[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 115 (Thursday, September 12, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8521-S8535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HOMELAND SECURITY ACT OF 2002
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 12 noon
having arrived, the Senate will now resume consideration of H.R. 5005,
which the clerk will report by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 5005) to establish the Department of Homeland
Security, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Lieberman Amendment No. 4471, in the nature of a
substitute.
Thompson/Warner Amendment No. 4513 (to Amendment No. 4471),
to strike title II, establishing the National Office for
Combating Terrorism, and title III, developing the National
Strategy for Combating Terrorism and Homeland Security
Response for detection, prevention, protection, response, and
recover to counter terrorist threats.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
South Carolina is recognized to offer an amendment.
Amendment No. 4533 To Amendment No. 4471
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hollings] proposes an
amendment numbered 4533 to amendment No. 4471.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To modify the membership and advisors of the National
Security Council)
At the end of subtitle D of title I, add the following;
SEC. 173. MODIFICATION OF MEMBERSHIP AND ADVISORS OF NATIONAL
SECURITY COUNCIL.
(a) Members.--Subsection (a) of section 101 of the National
Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 402) is amended--
(1) in the fourth undesignated paragraph, by redesignating
clauses (1) through (6) as subparagraphs (A) through (G),
respectively;
(2) by designating the undesignated paragraphs as
paragraphs (1) through (4), respectively; and
(3) in paragraph (4), as so designated--
(A) by striking subparagraphs (E) and (F) and inserting the
following new subparagraphs:
``(E) the Attorney General;
``(F) the Secretary of Homeland Security; and''; and
(B) in subparagraph (G), as so redesignated, by striking
``the Chairman of the Munitions Board,'' and all that follows
and inserting ``to serve at the pleasure of the President.''.
(b) Advisors.--That section is further amended--
(1) by redesignating subsections (g) through (j) and
subsection (i), as added by section 301 of the International
Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-292; 112 Stat.
2800), as subsections (i) through (m), respectively;
(2) by transferring subsection (l) (relating to the
participation of the Director of Central Intelligence on the
National Security Council), as so redesignated, to appear
after subsection (f) and redesignating such subsection, as so
transferred, as subsection (g); and
(3) by inserting after subsection (g), as so transferred
and redesignated, the following new subsections:
``(h) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
may, in the performance of the Director's duties as the head
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and subject to the
direction of the President, attend and participate in
meetings of the National Security Council.''
Mr. REID. Mr. President, will the Senator withhold for a
parliamentary inquiry?
Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have been speaking to the manager of the
bill, Senator Lieberman. We have two amendments pending. Senator
Thompson opposes the Hollings amendment. It would seem that the Senator
from Tennessee should have one-half hour in opposition to that
amendment. Senator Lieberman opposes the Thompson amendment. He should
have one-half hour in opposition to that. If the two managers agree
with that, we should have that in the form of an order so somebody can
designate the time on it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is the understanding of the Chair.
The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Chair.
This amendment is so simple that it becomes suspicious, in a sense.
All I amend here is the National Security Council so as to include the
Attorney General, the future Secretary of Homeland Security, and the
Director of the
[[Page S8522]]
FBI in an advisory position similar to the CIA as presently included in
the 1947 law. The reason for this, of course, is to get not only the
responsibility of the Council fixed, but more particularly to realize
now that domestic threats are far greater than any international
threats. I don't believe Russia is going to attack us. I don't think
China is going to attack us. I don't think Saddam, after all he has
heard about us attacking him, is going to attack us, except perhaps
maybe overseas but not the homeland. But homeland security must be
emphasized.
Let me refer immediately to that section of the 1947 act signed by
President Harry Truman on July 26, 1947. I quote:
The functioning of the Council shall be to advise the
President with respect to the integration of domestic,
foreign, and military policies relating to the national
security so as to enable the military services and the other
departments and agencies of the government to cooperate more
effectively in matters involving the national security.
In other words, the function of joining all the dots is with the
National Security Council.
You have all these entities now, here with a new one, to take certain
analyses: the Department of Homeland Security. But you still have the
CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency. You have intelligence
sections of the State Department. They are all over the Government;
Intelligence Committees within the Congress, and everything else like
that. Wherein is the responsibility fixed to join the dots?
Harry Truman said it best in 1947. He said: ``The buck stops here.''
So my particular amendment is to fix that responsibility, and assist
the President, so there would be no misunderstanding.
Incidentally, only the President of the United States can change this
culture of the so-called ``need to know.'' I speak advisedly. I was in
the intelligence game back in the 1950s. I was a member of the Hoover
Commission. We investigated the CIA, the FBI, the Army, Navy, Air Force
intelligence, the Defense Department, the Secret Service, the Q
clearance, the atomic energy intelligence, and all the other functions.
I will never forget, in October of 1962, I got a call from my friend
who would later operate this desk as a Senator, Bobby Kennedy. Bobby
said: I would like to get that report from you with respect to this
Cuban missile crisis, and the background on it. I turned over my
report, my particular one. I never have gotten it back.
But, in any event, the glaring error that persists this minute is
that there are no joining of the dots, people are not talking to each
other. Intelligence has gone like economics and trade--globalization,
globalization. I cannot emphasize that too much in the little bit of
time that is given me.
Immediately after 9/11 the CIA, the FBI, the various intelligence
agencies said: Oh, this was a surprise. They could know nothing about a
plane going into a building.
Let me talk about terrorism and give you a dateline:
The bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983 by the
Islamic Jihad; the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in October
1983, also by the Islamic terrorists; the Hezbollah restaurant bombing
in April 1984; the Naples USO attack in April 1988; the attempted Iraqi
attacks on U.S. posts on January 18 and 19 of 1991; the World Trade
Center bombing in February of 1993; the attempted assassination of
President Bush by Iraqi agents in April of 1993; the attack on U.S.
diplomats in Pakistan in March of 1995; the Khobar Towers bombing in
June of 1996; the U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998; the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October of
2000; and the terrorist attacks on, of course, September 11. And they
have not stopped. We have the car bombing outside the U.S. consulate in
Karachi, Pakistan, in June of 2002.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent this document be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Terrorism Timeline
Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut, April 18, 1983: Sixty-
three people, including the CIA's Middle East director, were
killed, and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-
bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Bombing of Marine Barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983:
Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks were made on American
and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb
destroyed the U.S. compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58
French troops were killed when a 400-pound device destroyed a
French base. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Hizballah Restaurant Bombing, April 12, 1984: Eighteen U.S.
servicemen were killed, and 83 people were injured in a bomb
attack on a restaurant near a U.S. Air Force Base in
Torrejon, Spain. Responsibility was claimed by Hizballah.
