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Statement Of Senator Mitch McConnell On
Proposal To Reform Congressional Oversight Of Intelligence
from the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell
Wednesday, October 6, 2004
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) today introduced an amendment to a resolution to reform the Senate’s oversight of intelligence and homeland security matters. Senator McConnell delivered the following statement on the Senate floor today:
“Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, with Senator Reid and the Majority and Minority Leaders an amendment to a resolution to reform the Senate’s oversight of intelligence and homeland security matters. If enacted, it will mark the most significant change made since the 1970s relating to the way the Senate operates.
“Let me speak for a moment about why we must make significant reforms.
“The world did not change on September 11, 2001; only our perception of it did. In fact, the world had changed long before that clear September day. And frankly, we’re nearly a decade late realizing it.
“The first clue the world had changed – and that a new enemy lurked in the shadows – occurred on February 26, 1993, when Islamic terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, killing 6 and injuring hundreds. These terrorists had ties to al Qaeda, which was busy then building its army of terrorists in the Sudan.
“Four years later, on August 7, 1998, al Qaeda attacked two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds and injuring thousands.
“And on October 12, 2000 – nearly 4 years ago today – these same al Qaeda terrorists attacked the USS Cole while it was in port in Yemen. These terrorists killed 17 soldiers and injured 40 more.
“And yet, it took the carnage of September 11 to awaken America, the Congress, our governmental institutions, and our CIA analysts to the magnitude of the threat that Islamic terrorism poses to the American people.
“It took September 11 to show us how much the world had changed since the days of the Cold War.
“In the wake of those attacks, Congress and the President swung into action – and brought the fight to the enemy.
“We in Congress passed the Patriot Act, which reformed the FBI and provided our law enforcement agencies with greater tools to combat terrorism. We fast-tracked the procurement of specialized equipment such as the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle for our military forces in Afghanistan.
“Congress created the Department of Homeland Security to consolidate and coordinate government activities that protect America, and to solve some of the problems that contributed to the failure to anticipate the events of September 11.
“The Administration has issued important executive orders reforming the intelligence community in a way that facilitates coordination of essential information.
“Today, the Senate passed the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, which dramatically reforms our intelligence agencies. These reforms will improve the collection, analysis, and integration of our nation’s most vital intelligence, assuring that red flags are no longer ignored.
“What we have not done, however, is reform ourselves.
“Congress, like our intelligence agencies, failed to appreciate the threat prior to September 11. We certainly appreciate it now. And I hope we can reform this institution in a way that allows us to better monitor and influence the executive agencies tasked with keeping America safe.
“It is time to put our own house in order.
“In August, Sen. Frist and Sen. Daschle – in response to the 9/11 Commission recommendations – asked the Senate to do just that. They created a working group of 22 senior Members of the Senate, and asked Sen. Reid and myself to chair it.
“We worked closely with these Members to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, and also to brainstorm new ideas and improvements to our oversight of the intelligence community and the Department of Homeland Security.
“I want to thank these Members for their many good ideas, and for their patience and willingness to work on a bipartisan basis to do something that is very difficult, but also very worthwhile.
“After convening a number of meetings with our Members, Senator Reid and I met frequently to hammer out a list of recommendations that broadly reflects the consensus or majority views of our group. Not everybody, but a majority.
“Not every Senator will be happy with each and every recommendation. But such is the nature of compromise. We have endeavored to be honest brokers, and I hope we have achieved that goal.
“Some Members will complain this reform goes entirely too far. Others will complain it does not go far enough.
“I hope, most Members will agree with me that it is an appropriate balance of reform that improves our ability to conduct oversight of intelligence and homeland security during a very serious time for our country.
“Neither Senator Reid, nor I, nor the 20 other Members of our Working Group have a monopoly on wisdom. And, were our recommendations part of the New Testament, they would not be written in red ink.
“The resolution before us today is not a final product. It is a work in progress. And we hope Members who want to improve upon this resolution will come to the floor and offer amendments.
“We would like to accept non-controversial amendments, and to allow Members a vote on amendments that may be a bit more contentious. We want the Senate to work its will.
“But before ceding control of this resolution to the will of the Senate, let me describe the philosophy behind our recommendations, as well as some of the recommendations themselves.
Homeland Security
“The most sweeping change we recommend is to consolidate Congressional jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security. If you don’t think this is major reform, ask the roughly 25 Senate Committee or Subcommittee Chairman who currently have jurisdiction over Homeland Security agencies or programs.
“Trust me. They’ve made sure Senator Reid and I know how significant this reform is!
“The current system of Homeland Security is broken. These 25 different Senate Committees or Subcommittees can only have a narrow view of part of the Department’s activities.
“Congressional oversight is like a team of blindfolded scientists, each examining a different part of a horse and trying to describe what kind of animal it is. No Committee can step back and look at the horse as a whole.
“The Department of Homeland Security deserves its own authorization committee. We wouldn’t divide jurisdiction over the Department of Defense by creating an Army Committee, a Navy/Marine Committee, and an Air Force Committee. So why have we done so with Homeland Security?
