the borders of United States and the center’s role 

is going to be broader than that. It would be collecting information 

about terrorist threats against our embassies or forces abroad, for 

example. 

What is your response to those who would argue that it does not 

make sense to put it within the Department of Homeland Security 

because the center’s focus is so much broader? 

Mr. STEINBERG. I think that you have to look at the overall structure of what everyone will be doing in this effort. The CIA is going 

to be focused on events abroad and terrorist threats not only to the 

United States but terrorist threats to friendly countries, to stability 

of countries that are not friendly, so there will continue to be within the CIA a responsibility to look at what is going on overseas. 

The question is where do you bring it all together, and is the better balance to bring it together in the context of the DCI, who is 

mostly looking overseas, or importing that information that is 

being developed by the CIA and other overseas collectors into an 

agency who is trying to link that aspect of the terrorist threat to 

domestic rules? 

So for example, at least for the moment, we do not believe that 

Hamas is a threat to the United States. It does not have a history 

of either targeting Americans or the United States. We are still 

going to have somebody in the CIA who is collecting on them. But 

if we keep the responsibility for homeland security at the CIA, as 

I believe it will be under this joint venture, then I think that there 

is a danger that too much of this will be focused away from the 

homeland mission and not sensitive enough to the needs of the people who are actually carrying out the mission. 

So inevitably you are going to have to make a choice as to where 

the balance goes because this will need to be an all-source center. 

42

I think the question is, who is going to pull out that part of the 

foreign terrorist intelligence that is directly related to the homeland and understand best how to take that foreign intelligence and 

relate it to threats here? 

I believe that on balance, though obviously there is no perfect answer to this, that the right division is to say, of course the CIA will 

still be looking at terrorism abroad but this new center will still 

be involved in tasking. I agree with Jeff, that, when I say that the 

new domestic security agency should be involved in tasking, I do 

not mean that they should have their hands on the satellite apertures but they should be tasking the foreign collectors to look into, 

what al Qaeda is doing in Afghanistan that may be relevant to the 

United States. But I think that the weight of where their focus 

should be is to be able to look at the foreign intelligence and see 

how it affects threats against us here at home. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Smith, in addition to the argument that 

Mr. Steinberg just made, an argument has been made against locating the new center under the control of the CIA director, that 

then the center will just once again become a creature of the CIA. 

That you will lose the whole intent of this center. What is your response to that? 

Mr. SMITH. It is very much a function of leadership. It is a question of who is put in charge. It is a question of the quality of people 

who are assigned there. There is a risk if it is housed at Langley 

that it will take on the character of a foreign intelligence center. 

I think, however, that there will be—the people who are assigned 

there from the Bureau or from Homeland Security, or Customs or 

Immigration, wherever, will have as their responsibility to worry 

about their home agencies. There is no doubt that George Tenet is 

personally focused on this to make it work and to make it work to 

support Governor Ridge. I think that as long as that is the case 

there is some, but not much risk, that it will be captured by the 

intrigue of foreign intelligence. In my judgment, it will remain focused. 

Mr. STEINBERG. If I could just add, Madam Chairman, I think obviously there are trade-offs here. The other risk in placing responsibility under the DCI, is that, as several Members of the Committee 

pointed out, as serious as the threat to the homeland is, we have 

other things we have to worry about. We have to worry about 

weapons of mass destruction. We have to worry about turmoil 

abroad. Director Tenet has a lot of responsibilities, so he cannot afford to wake up every day and only worry about the homeland. 

The advantage of what you have done by creating a Secretary of 

Homeland Security is that somebody who can wake up every day 

and only think about it. That I think is my worry. I have the same 

worry about the FBI. That while I am sure they will try to do a 

good job as they move into this area, the question is, do you want 

somebody who has to wake up and worry about all of these things 

or is this such a central function that you really do want one person who organizes everything around that mission? 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, both. 

Senator Pryor, do you have any further questions you would like 

to ask? 

Senator PRYOR. I do not. Thank you. 

43

Chairman COLLINS. I want to thank both of you for testifying before us today. I think this hearing has been very helpful to hear 

a variety of views on the new center. We look forward to also having a second hearing at which administration witnesses will be testifying as well. 

I want to also thank my staff for putting together this hearing. 

It is the first hearing on the concept that the President revealed 

during his State of the Union address. So thank you for your assistance and this hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(45)

CONSOLIDATING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS: 

A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT’S PROPOSAL 

TO CREATE A TERRORIST THREAT 

INTEGRATION CENTER 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2003

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Collins, Coleman, Levin, and Akaka. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. Good morning. The Committee will come to 

order. First I want to disclaim any responsibility for the weather. 

Even though I am from Maine, I did not bring this weather with 

me in any way and I just wanted to make that clear while we have 

all these intelligence experts in the room. 

Today the Governmental Affairs Committee is holding its second 

hearing on the President’s proposal to create a Terrorist Threat Integration Center. We are very pleased to have a distinguished 

panel of administration witnesses to answer the many questions 

about the mission, structure, and responsibilities of the new center. 

The sharing of intelligence among Federal agencies was a serious 

problem long before the horrific attacks of September 11. But it 

was the terrorist attacks that focused attention on the serious consequence of inadequate communication and interagency rivalries. 

As the lead Federal law enforcement agency responsible for collecting domestic intelligence, including terrorism related intelligence, the FBI historically has focused on investigating and developing criminal cases. At times the FBI has failed to share critical 

domestic intelligence because of concerns that the disclosure of 

such information could jeopardize its criminal cases. 

As the primary Federal agency responsible for collecting foreign 

intelligence related to terrorism, the CIA also has been hesitant to 

share information because of concerns that such disclosures would 

jeopardize its methods and sources. 

The result of these barriers has been that far too often critical 

intelligence has not reached those who really need it. After September 11 it became readily apparent that government agencies 

must do a better job analyzing and sharing terrorism related intelligence. Congress moved toward that goal in 2001 by passing legisVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
46

1The chart entitled ‘‘Primary Agencies Handling Terrorist-Related Intelligence (With Terrorist 

Threat Integration Center)’’ appears in the Appendix on page 119. 

lation to facilitate the sharing of intelligence information, and then 

last year by approving the Homeland Security Act. 

The administration has also taken a number of positive steps 

since September 11. The FBI and the CIA have expanded both 

their analytical capabilities and their cooperation. But these 

changes have not gone far enough. Administration representatives 

have stated that information sharing between the FBI and the CIA 

still is too often achieved through ‘‘brute force.’’ The President is 

attempting to address these impediments to the timely sharing of 

critical information by creating the Terrorist Threat Integration 

Center. Nevertheless, there are many questions that remain about 

the implementation of the administration’s plan. 

The first and perhaps most fundamental question is, how will the 

integration center be an improvement over the existing intelligence 

structure? We currently have a Counter Terrorist Center within 

the CIA that has access to all government intelligence relating to 

terrorism. As CIA Director George Tenet has noted, the center 

‘‘was created to enable the fusion of all sources of information in 

a single action-oriented unit.’’ Frankly, that sounds a lot like the 

proposed integration center, which raises the obvious question of 

how the new center will improve the sharing of intelligence information among agencies. 

A second key question is, what is being done to ensure that the 

integration center will streamline and consolidate intelligence analysis rather than create duplication and mission confusion. I have 

prepared a chart 1 that shows some of the agencies that are now 

responsible for collecting and analyzing terrorism-related intelligence. As you can see, it is a very confusing picture. Including the 

integration center in the chart does not make the picture any less 

complex. It simply adds another box. We need to understand how 

this additional box will improve the flow of information to the 

agencies and individuals that need it. 

A third question concerns the proper location of the new center. 

Some experts believe that the Department of Homeland Security 

should be the hub of all homeland security activities including intelligence analysis. By reading the Homeland Security Act, one 

could make a compelling case that the new department was meant 

to be the fusion center for the analysis of intelligence relating to 

homeland security. Should the integration center therefore be 

under the control and the direction of the Secretary of Homeland 

Security rather than the Director of Central Intelligence? We would 

like to obtain a better understanding of the reasoning behind the 

administration’s decision and how the integration center will interact with the new Department of Homeland Security. 

Another important question is, how will the center share appropriate information with State and local authorities, our front line 

troops in the war against terrorism? It is one thing to analyze intelligence information well, but if the people who need the intelligence do not receive it, then the effort has been of little use. 

Still another key issue is the center’s ability to overcome historic 

agency resistance to change. There have already been news reports 

47

indicating opposition to the integration center in both the CIA and 

the FBI. What is being done to overcome agency resistance so that 

it does not undermine the center’s core mission? 

Finally, will the integration center adequately address and safeguard privacy and other legal concerns? The President’s proposal 

places the Director of the Central Intelligence in charge of the integration center. In that position he will be responsible for the analysis of domestic as well as foreign intelligence. I understand that 

the administration has reviewed the legal issues carefully but I 

want to ensure that the center’s activities will not infringe on the 

Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. 

At last week’s hearing we did not hear of any opposition to the 

concept of a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, but a number of 

questions were raised by Members of this Committee and by our 

witnesses concerning the implementation of this plan. It is my hope 

that our expert administration witnesses will help us fully answer 

those questions today. If the administration can achieve its stated 

goals by the creation of this new center, I believe that the integration center will usher in important new capabilities in the way that 

our government analyzes intelligence and shares it with those who 

are responsible for protecting our people and our Nation. But its 

success will depend on overcoming formidable historic barriers to 

information sharing and cooperation. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. At this time 

I would like to ask the Senator from Minnesota if he has any opening comments that he would like to make. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think your 

opening statement did a tremendous job of summarizing areas of 

concern for a number of us. Just looking at the chart up there I 

think the question is, is it going to work, and can you make it 

work? And can you make it work, by the way, not just for those 

at the top levels but for those at the local level who have to deal 

with it at the frontline. I come from the perspective of a local citizen. 