Naples USO Attack, April 14, 1988: The Organization of
Jihad Brigades exploded a car bomb outside a USO Club in
Naples, Italy, killing one U.S. sailor.
Attempted Iraqi Attacks on U.S. Posts, January 18-19, 1991:
Iraqi agents planted bombs at the U.S. Ambassador to
Indonesia's home residence at the USIS library in Manila.
World Trade Center Bombing, February 26, 1993: The World
Trade Center in New York City was badly damaged when a car
bomb planted by Islamic terrorists explodes in an underground
garage. The bomb left six people dead and 1,000 injured. The
men carrying out the attack were followers of Umar and Abd
al-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who preached in the New York
City area.
Attempted Assassination of President Bush by Iraqi Agents,
April 14, 1993: The Iraqi intelligence service attempted to
assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during a visit
to Kuwait. In retaliation, the U.S. launched a cruise missile
attack 2 months later on the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
Attack on U.S. Diplomats in Pakistan, March 8, 1995: Two
unidentified gunmen killed two U.S. diplomats and wounded a
third in Karachi, Pakistan.
Khobar Towers Bombing, June 25, 1996: A fuel truck carrying
a bomb exploded outside the U.S. military's Khobar Towers
housing facility in Dharhran, killing 19 U.S. military
personnel and wounding 515 persons, including 240 U.S.
personnel. Several groups claimed responsibility for the
attack.
U.S. Embassy Bombings in East Africa, August 7, 1998: A
bomb exploded at the rear entrance of the U.S. embassy in
Nairobi, Kenya, killing 12 U.S. citizens, 32 Foreign Service
Nationals (FSNs), and 247 Kenyan citizens. About 5,000
Kenyans, six U.S. citizens, and 13 FSNs were injured. The
U.S. embassy building sustained extensive structural damage.
Almost simultaneously, a bomb detonated outside the U.S.
embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing seven FSNs and
three Tanzanian citizens, and injuring one U.S. citizen and
76 Tanzanians. The explosion caused major structural damage
to the U.S. embassy facility. The U.S. Government held Usama
Bin Ladin responsible.
Attack on U.S.S. Cole, October 12, 2000: In Aden, Yemen, a
small dingy carrying explosives rammed the destroyer U.S.S.
Cole, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 others. Supporters
of Usama Bin Ladin were suspected.
Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Homeland, September 11, 2001: Two
hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World
Trade Center. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon was struck by a
third hijacked plane. A fourth hijacked plane, suspected to
be bound for a high-profile target in Washington, crashed
into a field in southern Pennsylvania. More than 5,000 U.S.
citizens and other nationals were killed as a result of these
acts. President Bush and Cabinet officials indicated that
Usama Bin Laden was the prime suspect and that they
considered the United States in a state of war with
international terrorism. In the aftermath of the attacks, the
United States formed the Global Coalition Against Terrorism.
Car Bombing outside U.S. Consulate, June 14, 2002: A
suicide bomber drives a car filled with explosives into a
guard post outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan,
killing 11 Pakistanis and injuring at least 45 people,
including one U.S. Marine who is slightly wounded by flying
debris.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Now, they say: Well, Senator, you point all those
things out. But, after all, we didn't know anything about a plane going
into a building.
Well, in December 1994, the al-Qaida hijacked an Air France plane
that was headed into the Eiffel Tower. Who has not heard of flying a
plane into a structure?
In 1995, the CIA was hot on the Philippines and thwarted the blowup
or the crashing of eight planes at one particular time. They learned of
the plan to do what? To crash a plane into the CIA building. That was
back 6 years before 9/11.
And then, in January of 2000, in Malaysia, there was an article with
respect to al-Qaida. Let me read from the article. I quote:
At the time, the men had no idea that they were being
closely watched--or that the CIA already knew some of their
names. A few days earlier, U.S. intelligence had gotten wind
of the Qaeda gathering. Special Branch, Malaysia's security
service, agreed to follow and photograph the suspected
terrorists. They snapped pictures of the men sightseeing and
ducking into cybercafes to check Arabic Web sites. What
happened next, some U.S. counterterrorism officials say, may
be
[[Page S8523]]
the most puzzling, and devastating, intelligence in the
critical months before September 11. A few days after the
Kuala Lumpur meeting . . . the CIA tracked one of the
terrorists, Nawaf Alhazmi as he flew from the meeting to Los
Angeles. Agents discovered that another of the men, Khalid
Almihdhar, had already obtained a multiple-entry visa that
allowed him to enter and leave the United States as he
pleased. (They later learned that he had in fact arrived in
the United States on the same flight as Alhazmi.)
Yet astonishingly, the CIA did nothing with this
information. Agency officials didn't tell the INS, which
could have turned them away at the border. Nor did they
notify the FBI, which could have covertly tracked them to
find out their mission. Instead, during the year and nine
months after the CIA identified them as terrorists, Alhazmi
and Almihdhar lived openly in the United States, using their
real names, obtaining driver's licenses, opening bank
accounts and enrolling in flight schools--until the morning
of September 11, when they walked aboard American Airlines
Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed
in the Record, in addition to another article of this particular week
where we had an informant from the CIA who was staying with them all
the time. And when he heard that they were the names, he said: Oh, I
knew them. Yeah, they were terrorists and everything else.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Newsweek, June 10, 2002]
The Hijackers We Let Escape
(By Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman)
The CIA tracked two suspected terrorists to a Qaeda summit
in Malaysia in January 2000, then looked on as they re-
entered America and began preparations for September 11. Why
didn't somebody try to stop them? Inside what may be the
worst intelligence failure of all. A Newsweek exclusive.
Kuala Lumpur is an easy choice if you're looking to lie
low. Clean and modern, with reliable telephones, banks and
Internet service, the Malaysian city is a painless flight
from most world capitals--and Muslim visitors don't need
visas to enter the Islamic country. That may explain why Al
Qaeda chose the sprawling metropolis for a secret planning
summit in early January 2000. Tucked away in a posh suburban
condominium overlooking a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course,
nearly a dozen of Osama bin Laden's trusted followers, posing
as tourists, plotted future terrorist strikes against the
United States.
