[Senate Hearing 107-239]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-239
HOMELAND DEFENSE: EXPLORING THE HART-RUDMAN REPORT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, TERRORISM,
AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 3, 2001
__________
Serial No. J-107-10
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
77-095 WASHINGTON : 2002
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman
STROM THURMOND, South Carolina PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
JON KYL, Arizona HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
Sharon Prost, Chief Counsel
Makan Delrahim, Staff Director
Bruce Cohen, Minority Chief Counsel and Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information
JON KYL, Arizona, Chairman
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
Stephen Higgins, Majority Chief Counsel
David Hantman, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from the State of
California..................................................... 3
Kyl, Hon. Jon, a U.S. Senator from the State of Arizona.......... 1
WITNESSES
Hamilton, Hon. Lee, Commissioner, U.S. Commission on National
Security, and former Representative in Congress from the State
of Indiana..................................................... 9
Hart, Hon. Gary, Co-chair of the U.S. Commission on National
Security, and former U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado... 7
Rudman, Hon. Warren, Co-chair of the U.S. Commission on National
Security, and former U.S. Senator from the State of New
Hampshire...................................................... 4
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, statement..... 27
HOMELAND DEFENSE: EXPLORING THE HART-RUDMAN REPORT
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TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2001
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and
Government Information,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in
room 226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jon Kyl,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Kyl and Feinstein.
STATEMENT OF HON. JON KYL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
ARIZONA
Chairman Kyl. The hearing will come to order.
I welcome everyone to this hearing of the Subcommittee on
Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information. At today's
hearing we will examine the findings of the United States
Commission on National Security/21st Century, as presented in
its report entitled, ``Road Map for National Security:
Imperative for Change''.
I know that one of our witnesses, Hon. Lee Hamilton, will
be arriving shortly, but in view of the fact that we may have a
vote in the 3:30 timeframe, Senator Feinstein and I would like
to proceed. We will make our opening statements, and we can
brief Mr. Hamilton on the wonderful things we had to say after
he arrives, but that way we can get more quickly to the
comments that the two of you have to make. So, with your
indulgence, we will proceed with our opening statements.
This is the third hearing that this Subcommittee has held
on the subject of terrorism and homeland defense in the past
year. Each hearing has focused on the findings of a different
commission. Each of the commissions has approached the issues
from a slightly different perspective. It is the intent of this
Committee to examine the details of their recommendations and
arrive at a common understanding of the critical
vulnerabilities that must be addressed through legislative
action.
We are poised to begin a new era, and all of the recent
commission reports have emphasized the changing nature of the
challenges to the security of our Nation and our people and our
interests abroad. Although we're considered by most to be the
sole super power in a complex world, capable of projecting
power around the globe, the security of our citizens, both at
home and abroad, is threatened. Terrorist organizations and
states that support terrorism have recognized the need to
attack the U.S. in an asymmetric fashion, spending time and
resources to locate seams in our protection before striking.
From the tragedy of the bombing of the World Trade Center
in New York City, to the horrific destruction of the Federal
building in Oklahoma City, the last decade has witnessed an
increase in the scale of devastation sought by terrorists
within our borders. As deadly and devastating as these two
attacks were, imagine the level of carnage if those responsible
had been more technically proficient or had weapons of mass
destruction. And as the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa
and the USS Cole demonstrate, Americans abroad remain tempting
targets for terrorism.
The Commission represented before us today was established
by Congress and faced the daunting task of examining the entire
spectrum of national security, of which homeland defense is
only a segment. Understandably, its treatment of the issues is
broad-based. It is my hope, and I think the hope of Senator
Feinstein and others on the committee, that we can draw from
these witnesses a greater depth of understanding of the
vulnerabilities they uncovered in the study, of the structure
and capabilities of the agencies charged with our Nation's
homeland defense.
There are a variety of recommendations presented in the
report. Some of them, like combining the Coast Guard, Customs
Service and Border Patrol under the control of a National
Homeland Security Agency, built upon the foundation of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, would entail the wholesale
restructuring of multiple Federal agencies. Other
recommendations, like increasing the intelligence capabilities
of the Customs Service, are less sweeping in nature.
Regardless of the perceived complexity of the
recommendations, our discussion here today will lead to a
clearer understanding of the issues that must soon be addressed
by the Congress if we are to adequately prepare for the
national security challenges of the new millennium.
Senator Feinstein and I, over the course of the next few
months, will work with members of the Judiciary Committee and
other committees in the Congress to synthesize the
recommendations of the Hart-Rudman Commission, and the other
commissions that have appeared before us, into legislation that
will address the weaknesses and vulnerabilities highlighted in
their respective reports.
We are both pleased to welcome Senators Hart and Rudman
back to the Senate. Your leadership and diligence as co-chairs
of the Commission is greatly appreciated. We are also glad to
see that Commissioner Lee Hamilton, former Chairman of the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs, could join us here. As we
mentioned, Representative Hamilton, we decided to begin before
you arrived, since you probably wouldn't miss much in our
presentation, but that would enable us to have more time to
hear from all of you before we have to proceed with other
Senate business.
Before we hear from the three of you, I would like to turn
to Senator Feinstein for her opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Feinstein. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me welcome our witnesses. I think this is certainly a
consequential panel. You are three people, two in the Senate
and one in the House, who, have literally decades of experience
between them, and all of you very respected on both sides of
the aisle. So thank you so much for being on the Commission and
also for being here today.
Let me begin by saying that I agree with the thrust of your
recommendations, that we need to make fundamental changes in
our counterterrorism policy. I couldn't agree more that our
current policy is fragmented, uncoordinated, and unaccountable.
As I see it, a main problem here is that we don't know who's in
charge of preparing for and responding to a catastrophic
terrorist act. We discussed this Mr. Chairman, at the last
hearing we had.
For example, the GAO recently found that Federal, state and
local governments had not agreed on a clear chain of command
for dealing with a terrorist incident. I disagree with those
who suggest that such a clear chain of command is impossible,
or that bureaucratic ``turf wars'' would prevent us from
designating a lead agency to take charge in the event of a
terrorist attack. After all, other western industrialized
countries facing terrorists have met this challenge. As another
recent GAO report found, of six countries surveyed--ours,
Canada, France, Germany, Israel, and the U.K.--only the United
States has failed to determine clearly who would be in charge
of responding to a terrorist incident.
Another problem is that the government has spread
counterterrorism assets over at least 45 agencies, and these
agencies are not coordinated to prevent or protect against or
respond to a major terrorist attack. One result is that
terrorism has a tendency to drop off the radar screen of the
national security establishment.
As a former United States Customs Commissioner, Ray Kelly,
a man for whom I had a great deal of respect, has said, ``The
whole issue of counterterrorism needs an advocate, a high-level
person, perhaps a Cabinet officer, to make certain that there's
consistent attention to the issue.''
Another problem is that agencies tend to duplicate each
other's efforts, thus getting in each other's way and wasting
taxpayers' dollars. As former FEMA chief, James Lee Witt, said
recently, ``You've got too many agencies doing the same
thing.''
In addition, many Federal agencies seem to be focusing on
general vulnerabilities, rather than credible threats, and on
worst-case scenarios, instead of likely probabilities. For
example, HHS has recently tried to establish a national
pharmaceutical and vaccine stockpile that doesn't match
intelligence agencies' judgments of the most likely chemical
and biological agents that terrorists might use.
Now, such problems are not just bureaucratic. They could
result in needless loss of tens of thousands of lives in a
catastrophic terrorist attack. Many experts, including members
of the Commission, believe that a catastrophic terrorist attack
is virtually inevitable in the next 25 years. Such an attack
could take many forms. The most likely one would be an assault
on a large city with a germ weapon or cyber attack on the East
Coast air traffic control system. In fact, as a witness told us
last week at a Subcommittee hearing, a group or nation with a
budget of around $10 million, and a team of about 30 computer
experts, could wreak billions of dollars of damage to the
United States infrastructure.
Also, we cannot forget the most obvious and probable
terrorist threat, that from simple conventional weapons. The
terrorist who bombed the USS Cole, our African embassies, the
Atlanta Olympics, and Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma
City, and the World Trade Center all relied on a range of
readily available, easily obtainable bomb-making materials. For
example, the urea nitrate bomb used at the World Trade Center
costs about $400 to make. That bomb caused at least a half-a-
billion in damages and the loss of a lot of American lives.
To be sure, America has always viewed itself as relatively
safe from terrorist attack, surrounded as it is by friendly
neighbors and large oceans. However, the threat of attack
remains quite real.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to commend these witnesses and I
look forward to hearing their comments. As we discussed at the
last hearing, I'm one that does believe that we need to have a
central person in charge, and perhaps the legislation that
we've been talking about might deal with that question.
Chairman Kyl. Thank you very much, Senator Feinstein.
As Senator Feinstein said, we have represented at this
table here a considerable degree of expertise in former Members
of the U.S. Congress, and we take very seriously the
recommendations of the report that you put together and look
forward to continuing to consult with you as we proceed to try
to take the three different commission recommendations, and to
meld them into some cohesive format for legislative purposes,
and we recognize there will be other responses as well as
purely legislative.
Then, as we begin to work with our colleagues in the House
who have a similar effort underway, to consult with you to get
your ideas about how best to proceed with this, with the goal
in mind of at least dealing with the legislative side of this,
if we can, this year, so I appreciate very much the work you
have done
Let me call upon you, Senator Hart, Senator Rudman, and
Representative Hamilton, to proceed in the way you best deem
appropriate.
STATEMENT OF HON. WARREN B. RUDMAN, CO-CHAIR OF THE U.S.
COMMISSION ON NATIONAL SECURITY, AND FORMER U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Senator Rudman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and
Senator Feinstein. Thank you so much for having us here today.
First let me ask that a rather long statement representing
the collective view of those of us here, plus former Secretary
of the Air Force Rice, who was delayed in California, a flight
that couldn't get here, we ask that that statement be placed in
the record.
Chairman Kyl. That will be a part of the record, as well as
his letter indicating his inability to be here. We certainly
appreciate his testimony as well. Thank you.
Senator Rudman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me give you a quick background on this Commission. We
have been working now for two-and-a-half years. This was the
brainchild of former Speaker Gingrich and President Clinton,
who in a conversation 1 day at the White House decided that
this kind of a broad-ranging study of the United States
national security for the 21st century ought to be done. The
Commission was put together by them. It was then turned over to
DOD for funding.
Let me just remind you who the members were, because it's
remarkable when you look at the diversity of the membership of
this committee, politically and philosophically, that you have
a consensus on 50 specific recommendations that there was total
agreement on.