Second, Madam Chairman, let me reiterate the other concern 

that you raised in that you have to, we have to make it work, and 

you have to make it work in a way that does not infringe upon the 

rights and Constitutional protections of privacy of law-abiding 

American citizens. So I think those are the challenges. We need to 

make this work. We need to work together to make this work and 

I look forward to the testimony today. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you very much, Senator Coleman. 

Your perspective as a mayor will be very helpful as we sort 

through how this new center should interact with State and local 

law enforcement officials. That is often a challenge because they do 

not have security clearances in most cases and because we do not 

want to overwhelm the center with responding to local inquiries, 

but at the same time there needs to be some kind of system for 

sharing essential information and we look forward to your insights 

in that regard. 

I am very pleased to welcome our distinguished panel of administration representatives today from the FBI, the CIA, and the DeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
48

1The prepared statement of Mr. Wiley appears in the Appendix on page 113. 

partment of Homeland Security. They are leading their respective 

agency’s efforts to create the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center. We understand that the President’s proposal is still under development but we very much appreciate your sharing your preliminary insights with us today. We are pleased to be joined by the 

Hon. Gordon England who is Deputy Secretary of the Department 

of Homeland Security, the first deputy secretary. He previously 

served as Secretary of the Navy, and before that had a distinguished career in the private sector at General Dynamics Corporation. 

Pasquale D’Amuro is the Executive Assistant Director for 

Counter Terrorism at the FBI. He was appointed by the Director 

to be the Executive Assistant Director for Counter Terrorism and 

Counter Intelligence in November of last year. He is the lead FBI 

official on counterterrorism issues and has had a distinguished career with the FBI since 1979. 

Our third panelist is Winston Wiley, who became the Associate 

Director of Central Intelligence for Homeland Security in May 

2002. In this capacity Mr. Wiley is tasked with ensuring the efficient and timely flow of intelligence in support of the homeland security effort. He is also the acting chair of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center Steering Committee. So I very much appreciate 

his being with us as well. 

I am going to start with Mr. Wiley. I understand that Secretary 

England does not have a formal statement; is that correct, Mr. Secretary? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Yes. 

Chairman COLLINS. So we will start with Mr. Wiley. Thank you, 

you may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF WINSTON P. WILEY,1 ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR 

OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE FOR HOMELAND SECURITY 

AND CHAIR, SENIOR STEERING GROUP 

Mr. WILEY. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator Coleman. 

Let me begin by saying that the statement that I have and that 

I have submitted for the record is not just my statement. It is a 

joint statement that we have all participated in pulling together. 

Indeed, the effort to put together a response to the President’s 

charge to come up with a threat integration center was, from the 

beginning, seen as a joint effort. The senior steering group, the 

members of whom are at the table and sitting behind me, saw this 

as a joint effort and have created an institution that we think represents that. So as I go through these remarks do not think of 

them just as coming from the Director of Central Intelligence. 

They, in fact, represent the views of all of us in this effort. 

Turning to that, let me say a little bit about how we got here. 

When the Director charged us with going forward with putting 

some real meat on the bones of the proposal we knew that the key 

agencies needed to be involved, and that was the CIA, the FBI, and 

the Department of Homeland Security. But the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Office of Management and 

Budget would also need to play a role. So they represented the core 

49

steering group and all of those are here. You have introduced those 

at the table. John Brennan is the Deputy Executive Director from 

the Central Intelligence Agency. He represented the CIA while I 

represented the Director in his community capacity. Cofer Black is 

the Ambassador at Large and Special Assistant to Secretary Powell 

for counterterrorism at the Department of State. And Rich Haver 

from the Department of Defense is with us, and Steve McMillan 

from OMB. 

Again, integration and partnership in the sense of joint venture 

is what we had in mind from the beginning. The hard work of putting together the proposal was done by subject matter experts from 

all these agencies and beyond. They reported back to us, and we 

proposed formally up through the DCI and our respective principals to the President, and that was accepted. 

Let me go through some of the points that are in the statement 

that we have prepared without going actually to the trouble of 

reading it all into the record. The first has to do with the mission 

and structure and gets at one of the questions that you had. The 

goal really is the full integration of U.S. Government terrorist 

threat-related information and analysis. Bringing together both the 

foreign intelligence that is collected overseas and what we call the 

foreign intelligence that is collected domestically by the Bureau 

and others, so that it is fused and looked at in a comprehensive 

fashion. 

The structure is designed to ensure rapid and unfettered sharing 

of relevant information across department lines. We keep using the 

term joint venture because we feel the TTIC needs to be an institution that has parts of all of the holders of information in that component. The objective is to create value added efficiencies in analyzing the full array of terrorist threat-related information. 

You used the term brute force earlier, which is a fair characterization. But what we have to acknowledge is that brute force is exercised every day, and very diligently and carefully by officers of 

the Central Intelligence Agency, other parts of the TTIC, and the 

members of the FBI. We do make it work, but we need to make 

it work better and we need to institutionalize some of the things 

that are today being done simply because people are so diligent and 

careful to get them done. 

TTIC, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, will be composed 

of elements from the Department of Homeland Security, from the 

FBI’s counter terrorist division, from the Counter Terrorist Center 

at CIA, as well as elements of the Department of Defense, DIA, 

JITF-CT, NSA, NIMA, and other agencies that have a stake in 

what TTIC will do. The State Department is a good example of 

that. TTIC will combine the terrorist threat-related information in 

a way to provide a more focused and comprehensive government 

counterterrorist intelligence effort in defining the threat. 

I have mentioned that among the most important features for 

TTIC is unfettered access to all information, all intelligence information, whether it is from raw reports to finished analytic assessments. That is essential in order to be able to pull the work together and has been clearly reflected in the discussions that led up 

to the Homeland Security Act as well as the other discussions postSeptember 11. TTIC will need to provide all-source threat assessVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
50

ments both to the national leadership and, as Senator Coleman 

said, to the broader homeland security community which certainly 

includes State and local as well as private sector officials, and finding the ways to do that in the appropriate formats is one of the key 

missions. 

TTIC will also oversee a national counterterrorism tasking and 

requirements system. Intelligence, in order to work, fundamentally 

has to begin with a requirements process that identifies the key 

questions that collectors have to go collect against. That information is brought back, assessed, analyzed, distributed and then balanced against those requirements. We talk about an intelligence 

cycle, but it begins at its heart with a requirements system and 

TTIC will play a key role in organizing that on the counterterrorist 

homeland security side. 

Finally, another key responsibility will be to maintain a database 

of known and suspected terrorists that is accessible at the Federal 

and non-Federal level with appropriate controls and security clearances, and bringing the various databases that exist today in various places together into a centralized capability. 

The principal objective, and again it gets back to your first question is that TTIC needs to close the gaps that separate the analysis 

of foreign source and domestic source terrorist threat information 

and ensure optimum support of the wide range of customers for 

homeland security information, those at the Federal level as well 

as those in the State, local and private sectors. 

Let me turn to a second point that is addressed in the statement. 

TTIC cannot reach its full end-state capabilities overnight. We 

need, obviously, to grow and we need to grow as quickly as we can. 

But we also need to grow in a way that does not smother the effort 

by being over-ambitious in its initial days. Stand-up will occur by 

May 1. It will focus on integrating terrorist threat-related information and pick up some of the responsibilities that are today exercised jointly between the FBI and the CTC. One of those is the 

preparation of a daily threat matrix that you have heard about. 

Situation reports, updates on threats, and interagency terrorist 

threat warnings, picking up those responsibilities from the various 

government agencies is critical. 

As soon as possible thereafter, TTIC should become the principal 

gateway for policymaker requests for assessments about terrorist 

threats. As it grows in capability, and what we see is an incremental growth as we move towards its ultimate full strength that 

I will talk about, TTIC would stock and maintain the database of 

known and suspected terrorists that I talked about. It will be producing the current intelligence and terrorist threat-related assessment, drawing on resources not just in TTIC but in the various 

agencies that are contributors to TTIC but are maintaining some 

inherent capability of their own. TTIC will be able to reach back 

into its parent agencies to provide it with an instantaneous surge 

capability that draws on the strength of a wide range of agencies. 

What we are trying to do is make sure that we build on what 

works. We do not want to undo things that are working well, and 

that is especially true when it comes to the integration of the work 

of collectors of information and the analysts, whether that is at the 

CIA or in the Intelligence Community or at the FBI. That is hapVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
51

pening today. We want to build on that and make sure that there 

is a better fusing across the domestic and foreign side. 

When TTIC reaches its full end-strength capability it will be collocated with the CIA—the DCI’s—Counter Terrorist Center and 

with the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division in a building that has 

yet to be acquired but that we are actively working on. Prior to 

that, TTIC—while it is not a CIA organization, it is an organization 

that reports to the DCI in his capacity as Director of Central Intelligence—will be located on the CIA compound, as are other independent Intelligence Community entities today. So we are sensitive 

to not creating it as a CIA organization, but the smartest place to 

build the interim capability is in space that we have at the CIA. 

Let me talk about the command structure quickly. The director 

of TTIC needs to be a senior, very senior U.S. Government official 

who reports directly to the DCI in his statutory capacity as head 

of the Intelligence Community. He would be appointed by the director in consultation with the other partners in pulling together the 

TTIC. The director of TTIC will have the final review and approval 

authority for all of the intelligence that is prepared by TTIC. For 

national level analysis that is produced outside of TTIC, our expectation is that the director of TTIC will play a role in coordinating 

that, recognizing that agencies may do some departmental work 

just as is done today across the Intelligence Community. 