At the time, the men had no idea that they were being
closely watched--or that the CIA already knew some of their
names. A few days earlier, U.S. intelligence had gotten wind
of the Qaeda gathering. Special Branch, Malaysia's security
service, agreed to follow and photograph the suspected
terrorists. They snapped pictures of the men sightseeing and
ducking into cybercafes to check Arabic Web sites. What
happened next, some U.S. counterterrorism officials say, may
be the most puzzling, and devastating, intelligence in the
critical months before September 11. A few days after the
Kuala Lumpur meeting, Newsweek has learned, the CIA tracked
one of the terrorists, Nawaf Alhazmi, as he flew from the
meeting to Los Angeles. Agents discovered that another of the
men, Khalid Almihdhar, had already obtained a multiple-entry
visa that allowed him to enter and leave the United States as
he pleased. (They later learned that he had in fact arrived
in the United States on the same flight as Alhazmi.)
Yet astonishingly, the CIA did nothing with this
information. Agency officials didn't tell the INS, which
could have turned them away at the border, nor did they
notify the FBI, which could have covertly tracked them to
find out their mission. Instead, during the year and nine
months after the CIA identified them as terrorists, Alhazmi
and Almihdhar lived openly in the United States, using their
real names, obtaining driver's licenses, opening bank
accounts and enrolling in flight schools--until the morning
of September 11, when they walked aboard American Airlines
Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon.
Unitl now, the many questions about intelligence
shortcomings leading up to the attacks have focused on the
FBI's clear failure to connect various vague clues that might
have put them on the trail of the terrorists. Last week, in
the aftermath of Minnesota agent Coleen Rowley's scathing
letter ripping the FBI for ignoring warnings from the field,
Director Robert Mueller announced a series of reforms aimed
at modernizing the bureau.
All along, however, the CIA's Counterterrorism Center--base
camp for the agency's war on bin Laden--was sitting on
information that could have led federal agents right to the
terrorists' doorstep. Almihdhar and Alhazmi, parading across
America in plain sight, could not have been easier to find.
Newsweek has learned that when Almihdhar's visa expired, the
State Department, not knowing any better, simply issued him a
new one in June 2001--even though by then the CIA had linked
him to one of the suspected bombers of the USS Cole in
October 2000. The two terrorists' frequent meetings with the
other September 11 perpetrators could have provided federal
agents with a road map to the entire cast of 9-11 hijackers.
But the FBI didn't know it was supposed to be looking for
them until three weeks before the strikes, when CIA Director
George Tenet, worried an attack was imminent, ordered agency
analysts to review their files. It was only then, on Aug. 23,
2001, that the agency sent out an all-points bulletin,
launching law-enforcement agents on a frantic and futile
search for the two men. Why didn't the CIA share its
information sooner? ``We could have done a lot better, that's
for sure,'' one top intelligence official told Newsweek.
The CIA's belated and reluctant admission now makes it
impossible to avoid the question that law-enforcement
officials have tried to duck for weeks: could we have stopped
them? Tenet has vigorously defended his agency's performance
in the months before the attacks. In February he told a
Senate panel that he was ``proud'' of the CIA's record. He
insisted that the terrorist strikes were not due to a
``failure of attention, and discipline, and focus, and
consistent effort--and the American people need to understand
that.'' Yet last week intelligence officials acknowledged
that the agency made at least one mistake: failing to notify
the State Department and the INS, so the men could have been
stopped at the border.
CIA officials, who have been preparing for the start of
Senate intelligence committee hearings this week, seem at a
loss to explain how this could have happened. The CIA is
usually loath to share information with other government
agencies, for fear of compromising ``sources and methods.''
CIA officials also say that at the time Almihdhar and Alhazmi
entered the country in January 2000, they hadn't yet been
identified as bin Laden terrorists--despite their attendance
at the Malaysia meeting. ``It wasn't known for sure that they
were Al Qaeda bad-guy operators,'' says one official.
CIA officials also point out that FBI agents assigned to
the CIA's Counterterrorism Center were at least informed
about the Malaysia meeting and the presence of Almihdhar and
Alhazmi at the time it occurred. But FBI officials protest
that they only recently learned about the most crucial piece
of information: that the CIA knew Alhazmi was in the country,
and that Almihdhar could enter at will. ``That was
unforgivable,'' said one senior FBI official. This led to a
series of intense and angry encounters among U.S. officials
in the weeks after September 11. At one White House meeting
last fall, Wayne Griffith, a top State Department consular
official, was so furious that his office hadn't been told
about the two men that he blew up at a CIA agent. (Griffith
declined to comment.)
To bolster their case, FBI officials have now prepared a
detailed chart showing how agents could have uncovered the
terrorist plot if they had learned about Almihdhar and
Alhazmi sooner, given their frequent contact with at least
five of the other hijackers. ``There's no question we could
have tied all 19 hijackers together,'' the official said.
It was old-fashioned interrogation and eavesdropping that
first led U.S. intelligence agents to the Qaeda plotters. In
the summer of 1998, only a couple of weeks after bin Laden
operatives truck-bombed two U.S. Embassies in Africa, the FBI
got a break: one of the Nairobi bombers had been caught.
Muhammad Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, a young Saudi from a wealthy
family who became a fierce bin Laden loyalist, was supposed
to have killed himself in the blast. Instead, he got out of
the truck at the last moment and fled. He was arrested in a
seedy Nairobi hotel, waiting for his compatriots to
smuggle him out of the country.
Questioned by the FBI, al-Owhali made a detailed
confession. Among the information he gave agents was the
telephone number of a Qaeda safe house in Yemen, owned by a
bin Laden loyalist named Ahmed Al-Hada (who, it turns out,
was also Almihdhar's father-in-law).
U.S. intelligence began listening in on the telephone line
of the Yemen house, described in government documents as a
Qaeda ``logistics center,'' where terrorist strikes--
including the Africa bombings and later the Cole attack in
Yemen--were planned. Operatives around the world phoned Al-
Hada with information, which was then relayed to bin Laden in
the Afghan mountains.