Of course, Senator Hart and I co-chaired this. Anne
Armstrong, former Chairman of the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board and former Ambassador to Great
Britain; Norman Augustine, a former Chairman of Lockheed-
Martin, and a member of many commissions in defense.
John Dancy, former NBC News foreign correspondent and
Congressional correspondent; John Galvin, former head of NATO;
Les Gelb held several very important positions in the
administration, I believe, of President Carter, and then went
on to become president of the Council of Foreign Relations.
Also, Newt Gingrich, Lee Hamilton, and Lionel Ulmer, who
was Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade; Donald
Rice, former Secretary of the Air Force, former Chairman of
Rand Corporation; Jim Schlesinger, who has so many titles, if I
went through them, I would consume all the time of the hearing;
Harry Train, a four-star admiral, former CINCLANT; and Andrew
Young, former Ambassador to the United Nations and, of course,
Mayor of Atlanta, and the head of many other organizations.
We worked for two-and-a-half years. This is not a staff-
driven report. This is driven by the Commissioners themselves.
We had a number of weekend meetings away from the city, in
which we worked on all of these issues.
I am pleased to tell you that this report was written not
to make it easy for you. We did not sit down and decide we will
recommend what is politically possible. We put down what we
thought ought to be done. The making of policy, of course, is
up to you, not us. So we gave you recommendations that we truly
believe in.
Before I proceed, let me introduce for the record someone
who contributed enormously to our effort, and that is former
retired, four-star Air Force General Chuck Boyd, who was our
Executive Director. He assembled an incredible staff of people
who are truly experts in the area to guide the Commission.
We have been thinking about this issue very diligently now
for almost 3 years. Remember, our Commission was created to
provide a long-term perspective on national security problems
and the structure of the Federal Government. We were not
looking for easy challenges or easy fixes. We were empaneled to
make sure our National security mechanisms were not calcified
in place during the cold war, and that the policies, processes
and structures we have today are appropriate for the new
century.
I am particularly proud of how well the Commission worked
together and how the Commission applied themselves to some
tough issues.
Over the course of those two-and-a-half years, perhaps the
knottiest issue we uncovered is the one we are here to talk
about today--the problem of securing our homeland. The emerging
world we came to understand and described in the first of our
three reports has sobering implications for this Nation's
security. That world is one of proliferating dangerous
technologies in the hands of all manners of actors on the world
stage, who never before in history could seriously threaten a
great state such as ours. There are demagogues and tyrants,
zealots and sophisticated international criminals, and those
who are, to put it bluntly, just plain nut cases. We have the
whole panoply of people that we have to be concerned about.
Add to that resentment against the United States because of
our success and the prominence that we have--because we are the
symbol of globalizing trends which are leaving much of the
world behind, and because, frankly, of the arrogance and self-
absorption we sometimes display--this Nation is more likely
than ever before to be a target.
Convinced that the threat is real, dangerous and growing,
we looked for the overall strategy that we could come up with
to address the threat, and found none, nor did we find a
coherent organizational structure designed to implement such a
strategy, should one exist.
So, Mr. Chairman, Senator Feinstein, our Commission took
this issue on in its entirety, and made it our No. 1 national
security concern, which may surprise you. With all of the
things we looked at, this was our No. 1 national security
concern, because we truly believe that, with the enormous
military power we possess, it is the asymmetric threat that an
adversary would be able to bring against this great Nation.
This approach is supported by the principle that authority,
accountability, and responsibility need to be matched. The
President is the only one that meets this principle when it
comes to the overall strategy. Other departmental heads meet
this criteria for their respective functions and missions for
certain functions, namely, border security and consequence
management. We did not find adequate matching of authority,
accountability, responsibility, or, if you will, budget
authority. Accordingly, we proposed a realignment of these
areas to provide the basic tools needed to enhance our security
and to reduce our gaps.
Of particular concern is the gap in capability and in
budgetary resources for these missions. I realize that this
Committee has endeavored to provide oversight and resources to
growing demands on our border activities. We salute your
insight and your resolve in helping these critical activities
to get the funding they need to meet future threats. But much
more is needed.
Thanks, again, for your invitation. I will turn it over now
to Senator Hart.
Chairman Kyl. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. GARY HART, CO-CHAIR OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON
NATIONAL SECURITY, AND FORMER U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
COLORADO
Senator Hart. Mr. Chairman, Senator Feinstein, I join my
colleague, Warren Rudman, in thanking you for your hospitality
and the work that you're doing on what we believe,
collectively, to be, as Senator Rudman has said, the No. 1
security threat to this country in the next 25 years.
We know that you have already put a great deal of effort,
collectively and individually, to examine an agency such as the
Border Patrol, the Customs Service, you and other members of
this subcommittee, as well as the full committee. We want to
share with you our thoughts on why consolidation is extremely
important.
The Customs Service, of course, was originally created, I
think, under Alexander Hamilton as a revenue device, a means by
which we would collect revenues from imports. The role of the
Customs Service has changed enormously. It is now a law
enforcement agency, obviously. The Border Patrol has been
added.
The Coast Guard, which obviously has had a mission of
defending or monitoring our shores for 200 years or more,
carries out its mission. But the fact of the matter is, under
the revolutions now going on in this country and the world, all
of these agencies, individually, are challenged, because none
of them, individually, can answer the threat to this country.
To quantify that threat, I think some figures are
important. These are figures from 1999 and, of course, the
numbers have gone up since then.
Four hundred and seventy five million crossed our borders
in 1999, 125 million vehicles, 16.5 million trucks, 5 million
imported maritime containers, and 21.5 million import shipments
that needed to be monitored for compliance with over 400 laws
and 34 international treaties.
The point is that the volume and velocity of the challenges
to these separate agencies and, added on to that, the terrorist
threat which each of these individual numbers represents, or
could represent, simply overwhelms the maize of 40 or 50
agencies that Senator Feinstein has mentioned, presently trying
in some way or other to deal with this problem.
That's why we have come up with the need for a National
Homeland Security Agency. It is not, by any means, any
imperative on anyone's part of this commission, or collectively
the commission, to create some new Federal agency. We're all
familiar with the resistance to that kind solution. As my
colleague, Senator Rudman, has colorfully said, I think, on
other occasions, the notion of the Tsar doesn't work here any
better than it worked in Russia, so why should we think about
creating some sort of a tsar to oversee this maze of Federal
bureaucracies.
The fact of the matter is, each of these agencies that we
recommend consolidating under the National Homeland Security
Agency, those I have mentioned and those I have not, are
intended to be brought to bear in favor of a strategy which
this Commission strongly recommends. Some of our critics have
already said that we have no strategy for this.
Indeed, we have a strategy for this security agency. It is,
first of all, prevention, finding out the threat, identifying
the threat in very concrete terms, and preventing it from being
carried out.
Second, protecting our borders, if that threat gets as far
as the U.S. borders, either land or sea or air. And then,
finally, responding. If the worst possible thing should happen,
an American city or a collection of American cities being
prepared immediately to respond and limit the damage and take
care of those in need.
It has been said that our idea for a homeland security
agency completely overlooks the state and local component.
That, also, is not the case. We refer in a number of points in
our third report--by the way, this is the third volume of three
reports, the first two laying out the groundwork for this one--
that this homeland security agency must cooperate, in very
detailed ways, with state and local authorities, as the Federal
Emergency Management Agency itself does already.
Finally, there has been criticism, including from the
National Guard itself, about the role we propose for the
National Guard in this new agency. The National Guard is given
a lead, if not the leading role. Certain spokespersons for the
Guard have resisted that on the ground that this will deprive
them of their current mission of supporting expeditionary
forces abroad, follow-on forces and augmenting forces. That is
not our intent at all, and this has been explained in great
detail by General Boyd and other representatives of this
Commission.
We worked with the Guard throughout the preparation of this
report. In fact, those of us who have read the Constitution, as
members of this Subcommittee have done, understand that the
principal mission, not the sole mission, but the principal
mission of the militia in this country, from 1789 forward, has
been the defense of the homeland. So all we're proposing is
that the Guard restore its primary constitutional obligation to
its primary mission in the 21st century.
This is not to deprive the Guard of a role in expeditionary
activities in the future. It is simply to say that they need to
pay attention to their primary constitutional duty.
Mr. Chairman, we are living in a revolutionary time, as we
did in the mid-20th century. The precedent for this Commission
can only be found in 1946 and 1947, the period immediately
following World War II and preceding the cold war. Then a
collection of commissions--no single commission such as ours--
led to the designation of a foreign policy and national
security policy, briefly described as containment of communism.
But that policy led to the creation of the Defense Department,
the United States Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency,
and the statutory framework of the National Security Act of
1947 which gave us the basis for carrying out the cold war for
half-a-century.
The fundamental fact that we all face today is we're no
longer confronted with a cold war. We are confronted with a
totally different world: economic globalization and finance,
world of information and communications technologies, and of
political democratization and integration. All of those, as we
have indicated, cause us to believe, and we know will cause you
to believe, that we must examine every one of our Federal
structures, as we advocate in this report, including those that
presently exist and those that need to exist, to address this
new world.
I join my colleague, Senator Rudman, in paying enormous
compliment to General Charles Boyd, a genuine war hero, and the
superb national security study group, the staff that he put
together, for the work they have done tirelessly for almost 3
years to make this report possible, and I hope to make this
Nation more security.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Kyl. Thank you, Senator Hart.
Representative Hamilton.
STATEMENT OF HON. LEE HAMILTON, COMMISSIONER, U.S. COMMISSION
ON NATIONAL SECURITY, AND FORMER REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA
Representative Hamilton. Thank you very much. I apologize
for being a few minutes late, but I got here--
Chairman Kyl. You didn't miss a thing.
Representative Hamilton. I got here in time enough to hear
both the major part of your statement and Senator Feinstein's
statement. It very quickly became apparent to me that you don't
need much advice from us. You've got a pretty good
understanding of the problem of terrorism and what this Nation
confronts.
I do want to say a word of appreciation to Senators Rudman
and Hart. Senator Rudman read a moment ago the members of the
Commission. If you can get Andy Young and Newt Gingrich to
agree on things, you're doing pretty well. They did it time and
time again. They did it on 50 separate occasions. That's no
small achievement. So we've had very, very good leadership.
I was impressed, too, in the opening statements that you
made, about the emphasis you put on how poorly organized we are
in this government of ours to deal with terrorism, and that's
really the principal point. We believe that a direct attack
upon American citizens, on American soil, is very likely in the
next 25 years, and some of these attacks could be catastrophic.
