[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 138 (Wednesday, September 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                                 HAITI

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am going to be giving a little longer 
talk on Haiti a little bit later on this afternoon, but since we are in 
morning business right now I thought I would take a few minutes just to 
discuss a couple of items that appeared in the morning press this 
morning about Haiti, one directly on point and one sort of halfway on 
point.
  I see on the front page of the New York Times this morning that there 
is a story that Congress is going to do a complete study of the need 
for the CIA and reformulating the CIA. I will just read the first few 
paragraphs from the New York Times this morning. It says:

       Having concluded that Central Intelligence Agency cannot 
     ably chart its course in the post-cold war world, Congress is 
     creating an independent commission to rethink the agency's 
     role and review its continued existence in its present form.
       The new commission, being formed despite active opposition 
     by the CIA's leaders * * * will have the broadest possible 
     mandate to propose changes in the structure, the power and 
     the budget as well as the very existence of the CIA * * *
       ``The place just needs a total overhaul,'' said Senator 
     Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who served six years 
     on the Senate Select Committee in the Intelligence Committee 
     and will be the senior Republican in January.

  It goes on to quote Senator Specter:

       ``We are spending a lot of money on the CIA and there have 
     been doubts for years as to whether we are getting our 
     money's worth.''

  You may ask: What does that have to do with Haiti?
  Well, on the inside of the New York Times there is another article 
that says the CIA is reportedly taking a role in Haiti.
  Well, I read the article. Basically, it says that the CIA may be 
involved in Haiti in terms of gathering intelligence on those that may 
seek to assassinate or to bring harm to Aristide and his supporters.
  Now, again, Mr. President, I understand the need for intelligence, 
and especially in Haiti. We have 15,000 troops there, and they are at 
risk. So far, things have gone very well in Haiti. The people of Haiti 
are looking upon us as liberators. We see it every day in the paper. 
They are overjoyed that we have come to take over this terrible yoke of 
repression of their military and their ruthless police force that they 
have had in Haiti.
  There may be instances where in the future those who wish to disrupt 
this process will provoke violence. It may happen soon. There may be 
instances where our own troops are put at an even greater risk. So we 
do need that intelligence and I understand that. And I am fully 
supportive of actions taken by our Government to get that kind of 
intelligence to protect our forces, to protect those now in Haiti, the 
parliamentarians who are bravely meeting to discuss the amnesty law, to 
protect President Aristide once he returns to Haiti, to make sure that 
we have knowledge of any actions that may be taken to provoke violence, 
to assassinate, to disrupt the process to restore democracy to Haiti.
  But I am concerned about the CIA doing it. More specifically, I am 
concerned about who in the CIA will be doing it.
  This Senator had an occasion a little over a year ago to have many 
meetings with the Director of the CIA and the people in the CIA about 
reports that they had come up with about President Aristide--reports 
which were given in secret session here with Senators just about a year 
ago in which it was put out. And this has all been in the popular 
press, so I am not divulging anything that was said in that that room. 
In fact, I was not in that room during that meeting. I went up later on 
for a different meeting. But I had countless hours of meetings with the 
head of the CIA and the people that work under him who had been working 
on Haiti for some years.
  Mr. President, all I can tell you is I was greatly disturbed by the 
misinformation and I think the total distortion of the record of 
President Aristide that was given out by the CIA. I will not go into it 
at any great length than that here, but I could point to instances, 
documented, where the CIA, quite frankly, was taking certain untruths 
and then passing them on as though they were indeed factual.
  So my concern, Mr. President, is that the very CIA operatives and 
people who were involved before, first of all, in opposing President 
Aristide when he ran for office and who were actively involved perhaps 
in supporting another candidate for that office who did not win, and 
later on the operatives who were involved in picking up and moving 
erroneous, false information about President Aristide and then putting 
it out as though it was fact; that these same people will now be 
operate in Haiti. That concerns me greatly.
  And so I am hopeful that the legitimate need for the intelligence 
that we have will be carried out by individuals in the CIA or in 
Defense Intelligence who do not have some previous ax to grind, who 
maybe were divorced from this operation in the past. Because I am 
concerned that if we just go down that same path again with these same 
individuals who have shown their true colors that they have some 
certain ideological bent, that they have close connections with other 
elements in the Haitian military, that we might find ourselves, first, 
gaining erroneous information and erroneous intelligence information 
or, second, getting good intelligence information and not acting on it 
or diverting it in some way that will not be helpful to President 
Aristide and his supporters in Haiti.
  So, I am very concerned about this report the CIA is now taking a 
role in Haiti.
  It is reported here in the New York Times that the officials briefing 
Congress told lawmakers that one of the goals was to create a political 
climate that would help put into effect the agreement that former 
President Jimmy Carter reached with Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti's 
military leader, on September 18.
  I do not know what that means, ``to create a political climate.'' And 
I do not know that the CIA ought to be involved in creating a political 
climate. If this is true, then someone better put the reins on the CIA. 
Their job is not to create political climates. Their role is not to 
support one candidate over another. Their role is to collect 
information and intelligence and to pass it on to policymakers--that is 
us, that is the President--the policymakers who then act upon that 
intelligence. But I daresay their role is not to create a political 
climate.
  So, Mr. President, the Congress is now reviewing the role of the CIA, 
with comments from both sides of the aisle as to whether or not the CIA 
is effective or whether we are getting our money's worth or whether it 
ought to be revised and restructured. We are, right in the middle of 
this, in a very tense situation in a country close to our borders in 
which we have 15,000 troops. We have a lot at stake in ensuring that we 
continue on this process peacefully, that we continue on the process of 
returning President Aristide to his rightful place as the elected 
President of Haiti, in returning the parliamentarians who were elected 
in 1990, setting up the electoral structure in Haiti so they can again 
have free and fair and open elections sometime before the end of this 
year for their Parliament next year. We have a lot at stake. And while 
doing all this, I daresay it causes me a great deal of concern to think 
the CIA, now, is ``creating a political climate.'' That is not their 
role.
  I call upon the President of the United States to rein in the CIA, to 
make sure that those who are gathering intelligence in Haiti not be 
those who were charged with that before. I think they have basically 
established themselves as not being credible.
  We need new people down there: Defense intelligence, Navy, Army, Air 
Force intelligence, those who have not been tainted by any of this. I 
am not saying everyone in the CIA is bad, do not get me wrong. There 
are good intelligence people in the CIA.
  So I call upon the President and Director Woolsey to make sure we 
have a new team down there, that we have new people gathering this 
intelligence, and that they are not charged with creating a political 
climate but only charged with what they should do: That is gathering 
intelligence information so our policymakers can act upon that.
  So, I will have more to say about Haiti later on. I just wanted to 
take this time during morning business to raise these very serious 
questions about the role of the CIA in Haiti. After all we have done, 
after all our military has done in Haiti--and I do not think there is 
any American who does not just get a great sense of pride from what our 
military has done in Haiti. We see the Haitian people turning over 
their arms to the military, treating them like liberators, the 
liberators they really are, and it gives us a great sense of 
satisfaction and pride in our military. I do not want that undermined 
by people in our intelligence agencies, especially in the CIA, who have 
some other ax to grind.
  So I hope--again I just say for emphasis sake--I hope this report is 
not true. I hope the CIA is not involved in creating a political 
climate in Haiti.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Chair recognizes the Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Simpson].

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