In late December 1999, intercepted conversations on the
Yemen phone tipped off agents to the January 2000 Kuala
Lumpur summit, and to the names of at least two of its
participants: Almihdhar and Alhazmi. The condo where the
meeting took place was a weekend getaway owned by Yazid
Sufaat, a U.S.-educated microbiologist who had become a
radical Islamist and bin Laden follower. He was arrested last
December when he returned from Afghanistan, where he had
served as a field medic for the Taliban. Sufaat's lawyer says
his client let the men stay at his place because ``he
believes in allowing his property to be used for charitable
purposes.'' But he claims Sufaat had no idea that they were
terrorists.
After the meeting, Malaysian intelligence continued to
watch the condo at the CIA's request, but after a while the
agency lost interest. Had agents kept up the surveillance,
they might have observed another beneficiary of Sufaat's
charity: Zacarias Moussaoui, who stayed there on his way to
the United States later that year. The Malaysians say they
were surprised by the CIA's
[[Page S8524]]
lack of interest following the Kuala Lumpur meeting. ``We
couldn't fathom it, really,'' Rais Yatim, Malaysia's Legal
Affairs minister, told Newsweek. ``There was no show of
concern.''
Immediately after the meeting, Alhazmi boarded a plane to
Bangkok, where he met a connecting flight to Los Angeles on
Jan. 15, 2000. Since the CIA hadn't told the State Department
to put his name on the watch list of suspected terrorists, or
told the INS to be on the lookout for him, he breezed through
the airport and into America. Almihdhar was also on the
plane, though CIA agents did not know it at the time.
The CIA is forbidden from spying on people inside the
United States. Had it followed standard procedure and passed
the baton to the FBI once they crossed the border, agents
would have discovered that Almihdhar and Alhazmi weren't just
visiting California, they were already living there. The men
had moved into an apartment in San Diego two months before
the Kuala Lumpur meeting.
The CIA's reluctance to divulge what it knew is especially
odd because, as 2000 dawned, U.S. law-enforcement agencies
were on red alert, certain that a bin Laden strike somewhere
in the world could come at any moment. There was certainly
reason to believe bin Laden was sending men here to do grave
harm. Just a few weeks before, an alert Customs inspector had
caught another Qaeda terrorist, Ahmed Ressam, as he tried to
cross the Canadian border in a rental car packed with
explosives. His mission: to blow up Los Angeles airport.
Perhaps agency officials let down their guard after warnings
about a Millennium Eve attack never materialized. Whatever
the reason, Alhazmi and Almihdhar fell off their radar
screen.
Free to do as they pleased, the 25-year-old Alhazmi and 26-
year-old Almihdhar went about their terrorist training in
southern California. They told people they were buddies from
Saudi Arabia hoping to learn English and become commercial
airline pilots. The cleanshaven Alhazmi and Almihdhar played
soccer in the park with other Muslim men and prayed the
required five times a day at the area mosque. They bought
season passes to Sea World and dined on fast food, leaving
the burger wrappers strewn around their sparsely furnished
apartment. And, despite their religious convictions, the
men frequented area strip clubs. Neighbors found it odd
that the men would rarely use the telephones in their
apartment. Instead, they routinely went outside to make
calls on mobile phones.
People who knew the men recall that they couldn't have been
more different. Alhazmi was outgoing and cheerful, making
friends easily. He once posted an ad online seeking a Mexican
mail-order bride, and worked diligently to improve his
English. By contrast, Almihdhar was dark and brooding, and
expressed disgust with American culture. One evening, he
chided a Muslim acquaintance for watching ``immoral''
American television. ``If you're so religious, why don't you
have facial hair?'' the friend shot back, Almihdhar patted
him condescendingly on the knee. ``You'll know someday,
brother,'' he said.
Neither man lost sight of the primary mission: learning to
fly airplanes. Almihdhar and Alhazmi took their flight
lessons seriously, but they were impossible to teach.
Instructor Rick Garza at Sorbi's Flying Club gave both men a
half-dozen classes on the ground before taking them up in a
single-engine Cessna in May. ``They were only interested in
flying big jets,'' Garza recalls. But Garza soon gave up on
his hapless students. ``I just thought they didn't have the
aptitude,'' he says. ``They were like Dumb and Dumber.''
Had law-enforcement agents been looking for Alhazmi and
Almihdhar at the time, they could have easily tracked them
through bank records. In September 2000, Alhazami opened a
$3,000 checking account at a Bank of America branch. The men
also used their real names on driver's licenses, Social
Security cards and credit cards. When Almihdhar bought a dark
blue 1988 Toyota Corolla for $3,000 cash, he registered it in
his name. (He later signed the registration over to Alhazmi,
whose name was on the papers when the car was found at Dulles
International Airport on September 11.) Of course, agents
might have used another resource to pinpoint their location:
the phone book, Page 13 of the 2000-2001 Pacific Bell White
Pages contains a listing for ``alhazmi Nawaf M 6401 Mount Ada
Rd. xxxxxxxxxxxx.''
By then, though, the case seems to have gotten lost deep in
the CIA's files. But Almihdhar's name and face surfaced yet
again, in the aftermath of the October 2000 bombing of the
Cole. Within days of the attack, a team of FBI agents flew to
Yemen to investigate. They soon began closing in on suspects.
One was a man called Tawfiq bin Attash, a.k.a. Khallad, a
fierce, one-legged Qaeda fighter. When analysts at the CIA's
Counterterrorism Center in Langley, Va., pulled out the file
on Khallad, they discovered pictures of him taken at the
Kuala Lumpur meeting. In one of the shots, he is standing
next to Almihdhar.
If, as the CIA now claims, it wasn't certain that Almihdhar
had terrorist connections, it certainly knew it now. And yet
the agency still did nothing and notified no one.
In mid- to late 2000, Almihdhar left San Diego for good. It
appears that he spent the next several months bouncing around
the Middle East and Southeast Asia. While he was away, his
visa expired--a potentially big problem. Yet since the CIA
was still not sharing information about Almihdhar's Qaeda
connections, the State Department's Consular Office in Saudi
Arabia simply rubber-stamped him a new one.
Almihdhar returned to the United States on July 4, 2001,
flying into New York. He spent at least some of the time
leading up to September traveling around the East Coast and,
at least once, meeting with Mohamed Atta and other September
11 plotters in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, Alhazmi, having flunked out of two California
flight schools, decided to try his luck in Phoenix in early
2001. There he hooked up with Qaeda terrorist in
training, Hani Hanjour, who eventually piloted Flight 77.