That's really what drives this recommendation.
We made 50 recommendations in this report overall. Seven of
them were related to terrorism, and that shows you the emphasis
that the Commissioners gave to this problem. We believe, in
short, that homeland security simply has to be addressed with
greater urgency. There is not a single Member of the U.S.
Senate, and there is not a single Member of the U.S. House of
Representatives, who does not want to do all they possibly can
to protect the national security of the United States. We're
saying that you had better pay a lot more attention to how this
government--not just this government, but state and local
governments as well--are organized and financed to deal with
terrorism.
We believe that the U.S. Government is very poorly
organized to deal with these threats, and that the threats are
genuine. So I endorse the statements that my two leaders have
made here. We see, as you do, that the growth of terrorism is
very strong, and the growth of terrorist groups, the
availability of all kinds of weapons of mass destruction and
weapons of mass disruption, the vulnerability of the United
States to all kinds of terrorist threats were very obvious to
us.
Most of our recommendations pertained to organization. Now,
I don't know that we've got it right. It's a complicated matter
in our government. I think we should be given some credit for
addressing in detail how we think the U.S. Government should
organize itself to deal with terrorism. You might have a
different view of it and different opinions on it. You probably
do. I'm not sure that any one set of answers is the answer
But we've made a stab at it, and we've made a stab at it in
very great detail. The central part of it, of course, is the
establishment of the National Homeland Security Agency. You
have already indicated the changes that it would require in the
government. They are very substantial and they hit upon some of
the most sensitive political groups in this country, and it
will not be easy to bring about a reorganization. But we think
it must be done in order to fight more effectively terrorism.
I will conclude there because my role here is kind of
backup to the chairmen, but I fully endorse their leadership
and the report recommendations.
Chairman Kyl. Thank you very much, Representative Hamilton,
and all three of you.
I think probably the best place to start is with some very
general questions that are pretty well explained in the written
report, but I would like to have confirmation of exactly how
you think this would work and how to address some of the
sensitive political issues just identified by Representative
Hamilton. I take your point, Representative Hamilton, that
almost all of us appreciate fairly well the degree and, to some
extent, the nature of the threat. The real question then is
exactly what to do about it.
I would like to have you identify for everyone present what
you think the primary mission of this new agency is.
Specifically, is it to keep terrorists out of the country and,
in that regard, what do you mean by protecting our borders? Is
it to gather intelligence and thereby prevent attacks, since
that's deemed to be probably the most effective way of dealing
with the terrorism problem, before the fact? Is it to gather
information relative to an investigation after an attack? Is it
primarily to deal in a responsive way to the various human
needs, noninvestigative needs, following an attack, or all of
the above? That's A.
And then B, if I could, since you have identified existing
agencies to perform some of these functions, clarify for us
whether these agencies will continue to autonomously provide
the service currently provided, or whether they will
necessarily be changed, as they are to some extent,
incorporated into a new agency, to wit: for example, the
National Guard, will it still have a mission of supplementing
forces abroad, will the Customs Service still deal with the
issues of inspecting cargo coming into the country, and will
the Border Patrol still try to prevent illegal alien smuggling,
drug smuggling and the like?
Senator Rudman. Let me lead off and maybe answer your
questions that way, with all three of us commenting on the
questions, because I think we all have a different portion of
the report that we've worked on and I think you would get a
more complete answer.
To answer your first question, prevention, protection,
response, is what's built into this new agency. However, let me
be very clear that when it comes to prevention, you are quite
right, Mr. Chairman, that in terms of certain kinds of things
that could happen in this country, particularly weapons of mass
destruction, intelligence is the No. 1 factor in doing that.
We do not suggest for a moment that the major intelligence
activity will change from where it is today. The major
intelligence activity resides in the FBI's counterintelligence
department, its so-called National Security Division, and in
the Central Intelligence Agency's divisions overseas,
including, very importantly, their liaison relationships with
foreign intelligence services. So we are not talking about
changing that.
Frankly, as you probably know, I still continue to serve as
Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board. I will tell you that, to the extent I can say anything,
I think they do that very well. It's too bad that most
Americans can't know what they do because they do it well.
Now, once you get beyond that, however, we are talking
about protection and prevention. Let's take the Customs
Service--and all of them, by the way, will have these roles. As
to the Customs Service, Senator Hart read a statistic, which is
a fascinating statistic--I forget the precise number--on how
many million cargo containers come into this country every
year. It shocked all of us to know that not only are a fraction
of those every inspected, for a whole bunch of reasons--and I
suppose technology will change and maybe they'll be easy to
inspect them other than the conventional way--but many of them
are transported huge distances from the port of embarkation.
They might go from San Francisco to Phoenix and be put in a
truck depot and not opened for weeks or months. So there is a
major prevention component with Customs and with the Border
Patrol in both of those instances.
All of these agencies would continue to do the functions
that they do now. The difference is there would be a strategy
and there would be direction and there would be response.
Now, let's talk about response. We believe, and we say so,
that in the event of the unthinkable, a weapon of mass
destruction essentially being imposed upon the people of any
major American city in which the loss of life and property
would dwarf anything we are familiar with, that the only
organization in the U.S. Government that can deal with it, once
that happens, is the United States military.
This is what happens today when we have natural disasters.
We say the Guard is a very important part of that. But somebody
has to plan what you do when it happens. Quite frankly,
although the military spends some time at it, that is not their
primary mission. So this agency would plan, it would prevent,
it would protect, and it would plan the response.
I think I have tried to answer both of your questions.
Chairman Kyl. That's very helpful. Thank you.
Senator Hart.
Mr. Hart. I concur very strongly.
Again, I think the basic answer to the first question is
the agencies that currently have statutory task to perform will
continue to perform them. They will be more closely integrated
in the performance of those tasks, given, as we have indicated,
the volume and velocity of the challenge, and they will be
integrated more closely with the intelligence collection
agencies and services of the government. So they will know, in
real time, where the threat is coming from, how it is likely to
be carried out, rather than just hope that these 40 or 50
agencies that presently exist will talk to each other when the
time comes, when the threat arrives.
Finally, on response, the investigating agencies--you
particularly questioned the investigation of the crime, if you
will; terrorism is a crime--that will continue to be the job of
law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the others. We
don't envision the FBI being folded into the Homeland Security
Agency. It might be, but that's not part of our recommendation.
The investigation of how this matter occurred will happen in
due course, given the established capabilities.
What we're more concerned about in the response is the
human and property damage, particularly the human damage, and
the management of that. The Guard's role here is so important.
As you know, in military terms, we talk about forces being
forward deployed. The forward deployed forces in our homeland
is the National Guard. It's not the 82nd Airborne Division or
the First Marine Division. It's the National Guard, in 2,700
different units. They are the forward deployed forces under our
Constitution for this mission. They are not presently properly
trained or equipped for this mission of response, taking care
of human casualties, and reorganizing communities that have
been terribly damaged by such a threat, but they can be, and
they can be in reasonably short order.
Finally, anticipating a question, Mr. Chairman, the whole
issue of civil liberties is one that we dealt with at great
length, as you can imagine. I will just quote one passage from
our report because it does involve those of you on that side of
the table.
``Congress is crucial as well, for guaranteeing that
homeland security is achieved--'' and this is emphasized--
``within a framework of law that protects the civil liberties
and privacy of American citizens.'' We see you, the Congress,
the representatives of the people, as the defenders of the
people's civil liberties in this respect.
Chairman Kyl. Thank you.
Representative Hamilton. Mr. Chairman, with regard to your
comment on the mission of the National Homeland Security
Agency, I think what impresses me is how dispersed and diffused
the government is today in dealing with the threat of
terrorism. We know how hard it is in this government to get
action unless somebody is in charge. You have got to have
somebody in charge, and you don't have that today.
So the principal recommendation, I think, here is that the
agency will have a leader, that leader will be in the
President's cabinet, and that leader will have the
responsibility to plan and to coordinate and to integrate all
of the activities of government with regard to terrorism.
If you don't make that change, you will not have an
effective attack on terrorism in this country. If you've got 50
people directing the attack on terrorism, you've got nobody
directing it. You have got to concentrate authority, I believe,
in order to get things done in the war against terrorism.
The second point, you asked about the National Guard.
That's a tough one, and it is politically very difficult for
each of you to deal with it. The National Guard today is
equipped to conduct sustained combat overseas missions. What
we're saying in this report is that the primary mission of the
National Guard has to be homeland security. That means, without
any question, that its resources and its organization will have
to change in a major way.
They're onsite already, as Senator Hart has said. We think
it's the natural organization to do it. Every one of us knows
they step in when you have an emergency in your state today, or
a disaster, and they do a marvelous job. We think they're the
key agency here. But it will require a redirection of their
mission.
Chairman Kyl. I've got some specific follow-up questions,
but why don't we go back and forth here, Senator Feinstein, and
I'll give you an opportunity to step in now.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Who would you put in charge? Would it be a cabinet officer,
would it be a military person, would it be an FBI person, would
it be the Vice President?
Senator Rudman. Who in the cabinet would do this?
Senator Feinstein. Yes. You said it should be a cabinet
responsibility.
Senator Rudman. It should be a nominee confirmed by the
U.S. Senate, a civilian, to be secretary of this agency, who
will essentially be the director of all these other agencies
which will be contained therein. It's all in the report, in the
chart and so forth. So we're talking about elevating this.
You know, a good question. If I was sitting where you're
sitting, as Gary and I did for a long time, I would probably
ask me the following question: ``Well, why don't you give it to
DOD?'' Well, the simple answer is (a), they don't want it, they
don't think they ought to have it, because it's a totally
different mission than the mission of the United States
military. And they're right. They understand fully that there
is no one else in this country, in the event of a weapon of
mass destruction being visited on an American city, there is no
one else that can respond. The communications, the
transportation, the medical necessities, the U.S. military is
primed. But they don't want the responsibility of essentially
managing and preparing and preventing, other than the
intelligence they do. That's not what they want.
If you then look at it, you say, ``Well, do you want to put
it over at the FBI and move everybody there? Or do you move it
all under Treasury?'' When you look at all of the options,
which we did, it became very apparent to us that FEMA had the
national organization that we were thinking about, but we're
not talking about putting everybody under FEMA. We're talking
about merging it into a FEMA-like agency, which is thought of
as a Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Well, ``emergency'', I don't know how it's defined in the
statute, but we're now defining it as not only a natural
disaster but man-made disasters.
Senator Feinstein. Because one of the problems, of course,
is that FEMA is going to be up for a big cut. I know first hand
that FEMA is severely taxed. I mean, we have big earthquakes,
we have big fires, big floods. FEMA seems to me to have a major
emergency just about every year, using all of its resources.