I mentioned information access and the criticality of that. TTIC 

as an organization must have access to the full array of terrorist 

threat-related information within the U.S. Government. We can do 

that consistent with all the necessary protections and working 

smart by making sure that individual members of TTIC have access to information they need to do their work while the organization as a whole, and the leadership of the organization, have access 

to information that is comparable to what the head of CTC at CIA 

and the head of the Counter Terrorist Division at FBI has. So we 

think we can work both the necessary sharing within the organization and do the necessary work of protecting the most sensitive information. 

Critical to making this work is a robust information technology 

base, one that will be particularly vigorous in the collocated endstate when CTC, CTD, and TTIC are located together. They all 

need to be able to draw on their own information bases, but we 

need to be able to bring that information together in the TTIC environment and share it in ways that allow us to do the most detailed analysis, use the most modern tools, and have the most aggressive sharing mechanisms available to us. 

I would close with a thought about the work of TTIC just as you 

did. It is a work in progress. In fact if we do it right, TTIC will 

always be work in progress. It needs to start small. It needs to 

grow quickly. But we need not to be locked into particular institutional solutions. Rather with our eye on the ball, what we are trying to do is make sure that we have the best mechanisms in place 

to provide threat information to our national leadership and to the 

American people. We will be making adjustments as we go along 

based on what we think works rather than tell you today that we 

have the perfect plan that takes us from here out to the year 2010. 

52

1The prepared statement of Mr. D’Amuro appears in the Appendix on page 117. 

With those thoughts, let me close and I think my friend Pat 

D’Amuro has some comments that he may want to share. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Wiley. Mr. D’Amuro. 

STATEMENT OF PASQUALE J. D’AMURO,1 EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM/COUNTERINTELLIGENCE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) 

Mr. D’AMURO. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator Coleman. Thank you for the opportunity to add just a few short comments from the statement I have with respect to Mr. Wiley’s efforts 

with the steering committee. 

As we know, President Bush recently emphasized during a 

speech at FBI headquarters that the FBI has no greater mission, 

no greater priority than preventing the next terrorist act in America. We strongly support the formation of the TTIC and we are 

proud to be a partner with both the CIA, Homeland Security, and 

all the other participating agencies. 

The FBI’s experience in conducting complex criminal and terrorist investigations has shown that analysts are most effective 

when they are in constant and close communication with the investigators. For this reason we strongly support and look forward to 

the expeditious implementation of plans to collocate not only the 

TTIC but the FBI Counter Terrorism Division and the CIA 

Counterterrorism Center along with the Department of Homeland 

Security. 

As you know, the FBI has established 66 joint terrorist task 

forces in the field offices around the country as well as a national 

joint terrorism center at FBI headquarters. The JTTF’s partner 

FBI personnel with hundreds of investigators from Federal, State, 

and local agencies. These partnerships provide an effective and efficient mechanism to collect domestic intelligence crucial to preventing the next attack domestically. The fusion of this domestic 

and international threat intelligence is critically important for the 

FBI to complete its mission of preventing the next and future attacks domestically. 

The FBI views the TTIC as an important resource. The TTIC will 

not only provide all-source integrated analysis to the FBI but also 

to the officials in State and local law enforcement who are essential 

partners in the fight against terrorism. We recognize that the twoway flow of information between Federal and local law enforcement 

is necessary to continuously sharpen both the collection and the 

analysis of threat-related information. Once again, the 66 JTTFs 

across the country provide an effective channel to share the TTIC 

analytical products with our partners in State and local law enforcement. We are committed to working with the Department of 

Homeland Security to push information and analysis out of the 

TTIC to all Federal, State, and local agencies. 

We are expanding our ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate 

intelligence. The centerpiece of the director’s efforts is the establishment of an executive assistant director for intelligence who will 

have direct authority and responsibility for the FBI’s national intelligence program. Specifically, the EAD for intelligence will be reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
53

sponsible for ensuring that the TTIC’s reporting requirements are 

met by all the field offices. 

Our support of the TTIC will not change our mission, priorities, 

or operations. In fact, the TTIC will only strengthen our capabilities. The Bureau is uniquely positioned to bring both national security and law enforcement authorities to bear in the war against terrorism. Recently, the ability to develop intelligence on terrorist 

activities and use law enforcement powers to disrupt them was exemplified in Buffalo, New York where seven al-Qaeda associates 

and sympathizers were indicted in September 2002 for providing 

material support to terrorism. 

Every FBI agent is trained to recognize that along with these 

broad authorities comes the responsibility to implement them fairly 

and in accordance with the protections provided by the Constitution. It is important to note that the Bureau’s role, and the roles 

of all TTIC participants, must and will remain consistent with the 

protections provided by privacy laws, executive orders, Attorney 

General guidelines, and other relevant legal authorities under the 

protection of the Constitution to safeguard the civil liberties of the 

citizens of this country. 

Again, I will keep this statement short because I know you have 

a lot of questions, but thank you for allowing me to appear today. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you very much. 

Secretary England, do you have anything you would like to add 

to your colleagues? 

STATEMENT OF HON. GORDON ENGLAND, DEPUTY 

SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. ENGLAND. Let me just make a comment, Madam Chairman. 

First of all, I thank Mr. Wiley for all his work with chairing this 

group that we put together. I will tell you that the TTIC is vitally 

important to the Department of Homeland Security. We have been 

part of the effort to create this structure in response to the President’s initiative. This is vitally important for us to do our job in the 

Department of Homeland Security, so you will find us a very significant proponent of this approach; very supportive, and we will 

work very closely with all the other agencies to make this very successful. In my judgment, this is very important for America, so it 

has the full support of the Department of Homeland Security and 

we will be happy to work with you as we fully develop this concept 

in the coming weeks and months ahead. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. Wiley and Mr. D’Amuro, our government already has a 

Counter Terrorist Center which is under the supervision of the Director of Central Intelligence, and when you look at the details of 

the current Counter Terrorist Center and the proposed Terrorist 

Threat Integration Center they seem, at first analysis, to be quite 

similar. I quoted Director Tenet’s comments that it was supposed 

to be all sources of intelligence would be analyzed. Both do have 

access to all sources of government information about terrorism. 

Both are under the supervision of the Director of Central Intelligence. I believe both have staff from a number of agencies conducting intelligence analysis. In light of those similarities I have 

two questions. 

54

1The chart entitled ‘‘Primary Agencies Handling Terrorist-Related Intelligence (With Terrorist 

Threat Integration Center)’’ appears in the Appendix on page 119. 

First, in practical terms how will the proposed Terrorist Threat 

Integration Center be different from the Counter Terrorist Center 

that already exists on the organization chart 1 that I showed you? 

Second, given the fact that at least at first blush they appear 

very similar, how will the new center address problems that have 

plagued our analytical efforts so far? They seem so similar that I 

am concerned about duplication. And if they are structured in similar ways, how will the new center be an improvement over what 

we have? 

I am going to ask a similar question to Mr. D’Amuro. 

Mr. WILEY. Thank you, Senator. I think that at first blush it is 

possible to say that the TTIC bears a similarity to the Counter Terrorist Center. But I think that you have to go a step beyond that 

first level of analysis. I think that what you have in TTIC is a 

much more vigorous presence of Intelligence Community and law 

enforcement and DHS employees in a common environment, with 

reachback capability to their respective agencies, in which all of 

that information is brought together. 

CTC does have, and has long had, and will continue to have 

detailees from other agencies in it. But what we envision in TTIC 

is a more robust presence and a more explicit set of responsibilities 

for integrating that flow of domestically collected foreign intelligence, which is growing. The TTIC by itself is not the only change 

that is going on. The change in collection philosophy and dissemination philosophy—what is going on at the Bureau—Pat D’Amuro 

can talk about—is instrumental in helping to make TTIC a success. 

It will increase the amount of domestically collected information 

about foreign terrorist groups that can be fused. And by bringing 

the analysts together, having them work literally in a common environment, I think that is a significant step up from where we are 

today. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. D’Amuro, the FBI has a counterterrorism division. It is my understanding that is still going to 

exist when the new center is created. How can we avoid duplication? 

Mr. D’AMURO. I think that it is important to understand that the 

TTIC is being created for the fusion of an analytical product with 

respect to threat information. It is not an operational entity. The 

counterterrorism division at the FBI headquarters will still maintain its operational role throughout the country as being the lead 

agency domestically with respect to counterterrorism investigations. 

If I could just add a few comments to Mr. Wiley’s—it is the fusion of that intelligence and the production of one analytical product that I see extremely critically important that we’ll be able, 

through the JTTFs, to disseminate that product to all State and 

local law enforcement authorities that are part of the JTTF. There 

is also a program underway at the Bureau to reach out for all the 

State and local entities that are not members of the JTTF so that 

we can make sure, not only do we provide them with one fused analytical product, but also tap into their ability to collect information 

55

and intelligence which would be critical to preventing the next terrorist act. 

So while the TTIC is being formed for the fusion of the intelligence product, both CTC will maintain its operational responsibility as well as the FBI maintaining its responsibility for the conduct of intelligence and criminal investigations with respect to 

counterterrorism. 

Chairman COLLINS. Let me follow up on the use of sharing information with State and local law enforcement. You have described 

a system under which the joint terrorism task force, I guess, would 

act as an intermediary to distribute information; is that correct? 

Mr. D’AMURO. What the plan is, is that through the national 

JTTF at FBI headquarters, that would be the distribution mechanism for the fused analytical product out to all the JTTFs, the 66 

JTTFs that are now in existence across the country. In addition to 

that, we are going to be reaching out to all State and local entities 

even if they are not permanent members of the JTTFs. So, yes, it 

will be the mechanism for distribution of that product. 