In April 2001 Alhazmi headed east, and was pulled over for
speeding. Oklahoma State Trooper C. L. Parkins ran
Alhazmi's California driver's license through the
computer, checked to see if the car was stolen and made
sure there wasn't a warrant out for Alhazmi's arrest. When
nothing came up, he issued the terrorist two tickets,
totaling $138, and sent him on his way. (The tickets were
not discovered until after 9-11.) Like Almihdhar, Alhazmi
eventually went east, spending time in New Jersey and
Maryland. On Aug. 25, he used his credit card to purchase
two tickets for Flight 77.
Two days earlier, CIA officials finally, and frantically,
awoke to their mistake. That summer, as U.S. intelligence
picked up repeated signals that bin Laden was about to launch
a major assault, Tenet ordered his staff to scrub the
agency's files, looking for anything that might help them
thwart whatever was coming. It didn't take long to discover
the file on Almihdhar and Alhazmi. CIA officials checked with
the INS, only to discover that Almihdhar had traveled out of
the country, and was allowed back in on his new visa. On Aug.
23, the CIA sent out an urgent cable, labeled immediate, to
the State Department, Customs, INS and FBI, telling them to
put the two men on the terrorism watch list.
The FBI began an aggressive, ``full field'' investigation.
Agents searched all nine Marriott hotels in New York City,
the place Almihdhar had listed as his ``destination'' on his
immigration forms in July. They also searched hotels in Los
Angeles, where the two men originally entered the country
back in 1999. But it's unclear whether agents scoured public
records for driver's licenses and phone numbers or tried to
track plane-ticket purchases. In preparation for their
mission, the men had gone to ground.
Now, amid the escalating blame wars in Washington, federal
agents are left to wonder how different things might have
been if they'd started that search nearly two years before.
The FBI's claim that it could have unraveled the plot by
watching Alhazmi and Almihdhar, and connecting the dots
between them and the other terrorists, seems compelling.
The links would not have been difficult to make: Alhazmi
met up with Hanjour, the Flight 77 pilot, in Phoenix in late
2000; six months later, in May 2001, the two men showed up in
New Jersey and opened shared bank accounts with two other
plotters, Ahmed Alghamdi and Majed Moqed. The next month,
Alhazmi helped two other hijackers, Salem Alhazmi (his
brother) and Abdulaziz Alomari, open their own bank accounts.
Two months after that, in August 2001, the trail would have
led to the pilot's ringleader, Mohamed Atta, who had bought
plane tickets for Moqed and Alomari. What's more, at least
several of the hijackers had traveled to Las Vegas for a
meeting in summer 2001, just weeks before the attacks. ``It's
like three degrees of separation,'' insists an FBI official.
But would even that have been enough? There's no doubt that
Alhazmi and Almihdhar could have been stopped from coming
into the country if the CIA had shared its information with
other agencies. But then two other hijackers could have been
sent to take their place. And given how little the FBI
understood Al Qaeda's way of operating--and how it managed to
mishandle the key clues it did have--it's possible that
agents could have identified all 19 hijackers and still not
figured out what they were up to. That, one former FBI
official suggests, could have led to the cruelest September
11 scenario of all: ``We would have had the FBI watching them
get on the plane in Boston and calling Los Angeles,'' he
says. `` `Could you pick them up on the other end?' ''
____
[From Newsweek, Sept. 16, 2002]
The Informant Who Lived With the Hijackers
(By Michael Isikoff with Jamie Reno)
At first, FBI director Bob Mueller insisted there was
nothing the bureau could have done to penetrate the 9-11
plot. That account has been modified over time--and now may
change again. Newsweek has learned that one of the bureau's
informants had a close relationship with two of the
hijackers: he was their roommate.
The connection, just discovered by congressional
investigators, has stunned some top counterterrorism
officials and raised new concerns about the information-
sharing among U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The two hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, were
hardly unknown to the intelligence community. The CIA was
first alerted to them in January 2000, when the two Saudi
nationals showed up at a Qaeda ``summit'' in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. FBI officials have argued internally for months
that if the CIA had more quickly passed along everything it
knew about the two men, the bureau could have hunted them
down more aggressively.
[[Page S8525]]
But both agencies can share in the blame. Upon leaving
Malaysia, Almihdhar and Alhazmi went to San Diego, where they
took flight-school lessons. In September 2000, the two moved
into the home of a Muslim man who had befriended them at the
local Islamic Center. The landlord regularly prayed with them
and even helped one open a bank account. He was also, sources
tell Newsweek, a ``tested'' undercover ``asset'' who had been
working closely with the FBI office in San Diego on terrorism
cases related to Hamas. A senior law-enforcement official
told Newsweek the informant never provided the bureau with
the names of his two houseguests from Saudi Arabia. Nor does
the FBI have any reason to believe the informant was
concealing their identities. (He could not be reached for
comment.) But the FBI concedes that a San Diego case agent
appears to have been at least aware that Saudi visitors were
renting rooms in the informant's house. (On one occasion, a
source says, the case agent called up the informant and was
told he couldn't talk because ``Khalid''--a reference to
Almidhdhar--was in the room.). I. C. Smith, a former top FBI
counterintelligence official, says the case agent should have
been keeping closer tabs on who his informant was
fraternizing with--if only to seek out the houseguests as
possible informants. ``They should have been asking, `Who are
these guys? What are they doing here?' This strikes me as a
lack of investigative curiosity.'' About six weeks after
moving into the house, Almidhdhar left town, explaining to
the landlord he was heading back to Saudi Arabia to see his
daughter. Alhazmi moved out at the end of 2000.
In the meantime, the CIA was gathering more information
about just how potentially dangerous both men were. A few
months after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in
Yemen, CIA analysts discovered in their Malaysia file that
one of the chief suspects in the Cole attack--Tawfiq bin
Attash--was present at the ``summit'' and had been
photographed with Almihdhar and Alhazmi. But it wasn't
until Aug. 23, 2001, that the CIA sent out an urgent cable
to U.S. border and law-enforcement agencies identifying
the two men as ``possible'' terrorists. By then it was too
late. The bureau did not realize the San Diego connection
until a few days after 9-11, when the informant heard the
names of the Pentagon hijackers and called his case agent.