You point out in your report that FEMA would be the core of
a new National Homeland Security Agency. I would question that,
in view of what they already have to do.
Senator Rudman. Well, we believe, Senator Feinstein--of
course, you're quite right. I mean, they have a great deal to
do. If I was from California, I would be very concerned about
reducing FEMA, because you seem to have all of those big things
happening out there.
Senator Feinstein. Right.
Senator Rudman. The bottom line is, if you bring in the
other agencies with their budgets, you're not affecting FEMA's
ability because you're going to bring in some additional
budgetary authority for the directorate of this new cabinet-
level agency. It's very small, because you're not talking about
heavily staffing at the top. You're talking about a regional
organization.
Could I just come back to something that Congressman
Hamilton mentioned about the National Guard? What he said was
correct, but I think the Commission says fairly clearly in
their report that we're not telling the Guard that you're
foregoing your traditional role. We're saying you need a dual
role and you need to be cross-trained, because the chances that
you're going to be called on for a homeland emergency, in our
view, is more likely in the foreseeable future than being
deployed overseas.
Senator Feinstein. Could I ask you, Senator Hart, do you
have a figure of how much it would take to fund this new
agency? Mr. Hart. No, we did not--We specifically decided not
to try to get into the budgetary consequences. The issue is,
it's a little like saying the national security of the United
States for the second half of the 20th century will be
containment of communism. Now, how much is that going to cost?
There was no way to know.
When George Kennan wrote that famous phrase and it became
the central guiding principle of our National security and
defense policy for 50 years, it would have been impossible in
1947 or 1948 to say what that's going to cost. As it turned
out, it cost trillions and trillions of dollars. I think this
is for you all to work out.
Let me follow up on something that Senator Rudman just
said. We contemplate very clearly this to be a civilian agency.
In our report we say, given also what he said earlier about the
role of the Defense Department, its subordination--``it'' being
DOD--its subordination to civil authority needs to be clearly
defined in advance.
You have the bureaucratic problem; you've got the budgetary
problem; and you also have the constitutional problem. This
committee, of all the committees in Congress, knows there is
such a thing called the ``posse comitatus'' act, passed,
curiously enough, after a very close national election in the
century before last, 1876, that said you cannot use the
military in this country for peacekeeping purposes, in effect.
That was very clearly and strongly founded in constitutional
principle from the 18th century.
That principle permeates our thinking about this agency,
and hopefully will permeate yours, as I'm sure it will. You
cannot make this a military mission. That's why the Guard's
role is curious, historically curious. It is important to note
here that one aspect of what Senator Rudman said about the
traditional role of the Guard, the traditional role of the
Guard, in the late 18th and throughout the 19th century, was
homeland defense. It only became an expeditionary force, if you
will, in World War I and World War II, actually more World War
II and the Korean War and thereafter, and now in peacekeeping
roles in the late 20th and early 21st century. So its
traditional role and constitutional mission is defense of the
homeland.
Senator Rudman. I just want to add one thing, to try to
give you some sort of answer to your question.
What we say is, if you take all of these agencies we're
talking about, take their budgetary authority as it presently
exists, calculate what essentially the cabinet directorate will
cost, essentially the staff of who's directing it, the deputy
directors and so forth, that will give you a pretty good idea
of the number. In other words, I'm talking about a huge number.
Now, once they start working and decide a lot of training
and planning has to take place, you could need a lot of money
for states and localities to get that done. It is not done
today. Some cities and states do a good job, others do none at
all.
Senator Feinstein. Representative Hamilton, you also
recommend that the Border Patrol and the Customs Service be
part of this Homeland Security Agency. Those of us,
particularly from the southwest, see a very severely taxed
Border Patrol. As a matter of fact, I think for the last 4
years we have added a thousand new Border Patrol agents to the
budget every year, but there still isn't enough. The same thing
with Customs. And that is just to do those agencies'
traditional jobs.
I think you made a good point about the number of people
coming in, the number of vehicles, the number of ships--I mean,
the Nation is like a sieve, basically. It's very hard, because
of the established precedence, to make changes.
I would see considerable opposition coming from Justice to
taking Border Patrol and Customs and putting it into a new
agency. Mr. Hamilton. I suspect you'll see considerable
opposition to a good many parts of this report, Senator. I
don't underestimate the political problems that you and others
would confront.
I would like to comment first on FEMA, if I may, and then
on the others.
I think the Commission really does give a vote of
confidence to FEMA. We greatly respect the work that it does. I
think every Member of Congress appreciates how important FEMA
is in dealing with natural disasters that hit our respective
states. We think they've done a good job of that. So it's a
very genuine and logical concern that you would say to
yourself, ``if it ain't broke, why fix it?'' It's doing a good
job.
But our sense is that, if the premise here is that we've
got to reorganize the government because of the terrorist
threat, then you have to draw together all of the expertise in
the government to deal with that threat. It is so imminent, it
is so powerful a threat, that we've got to rethink the way we
put this government together.
So we asked ourselves, which of the present agencies have a
major responsibility relating to terrorism. We think that FEMA
does in this respect, and we expand this. But FEMA today deals
with disasters. If you have a terrorist strike, like Oklahoma
City, you have a disaster and you have to be able to deal with
that. So it's a logical extension, it seems to me, to have FEMA
deal with that kind of a problem, because they do a good job of
it.
But it is also true that, if you're going to deal with
terrorists, you have got to watch what kinds of goods and
services come into this country, and you've got to keep an eye
on what kind of people come into the country. Rather than deal
with that as a separate, isolated problem--with the people over
here in the Border Patrol and the goods and services over here
in the Customs Service--you had better get some kind of a plan
to integrate and coordinate all of this or you're not going to
do an effective job, because there is obvious overlap in all of
these things.
So it is true, that each of these suggestions with regard
to the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, the Customs Service,
there is an understandable esprit in each of those
organizations because they do an excellent job. But they are
also operating on a small part of the total problem. You need
something overall to coordinate it in order to make it more
effective.
Senator Hart. May I add--
Senator Feinstein. Senator, before you answer--you know,
even the name, the National Homeland Security Agency, has a
certain ``Third Reich'' tinge to it--when you take all these
agencies and you consolidate them into a homeland-security kind
of agency, I wonder what kind of criticism will come on that
kind of analysis.
Senator Hart. I'm sure there will be some. We place no
great emphasis on the name. I am sure that such an agency is
going to be created because it must be created. What it's
called will be up to all of you, of course.
I think you have to take your question and stand it on its
head. If the worst possible thing happens, as Congressman
Hamilton has said, we all believe more likely than not that it
will. It's not a question of whether. It's when. And it's not a
question of where, but how many.
Will the American people then want to hear from their
representatives, when we are unprepared, whose response was,
``Well, Justice didn't want to turn over its jurisdiction'', or
we didn't want to interfere with existing bureaucratic
relationships? That answer just won't wash.
Senator Rudman. Incidentally, Senator Feinstein, each of
these agencies would keep its name. We're not saying they
suddenly get stripped of their identity. They keep their total
identity, as do the divisions now in DOT or in Justice, such as
the FBI. They would keep their identity, their budget
authority, their structure, their system. The difference is,
they would be part of an agency that is dealing with a problem
that they all deal with.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Chairman Kyl. Let's go back and forth here.
What about dividing the function into the two seemingly
logical components? One is the prevention and the other is
dealing with the disaster after the fact, with prevention being
primarily the law enforcement responsibility--I mean, that's
what our police do. They prevent crime and then they
investigate crime and try to prosecute.
The Department of Justice has primary responsibility here,
the FBI, the National Infrastructure Protection Center located
in the FBI, in the Department of Justice, and the FBI itself in
terms of its intelligence gathering, plus the CIA. And then you
have the border protection and Border Patrol, Customs, the
Coast Guard. Those are the entities that both physically
protect the border and try to gather the intelligence and
investigate after the fact.
Then you have the other component, which is the disaster
itself, the aftermath of the disaster and how to deal with it.
The need to have FEMA as the coordinating agency of local
police and fire, the National Guard, if that's appropriate, and
for the unthinkable maximum catastrophe, not only the National
Guard but perhaps other military assets, as you point out.
What about dividing it into two components so that you, in
effect, have two umbrella functions, both dealing with
terrorism, but the two separate aspects of terrorism?
Senator Rudman. My response would be that the prevention
function is already split substantially, because the
intelligence agencies will not be part of this new agency.
In terms of pure prevention, history has taught us that it
is very seldom that it's an accident, that we discover that
something is about to happen that's going to be very
deleterious to our health. Normally, as you know, from the
briefings you have had, this comes from very diligent
intelligence work, here and overseas, done by traditional
intelligence agencies, including our liaison relationships with
foreign services, that lead us to this.
The prevention that we are talking about in this particular
agency has to do with the prevention of what comes across our
borders. This is a serious problem. I don't like to talk about
some of these things, except they've been written about in
national magazines and in the public sector.
Let me just tell you why I don't think that works and what
we're talking about. Unless you have a coordinated prevention
activity against goods coming into this country, that could
conceal things that should not come into this country, with all
those people who are charged with that, the Coast Guard,
Customs, Border Patrol, essentially working in concert, I mean
you probably are not going to get it done because you won't
have a consistent strategy.
Chairman Kyl. Can I just interrupt and say that point is
crystal clear and I, for one, couldn't agree more. I think
that's one of the real values of your report here.
But my question was, why couldn't you have that
coordination in organization No. 1, or A, the border protection
organization, which takes these Customs and Border Patrol
functions and the Coast Guard and so on, and then have a
separate disaster response organization which is the FEMA-led
organization?
Senator Rudman. You might. I'm not going to--I just want to
finish one point, though--
Chairman Kyl. I'm sorry I interrupted.
Senator Rudman.--and then turn it over to my colleagues.
You know, I hadn't thought about that, but certain, we
didn't invent the wheel here. We're delighted to stimulate
conversation and discussion and let the Congress work its will.
I would strongly recommend that this Committee look at two
pieces of legislation introduced in the House, one by
Congressman Thornberry and one by Congressman Skelton, which
takes a slightly different approach. But they are both very
well worth looking at, and they are based to a large extent on
this report that we've done.
But to get back to my point--and I take no position on
this; I have a position--but we're talking a lot about missile
defense, and we're talking about spending a large amount of
money for it, and maybe we should. But let me submit to you,
Mr. Chairman, and Senator Feinstein, that if somebody wanted to
really do that to us, there's an easier way. There's a way to
do it without leaving a return address. What is it, 21 million
cargo containers coming to this country, the majority not
looked at? How many ships come into this country and dock in
San Francisco harbor, in New York harbor, in Boston harbor and
Portland, ME and sit there?