Chairman COLLINS. But what is going to happen in the other direction? The complaints that I hear from police chiefs of our major 

cities in Maine is that when they are in a state of high alert, as 

we are now, and they have reason to be concerned—and this happened recently in Portland, Maine where a foreign national was 

taking photographs of our oil tank farms on the Portland waterfront, and when the police chief tried to get information from the 

FBI about whether this individual was on the watch list, he had 

a very difficult time in getting an answer from the FBI. 

What are we doing in the other direction? I understand when you 

have a product or information that needs to be shared it will go 

through the joint terrorism task force. But what does a police chief 

in Portland, Maine who is concerned about the vulnerabilities of 

our ports and sees something suspicious, or certainly raising concern, how do we improve the flow of information in the other direction? 

Mr. D’AMURO. That is the main purpose of the creation of the Office of Intelligence for the Bureau. What the Office of Intelligence 

will do and what the Bureau has not done in the past is establish 

intelligence requirements. It will ensure that the field offices are 

out collecting the intelligence necessary for the protection of this 

country. Providing information and intelligence with respect to 

vulnerabilities of various seaports and other infrastructure protection matters will be the mission of Homeland Security. We will provide that information through the executive assistant director, setting those requirements, make sure those requirements are met, 

and making sure that intelligence is collected in the field. 

I am unaware of the situation that you mention but that police 

chief should have been able to get information from the joint terrorism task force, which in that case would have been out of Boston 

and I believe a resident agency in Portland. That is the way it is 

supposed to work. That is the vision of how we plan to collect that 

intelligence and making sure that it gets to the different agencies 

that it needs to go to. That establishment of the requirements will 

not be the only mechanism for the Office of Executive Assistant Director for Intelligence. We are also changing the metrics by how we 

56

judge our field offices and how we judge and promote executives 

into the Bureau. They will have requirements for the collection of 

that intelligence that will be used in their performance appraisals. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Akaka. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam 

Chairman. I am pleased that you are holding this hearing today. 

We have had a hearing before this that raised some issues and I 

think we came out of that one being concerned about maybe having 

too many or creating too many intelligence centers. Senator Rudman at that time expressed concern about confusion in our intelligence analysis and collection. So this hearing will certainly help 

us, I am sure, to learn more about what we need to do. 

As I hear your concerns too, the difference between the former 

structure and the one that we have now is that we have added 

TTIC to it. Hopefully TTIC will resolve some of these problems. So 

I am glad that we are having this and may I ask that my statement be placed in the record? 

Chairman COLLINS. Without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Akaka follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Madam Chairman, the issues raised in the first hearing on the President’s proposal to create a Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) were important ones. 

I am pleased that you are holding this hearing with the administration. 

At our last hearing, Senator Rudman, one of the witnesses, made the point that 

we need to be careful to limit the confusion in our intelligence analysis and collection. As I mentioned at that last hearing, I am concerned that we may be creating 

too many intelligence centers to evaluate the same information and respond to the 

same threats. 

For example, the CIA has its Counter Terrorism Center—the Defense Intelligence 

Agency has its counter terrorism center—the new Department of Homeland Security 

will have an Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate—the 

Army has an Information Dominance Center—DOD is developing a Total Information Awareness program—and the FBI has a Counter Terrorism Division. Now the 

President proposes a new Terrorist Threat Integration Center which apparently will 

include representatives from all these different centers. 

Mr. Wiley, in his testimony, will suggest that TTIC is going to have all the information, including raw reports, that other agencies are producing and that it will 

maintain a database of terrorists accessible to some non-federal officials and entities. This library of terrorist reports will be useful only if it contains accurate information and is available to the people who may need it the most—local police forces 

and other first responders. 

I am concerned that there still appears to be a disconnect between information 

and the people who need it at the local level. All the reports in the world will not 

be of any value if no one who needs to know can find them. 

I am also worried that this system does not provide a mechanism for ensuring 

investigations are fully carried out. There were numerous times prior to 9–11 when 

FBI agents reported suspicious activities which have subsequently been linked to 

those attacks but those reports were not followed up on. I want to know—the American public wants to know—who is responsible? Who is in charge of ensuring that 

all the intelligence reports are acted upon? 

Will this new intelligence center resolve that problem or only add to the problem? 

I look forward to the testimony and hope these questions will finally be resolved.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. I am so glad to have our panel this 

morning, and especially Secretary England. Good to see you, and 

always good to be with you. 

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, good to be with you. I wish I was with 

you in your home State today, however. [Laughter.] 

57

Senator AKAKA. One hundred percent agreement. 

Secretary England, at our last hearing on this subject Governor 

Gilmore pointed to the institutional and cultural barriers to intelligence sharing, especially with State and local officials as mentioned by the Chairman. Although I share his concern, I worry that 

we are creating a multitude of intelligence agencies, all of them 

performing important functions including sharing information with 

this new agency TTIC. However, it is still not clear who is responsible for ensuring the proper response to a terrorist threat. So let 

me pose a scenario to my question. 

The CIA receives information about a foreign terrorist group that 

is thinking about targeting cruise ships. The FBI gets information 

about foreigners with seafaring backgrounds entering the United 

States for some illegal purpose. The Honolulu Police Department 

receives reports about suspicious people loitering about or around 

the port. 

Question, who is responsible for putting all these bits of information together, instigating an investigation, alerting local officials, 

and telling the public what it should do? Is it the Director of the 

CIA, the FBI, or the Secretary for Homeland Security? As you can 

see, some of the confusion that has resulted, especially from the 

periodic announcements that we are on high terrorist alert, comes 

because the public is not certain who is in charge of dealing with 

these threats. So my question then is, who is responsible for putting all of these bits together? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, I believe that is clear to me. With this 

new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, all the data would come 

into this one center. The nice thing about this—this is not a new 

agency, by the way. This is a center. This is an integration of existing capability that we put together so we can collaborate and exchange data and analyze data jointly to get a best answer from the 

data sources that we have. So all the data would go into this center. 

We, the Department of Homeland Security, will have analysts 

and we will have assessment people in this center. So this is part 

of Homeland Security. Our responsibility is to relate these threats 

to our infrastructure. So we will have assessment capability, 

unique assessment capability that when we see these threats, our 

people will be aware of critical infrastructure, public and private, 

throughout America and throughout our territories, etc. That will 

be our job and our obligation to make those connects, to alert the 

appropriate people and to put protective measures in place, or respond if we have to. But that will clearly be a responsibility of the 

Department of Homeland Security working as part of the TTIC 

with the CIA, the FBI, and the other intelligence agencies. 

So I believe that the TTIC will provide a capability to do that 

kind of assessment and to make those kinds of connections. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. I see more the need of TTIC as you 

explain it. 

Mr. Wiley, you are deputy chief of the CIA’s Counter Terrorist 

Center and I understand that there is discussion about collocating 

the Terrorist Threat Integration Center with the CIA’s Counter 

Terrorist Center. As you know, the CTC is unique. Operations officers are brought together with an analyst as an integral part of the 

58

targeting operation and analytical functions of counterterrorism efforts. The TTIC is not supposed to have an operational function. 

First, how are you going to maintain operational security with 

CIA operation staff working together with TTIC personnel? 

And second, what is the rationale for involving TTIC directly in 

operations as is now the case in the CIA’s CTC? 

Mr. WILEY. Senator, the Counter Terrorist Center today, as it 

was when I was in charge of it through December 1997, is an integrated environment that involves our operations officers, technical 

collection officers from other agencies, and analysts from the Directorate of Intelligence as well as some analysts from other parts of 

the Intelligence Community. Operational security there has been 

maintained from the early days of the Center back in the mid1980’s through today by making sure that all those in the Center 

have access to the information they need to conduct their work, 

what we call horizontal compartmentalization rather than isolating—the analysts are going to have this slice of information and 

operators have that slice of information. 

I believe that same philosophy can and should be extended to 

TTIC. TTIC itself does not have an operational role and it is important for legal and privacy and chain of command reasons to separate the two. But it is perfectly possible for them to work together 

in a secure environment with appropriate caveats for access to information. We have done that. We have a 15, 20-year track record 

now of having done that and I think it can be extended to the 

TTIC. I think that the same applies in the work that we have seen 

with the FBI. 

So I am always concerned about operational security, but I believe we have the experience for dealing with this. 

Senator AKAKA. I am glad we are raising these questions because, if need be, I am sure we will find an answer to some of these 

questions. 

Mr. D’Amuro, in your testimony you have indicated that there 

are now 66 FBI joint terrorism task forces around the country. Are 

these all up and running, and are they all fully staffed? Do they 

also include local officials? 

Mr. D’AMURO. Yes, Senator, I believe—the JTTF is not a new 

concept to the Bureau. It was created 23 years ago in New York 

City. At the time a lot of people thought that this was not going 

to work. It turned out to be visionary. It turned out to be a very 

effective tool, and the reason it is so effective is by including other 

Federal, State, and local agencies on the JTTFs. So the 66 JTTFs 

that I have identified in my testimony are up and running. What 

we are trying to do is get some critically needed training for them 

so that they know how all of these JTTFs are supposed to operate. 

We had, at the time of September 11, I believe it was approximately 26 JTTFs across the country. So by expanding to 66 now 

you can see the need for training those JTTFs and making sure 

they understand how they are supposed to operate. They do include 

State and local participants. We have received over 1,200 requests 

for security clearances. As of this date I believe we have 936 approved at the secret level and we are working to try to resolve the 

rest of them. 

59

So they are the shining star, the critical piece of the Bureau’s 

counterterrorism mission. It is how we not only fuse intelligence 

but it also gives us the ability to go out and act upon that intelligence, to be able to disrupt or prevent terrorist acts as you saw, 

as I mentioned earlier, in Buffalo. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. My time has expired. May I just ask 

a question of Secretary England? 

Chairman COLLINS. Certainly. 