``I know those guys,'' the informant purportedly said,
referring to Almihdhar and Alhazmi. ``They were my
roommates.''
But the belated discovery has unsettled some members of the
joint House and Senate Intelligence Committees investigating
the 9-11 attacks. The panel is tentatively due to begin
public hearings as early as Sept. 18, racing to its end-of-
the-year deadline. But some members are now worried that they
won't get to the bottom of what really happened by then.
Support for legislation creating a special blue-ribbon
investigative panel, similar to probes conducted after Pearl
Harbor and the Kennedy assassination, is increasing. Only
then, some members say, will the public learn whether more 9-
11 secrets are buried in the government's files.
Mr. HOLLINGS. So what you have, in January of 2000, is not only the
informant, the CIA had the information. Again, like I said, they did
not communicate it. The dots are never going to get joined. I can see
poor Condoleezza Rice standing up and saying: We didn't have anything
specific. We didn't have anything specific. She will never get anything
specific. She will not get a phone call saying, ``We are coming,'' like
we have already called Saddam with. We have told him, ``We are
coming.'' But that is not the way the world works with the al-Qaida
crowd.
So right to the point, on July 10, 2001, the FBI learned about the
Phoenix, AZ, flight school. A memo was sent to the FBI. But it stopped
at midlevel--never communicated to the White House, never communicated
to the CIA. Again, the dots not joined. I can tell you that right here
and now.
Here is a news story from July 21, 2001, before 9/11 of last year, in
the Iraqi news. The name of that particular newspaper is Al-Nasiriya.
Quoting from it:
Bin Ladin has become a puzzle and a proof also, of the
inability of the American federalism and the CIA to uncover
the man and uncover his nest. The most advanced organizations
of the world cannot find the man and continues to go in
cycles in illusion and presuppositions.
It refers to an exercise called ``How Do You Bomb the White House.''
They were planning it.
Let me read this to all the colleagues here:
The phenomenon of Bin Ladin is a healthy phenomenon in the
Arab spirit. It is a decision and a determination that the
stolen Arab self has come to realize after it got bored with
promises of its rulers; After it disgusted itself from their
abomination and their corruption, the man had to carry the
book of God . . . and write on some white paper ``If you are
unable to drive off the Marines from the Kaaba, I will do
so.'' It seems that they will be going away because the
revolutionary Bin Ladin is insisting very convincingly that
he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting.
In other words, the World Trade Towers. Here, over a year ahead of
time in the open press in Iraq, they are writing that this man is
planning not only to bomb the White House, but where they are already
hurting, the World Trade Towers.
I ask unanimous consent to print this article in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Al-Nasiriya, July 21, 2001]
America, an Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin
(By Naeem Abd Muhalhal)
Osama Bin Ladin says that he took from the desert its
silence and its anger at the same time.
He has learned how to harm America and has been able to do
it, for he gave a bad reputation to the Pentagon as being
weakened in more than one spot in the world. In order to
follow one step taken by Bin Ladin America has put to work
all its apparatus, its computers and its satellites just as
the governor cowboy of Texas has done. Bin Ladin's name has
been posted on all the internet sites and an amount of $5
million dollars has been awarded to anyone who could give any
information that would lead to the arrest of this lanky,
lightly bearded man. In this man's heart you'll find an
insistence, a strange determination that he will reach one
day the tunnels of the White House and will bomb it with
everything that is in it.
We all know that every age has its revolutionary
phenomenon. In Mexico there was Zapata. In Bolivia there was
Che Guevara, during the seventies came out Marcos and the Red
Brigades in Italy, the Baader Meinhof Gang in Germany and
there was Leila Khaled the Palestinian woman and others. They
all appeared in violence and disappeared quietly. During the
nineties Bin Ladin came out in the open having been
completely overtaken in his mind by the robbery happening to
his country and its treasurers. For him it was the beginning
of the revolution. For this endeavor he mobilized everything
that he had of money, of investments and Sudan was his first
stop. Bin Ladin ended up in Afghanistan where his
revolutionary drive pushed this stubborn revolutionary to
plan very carefully, and in a very detailed manner, his stand
to push back the boastful American onslaught and to change
the American legend into a bubble of soap.
Because Bin Ladin knows what causes pain to America, he
played America's game, just as an oppressed man entertains
itself with the thing oppressing him. He countered with the
language of dynamite and explosives in the city of Khobar and
destroyed two US embassies in Nairobi and Dar al Salaam.
America says, admitting just like a bird in the midst of a
tornado, that Bin Ladin is behind the bombing of its
destroyer in Aden. The fearful series of events continues for
America and the terror within America gets to the point that
the Governor of Texas increases the amount of the award, just
as the stubbornness of the other man and his challenge
increases. This challenge makes it such that one of his
grandchildren comes from Jeddah traveling on the official
Saudi Arabia airlines and celebrates with him the marriage of
one of the daughters of his companions. Bin Ladin has become
a puzzle and a proof also, of the inability of the American
federalism and the C.I.A. to uncover the man and uncover his
nest. The most advanced organizations of the world cannot
find the man and continues to go in cycles in illusion and
presuppositions. They still hope that he could come out from
his nest one day, they hope that he would come out from his
hiding hole and one day they will point at him their missiles
and he will join Guevara, Hassan Abu Salama, Kamal Nasser,
Kanafani and others. The man responds with a thin smile and
replies to the correspondent from Al Jazeera that he will
continue to be the obsession and worry of America and the
Jews, and that even that night he will practice and work on
an exercise called ``How Do You Bomb the White House.'' And
because they know that he can get there, they have started to
go through their nightmares on their beds and the leaders
have had to wear their bulletproof vests.
Meanwhile America has started to pressure the Taliban
movement so that it would hand them Bin Ladin, while he
continues to smile and still thinks seriously, with the
seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he
will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White
House . . .