Unless you have something going on that is focused on that,
the terrorist, at least the state actor, not the non-state
actor--even the non-state actor in some of these cases--but a
state actor is going to find it's going to be better for their
health to do it without leaving a so-called return address.
Therefore, if you're going to have a truly effective prevention
function, it ought to have a strategy and a coordination.
That's why we recommend it.
However, Mr. Chairman, what you recommend might well work,
as long as those principles are kept in mind.
Representative Hamilton. Mr. Chairman, we're dealing with a
single phenomenon, and the phenomenon is terrorism. The
question is, how do you secure the homeland and how do you
organize yourself best to do that.
You put forward a very logical solution, and my reaction is
it's an awful lot better than what we've got now, the way you
would organize it.
But I would go further. I don't think a separation between
prevention and response is advisable, because I don't think the
U.S. Government does a very good job on interagency
coordination. My experience with the Federal Government is that
you have to have somebody in charge. When you have interagency
or interdepartmental groups meeting, nobody is in charge unless
the President is there or his representative--and that's not
usually the case in interagency meetings. Therefore, you have
nobody in charge and everybody is protecting their turf, and
you do not have the kind of sharing of information,
communication, intelligence, coordination and integration that
you really deal with the phenomenon.
I, then, think you're better to have a single agency here,
but your proposal is a lot better than what we've got because
what you've got today is 40 or 50 or 60 agencies out here, all
going their own way, and you cannot get interagency
coordination under that circumstance, no matter how smart you
are.
Chairman Kyl. Could I ask you this question, then, just so
it's clear in my mind.
Let's say that you have either one or two agencies--leaving
that issue aside--but you have a cabinet level officer in
charge of what is currently called the Coast Guard, the Border
Patrol, Customs, and various intelligence gathering activities
that relate to that as well, which has as one of its missions
the ferreting out and protection against terrorism. But those
same entities have an existing function as well, which
presumably would remain as part of their mission. In the case
of Customs, inspecting cargo for other purposes as well,
collecting duties and so on, the Border Patrol dealing with the
influx of illegal aliens as well as drug smuggling and so on,
and Coast Guard, the drug smuggling and other activities that
it engages in.
Is it your view that [a], all of those missions would still
remain missions, in addition to the terrorist mission, and [b],
that they would all perform those missions under the new
jurisdiction of this new entity, rather than the Treasury,
Justice, and Coast Guard, Transportation?
Senator Hart. Yes. I think the answer, Mr. Chairman, is
yes. I don't think you can move part of these agencies. That's
inviting bureaucratic chaos, I think. I think that if you move
the agency there would probably be, who knows--you all would
decide this. A new directorate for the sub-responsible official
for the terrorist threat under that agency head reports to the
head of the Homeland Security Agency, whatever it's called.
Chairman Kyl. And in the case of the other--Let's assume we
divided this into two pieces, rather than have one overarching,
just for the sake of discussion here. The other piece is the
aftermath, the disaster response.
Now, there, of course, you mentioned the local responders.
Obviously, they're still local, but they're coordinated better
from someone nationally. But you have the National Guard and it
would still remain with its current organizational structure,
presumably, but there would be some general in charge of the
terrorist response function of the National Guard within this
overall organization, is that correct?
Senator Rudman. And the regular forces response.
Chairman Kyl. Right. I mean, maybe you have two--
Senator Rudman. You might have only one who would have to
have liaison with both.
Chairman Kyl. Right.
Senator Rudman. Let me make one comment, though, before we
leave this subject. I think it's one that you will quickly,
knowing your jurisdictional responsibilities, recognize.
You know, I had the pleasure of either chairing or being
the Ranking Member of the State, Commerce, Justice Subcommittee
of Appropriations for a long time--in fact, Senator Hollings
and I used to play musical chairs, depending on who was in the
majority. It was very much of a bipartisan committee--
Chairman Kyl. We still can't make up our minds.
[Laughter.]
Senator Rudman.--dealing with some pretty interesting
issues. I will tell you that, from my observation, agencies
like Customs, a part of Treasury, Border, part of Justice,
Coast Guard, part of Transportation, are kind of the ``poor
cousins'' within those agencies, and they really are--
Chairman Kyl. You won't get any argument from us there.
Senator Rudman. You're going to be very, very fortunate if
the cabinet officer in charge goes down there and says
``hello'' once every year, let alone get around to the various
stations where people are working.
We think this is a national security issue of paramount
importance. It ought to have strong leadership, strong
strategy, and strong organization.
I will tell you, without quoting anyone--because they would
probably find their desk cleaned out tonight--that a number of
folks we have talked to who work for these places would love to
be part of an organization that cared about them and their
mission.
You know, as far as the difficulty that Congressman
Hamilton was referring to, and what you referred to, Senator
Feinstein--and you're quite right--I would tell you that in
reading the history of 1947, 1948, 1949, when there was going
to no longer be a Secretary of War who had the authority, or a
Secretary of the Navy who had the authority, the Army was going
to lose the Air Force, you would think you were cutting the
Nation in half--I mean, the debate that went on here in these
halls and in these rooms.
I think this is hard, but more difficult reorganizations
have been undertaken in the national interest.
Chairman Kyl. Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
You're right. I think one of the problems with Customs
right now that it's kind of a stepchild in Treasury. I think it
has a mixed mission. Treasury Secretaries generally want it to
more of a trade facilitation agency rather than a law
enforcement agency, so you have that natural conflict.
I know when I came here we had a trade man in charge of
Customs, and then Ray Kelly, who, of course, had a law
enforcement orientation, became the new Director of Customs. So
I can understand taking Customs and putting it into this
security agency. I think there is a good fit. But I think when
you take the Border Patrol you've got a possible problem there.
Now, having said that, there has been discussion about
taking the Justice agencies dealing with immigration-related
concerns and doing a split there between enforcement and non-
enforcement responsibilities. Maybe that could happen. And I
see a natural with the National Guard.
Let me ask this question. If you involve the Coast Guard,
do you have a posse comitatus problem?
Senator Rudman. I don't believe so. They have a very
substantial law enforcement authority now, and have for a long
time, the enforcement of maritime laws, drug smuggling,
espionage. They are not considered traditionally a defense
agency. They are considered something quite different. I do not
think posse comitatus has the same relationship with the--
Senator Feinstein. You see, part of the problem, too, with
Customs, is that it has a much broader responsibility. All
kinds of contraband comes into the country, agricultural
contraband, drug contraband, money contraband, you know, as
well as weapons. It's a two-edged sword. There is virtually no
transparency today in weapons trafficking. As you know, the
United States is a big small arms supplier and the largest
weapons seller in the world today is the United States.
I have problems with including FEMA in a homeland security
agency, but I can see an agency where you have the National
Guard, you have the Coast Guard, you've got Customs, you've got
perhaps some connection into the Border Patrol or an adjunct to
Border Patrol that deals with these issues, under a cabinet
level, anti-terrorist security-type infrastructure.
My big concern is that I've had a hard time really getting
the American people to take terrorism seriously. Our national
identity is not to be protectionist. It's to be open: everybody
visits, everybody comes, everybody goes, and nobody wants to
worry about whether documents are counterfeit-proof. We also
get into this in other areas with green cards and things, and
there's a horror where people are worried about national
identification cards. So I think there's a fine line that this
agency would have to tread, to avoid giving goose-bumps to the
American people.
Senator Hart. We had the same problem throughout the cold
war, at the beginning and throughout, and that was the division
in this country as to how big that threat was, how real it was.
You know, I suppose it divided us in a way, all the way up
until the fall of the wall. There was resistance in creating a
Department of Defense at all, and certainly a resistance in
creating a permanent intelligence agency. People resisted that
on civil liberties grounds and so forth. I think that struggle,
that tension in American society, continued throughout the--
Senator Feinstein. But the American people don't have the
ability to have a classified briefing on terrorist cells in
this country, and once you've had that briefing, you can't
really discuss it with them, either. Therefore, how you can get
national support for a homeland security agency is of great
interest to me.
Senator Hart. There's only one person that can do that, and
that's the commander in chief, the President of the United
States.
Senator Rudman. There's no question in my mind that you
focus in on an extraordinarily difficult subject for anybody in
public office, and that is, how do you convince the American
people that the year 2001 is very different than the years
past, that there are people who cannot assault us in a
conventional military way and would like to find a way that was
asymmetrical, nonconventional, to hurt us.
Some people who are experts in the field, academics and
others, have said to us you will never have people understand
it until it happens. That's a horrible thought. But I can only
think of your State, Senator Feinstein, and all of a sudden
people take for granted all these lights and the air
conditioning, and those who live in rural areas, their water
pumps, nobody even thinks about it until suddenly there's a
major shortage. Then the area goes into some sort of an
outrage, a panic, how did this happen.
What we are talking about, Mr. Chairman, Senator Feinstein,
is very different than that. We are talking about a major blow
against a major American city, and we think this government
ought to look at it very closely.
Of all the things we looked at, if anyone told me when I
took on this assignment 3 years ago--I thought we would look at
the organization of the military and the CIA, the State
Department, and we did. We did all of those things. But if
anybody told me that the No. 1 concern of this diverse group of
Americans, including several four-star flag officers who had
served this country so well, including Chuck Boyd, would be
that homeland security was the No. 1 threat to this country in
the next 25 years, I would have been very, very surprised. But
we came to that conclusion.
Chairman Kyl. Well, that's the headline for the press
release.
[Laughter.]
Senator Rudman. We don't issue any.
Chairman Kyl. But your point is well taken, that part of
this is an education process.
I have a question that I kind of was saving until last, and
I don't want to ask it yet, but it has to do with how we
persuade our Congressional colleagues on how to give up
jurisdiction so there's coordination in the Congress as well.
Think about that for a moment.
But do you have recommendations--because we're just as
diffuse in our organization here, as you well know, as the
executive branch is--do you have any ideas about the increase
in expenditures that will be necessary to meet these needs,
both generally -because I'm sure the existing functions of
these organizations, like Customs and Border Patrol and so on,
are going to have to continue to be funded at increased levels
just to do what they currently do.
Secondly, specifically with regard to intelligence, and I
especially address this to Senator Rudman, but either of the
other two are also able to get into that, not in terms of
actual dollars but some kind of percentage increase, because
you make that recommendation, and yours is not the only
commission to recommend a greater intelligence commitment,
which takes dollars.