Senator AKAKA. Because I mentioned cruise ships, are cruise 

ships considered part of the critical infrastructure? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, I am not sure they are critical infrastructure. They are certainly important in terms of protection. But what 

we will do as part of our department—keep in mind we have only 

been in place for a month so far, but one of our functions will be 

to identify the most critical infrastructure in the country and to 

prioritize. So that has worked under the Office of Homeland Security, but that will expand greatly under the Department of Homeland Security. So it will be part of the total infrastructure. It will 

be studied, examined, and prioritized. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you very much. Senator Coleman. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. First, a comment directed to Mr. D’Amuro. As a former local elected official I 

appreciate the work of the JTTFs and believe that they really are 

a wonderful model and work very well. But my concern is this and 

I hope you will reflect on it. I think they do a very good job of collecting. You talked about that, of collecting data. I still think there 

are real challenges in terms of—it is the question that Madam 

Chairman raised about information getting back to those at the 

local level. 

In addition to chiefs of police, there are mayors who are held responsible for knowing what is going on and there is a question 

about whether they are contained in the security link. Do they 

have the relevant clearances? What can they be told? So much of 

what we are talking about depends upon public confidence, and the 

mayor at the local level is the one who is supposed to know what 

is going on. If you have a lack of understanding, of someone in the 

dark at the local level, it undermines public confidence and I think 

has a very debilitating effect on folks that—moms and dads in our 

community. 

So I do hope that we can go back and you can look at how we 

do a better job connecting with mayors, with folks at the local level, 

not just in the receipt of the information which we do a very good 

job now, I believe, of integrating local law enforcement with Federal authorities at the JTTFs. But it is getting it back, and that 

is still, I think, an honest concern and I would hope that you would 

reflect on it and figure out some way to deal with it. 

Secretary England, I appreciate your clarifying so we all understand the TTIC, they are not an agency. It is a center. My question 

for you was, and I think I heard you respond somewhat, does 

Homeland Security expect to create its own operational intelligence 

unit? If it does, how do you then deal with this issue again of duplication? We have the FBI that focuses on the local level. They have 

an operational unit. We have CIA—have operational units. Are we 

60

creating another operational unit in government that will then 

work with TTIC? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, I am not quite sure what you mean by 

an operational unit. We will have a separate analysis center to interpret the data that takes place outside in the TTIC. So the purpose of the TTIC, I mean, the benefit to us is that we rapidly stand 

up to a capability where we are part of the TTIC, so we participate. 

Think of it as part of the Department of Homeland Security, just 

like it is a part of all the other agencies working together with access to all the data. So we will have all the access that all the other 

agencies have to intelligence data. 

We will have some additional analysis people and assessment 

people that are not in the TTIC that help relate that data to our 

infrastructure and also, frankly, to be able to discuss it with myself, Secretary Ridge, and other people. 

Also, by the way, the question about dissemination of data, we 

do have to have processes in place to make sure that we do disseminate data to State and local first responders, and we are working with FBI in that regard right now. That is a very critical part 

of this also, to understand what data needs to be passed down 

throughout America. 

Senator COLEMAN. Again, while I strongly support and understand the importance of trying to make sure we have a more efficient sharing of information and analysis of information, I would 

just again then raise the question, we have FBI out there. They do 

the analysis. We have CIA out there. Please, please, please let us 

make sure that we do not create another layer of intelligence analysis. Certainly you and Secretary Ridge need to have information 

analyzed brought to you so you can respond, but I just raise that 

concern again. 

Mr. ENGLAND. You are absolutely right, sir. I can assure you 

that—the intent is just the opposite, to make sure we take full utilization of the TTIC. 

Senator COLEMAN. Following up then again with the responsibility that you and Secretary Ridge have to analyze—to receive information of the threat analysis and then articulate that to the 

public, is it the sense that—I am trying to understand its function 

here. Is the TTIC the agency then that will provide the underlying 

information and you then take that information and then come to 

a conclusion that we are at yellow or at orange and here is where 

we go from here? 

Mr. ENGLAND. That will be one of the fundamental analysis base 

that we will use to assess the threats; that is correct, Senator. So 

that is the all-source data that will be available to us, and again, 

to the other agencies. So we will analyze that data, have full access 

to that data, and we will help assess that data along with the other 

agencies. 

We will analyze, but largely we will assess. That is, what is the 

effect of that data on infrastructure and across America? What is 

the effect of that data? So when people talk about an analysis center, in my judgment it is really both analysis and assessment. We 

will do more assessment, less analysis, but we will have analysis 

people located within the center. 

61

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Finally, we are entering—these are works in progress. We have entered a strange 

new world, unfortunately, post-September 11. Though we always 

like to take pride in our ability to do things the best, and I believe 

that is true about America, there are certainly other countries that 

have been dealing with these types of situations longer than we 

have. For us so often it was looking at foreign terrorist threats and 

now we have to understand and reflect upon the domestic terrorist 

threats, and the integration of foreign sources and domestic 

sources. Are there other models out there? Are there folks, Israel, 

or some other places that have dealt with this before, that are helping us shape this, or is this simply kind of a whole cloth concept 

that we have put together? Mr. Wiley from the CIA or anybody on 

the panel? 

Mr. WILEY. Senator, there certainly are models and Israel, the 

United Kingdom, our partners in Western Europe to one degree or 

another have attempted to do this. No one, I think, has faced quite 

the challenge that we do in terms of scale; the size, the openness 

of our society are all things that contribute to a different environment. But both through the Intelligence Community, and I know 

the law enforcement community, my friend Ambassador Black in 

his exchanges, we are very much interested in drawing lessons 

from others and incorporating that in all facets of it, and I am sure 

the same is true for the Department of Homeland Security. 

Mr. D’AMURO. I will just add to that, if I could, Senator. We have 

a very robust liaison program with a lot of different intelligence 

and law enforcement services across the world. The United States 

poses a unique situation as Winston has said. We have a Constitution. We operate within the Constitution. I think the beauty of the 

system that we have, in particular talking about the FBI, is that 

we have both the intelligence tools and the law enforcement tools 

in the same bag. 

I do not mean to go back to Buffalo again but it is a prime example of how we are able—that was a pure intelligence collection operation. When we learned that one individual was overseas, we 

were able to dispatch individuals to interview this person. And 

when we learned through that interview that there were legal 

statements, legal problems with some of the statements that he 

made, that actual crimes had taken place, the Buffalo division 

within 24 hours was able to act very quickly and round up those 

individuals that we had under our intelligence investigation, and 

get them off the street and prevent a possible terrorist event. 

So the beauty of having both the intelligence tools and the law 

enforcement tools in an organization that has operated within the 

Constitution, I think, is one of the benefits of our systems. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator Coleman. Senator Levin.

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

My major concern has been and continues to be, where will the 

principal responsibility for analyzing foreign intelligence rest? This 

has been a subject that Senator Coleman and I think others have 

made reference to today, and I believe our Chairman, as a matter 

of fact, specifically asked that question about the relationship between the CTC and TTIC. I am not satisfied with what I underVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
62

stand the answers were. I am sorry I could not be here to hear 

them in person but the report of those answers leaves me very 

unsatisfied. 

It is a huge problem. There is a lot of information that we received prior to September 11 that was not analyzed, that fell 

through cracks. If we are going to diffuse responsibility instead of 

fuse it, we are going to have confusion instead of focused responsibility to analyze—and I use that word precisely—foreign intelligence. Not domestic intelligence yet. I want to talk about intelligence. 

Now on January 17—and by the way, one other thing: We will 

be lucky if we do this well once. We have got 17,000 pieces of intelligence coming into the CTC a week; 17,000 pieces of intelligence. 

The CTC produces 300 outgoing intelligence products a month, and 

they have got almost 300 analysts. 

We have got to understand precisely the relationship between 

TTIC and CTC. We cannot blur that responsibility. We have got to 

focus it so that we can hold folks accountable if there are failures. 

Otherwise, CTC will say that was a TTIC responsibility, and TTIC 

will say that was a CTC responsibility, and we cannot have that 

situation. 

I asked Secretary Ridge, on January 17 when he was before the 

Committee, the following question, will the principal responsibility 

to analyze foreign intelligence from all sources remain in the CTC? 

His answer was, that is correct. 

Now I think the statute itself is unclear on that issue. The homeland security statute is unclear because it creates a new Undersecretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection inside the Homeland Security Department and gives that Undersecretary the responsibility to assess, which is what Deputy Secretary 

England just made reference to, receive, and analyze law enforcement information, intelligence information and other information 

from agencies of the Federal Government, State and local government agencies, and to integrate such information in order to identify and assess the nature and scope of the terrorist threats. 

Given that language, I asked Secretary Ridge whether or not 

there is then confusion. Where is the principal responsibility to 

analyze those 17,000 pieces of foreign intelligence that come in 

every week? Is it going to be CTC or is it going to be Homeland 

Security? Now I ask the same question about TTIC because now 

we not only have a CTC which apparently is going to proceed 

unencumbered that is supposed to analyze all foreign intelligence 

from all sources, and has FBI sitting there, and has the Coast 

Guard sitting there, and all the other agencies at the CTC. And 

now we are going to have Homeland Security that has a statutory 

responsibility to analyze and now a TTIC responsibility, apparently 

in the CIA, to analyze what seems to me to be the same information coming from all sources as the CTC is analyzing. 

We have got to be clear in statute and in practice where this responsibility lies and I repeat what I said, if we do this well once 

we will be very lucky. This is a huge challenge to put together 

17,000 pieces of intelligence a month that come in, and to analyze 

it, and to connect the dots. The idea that we might do it twice or 

three times to me is wrong in terms of accountability and it is 

63

wrong in terms of responsibility and it is wrong in terms of practicality. 