The phenomenon of Bin Ladin is a healthy phenomenon in the
Arab spirit. It is a decision and a determination that the
stolen Arab self has come to realize after it got bored with
promises of its rulers: After it disgusted itself from their
abomination and their corruption, the man had to carry the
book of God and the Kalashnikov and write on some off white
paper ``If you are unable to drive off the Marines from the
Kaaba, I will do so.'' It seems that they will be going away
because the revolutionary Bin Ladin is insisting very
convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is
already hurting. That the man will not be swayed by the plant
leaves of Whitman nor by the ``Adventures of Indiana Jones''
and will curse the
[[Page S8526]]
memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs. This
new awareness of the image that Bin Ladin has become gives
shape to the resting areas and stops for every Arab
revolutionary. It is the subject of our admiration here in
Iraq because it shares with us in a unified manner our
resisting stand, and just as he fixes his gaze on the Al Aqsa
we greet him. We hail his tears as they see the planes of the
Western world taking revenge against his heroic operations by
bombing the cities of Iraq . . .
To Bin Ladin I say that revolution, the wings of a dove and
the bullet are all but one and the same thing in the heart of
a believer.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Then on August 15, just prior to September 11 of last
year, we had Moussaoui arrested in Minnesota. He wanted to know how to
fly a plane, but not how to take off in a plane. And the FBI's Coleen
Rowley, from Minnesota, testified before the Congress that she had
written a memo, and the way she summed it up, they could crash the
plane into the World Trade Towers.
Again, Mr. President, I could continue to go down the list, but we
have this USA Today article of September 2 of this year, where the
hijacker allegedly bragged what they were going to do on September 11.
The year before the attacks, the Germans reported the particular
terrorist saying that was exactly what they were going to do.
And there is a Time magazine article of May 27 of this year that sums
up how the United States missed all of the clues. We have seen all the
particular articles, and now we have the amendment in to fix the
problem.
Let me just say a word about, and not in any criticism of our
distinguished Director of the National Security Council, but
Condoleezza Rice is about as steeped in domestic security as I am in
foreign policy.
You can't find anyone more qualified in foreign policy. This young
lady graduated at 20 years of age Phi Beta Kappa from the University of
Denver. Then she earned her master's at the University of Notre Dame a
year later, when she was 21. At the age of 27, she received her
doctorate from the School of International Studies at the University of
Denver, and then in 1981 became a faculty member of Stanford University
in foreign policy.
So she has been steeped in that particular discipline all her life.
Let me quote from her particular biography:
The Bush administration has substantially restructured the
National Security Council during its first three weeks in
office, providing an early indication of how the new White
House plans to handle foreign policy.
She cut the NSC staff by a third, reorganized it to emphasize defense
strategy, national missile defense, and international economics.
In a White House first, Rice has expanded her regular
meetings with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to include Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill.
It also indicates:
. . . Bush's desire to decrease U.S. involvement in the
Balkans and signal to Russia ``that this administration is
not going to treat Russia as a special case.'' Other notable
changes have been the elimination of the divisions handling
international environmental and health issues, and of the
NSC's communications and legislative offices.
The reason I point this out is that prior to coming on board, the
previous Director of the National Security Council, Sandy Berger, had a
one-on-one meeting, telling Dr. Rice: Look, you are coming on board,
and most of your time is going to be taken up with counterterrorism.
There isn't any question about it. But what does she do? Instead, she
takes action on everything that she knows about and she is absolutely
authoritative in, but is not the need of the moment.
My problem with this bill is that it doesn't include any of the
agencies that had a failure on 9/11 in the proposed Department. The CIA
failed. The FBI failed. The National Security Agency failed. On
September 10, the NSA got a message in Arabic: Tomorrow is zero hour.
But they didn't translate it from Arabic into English until September
12. And then the National Security Council, limply standing there, not
being informed of anything, just said: Well, they didn't give us
anything specific.
It is the National Security Council's function to bring all the
elements together, the gathering of intelligence, the analysis of
intelligence, the joining of dots, the fixing of responsibility. The
buck stops here. That is what this simple amendment does.
It puts the FBI Director on the Council. Now we have a domestic
intelligence effort, something we never had. I met immediately with Bob
Mueller. I have his particular budget. I gave him some $750 million to
up-date his computers and synchronize them with the FAA and the
Immigration Service, the Border Patrol, and everything else, so that we
could have one-stop shopping on knowledge of any kind of a terrorist
threat.
We also gave him the money transfer of the funds last fall to
institute his new Department of Domestic Intelligence. Now the Domestic
Intelligence is supposed to give that over to the Department of
Homeland Security. But the Homeland Department does not gather any
intelligence. It only takes what it is given, and it only analyzes what
is given and, in a sense, doesn't know what to ask for because they are
not in the game. It is the same with the CIA. I can see right now a
breakdown continuing between domestic and foreign intelligence.
I have talked to Director Mueller on this particular score. He has
hired experienced CIA personnel at the FBI to help him set it up as a
Department of Domestic Intelligence. He says he is talking with the
CIA. But he hasn't really gotten all the way down to his agents and
directors talking at the State level. They have yet to talk to the
chiefs of police. I know because we have had meetings with respect to
port security. It will take time. It may take 5 years for this new
Department to really get in gear and work correctly.
But let me say here and now that we have to have this fixed. The only
place I know to be able to fix it is with the President himself--and we
have that type of President. That President is no nonsense. He wants to
have on his desk timely reports on intelligence, just like he gets from
Carl Rove, timely reports on politics. Let's give the emphasis and
time--a little bit at least--to intelligence. Give me those timely
reports. And that timely report has to be fused not just from the
Department of Homeland Security, or the office, or the bureau, or
whatever else they call Governor Ridge over there, but it has to be
fused at the National Security Council level, with foreign
intelligence.
I am not for the President having to get his director over here
confirmed by the Senate. I would favor the Thompson amendment. We don't
want the National Security Council Director to come here and be
confirmed. I think Governor Ridge, in contrast to Condoleezza Rice,
knows law enforcement. He has been a Governor, been in Congress, been
chief law enforcement officer of Pennsylvania. He knows domestic
security, which is something that Dr. Rice has never been into until 9/
11. She will have a hard time learning at that level, unless she gets
help.
So I think Governor Ridge is an excellent individual in that White
House, or wherever they put him, to help her begin to report. But she
has to ultimately, as Director, fuse domestic with foreign
intelligence, and all the other intelligence you might get from places
like the Drug Enforcement Administration. The financing of terrorism is
drugs. We know it. They have to follow the banks. She has to get
intelligence from the Secretary of the Treasury. She has to work with
all these particular entities, and the President doesn't have to take
this volumes and volumes of intelligence reports and sit down and read
all day. It has to be not only analyzed but prioritized. So it is right
in front of him, what he has to give his attention to at that moment
and throughout the day, each day, on our homeland security.