Senator Rudman. My view on the intelligence commitment in
particular, or the commitment--
Chairman Kyl. Well, both. I was asking generally about what
kind of a cost you might associate with the creation of this
new entity and the performance of its function well--I mean,
when you talk about some kind of mechanism for inspecting a lot
of cargo holds and so on, obviously that's going to be a new
commitment. And then, second, specifically as to the
intelligence function.
Senator Rudman. I have felt for a long time that, although
the intelligence numbers are not known in detail, they were
known a couple of years ago, the top line, and they haven't
been published since.
But I have been a strong advocate, to anyone who would
listen, that we need a substantial--I'm talking maybe as much
as a quarter increase across the major intelligence agencies,
of whom, as you know, Mr. Chairman, the CIA is the smallest of
those agencies.
Your second question is very difficult. I would have to
answer it parenthetically this way. You are in a better
position to know currently what is needed to buildup Customs
and Border Patrol, to take those two--certainly the Border
Patrol--to meet its current function. You have some thought
about that because you've been doing it. So I won't deal with
that. But to do this incremental function, I think it's a
fairly small increment because they would be doing much of this
in terms of what they're doing already. When you're inspecting
cargo for contraband, you're inspecting it for weapons of mass
destruction as well. I don't think you're talking about a huge
amount of money for those agencies. I think you are talking
about some money for a directorate.
Chairman Kyl. Well, the directorate would probably be the
smallest amount.
Senator Rudman. Very small.
Chairman Kyl. But the operational part, as you point out,
as Senator Hart pointed out, we inspect only a fraction of--I
mean, those were startling statistics, the number of cars, the
number of people--
Senator Rudman. It's unbelievable.
Chairman Kyl. Right. And we can today only inspect a
fraction because of the huge costs associated with that.
Now, we are developing some relatively sophisticated
equipment which makes it a lot easier. That will also cost
money. So if we do this right, I'll bet you, if we increased by
an order of magnitude the amount of money available to Coast
Guard, Customs, and to some extent, Border Patrol, for just
these kinds of inspections, we would also have more than an
order of magnitude increase in confiscation of contraband,
including drugs, arms, et cetera, as well as have a lot better
handle on finding terrorist equipment or people.
Senator Rudman. You're in a better position to know that,
certainly today, than I am. But I would make this observation.
Years ago, when I was sitting where you're sitting, if you look
at those expenditures compared to the other expenditures of
this government, and what they can bring us in returns, it's a
relatively small amount of money.
Chairman Kyl. Could I make just one other point before one
of you make it, and that is, of course, while most of the work
is tough, gumshoe kinds of intelligence work, we did, in fact,
stumble upon something, and it was the Customs Service which
stumbled upon the illegal entry into the country from
Vancouver, Canada into the United States, which then led to,
through some very good intelligence work, the information that
enabled us to stop certain terrorist activities that related to
foreign terrorist cells.
Senator Hart. We didn't have the staff capability to do a
complete budget of this new agency. I can see one area of
increased expenditure would be in the response area, frankly,
and that is for the acquisition of mobile hospitals, portable
communication systems in the affected areas. We had those
during the cold war. We had buried kind of container-sized
small hospitals underground throughout the United States. We
might need to have some capability of that sort. But in the
grand scheme of things, it's budgetarily not that much.
On the role of Congress, you did, in fact, touch a
sensitive nerve. There were four members of this Commission who
were former Members of Congress, both House and Senate, and we
grappled with the Congressional problem. In Recommendations 46
through 49, we, in effect, say Congress, get your act together.
There's one in 48 that says Congress should rationalize its
current Committee structure so that it best serves U.S.
national security objectives. Specifically, it should merge the
current authorizing committees and the relevant appropriation
subcommittees.
Senator Rudman. That's on page 111, by the way.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Kyl. My question was, do you have any suggestion
to us as to how we can override the natural turf protection of
our colleagues so that they can posit it all within the
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, before--
Senator Rudman. I would answer this way, Mr. Chairman. With
great determination.
[Laughter.]
Representative Hamilton. I think probably as an initial
step, what you would have to consider is some kind of a special
ad hoc committee, made up of the various committees that have
jurisdiction, and have them engage the question of homeland
security, and then determine what kind of changes need to be
made in the Congress.
I wanted to take your question on costs. One of the
prerogatives of serving on a commission like this is that you
don't have to deal with money problems. You do there. Nor do
you have to deal with the priority question of all of these
competing priorities that come to you. We didn't have to deal
with all of that.
I have seen the figure that we now spend about $12 billion
a year dealing with homeland security, in a very broad sense.
That's intelligence, FBI, DOD and everything else. My view of
all of this on costs, in a general way, is that the primary
recommendations we make really are organizational. They are not
huge costs, but there are some costs involved. I suspect they
would not be more than a few billion, two or three billion
dollars per year, for a period of years, to meet the kind of
problems we're confronting. In other words, we're not talking
about huge new expenditures, I don't believe. We are talking
about major and very difficult organizational changes.
What it all comes down to, in my mind, is a pretty simple
question: how serious do you think this problem is? If you
think, as Senator Feinstein says, what the American people
think is not a big deal, then we're flapping in the breeze
here. Our recommendations are worthless.
On the other hand, if you take the premise that we took on
the commission, that this is the No. 1 national security
problem, you are then prepared to make all kinds of
organizational changes and resource allocation changes on the
basis of that premise. It all depends on your premise.
Senator Feinstein. Could I just say one thing?
You may have misunderstood me, Congressman. What I was
saying was it is difficult to make the case for reforming our
counterterrorism policy without violating classified
information.
Representative Hamilton. I understand the burden of
political leadership is substantial here. It is not hard to
make the case of the World Trade bombing. It is not hard to
make the case of the Oklahoma City bombing. It is not hard to
make the case in my home State of Indiana, where you have a
reservoir that furnishes water to the entire city of
Indianapolis that is totally unprotected, and that all you've
got to do is step up to that reservoir and toss an item this
size into that reservoir and you bring down the entire city. It
is not hard to make the case that a computer whiz bang who's 15
years of age can screw up the Pentagon computer systems. Those
are not hard to make.
I don't think it's hard to make the case that the
sophistication of the terrorist today is miles from what it was
a few years ago. I don't think it's an easy case, but I think
you can make that case. I think it's the responsibility of
political leadership to try to make the case.
Senator Feinstein. You also discuss State Department
reorganization in this report. You make the point that, because
of difficulties within the State Department, the department has
been weakened.
But I'm curious, how does that relate to the security
apparatus that you're proposing?
Senator Hart. I think to a person we concluded that the
State Department is becoming dysfunctional. It is simply not
dealing with the world of the 21st century. It's not structured
to deal with the world of the 21st century, not just the
terrorist threat or its role in dealing with that, but its
entire mission.
We have focused, by virtue of the mandate of this
subcommittee, on terrorism, homeland security and so on. We
think the entire national security apparatus of this government
must be overhauled and reformed in light of a new world. Our
first report was entitled, ``A New World Coming''. It's already
here. But we're still dealing with the world as if it were the
cold war world of the 20th century, and it's not. It's changing
every day.
The State Department is not properly structured, internally
or in its outreach function, to deal with that world. We lay
out some guidelines and discussed those personally with
Secretary Powell, and he took great interest in our
recommendations because he has concluded himself, very early
on, that he's dealing with an agency. He's being told by career
Foreign Service officers in the agency that it's dysfunctional.
That's almost not in dispute any more. The question is what to
do about it. We have offered one blue print.
But it is very hard to find anyone to step up publicly out
of that Department and say, ``we're doing a great job and we
shouldn't change a thing.'' They might say it inside, but
they're not about to say it outside, and certainly not to you.
Senator Feinstein. We have just gotten copies of both the
Skelton and the Thornberry bills. Does the Commission have a
preference?
Senator Rudman. We haven't had a chance to look at them in
detail. One of them just came out recently. The Commission is
going to get them circulated in the next few days.
I know, when I first looked at Congressman Thornberry's, I
thought he was headed in the right direction. I haven't had a
chance to look at Ike Skelton's that closely, but we will, and
we'll tell you what we think.
Senator Hart. By the way, unlike many other commissions, we
are continuing on, not forever, you'll be happy to know, but
under General Boyd's direction, we turn money back to the
Federal Government, even though we traveled to 25 or so
countries around the world--
Chairman Kyl. This is outrageous.
[Laughter.]
Representative Hamilton. One thing we do is we really try
to strengthen the Department of State with our recommendations.
We think the Secretary of State should be the principal foreign
policy adviser to the President. We think that the National
Security Adviser should play a less visible role, more of a
coordinating role, and not be the principal adviser.
We've got a lot of very controversial recommendations in
here with regard to the Department of State as well. We do put
out a very detailed plan of reorganization. We think it would
be better than what you now have. But there are many different
ways to approach that question. But the bottom line is, we want
to strengthen the Department of State and the role of the
Secretary of State, and we're quite encouraged by the way the
Bush administration and Secretary Powell are developing that
aspect of their foreign policy mechanism.
Senator Rudman. In fact, the National Security Council
model--not the subject of this hearing at all, but you might be
interested--is remarkably very close to what we recommended. We
take no credit for it. They obviously had in mind putting that
in place based on a lot of folks who were witnesses, if you
will, before us. Dr. Rice's role is very important and
different than it's been in the past.
Chairman Kyl. I think both of us are ready to conclude this
hearing. But we're going to need your continued input and help.
We appreciate the fact that you have some continuing role and
would very much appreciate the ability to visit with your staff
as well because of the significant amount of work that they
have put in for the evaluation of not only the legislation
already introduced, but to help us put things together.
I must say that the final result may not look exactly like
what you have proposed, but clearly, the thought you put into
this and the recommendations will generate the conversation
that will certainly, at least, I hope generate a response that
we can, at the end of the day, be proud of here.
With that, Senator Feinstein, any other closing remarks?
Senator Feinstein. Yes, Mr. Chairman. My view is that we
are not ready, we are not prepared, we are disorganized. We
don't really understand this world of terrorism. And terrorism
is antithetical to American values because it's so bloody
cowardly. So there is a disconnect there.
Having said that--and I can only speak for myself--I think
we need to do some things. I think we need to sit down and take
counterterrorism policy in a different direction. I think we
need to put together a better way of functioning. So my mind is
open and I would like to work toward proposal that makes
practical sense, is realistic, and has the critical mass--
though I hate that phrase--to move the proposal forward. I
think it would be imperative that we work with you, that we
work with others who have become heavily involved in this
field, and I would think we're in for a long-term haul. But I
think we need to do it.
