[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 111 (Friday, August 7, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7419-H7420]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    HUMAN INTELLIGENCE IS IMPORTANT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, it is important, obviously, to have what is 
called human intelligence. That is, when a group of terrorists are 
planning to bomb an embassy or do something else that takes life and 
property, it is good to know ahead of time what is going to happen, 
because this is not a big military operation where, by national 
technical means, that means by satellite overheads and other things, we 
can see large events developing, like tanks massing for an attack and 
other things that would indicate a large movement of a military force.
  But in this case, an attack may be promulgated by a small group of 
people, meeting in a small room somewhere. It is important for us to 
have human intelligence, to have a person who sees that group or a 
person who sits in with that group or a person who knows what that 
group is doing to report to us so we can stop that terrorist act.
  Having a large human intelligence capability requires a lot of 
funding. It requires money. It is expensive to have good intelligence. 
I think that one of the things that we are going to have to realize as 
we move from the Cold War into this new era, an era that I would call 
the era of terrorism and State-sponsored terrorism in many cases, is 
that we are going to have to meet this age of terrorism with a lot of 
investment in human intelligence along with national technical means.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague, who is really an 
expert in terrorism, for his views. I yield to my friend from New 
Jersey (Mr. Saxton).
  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I 
also thank the gentleman for his great effort on behalf of our task 
force, overall effort to come to grips here in the House with these 
issues.
  The gentleman is absolutely correct. The subject of human 
intelligence is one that we have discussed at great length and, I 
believe, recognize today that our ability to deal through human 
intelligence has been greatly limited in recent years.
  I do not say this to be critical, but I think it is an objective 
fact, because the recent administration has put in place policies that 
have made it difficult, and more difficult as time has gone on, for us 
to collect data that we need.
  We had a discussion just the other day about a related but slightly 
bigger issue, and that is whether or not we can detect the emergence in 
certain countries of nuclear capability, which relates to human 
intelligence as well or the lack thereof.
  So certainly one of the things that we can do is to work with the CIA 
and other agencies to beef up our human intelligence effort, which is 
so necessary in being able to predict with some degree and certainty, 
at least in general, where these types of acts will occur.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observations, 
and I think the recent nuclear tests in India and Pakistan reflect this 
to some degree also. We were surprised by this activity. It reminded us 
once again that there is no substitute for having a person in the plant 
or a person in the planning group or a person in a particular 
government agency. And especially to relate back to the tragic bombings 
that have just occurred, when there is a likelihood that this is State-
sponsored terrorism, it is going to be more and more important for us 
to beef up our intelligence budget.
  Finally, one last thing that has always occurred to me in the 18 
years that I have been here in the House of Representatives is this: We 
admire and we respect our Armed Forces and the men and women who serve 
in them.
  But in some corners in Congress, there has always been a resentment, 
if you will, of our intelligence agencies as if these men and women who 
put their lives on the line in remote places of the world where they do 
not come home to

[[Page H7420]]

ticker tape parades like our military sometimes does, as if they are 
something less of American servants than the people in uniform.
  Actually these people, our intelligence personnel, perform an 
enormous service for our country, and they do it, generally speaking, 
in a way in which they receive very little credit for what they have 
done.
  In the end, at the end of their career, they know what they did. One 
or two other people, or maybe a handful of people, may know what they 
have done for their country. But, as I said, they do not come home to 
ticker tape parades.
  I think we have to adjust our attitude about the value and the 
patriotism of the folks who work in the intelligence services for our 
country. I hope we get to the bottom of what happened in Africa. I hope 
that it serves a warning bell to us in this House that we need to put 
more resources into the intelligence and the counterterrorism area.
  I wonder if my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey, has any 
comments.
  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I would just quickly make one final point, 
and that is that acts of terrorism, we know now, are not carried out in 
a vacuum. They are part of an overall plan to destabilize some kind of 
activity. I would suggest that, in this case, Mr. Speaker, it appears 
that it is an activity to destabilize our overseas international 
operations. I think the American people ought to be aware that it is 
not just an act. It is a planned covert activity that is being carried 
out in general against our country.

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