“The status quo also hampers the Department’s ability to do its primary job: protecting the homeland.
“Currently, the Department has to report to 88 House and Senate Committees or Subcommittees.
“This year alone, Secretary Ridge or his subordinates have testified at 164 hearings. They have given over 1300 briefings. And the year isn’t over yet.
“Mr. President, that’s almost 40 briefings a week. In fact, there are probably Homeland Security personnel crawling around Capitol Hill right now, when they should be back in their offices working to keep us safe.
“We didn’t create the Department of Homeland Security so that it can provide us with a gluttony of power point presentations, but to keep America safe. We should consolidate jurisdiction so that both Congress and the Department can do their job more effectively, and more efficiently.
“To do this, we recommend that jurisdiction over the Department be integrated under the Government Affairs Committee, which should be renamed the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
“There will be exceptions to this jurisdictional consolidation. And we encourage Members who are concerned about jurisdiction issues to file amendments or work with the Chairman and Ranking Member of Government Affairs to reach agreements about appropriate jurisdictional arrangements.
“We welcome amendments and debate on these issues.
Intelligence
“On Intelligence oversight, the Working Group believed that our oversight of intelligence needed to be strengthened.
“The Task Force wanted to work with the Committee to help structure it so it was comprised of devoted experts who have the time and expertise in the intelligence field. The Members now serving on the Committee have done so with great distinction. But they need better tools and fewer competing demands on their time in order to conduct focused and comprehensive oversight.
“And so we have recommended the status of the Committee be raised from B to A. This may seem like a minor and arcane detail, but it means a great deal. On my side of the aisle, Senators can serve on the Committee without having to give up any other assignments. Some members serve on three or four other committees in addition to Intelligence.
“Quite simply, they cannot devote the time necessary to conduct effective oversight with so many other obligations.
“This elevation in status will require Senators interested in intelligence to make a choice to serve on the Committee. But once on the Committee, they will not be term limited as they have been in the past, and each Member of the Committee will be able to play an integral role in conducting oversight.
“The Intelligence Committee is an important Committee, and a popular Committee, and I am confident that a good number of Senators will want to serve on it.
“As I have said, we also have removed term limits, in order to allow Members to develop the expertise needed to conduct effective oversight. No other Committee in the Senate says after you’ve spent 8 years becoming an expert that you get the boot. Now the Intelligence Committee won’t have to say goodbye to its most experienced Members.
“We have allowed Members to hire personal designated staff, to give them a trusted representative on the Committee. There was strong support for this recommendation, which will reinstate previous Committee policy.
“In addition to the 14 suggested improvements to the Select Committee on Intelligence, we also have recommended the Appropriations Committee create a Subcommittee on Intelligence. “Appropriations jurisdiction over oversight is currently dispersed throughout multiple subcommittees. We propose the creation of an Intelligence Subcommittee of Appropriations that would consolidate the roughly 80% of the intelligence budget that will come under the jurisdiction of the National intelligence Director.
“This subcommittee will improve the Appropriations Committee’s ability to live up to its responsibility to exercise oversight over the national intelligence budget. For the same reasons that Homeland Security jurisdiction should be consolidated, so too, should Intelligence appropriations jurisdiction.
“Not all of us agree on this recommendation, and I fully expect that Senators will introduce an amendment to implement the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation to create a combined authorization and appropriations Committee.
“Mr. President, those recommendations require us to use a different set of muscles in our oversight. And some of these reforms are not easy. But few things worth doing are.
“We have an historic opportunity to reform this Chamber for the better, and I believe we should not shirk our responsibility to do so. We must do it now in order to do all we can to protect the American people from the next major terrorist attack.
“Mr. President, this is a partisan body, and we have pointed fingers for three years about who was to blame for the failures of our intelligence and homeland security prior to September 11. Some blamed the Clinton Administration. Others blamed the Bush Administration.
“Some saw fault in the FBI. Others in the CIA. Still others in the military’s aversion to covert operations.
“We’re good at pointing fingers at others. But we haven’t pointed them at ourselves.
“Just as our CIA analysts failed to piece together the clues about al Qaeda’s intention to attack our cities with hijacked airplanes, so too did we fail to question their assessments. We failed to question their focus on old threats. We failed to challenge them to take risks.
“We failed to question the lack of CIA operatives in Iraq. Or why our human intelligence capabilities had become so eroded. Despite the numerous attacks on American targets by Islamic radicals, we failed to put more money in the intelligence budget to hire Arabic linguists.
“These aren’t the faults of the Clinton Administration or the Bush Administration. They are our faults, too. And we have a chance today to begin to correct them.
“Colleagues, I believe we have an opportunity to improve our oversight of the arms of government that keep America safe. Let us not cause some future generation to look back 50 years from this moment and ask the question: “Why didn’t they act?”
“Now is our opportunity to do just that, and I encourage my fellow Senators to come to the floor and offer amendments so that we can move this package forward.”
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