Both Senator Kyl and I have had briefings, and I think
we're of a like mind, that we're not where we might be, not
where we should be, that there are better ways of doing it.
Maybe we ought to just get cracking and look at them and try to
put something together.
Chairman Kyl. I totally concur. You might be aware that we
tried a modest, a very modest approach at an anti-terrorism
bill at the end of last session and were unsuccessful in
persuading our colleagues of the urgency of it, as well as the
efficacy of its provisions. And it was really modest.
Senator Rudman. Mr. Chairman, let me just respond to both
of you.
This Commission not only has a small staff that is still in
place, but we use a working group of 20 of the great experts in
their fields in this country, academic and otherwise. Any help
that you or your staff needs, General Boyd assures me we can
furnish it, in any subject that we have covered in our report.
I hope you will call on us.
Chairman Kyl. We certainly will.
Senator Hart. Mr. Hart. Mr. Chairman, two observations.
One, by and large, the media has taken this report seriously. I
think there is a little confusion as to whether or not this is
just another commission and may not have gotten the
perspective. There have been one or two major news agencies
that for some reason have not paid as much attention to this
report as they should have. We're hopeful that they will. That
is also, as you well know, part of the education process of the
people in this country.
Finally, if I may, with your permission, I would like to
amend a previous answer regarding the role of the National
Guard by a quotation from the new commander in chief, President
Bush. He said to the Guard, within the past several weeks, ``As
threats to America change, your role will continue to change.
The National Guard and Reservists will be more involved in
homeland security, confronting acts of terrorism, and the
disorder our enemies may try to create. I welcome the important
part you will play in protecting our Nation and its people.''
So, for those who have taken issue with us on this
question, I think the President of the United States
understands very clearly the direction we should be going.
Chairman Kyl. Thank you, and thanks for that clarification.
Thank you very much for your testimony and we very much look
forward to working with you on this important problem.
With that, this meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:36 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[A submission for the record follows:]
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
Statement of Gary Hart, Warren Rudman, Lee Hamilton, and Donald Rice,
Members of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century,
Mr. Chairman,
We are honored to be here today on behalf of the U.S. Commission on
National Security/21st Century, which, as you know, submitted its final
Phase III Report on January 31st. As you also know, this federal
Commission was chartered to undertake the most comprehensive
examination of the national security apparatus of the United States
Government since the passage of the National Security Act of 1947.
It has done so. The Commission examined national security in its
broadest sense, not ``defense'' as traditionally defined. We looked
well beyond budgetary and election cycles, out to a quarter century. We
decided among ourselves that we owed the American people our best, not
the most easily agreed, solutions to the problems we face.
The Phase III Report recommends an integrated program of reform
built on a sound analytical foundation, based on a single key premise,
and shaped by a unitary core principle.
That foundation consists of the first two phases of our work: a
thorough analysis of the future global security environment and the
development of a U.S. National Security Strategy to deal with that
environment. That foundation generated the premise that habits
hardwired into government during a half-century of Cold War, grown
bureaucratic and lethargic, now inhibit our capacity to understand and
manage new challenges and opportunities.
Those habits must be replaced by a new principle: that a culture of
strategic thinking and action permeate the U.S. national security
establishment. That principle, however, requires that there be a
coherent strategy process and a sound organizational structure for
national security--and right now we have neither. We have not had in
recent years an adequate top-down process of integrated strategy
formulation, where priorities were determined and maintained, and where
resources were systematically matched to priorities. There has been
almost no effort to undertake functional budgeting analysis for
problems that spread over the responsibilities of many Executive Branch
departments and agencies--the result being that it is very difficult
for Congress to have a sense of what an administration is doing with
respect to major national security objectives. There has been no
systematic effort from the NSC to direct the priorities of the
intelligence community, to align them with the priorities of national
strategy.
The Commission has made several recommendations with regard to this
larger, generic problem. We believe that significant policy innovations
cannot be generated or sustained in the absence of managerial reform.
In our view, the need for such a process and structure is urgent,
and the stakes are high. In the world we have left, for example, the
designs of other states occupied us. In the world we have entered,
political forces both above and below the state are increasingly
important, and some of them are very dangerous. To deal with the
specter of mass-casualty terrorism on American soil, for example, we
urge the U.S. Government to realign and rationalize its approach to
homeland security. We propose the consolidation of several existing
assets into a National Homeland Security Agency, with cabinet status
and a director who is a statutory advisor to the National Security
Council. By bringing the Federal Emergency Management Agency together
with the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol, and the Customs Service--and
by combining the government's dispersed cyber-security programs, as
well--the whole of our effort will exceed the sum of the parts. Only by
planning ahead, too, can the assets of the Department of Defense be
engaged in homeland security without jeopardizing core constitutional
principles.
We will return to this proposal in a moment, for it is clearly the
focus of this hearing today. But since the Phase III Report is an
internally integrated program of reform, predicated on the centrality
of strategy, it is not possible to appreciate fully our proposal for a
National Homeland Security Agency without the proper context. That
context includes the Commission's proposals to reform the State
Department, the Defense Department, government personnel systems, and
the Congress, too.
Thus, in the world we have left, the strength of our adversaries
concentrated our attention. In the world we have entered, the weakness
of other countries is among our greatest problems. We need a State
Department--and an intelligence community--sophisticated and adept at
anticipating and preventing conflict, economic instability, and
terrorist mayhem. The Commission thus recommends major changes to the
crippled and resource-starved State Department that exists today, and
it recommends new emphases in intelligence efforts as well. We also
urge that the Secretary of the Treasury be made a statutory member of
the National Security Council, for a preventive strategy must
incorporate fully the economic dimension of statecraft to succeed in
the era ahead.
In the world we have left, too, mass and might constituted the
sinews of national power. In the world we have entered, knowledge and
agility are vital. This Commission views U.S. shortcomings in science
policy and education as national security problems. We recommend major
investments to bolster science and mathematics teaching, and a doubling
of the public research and development budget within this decade. In
this light, we also recommend major changes in how the Defense
Department does business for, as it stands now, the Pentagon is
manifestly incapable of transforming American military capabilities to
accord with 21st century conditions. It is so massive and mighty that
it is muscle-bound; it is not flexible and agile enough even by half.
The Commission also urges major initiatives to stem an incipient
crisis of competence in government due to looming personnel
deficiencies in the Civil Service, the Foreign Service, and the Armed
Forces. And we call upon Congress to facilitate Executive Branch reform
and to put its own two houses in order. To that end, we recommend that
authorization and allocation processes be combined into single
committees and subcommittees.
We four and the other ten members of this Commission together
represent a diverse array of political views and professional
experiences. Yet, we propose fifty major recommendations for change
without a single dissent or reservation, suggesting that our road map
for reform is politically practical. And reform we must. The
consequences of embracing the status quo are more dangerous to this
nation than any likely external foe. If we hold to the present, we will
lose the future. We challenge the complacent among us to show
otherwise, and we applaud those Members of this Sub-Committee, and
other committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives, who
understand the imperative for change.
Let us now return to the matter at hand: terrorism, counter-
terrorism, and their related intelligence aspects. Other Members of
Congress have already asked this Commission why is there no
comprehensive national strategy to combat terrorism? We started our
answer by pointing out that dealing with terrorism is an inherently
difficult problem, for several reasons.
As we all understand, terrorism is varyingly motivated. Sometimes
the motives are instrumental--a desire to draw attention to a cause, to
extort money, to goad a target government into counterproductive
responses. But sometimes the motives are not instrumental--revenge for
slights real and imagined, religious exoneration, or cult-like
impulses--such as those of the Aum Shinrikyo movement--difficult for
outsiders to fathom.
Sometimes terrorism emanates from states, sometimes from small
groups or even individuals, and sometimes it comes from combinations of
state-sponsorship with other actors. Determining the source of any
particular terrorist act can be difficult, and it is often the
intention of terrorists to make it difficult.
The geographical sources of terrorism are wide. Terrorism comes
from no one region of the world and, as we have learned, it includes
domestic elements as well.
The wages of terrorism are also wide. Aside from Americans who are
killed by terrorist acts, we and others pay a host of indirect prices--
from expensive security precautions to the institutionalized fear that
comes from having hideous acts imposed upon us. The crushing of entire
societies, too, such as that of Algeria in recent years, imposes a
price on the entire international community, one with which the United
States invariably must deal.
Terrorism also takes several tactical forms: assassination,
bombing, biological or chemical attack, cyber-terror, and, potentially,
terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. It is very hard to
plan adequately for such a wide array of problems.
There is a wide array of targets, too, a complexity that has
generated considerable confusion. While most scholars define terrorism,
in its basic form, as essentially attacks on civilians, some observers
include attacks on uniformed military personnel operating abroad as
forms of terrorism. Others disagree, considering such attacks, such as
those on the U.S.S. Cole, Khobar Towers, and the Marine compound in
Lebanon in October 1983, to be more like forms of warfare.
The distinction is not just definitional or theoretical, as those
on this Committee well understand. It influences how the U.S.
government approaches policy solutions to such problems. This raises a
key issue, which is the increasing tendency for national security and
law enforcement to merge with one another. The present inclination of
the U.S. government, which is to treat even the most expansively
defined ``terrorist act'' as a criminal act, is, in our judgment, the
right thing to do. At the very least, however, we must be honest with
ourselves about the consequences of the choices we make.
Clearly, too, such choices have organizational implications. This
Commission has concluded that, with respect to terrorism, the current
distinction between crisis management and consequence management is
neither sustainable nor wise. The duplicative command arrangements that
have been fostered by this division are prone to confusion and delay.
We believe that the National Homeland Security Agency should develop
and manage a single response system for national incidents, in close
coordination with the Department of Justice and the FBI. This would
require that the current policy, which specifies initial DOJ control in
terrorist incidents on U.S. territory, be amended once Congress creates
NHSA. We believe that this arrangement would in no way contradict or
diminish the FBI's traditional role with respect to law enforcement.
Obviously, the organizational implications of how we define and deal
with terrorism are wider even than this. Given this diversity of
motives, sources, tactics, and definitions, the responsibility for
dealing with terrorism within the U.S. government ranges over several
Executive Branch departments and agencies, as well as over several
Senate and House committees on the Legislative Branch side. Developing
an effective comprehensive strategy for dealing with terrorism would be
difficult in any event, but under these circumstances it becomes more
difficult still.