Now let me start with you, Deputy Secretary England. Is the 

principal responsibility to analyze foreign intelligence going to remain in the CTC? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Then how is that different from the responsibility 

which we are giving to TTIC to do the analysis of all intelligence, 

foreign and domestic apparently? How is that different? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, we will basically collate resources so that 

all the data is available in one place. 

Senator LEVIN. Is that TTIC or CTC? 

Mr. ENGLAND. The TTIC itself will have access to all the source 

data. 

Senator LEVIN. I know they will have access. Who is responsible 

to analyze all this intelligence coming in? Will it be TTIC or CTC? 

Mr. ENGLAND. My judgment is it will be CTC for the foreign intelligence. For domestic intelligence it will be the FBI. But in this 

facility we will then have people available with access to this data, 

access to conclusions that we can then analyze further, if necessary, because of data we may know in terms of homeland security, threats to America, whatever. So we would have in that facility access to ask additional questions, understand further, make 

additional assessments, etc. So it is a resource available for our analysts to be part of it, and also our people to assess that——

Senator LEVIN. Wait a minute. For our analyst to be—who is 

our? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Department of Homeland Security will have some 

analysts in this facility, so we can understand the data in terms 

of our mission, which is to assess that data relative to threats to 

America. 

Senator LEVIN. I understand the assessment and where it belongs and where it is. I just want to be real clear. What you just 

said is, principal responsibility to analyze information, intelligence 

relative to foreign intelligence will remain in the CTC; domestic intelligence will remain in the FBI. The reports from both of those 

entities will come to TTIC to do whatever it wants to do with the 

reports that come in from both CTC and from FBI; is that correct? 

Mr. ENGLAND. That is correct. That is my understanding. 

Senator LEVIN. I think that is fine if it is clear, but I think we 

all have to be real clear now on where that responsibility lies and 

I would like to see either an executive order, or I would like to see 

a decision by the agencies involved, a joint decision placing the 

principal responsibility exactly where you said. And if it is not 

there, where is it? We cannot have unfocused location of the analysis responsibility of foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence. 

We cannot blur it. We cannot duplicate it. We will be making a 

tragic error if we do. Instead of fusing we will be confusing, and 

I think that is——

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, you and I agree on this. This is not an 

issue at all. I concur completely with your approach. I believe my 

colleagues do also. That is the approach that we are using for 

TTIC, so I do not believe we have any disagreement here at all. 

64

Senator LEVIN. TTIC becomes a customer essentially. It has got 

the ability to do additional analysis, I understand, and it has a 

right to access anything it wants, I understand. But it is basically 

a customer of CTC and FBI when it takes the reports of foreign intelligence from CTC, domestic intelligence from FBI, fuses those reports, does whatever it wants with those reports, and then makes 

its own assessments. If it wants additional analysis it has the 

power to do additional analysis on its own. It can, I presume, task 

FBI or CTC to do additional analysis. 

Mr. ENGLAND. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. But the principal responsibility is where you just 

identified. Is that your understanding as well, Mr. D’Amuro? 

Mr. D’AMURO. Yes, Senator, it is. I will try to explain it real 

quickly and I know Mr. Wiley may want to jump in on this. The 

mission of the TTIC is to fuse threat information—to provide onestop analytical products for threat analysis to law enforcement, the 

Intelligence Community, everyone. It is an interagency function. 

All the agencies are at the table to include DOD, Homeland Security, the FBI, and the CIA. They will fuse that product and provide 

an analytical product with respect to threat analysis. 

Mr. WILEY. I think Mr. D’Amuro has it exactly right, Senator. I 

think that, Senator, before you came in I said that one of the 

things about TTIC is that our intention is to build on those things 

that have been working well. The close collaboration between collectors and analysts, both within the agency at CIA and between 

CIA and the FBI, because I think that is one of the things that has 

been working well. We want to do precisely what you are talking 

about, is bring the analysis of foreign intelligence, whether it is collected overseas or collected inside the United States, together in a 

seamless fashion, just as you are saying. TTIC will be in a position—by virtue of having CIA people, FBI people, other Intelligence 

Community people, DHS people together—in a position to do that. 

But I cannot be all things on day one, and will have to——

Senator LEVIN. No, not on day one. Is its goal to duplicate CTC? 

Mr. WILEY. Its goal is not to duplicate CTC. 

Senator LEVIN. It is to take the product of CTC and FBI and to 

then act—to put those products——

Mr. WILEY. Over time, Senator, I believe that a TTIC, if we make 

it work right, will absorb some of those analytic production responsibilities from CTC and from the FBI to create that single fused 

product that we have been talking about. 

Senator LEVIN. Is that the ultimate goal? 

Mr. WILEY. Yes, sir, I believe so. 

Senator LEVIN. That is different then from what I was just told. 

Mr. WILEY. I think it should be. 

Senator LEVIN. I am not saying it should not. By the way, it is 

fine with me, so long as it is clear. But now that is very different 

from what Secretary England said. 

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, it is going to take time for this to evolve. 

This is still—I mean, we now have, I believe, a working concept, 

a structure of how we can go forward, greatly improve from where 

we are today. How this evolves I think is another question. We are 

a long way to get to that ‘‘evolutionary stage’’ and we are going to 

have—it takes a period of time just to stand up this capability. So 

65

while Mr. Wiley may be right, I think there is a lot of discussion 

before we ever get to that point in time. 

Mr. WILEY. I agree. 

Senator LEVIN. Is TTIC going to be represented at the CTC? 

Mr. WILEY. It will be cheek by jowl with——

Senator LEVIN. Will it be sitting at that analytical table with the 

CTC? We have FBI there. We have Coast Guard there. We have 

all these agencies, part of CTC, sitting at the table. My specific 

question is, will Homeland Security and—first, will TTIC be at that 

table? 

Mr. WILEY. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEVIN. Will Homeland Security be at that table? 

Mr. WILEY. Yes, sir. And vice versa. The point is that we want 

to——

Senator LEVIN. That is fine. 

Thanks, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. You are welcome, Senator Levin. I want to 

follow up on the issues that Senator Levin just raised. 

Secretary England, I am trying to get a better sense of what the 

role of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate will be once TTIC is created. Will it conduct any analysis 

of raw intelligence or will it merely be a consumer of analysis that 

is produced by the new center, the FBI, and the CIA? 

Mr. ENGLAND. The IA organization, part of the IA organization, 

information analysis, will physically be located in the TTIC. We 

will have a separate analysis center. An analysis center will be in 

the TTIC, and it will have access to all the data available in the 

TTIC. Now we will also, in addition to people who are located in 

the TTIC, we will have some number of people who will also do 

analysis, for the understanding of the Secretary, myself, etc. I 

mean, we are not there. How do you interpret the data, etc.? But 

we will also have an assessment group and the assessment group 

will determine what the effect of that analysis is, what that means 

in terms of our infrastructure; to assess that it in terms of what 

you do across America in terms of protection. 

So it is both analysis and assessment. But we will have a separate analysis group, per se. We will also rely on the TTIC and our 

representation in TTIC. 

Chairman COLLINS. A related issue here which I raised in my 

opening statement is where the new center should be located. 

Many would argue that when Congress created the new Information Analysis Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security 

it did so to try to create an intelligence fusion center. One of the 

witnesses at our hearing last week, James Steinberg, recommended 

that the new center be located at the Department of Homeland Security. He said the new department is supposed to be the hub of 

all homeland defense efforts and that it is the natural place where 

the fusion of terrorist analysis should take place. It is also the one 

department responsible for protecting our borders and our critical 

infrastructure. 

I guess I will ask Mr. Wiley this question first and then go to 

Secretary England. Why was the decision made to locate the new 

center under the supervision of the Director of Central Intelligence 

rather than the Secretary of Homeland Security? 

66

Mr. WILEY. Senator, I think that the key feature of having the 

threat integration center report directly to the Director of Central 

Intelligence is that it is doing precisely the fusion of intelligence, 

whether it is foreign intelligence or domestically collected foreign 

intelligence and law enforcement information. The Director of Central Intelligence has a responsibility for assessment of foreign intelligence, and the Intelligence Community has the overwhelming 

share of people with experience in doing that. 

With due respect to Mr. Steinberg, I think that doing the analysis and assessment part under the leadership of the Director of 

Central Intelligence and providing that to the Department of 

Homeland Security to merge with the vulnerability assessments 

and to have a responsibility for taking action is the right model. 

I think that asking the Department also to take on the intelligence 

assessment capability as well as the vulnerability work is asking 

it to do more than it needs to. I think that that is the rationale 

between the two. 

Chairman COLLINS. My concern is, how are we going to prevent 

the new center from just becoming a creature of the CIA? The 

House Intelligence Committee issued a staff report that found that 

oftentimes the DCI intelligence centers, including the Counter Terrorist Center, become solely CIA centers. Whenever you locate an 

agency or a new entity on the grounds of the CIA, which is the initial plan, and report to the CIA Director, how is that going to overcome the cultural differences that have impeded the relationship 

between the CIA and the FBI? If it were located in the new Department of Homeland Security, would that not send the right signal 

as far as overcoming these historic barriers? 

And if I could just add one thing. In your comments you referred 

to the brute force approach to sharing and said it is working, but 

it still is requiring brute force. 

Mr. WILEY. Just on the brute force issue, whether a new department is located at DHS, at the CIA, at the FBI, or anyplace else, 

if you are collocating people and you are institutionalizing a process, it will reduce the amount of brute force that is required. So 

I do not think the location, the particular location makes a difference on the issue of brute force. 

I think on the issue of its physical location, in order to get started quickly you really needed to be, I believe, in one of two places 

where there is already a framework of analysts working the 

counterterrorism problem to support that. That, in my view, left it 

to either the CIA compound or the FBI building downtown. There 

you have a framework to be able to get started quickly. 

Institutionally, this chart that you provided us reflects that the 

TTIC does not report to the Director in his capacity as head of the 

CIA but in his capacity as the head of the Intelligence Community, 

as I do, frankly. That itself sets it apart from CIA. CTC is a center 

that reports to the DCI through the Directorate of Operations. This 

is a direct-report to the DCI. 

Its physical location at the CIA headquarters compound cannot 

be denied, but it will not be collocated with CTC, and there are 

other non-CIA elements that are resident in that building: The National Intelligence Council, the Community Management Staff, 

large portions of NIMA, the imagery and mapping agency, are loVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:49 Oct 28, 2003 Jkt 086773 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\86773.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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cated in that building. Certainly the majority of the building is a 

CIA building, but it is not exclusively a CIA building. While it presents a challenge, I think strong leadership and the commitment 

of all of the partners to put people and contribute to the leadership 

will mitigate against that. In the long run, the point of collocation 

where CTC, the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division, and TTIC are 

collocated in an off-site facility I think mitigates that problem completely. 

Chairman COLLINS. Secretary England, what is your response to 

those experts who believe that this new center would be most effective if it were located within the new Department of Homeland Security? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, I would not recommend that. My own experience with large organizations—first of all, TTIC is for threat 

data, so this is threat analysis and the expertise of threat analysis 

lies with other agencies, not with the Department of Homeland Security. We will not be the dominant organization in the TTIC. We 

will have equal representation there. 

So while we will be able to participate in some of the source 

threat analysis, that is not our key mission. Our key mission is to 

make sure that the threats are analyzed appropriately, that data 

is available to us, that we can then do additional analysis if we 

have to, want to, etc. But it is to do vulnerability analysis, understand the infrastructure and how those threats may relate to vulnerability of our infrastructure and our people across the country. 

So I, frankly, think it would be very difficult for the Department 

of Homeland Security to take on a task as large as threat analysis 

that would come into this center and be able to assess all that appropriately. That would be a very large organizational step for us 

to take, particularly at this time and probably for years to come. 

So I, frankly, do not feel that would be appropriate for us today. 

I was delighted with this approach to have this fusion center put 

in place because it does enable us to do our mission much better. 

So again, as I said in my first comment to you, we endorse this 

approach. It makes us an equal player in this arena of threat analysis. But I certainly do not feel like we could actually manage that 

operation. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Coleman. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I wanted to 

follow up on the questions raised by Madam Chairman and the distinguished Senator from Michigan. 

Secretary England—and by the way, we are all in agreement 

here. We want this to work. We want it to be effective. We understand it is a work in progress. We have got to keep coming back 

to that, it is a work in progress, so we are going to need some flexibility here. But I would question—I understand that your principal 

mission is not threat analysis, but I suspect in Homeland Security 

that you are going to be taking a lot of information that is not 

going to be yours—you are not creating it. That is why I asked the 

question about whether you created an intelligence analyst unit. 

The answer was, not creating; you have some folks who will do that 

but you are not going to duplicate the work that is done by CTC, 

you are not going to duplicate the work that is done by the FBI. 

68

But if your principal function is to fuse this—to take the information that has been fused, that has come together, and then to 

articulate that, take threat analysis, and then to work with the 

American public on that to make sure that we are prepared, that 

we understand, I would suggest that it would make sense. My 

sense is that it would make sense for the Department of Homeland 

Security, again not to create a new analysis, not to say that is your 

principal function, but to have the kind of direct access from this 

unit to then figure out what you have got to do with it. 

If you look at the chart that Madam Chairman established, laid 

out before you, I mean organizationally what you have is TTIC 

then reporting to the head of the CIA—so there is a step between 

all that information that is gathered, at least structurally, and the 

Department of Homeland Security. It would appear to me that 

there should be a much more direct connection between you and 

TTIC. 

Mr. ENGLAND. Senator, we are a full partner in TTIC. TTIC is 

part of the Department of Homeland Security, the same as it is 

part of all the other agencies. So we are part of TTIC. Some of our 

people will physically reside in TTIC. So data does not go up and 

across and down. Our information analysis people are part of TTIC, 

so we reside in that location. So this is—in fact, we call this a joint 

partnership and that is what it is. It is a joint partnership. 

My view is, as long as this partnership works effectively, and I 

believe it can work effectively and will work effectively, who it reports to is not very important frankly. To take existing structure 

in place and build it is much easier than the Department of Homeland Security trying to build a whole new structure. So this is a 

partnership. We do have direct access to all the information and we 

will be able to do our job appropriately. 

Senator COLEMAN. Secretary England, again I want to get back 

to this concept of work in progress. I appreciate the comment of 

who it reports to right now on paper. I do not think that is very 

important either, if it does not interfere with the most effective operation of TTIC and what it is supposed to do in terms of assessing 

threats to our country and dealing with those threats. 

I would hope then as we go about our work of bringing these 

pieces together and we are doing—again, we are living in this new 

world. As we do that, for it to have the flexibility along the way 

to say this may work a little better and then to come back to us 

at another point in time and say, we figured out a better way to 

do it, and this is what we are going to do. So I want you to have 

that flexibility. I support that concept and would hope that you 

keep that in mind, that you are not tied to a structure that has 

been put together very quickly, under difficult circumstances, and 

in the end we have got to do the right thing rather than what we 

may have thought the right thing was at another point in time. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Senator. Senator Levin. 

Senator LEVIN. Just one question, Secretary England. You said 

that TTIC is part of Homeland Security? 

Mr. ENGLAND. I say it is, I guess, rhetorically. We are part of—

it is a partnership. So when I say it is part of it, I mean we are 

there. It is also part of the FBI, it is part of all the agencies that 

69

1The response from Mr. Wiley appears in the Appendix on page 73. 

make it up. It was merely to emphasize that our people are there 

along with all the other people who make this up. So it is indeed 

a partnership. 

Senator LEVIN. But the head of TTIC is appointed by the Director of Central Intelligence; is that correct? 

Mr. ENGLAND. Right, with the advice——

Senator LEVIN. With the advice and so forth of the other agencies. But it is appointed by the Director of Central Intelligence, is 

located at Central Intelligence, and has people represented from all 

the other agencies including yours. 

Mr. ENGLAND. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. That is very much like CTC. It is part of the CIA, 

appointed by the Director of the CIA, has representatives from the 

Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, Coast Guard, you 

name it. It sounds to me that this is very similar in terms of its 

structure to the CTC. So I like the idea of things evolving. That 

is fine, and it may be over time that it belongs in a different place. 

I am less interested as to where it is, frankly, than that its responsibility is clear. That to me is the most important thing, and that 

is my concern, is that it be clear right off the get-go as to what its 

responsibility is, regardless of where it is or where it ends up 2, 

5, or 10 years from now. 

I just think there is a lot of work that need to be done to identify 

that responsibility to analyze intelligence as to where that is, because right now statutorily it is in three places. The analytical responsibility is in three places on foreign intelligence; CTC, Homeland Security, and now TTIC. I do not think that is healthy. I 

think it allows people to, as we saw before September 11, it will 

allow people to duck accountability. There was enough ducking of 

accountability, in my judgment, for the failures that existed before 

September 11. 

So I would just ask you—I cannot do this on behalf of the Committee. Obviously, the Chairman has that exclusive responsibility, 

but at least this one Senator would be a lot more comfortable if 

somehow or other there was a statement as to the primary responsibility for analysis of foreign intelligence, domestic intelligence, as 

to where that is going to rest, and what is the relationship of TTIC 

to those analyses—and that be in writing.1 I just think that there 

is some fuzziness here which could be unhealthy. 

Chairman COLLINS. I would second, as the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Levin’s request in this regard. I do think we need 

more definition on who is going to do what. The Department of 

Homeland Security’s underlying law calls for it to analyze. That is 

part of the law. So I do believe we need more definition. I do recognize that the Center is a work in progress, but I would ask the witnesses to come back to us with a document that would define with 

more specificity the responsibilities of the components and the existing—the Counter Terrorism Division at the FBI, the Counter 

Terrorism Center at the CIA, the Information Analysis Directorate 

at Homeland Security. I would like to see more definition in defining the responsibilities of those three units and how the new center 

interacts. The goal is fusion not confusion. But when I look at the 

70

chart and plot the new center in, I am concerned about duplication, 

accountability, and responsibility. So I hope as you further work 

out the details of the center you would get back to us. 

Senator Levin, did you have something more on that? 

Senator LEVIN. No. 

Chairman COLLINS. Senator Coleman. 

Senator COLEMAN. No. 

Chairman COLLINS. Before I adjourn the hearing I just want to 

bring up one final issue that I alluded to in my opening statement, 

and that is the dangers to privacy rights of combining law enforcement functions with intelligence gathering and analysis. Several, or 

some of our witnesses at our previous hearing raised the issue of 

whether this new center poses a threat to privacy rights. We have 

seen the controversy over the total information awareness program 

at the Department of Defense. The new center potentially will have 

access to huge databases of its component agencies—the good news 

is, for the first time we will be bringing all this information together. The bad news is, for the first time we will be bringing all 

this information together. 

Mr. Wiley, as the chair of this working group, how is the group 

going to ensure that the creation of this new center with its access 

to unprecedented amounts of information will not infringe upon the 

privacy rights of law-abiding citizens? 

Mr. WILEY. Madam Chairman, from the beginning the concerns 

you have expressed were an explicit part of our discussions in making sure that the lines of responsibility, lines of authority, the separate authority for conducting collection operations, whether overseas or domestic, remain separate from the authorities vested in 

the TTIC. I can only tell you that from day-one, we will continue 

at the Agency, at the Bureau, at Homeland Security to make sure 

that the structures we put together are in compliance with the 

laws, the executive orders, and sensitive to the issues of making 

sure that privacy rights and civil rights of law-abiding citizens are 

not violated. It is a fundamental concern right from the beginning 

and the very structure of the Center recognizes that by separating 

it from the operational components of both the FBI and the CIA. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. D’Amuro. 