The U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century concluded
that, however difficult the problem of terrorism may be, we simply must
do a better job of dealing with it. The problem has already caused us
grievous trouble, and it is getting worse. The vector between the
threats we face and the organizational responses at our disposal is
getting wider. The Commission's Phase I Report concluded that the
prospect of mass casualty terrorism on American soil is growing
sharply. That is because the will to terrorism and the ways to
perpetrate it are proliferating--and merging. We believe that, over the
next quarter century, this danger will be one of the most difficult
national security challenges facing the United States--and the one we
are least prepared to address. The Commission's Phase II Report, on
strategy, focussed directly on this challenge, arguing that the United
States needed to integrate the challenge of homeland security fully
into its national security strategy. The Phase III Report devotes its
entire first section--one of five--to the problem of organizing for
homeland security. We have argued that to integrate this issue properly
into an overall strategic framework, there must be a significant reform
of the structures and processes of the current national security
apparatus.
Before discussing the details of a National Homeland Security
Agency, we wish to stress what the Commission intends, and does not
intend, to achieve with this recommendation.
We conceive of the National Homeland Security Agency is a part of,
not a substitute for, a strategic approach to the problem of homeland
security. Some have claimed that this Commission's proposal for a
National Homeland Security Agency is an organizational fix without a
strategy. This claim is twice mistaken.
First, within Section I of the Phase III Report, the rubric
``Organizational Realignment'' is item ``B.'' Item ``A'' is called
``The Strategic Framework,'' where we make clear that the Commission's
proposed strategy for homeland security is three-fold: to prevent, to
protect, and to respond to the problem of terrorism and other threats
to the homeland.
Second, the Commission insists that its strategy for homeland
security must be part of a broader national security strategy itself.
That is why we argue that a ``Czar'' model to deal with this problem is
inappropriate. Nothing would be more likely to keep homeland security
separate and apart from national security writ large than such an
``off-line'' approach.
Clearly, then, the National Homeland Security Agency is embedded
within a strategy for homeland security, and the strategy for homeland
security is embedded in a national security strategy. It follows,
therefore, that the National Security Council will still have the
critical role in coordinating the various government departments and
agencies involved in homeland security. In the Commission's three-fold
strategy for homeland security--prevent, protect, and respond--many
departments and agencies must concert their efforts. The Department of
State has a critical role in prevention, as does the intelligence
community and others. The Department of Defense has a critical role in
protection, as do other departments and agencies. Many agencies of
government, including, for example, the Centers for Disease Control in
the Department of Health and Human Services, have a critical role in
response.
Obviously, we are not proposing to include sections of the
Intelligence Community, the State Department, the Defense Department,
and the Department of Health and Human Services in the National
Homeland Security Agency. Nor are we attempting to exclude or to
diminish their roles in the interagency process. As with any other
complex functional area of government responsibility, no single agency
is adequate to the task of homeland security.
That said, the United States stands in dire need of stronger
organizational mechanisms for homeland security. It needs to clarify
accountability, responsibility, and authority among the departments and
agencies with a role to play in this increasingly critical area.
Authority and accountability for the strategic direction of the federal
government rest with the President, not a policy coordinator or
staffer. Authority and accountability should be vested in the same
individual to the extent possible for specific functions, not spread
across jurisdictional boxes that have no relation to 21st century
challenges. We need to realign the diffused responsibilities that
sprawl across outdated concepts of jurisdictional boundaries.
We also need to recapitalize several critical components of U.S.
Government in this regard. Some of these components are now in the
wrong departments, which accounts for the lack of attention and support
they receive. While the overall strategic direction of the federal
government must start with the President, supported by the NSC and its
staff, stronger organizational mechanisms are needed to execute the
layered strategy we propose. Our strategy, which emphasizes prevention
and response as a means of strengthening our deterrent, reflects the
realities of the 21st century. But our organizational entities to
execute the border security and crisis management functions are too
fragmented. We need to realign these capabilities to make them more
flexible and agile. At the same time, we need to ensure that we can
provide maximum support to the State and local officials who will
ultimately face the crises. In our view, we need a Cabinet-level agency
for this purpose. The job is becoming too big, and requires too much
operational activity, to be housed at the NSC staff. The NSC and staff
should focus on the strategy and the matching of resources to
objectives. Operational details and daily operations cannot be
successfully managed out of the White House. As we have already said,
they are much too important to a properly integrated national strategy
to be handled off-line by a ``czar,'' which would split out a major
national security threat from the NSC and staff that should be dealing
with it.
Most important, the task requires an organizational focus of
sufficient heft to deal as an equal in this domain with the Departments
of State, Defense, and Justice. Lacking such a focus, it is hard to see
how we will ever be able to create an efficient and effective
interagency mechanism to deal with this problem.
Mr. Chairman, this Commission's proposal for a National Homeland
Security Agency is detailed with great care and precision in the Phase
III Report. With your kind permission, we would like to include both
our institutional reform section and our homeland security section for
the record--for we see no need to repeat word for word what the Report
has already made available to all. However, we would like to describe
the proposal's essence for the subcommittee.
We propose a Cabinet-level agency for homeland security, whose
civilian director will be a statutory advisor to the National Security
Council, the same status as the Director of Central Intelligence. That
Director will be appointed by the President and confirmed by the
Senate. The basis of this agency will be the present Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA). Added to FEMA will be the Coast Guard (from
the Department of Transportation), the Border Patrol (from the
Department of Justice), the Customs Service (from the Department of the
Treasury), the National Domestic Preparedness Office (NDPO), currently
housed at the FBI, and an array of cyber-security programs now housed
varyingly in the FBI, the Commerce Department, and elsewhere.
Together, the National Homeland Security Agency will have three
directorates (Prevention; Critical Infrastructure Protection; and
Emergency Preparedness and Response), and a National Crisis Action
Center to focus federal action in the event of a national emergency.
The Agency will build on FEMA's regional organization, and will not be
heavily focussed in the Washington, DC area. It will remain focused
instead on augmenting and aiding state and local resources. The purpose
of this realignment of assets is to get more than the sum of the parts
from our effort in this area. Right now, unfortunately, we are getting
much less than the sum of the parts.
Thus, we are not proposing vast new undertakings. We are not
proposing a highly centralized bureaucratic behemoth. We are not
proposing to spend vastly more money than we are spending now. We are
proposing a realignment and a rationalization of what we already do, so
that we can do it better. In this regard, we intend for the union of
FEMA, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Customs, and other organizational
elements to produce a new institutional culture, new synergies, and
higher morale. We are proposing to match authority, responsibility, and
accountability. We are proposing to solve the ``Who's in charge? ''
problem at both our borders and in disaster management.
Perhaps most important, we are proposing to do all this in such a
way as to guarantee the civil liberties we all hold dear. In our view,
it is the absence of effective strategies and organizations that is a
threat to civil liberties. Since Defense Department assets would have
to come into play in response to a mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil,
the best way to ensure that we violate the U.S. Constitution is to not
plan and train ahead for such contingencies. The Director of the
National Homeland Security Agency, I repeat, is a civilian, subject to
confirmation and oversight by the Congress. If no such person is
designated responsible ahead of time to plan, train, and coordinate for
the sort of national emergency of which we are speaking, I leave it to
your imaginations--and to your mastery of American history--to predict
what a condition of national panic might produce in this regard.
Let us now briefly address the matter of intelligence as it relates
to the matter of homeland security. The Phase III Report addresses this
question in two places: in Section I in the context of the NHSA
proposal, and in Section III on Institutional Reform under the heading
of ``The Intelligence Community.''
As to the former, the Report stresses that good intelligence is the
key to preventing attacks on the homeland and urges that homeland
security become one of the intelligence community's most important
missions. Better human intelligence must supplement technical
intelligence, especially on terrorist groups covertly supported by
states. Fuller cooperation and more extensive information-sharing with
friendly governments will also improve the chances that would-be
perpetrators will not reach U.S. borders. In our view, the intelligence
community also needs to embrace cyber threats as a legitimate mission,
and to incorporate cyber-intelligence gathering on potential strategic
threats from abroad into its activities. To advance these ends, we
recommend that the National Intelligence Council: (1) include homeland
security and asymmetric threats as an area of analysis; (2) assign that
portfolio to a National Intelligence Officer; and (3) regularly produce
National Intelligence Estimates on these threats.
As to the last, we stress the need for better human intelligence on
terrorist threats. We need not rehearse for this subcommittee all of
the sensitive and difficult areas that attend this question. But it is
our judgment that we must bolster the quality and quantity of those
entering the community's clandestine service, as well as the
recruitment of those foreign nationals with the best chance of
providing information on terrorist threats to the homeland. Along with
the National Commission on Terrorism, we believe that guidelines for
the recruitment of foreign nationals should be reviewed to ensure that,
while respecting legal and human rights concerns, they maximize the
Intelligence Community's ability to collect intelligence on terrorist
plans and methods. We recognize the need to observe basic moral
standards in all U.S. Government conduct, but the people who can best
help U.S. agents penetrate effectively into terrorist organizations are
not liable to be model citizens of spotless virtue. This is not a
choice, in our view, between values and pragmatism. After all, the
saving of many thousands of innocent lives is a value, too. Finally in
this regard, we have recommended giving greater intelligence priority
to the analysis of economic and science and technology trends, where
the U.S. Intelligence Community's capabilities are inadequate. We also
recommend that Congress support this new emphasis by increasing
significantly the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) budget
for collection and analysis. What has this to do with terrorism?
Plenty!
The sources of terrorism overseas inhere in cultural proclivities
and socio-economic conditions. If we do not understand those
proclivities and conditions, we will be unable to anticipate and
prevent terrorist movements from arising to harm the United States, its
interests, and its allies. Moreover, as we and others have indicated,
terrorists, along with all essentially weak actors, incline toward
asymmetric strategies in attacking the United States. Non-state groups
can get enormous leverage in the pursuit of such asymmetric strategies
through new technologies, particularly well-funded political movements
in which terrorism is a tactic but not a raison d'etre. In an age when
critical scientific discoveries and technological innovations are being
generated increasingly in the private sector--and when technological
security itself must therefore be redefined--it is incumbent on U.S.
intelligence agencies to monitor carefully the potential interstices
between technological innovation, high-end science and technology
espionage, and terrorist organizations.
Mr. Chairman, one final point, if we may. All fourteen of us on
this Commission are united in our belief that our Report constitutes
the best road map for the United States to see to the common defense.
All fourteen of us, without dissent, agreed to put the subject of
homeland security first and foremost in that Report. All fourteen of
us, seven Democrats and seven Republicans, are determined to do what we
can to explain our recommendations on this matter in a fully bipartisan
manner. We thank you, Mr. Chairman, and this subcommittee for the
opportunity to testify today. We look forward to working with you to
advance our common goal of a safe and secure America