Mr. D’AMURO. Senator, Winston is correct. This is not—the TTIC 

is focal point for the analysis of information that has been collected. The information that we will be collecting domestically will 

be overseen by the inspector general from the Department of Justice, it will be overseen by the FISA court. We have numerous Attorney General guidelines and directions that protect the civil liberties of the citizens of this country. The collection process will not 

change. We will use those guidelines, we will use those laws for our 

collection domestically. The role of the TTIC is simply the analysis 

of that collection. It is not an instrument that will go out operationally and collect on its own. 

Chairman COLLINS. There is no new collection authority; is that 

correct? 

Mr. D’AMURO. That is correct. 

Chairman COLLINS. Secretary England. 

Mr. ENGLAND. In addition, Senator, let me add, Madam Chairman, that we also have a statutory obligation in terms of privacy. 

71

We do have, will have a privacy officer as part of this. That privacy 

officer will have a role, so we will have at least some degree of 

oversight to allay those concerns. But I do not believe that there 

will be a real concern there, but nonetheless, we will have that 

oversight function within the Department of Homeland Security. 

If I could add one more thing before we leave? 

Chairman COLLINS. Certainly. 

Mr. ENGLAND. I know you have a very complex chart here but 

I would like to comment that there is actually more arrows that belong on this chart, Senator, only because of your comment. It turns 

out that the source data is available here at the information analysis. It goes directly—the analysis charts. So rather than linking 

here at the Secretary level, it really does link the IA/IP organization directly with the TTIC. I think perhaps that will clarify some 

of the issues we discussed earlier. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. I want to thank our witnesses 

for appearing today. Your contributions are very valuable. We look 

forward to hearing back from you as you continue to refine the 

President’s plan. 

The record will remain open for 15 days for the submission of 

any additional questions. I want to thank my staff for its hard 

work on this series of hearings. This hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:38 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(73)

A P P E N D I X 

RESPONSE TO SENATORS LEVIN AND COLLINS TRANSCRIPT REQUEST 

FROM MR. WILEY REFERRED TO ON PAGE 69

The Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) is currently working collaboratively across the Federal Government to integrate terrorism information and analysis to provide a comprehensive, all-source-based picture of potential terrorist 

threats to U.S. interests. In this regard, TTIC works closely with the FBI’s 

Counterterrorism Division, DHS’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate, the DCI’s Counterterrorism Center, and the Defense Intelligence 

Agency’s Joint Intelligence Task Force—Counterterrorism, among others. In fact, all 

of these organizations are represented in TTIC and work together, on a daily business, to carry out the mission of their parent organization as well as that assigned 

to TTIC by the President: to enable the full integration of U.S. Government terrorist 

threat-related information and analysis, collected domestically or abroad. 

As a relatively new entity, and one that is unique in the Federal constellation, 

misperceptions are still common. One common misperception is that TTIC is a part 

of the Central Intelligence Agency. In actual fact, TTIC does not belong to any department or agency. It is a multi-agency joint venture composed of partner organizations including the Departments of Justice/Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security, Defense, and State, and the Central Intelligence Agency. TTIC reports to the Director of Central Intelligence, but in his statutory capacity as the 

head of the Intelligence Community. TTIC does not engage in any collection activities and it does not engage in operations of any kind. Unlike the FBI’s 

Counterterrorism Division, the DCI’s Counterterrorism Center, and the Department 

of Homeland Security, all of which have an operational or collection element, TTIC 

is focused on integrating and analyzing terrorist threat-related information collected 

domestically or abroad. We defer to these other organizations to provide you a full 

explanation of their roles and responsibilities. 

While TTIC is still in its infancy, there is tangible evidence of the value of 

‘‘jointness,’’ as embodied in the TTIC construct, and TTIC is making a difference in 

the war against terrorism. For example, TTIC analysis has contributed to informed 

decision making within DHS about the appropriate threat level for the nation. The 

TTIC-maintained terrorist identities database informs the national watchlisting 

process and according to the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-6, will soon 

serve as the single source of international terrorist identities information for the 

newly established Terrorist Screening Center. In addition, the TTIC-hosted joint information sharing program office is actively implementing the Information Sharing 

Memorandum of Understanding signed in March 2003 by Attorney General 

Ashcroft, Secretary Ridge, and the Director of Central Intelligence. Under the auspices of this program office, business processes are being re-engineered to facilitate 

the flow of information throughout the Federal Government, but in particular, to 

the Department of Homeland Security. Specific issues being addressed at this time 

include establishing standards for tear lines, reaching out to non-Intelligence Community Federal departments and agencies, and rethinking reporting standards. 

As the national approach to combating terrorism and protecting the homeland 

evolves, TTIC will continue to carry out the mission assigned to it by the President: 

to enable the full integration of U.S. Government terrorist threat-related information and analysis, collected domestically and abroad—and TTIC will fulfill its mission in full coordination with partner organizations including the Department of 

Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence 

Agency, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State. We will keep you 

informed of our progress.

74

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR SHELBY 

Thank you Madam Chairman for calling this hearing today to examine the President’s proposal to form the Terrorist Threat Information Center (TTIC). I also thank 

our panel for appearing before the Committee today. As a long time member of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I am particularly interested in the subject 

matter of this hearing. 

Madam Chairman, as you know, I worked closely last year with the Governmental 

Affairs Committee to help draft the provisions of the Homeland Security Act crating 

an intelligence fusion center within the Department of Homeland Security. While 

the eventual fusion center language signed into law represented a compromise, I felt 

confident at that time that the United States government had the statutory tools 

it needed to make our country a safer place. 

One of the main reasons for this belief is the placement of the fusion center within DHS itself. I have said many times before that the failure of the Central Intelligence Agency and others in the Intelligence Community (IC) to share intelligence 

information contributed significantly to the government’s lack of preparedness for 

the September 11 attacks. I supported the formation of the independent fusion center located outside of the IC because I believed it would challenge the community’s 

reluctance to share information. Creating a new and improved fusion center within 

the IC is a good think—because improvements are clearly needed—but I am concerned that if this is all that happens, it may allow the IC’s institutional allergy 

to information sharing to remain unchallenged and the President’s vision of a truly 

‘‘all-source’’ fusion center to remain unfulfilled. 

If TTIC does not challenge the institutional and cultural barriers to intelligence 

sharing within the IC, our country will not be safer from the threat of terrorism. 

During the Homeland Security debate, I and my colleagues spent a considerable 

amount of time developing the idea of an intelligence fusion center for all government information on terrorist threats. I hope that the intelligence bureaucracies—

whose job it will be to implement the President’s vision for TTIC—permit the new 

center to develop into such an organization. 

Madam Chairman, unfortunately, we have heard little in the way of specific information from the administration about why TTIC is necessary and how it will result 

in a safer country. Only three months ago, the President signed into law legislation 

creating the Homeland Security Department, which will house the nation’s first 

truly all-source, government-wide intelligence fusion center. It is unclear to me then 

why the administration is pushing for the creation of a second intelligence fusion 

center before the DHS fusion center has even begun operations and had a chance 

to be evaluated. The new TTIC, I should emphasize, is by no means a bad idea. But 

I am concerned that, in practice, it will represent not the fulfillment of our broad 

vision of a ‘‘one-stop shopping’’ fusion center, but rather its co-opting by agencies 

who see real innovations in this regard as a threat to their bureaucratic ‘‘turf.’’

The TTIC proposal raises a number of questions. For example, DHS’s website 

states that the department ‘‘will serve as a central hub of intelligence analysis and 

dissemination, working with agencies throughout the federal government such as 

the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, the Department of Defense and other key intelligence 

sources.’’ How does this mission differ from TTIC’s mission? Will the responsibilities 

of DHS and TTIC overlap? If so, is this the most efficient way to protect our country 

from terrorism or will it result in needless and wasteful duplication? Also, if TTIC 

is to be our nation’s premier terrorist threat fusion center, how will DHS be able 

to attract and hire qualified information analysts? Moreover, if TTIC is really supposed to be the center for evaluation all U.S. Government information relevant to 

terrorist threats, how will it—as part of the Intelligence Community—fulfill this role 

within the IC’s current rules regarding the handling of information related to 

‘‘United States persons’’? 

Last, I would be remiss if I did not express my concerns about the President’s 

decision to place TTIC under the supervision of the Director of Central Intelligence 

(DCI). As I have said many times before, I believe Director Tenet has played no 

small role in worsening the bureaucratic problems—including a powerful institutional resistance to information-sharing—that have long kept our Intelligence Community from being as capable and prepared as Americans desperately need it to be. 

I question whether the President’s vision of a powerful and effective TTIC will be 

well served by putting this DCI in charge of the premier terrorist threat fusion center in the U.S. Government. 

Madam Chairman, while I have a number of concerns about TTIC, it should be 

noted that I am not necessarily opposed to it at this time. I do believe, though, that 

Congress needs more information in order to evaluate TTIC. It is my understanding 

that it is the administration’s position that Congressional approval is not needed to 

75

create TTIC. While this may be legally true, Congress will be involved with TTIC 

through its oversight responsibilities of the Intelligence Community. Nothing, moreover, prevents Congress from stepping in to structure TTIC by statute, as occurred 

with the Department of Homeland Security itself. I therefore strongly urge the administration to keep an open line of communication with the relevant congressional 

communities. 

I thank you Madam Chairman for the opportunity to address the Committee 

today and look forward to hearing from our panel.

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