I yield the floor temporarily.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I was going to ask the Senator a question.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes, sir.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, as our highly esteemed colleague knows
full well, he occupies a position in this Chamber almost second to none
by virtue of his long experience and as a chief executive officer of
his State, a Governor. In listening very carefully to what he said, it
occurs to me that there is merit in this amendment.
However, my question to our colleague, given the rather dramatic
points he makes here, is: Should we not allow the current President the
opportunity to communicate with the Senate his views on this? It seems
to me
[[Page S8527]]
this council was established for the specific reason of being advisory
to him. It is thought of as his means of establishing an
infrastructure, as all Presidents have done, that best serves the
method by which they wish to govern and discharge their
responsibilities as President. My committee, Armed Services, the
Foreign Relations Committee, the Committee on Governmental Affairs, and
others that possibly have some oversight on this type of amendment, it
seems to me, could quickly gather the views and, in all probability, we
may end up with our colleague's amendment. But at least afford the
courtesy to the President to share with the Congress--and most
specifically the Senate--the views before they act on such a dramatic
piece of legislation as this.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Of course, we have the President's views. He submitted
a bill. In general, that particular view is before the Senate in the
form of the House bill. While we have our own views--and that is our
responsibility--this is not to preempt the President. In all fairness,
when you see the distinguished chairman of Armed Services, he is who is
disturbed. Talk about turf--not of the Senator from Virginia, but the
Pentagon, the Department of State. Calls went out to the Department of
State on this particular amendment. They don't want that FBI. They
don't want the domestic intelligence. They don't want that Secretary of
Homeland Security. They want their National Security Council to be
solely engaged in foreign policy and foreign and international threats,
not domestic.
So no siree, that would be a put off, as it would be for the Pentagon
crowd. We worked very closely with the Army and Navy and their
intelligence, and I have the greatest admiration for Secretary
Rumsfeld. But they have to report in, too, to this domestic
intelligence. That still has to be--the intelligence--fused with CIA
foreign intelligence at the level of the National Security Council.
There is no substitute for it.
If the President doesn't like it, he will say so to the House and it
will be knocked out in conference. So don't worry about that. I am not
worried about it. I want everybody to know here and now this bill does
nothing to avoid and prevent another 9/11. All the agencies that, on 9/
11, performed admirably--the Coast Guard was doing its job, FEMA was
doing its job, and they got the agriculture people who were doing their
job--they are the ones being included. Some 110,000 of the 170,000
people to be in this proposed department, with respect to seaport
security, airline security, and rail security are already together in
the Department of Transportation. We have been working on that. We have
instituted an Office of Domestic Preparedness within the Justice
Department. We have all of that going.
But the ones that failed are totally left out of the Department of
Homeland Security--the ones that failed us on 9/11 go untouched.
Please, my distinguished colleague, don't come up and say let's find
out what he thinks and put this off. We know what he thinks. Vote for
this amendment and send it to the House. If they knock it out, it will
be dropped out.
For one, I go along with Senator Thompson. We don't need to confirm
Dr. Rice at the National Security Council. Generally speaking, we don't
have her name over on her budget. We talk about that on the
Appropriations Committee level--if there is an Office of Homeland
Security there. I go along with the Senator from Tennessee not to
require that office be confirmed over here because, as President, I
know good and well I would not depend on the legislative branch's
intelligence. I can tell you that right now.
With any Department they would institute, I have a mammoth
responsibility. The buck stops here, and I cannot explain another 9/11
by going along with this bill and saying the problem is solved. It is
not solved at all. Don't delay me, Senator. You know and I know it will
be taken out if the President opposes it.
Mr. WARNER. I thank my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time for the Senator of South Carolina has
expired.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator
from Virginia be yielded 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee. I wish
to commend the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman, and our very
dear, soon-departing friend from Tennessee for their very important
work on this bill, homeland security.
Amendment No. 4513
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will now turn, I say to the Senator from
South Carolina, my remarks to the question of the pending amendment by
the Senator from Tennessee, and I thank my good friend for his reply to
my question.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Senator.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we were, as a body in recess--fortunately,
the leadership decided this body should go into recess so we could
watch the President of the United States deliver a speech which, in my
judgment, is one of the most important speeches ever delivered before
the United Nations.
He laid out with specific clarity the threats to the world posed by
Saddam Hussein, the threats to the world of inaction at this time, and
that those who say to him, there is concern this Nation is acting
unilaterally--our President very clearly gave the United Nations a
clear and respectful mandate to act now in the face of unrefuted facts
that in 16 instances, Saddam Hussein has defied the United Nations and
the Security Council. What better evidence?
He alluded to the fact that Saddam Hussein has provided evidence--
clearly, it is there--of a highly increased tempo of activities toward
the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, weapons which in no way
are needed for the rightful defense of the sovereign Nation of Iraq,
weapons that could only be manufactured and devised for offensive
actions against other nations.
This is not a war, which we are alluding to, between Iraq and the
United States. This is a war of free nations--many free nations--free
people, innocent people whose lives are at risk in the same way lives
were risked on 9/11 a year ago in New York, in my State of Virginia,
and in Pennsylvania. I commend the President.
It is interesting, against his speech is the background of another
President, President Clinton, who on February 19, 1998, referring to
his own perspective on terrorism, said, referring to the terrorists:
They actually take advantage of the freer movement of
people, information and ideas, and they will be all the more
lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver
them. We simply cannot allow this to happen. There is no more
clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His
regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of
the region, and the security of all the rest of us.
Our President built on that foundation in this historic speech that
was delivered today. It is my fervent hope that the Congress of the
United States, hopefully led by the Senate, will accede to the
President's request made to a group of us from the House and Senate who
were in his office just weeks ago, when he called on the Congress, to
act with respect to this situation such that the executive branch, led
by President Bush, and the Congress are arm in arm as we carry forward
our war against terrorism and, most specifically, the threats posed by
Iraq.
We are here on the issue of homeland defense, the issue of a new
Department. We have had a good debate. We have our differences of view
but, nevertheless, I see the momentum, I hope, in this body to move
forward with this legislation.
I support the overall intent of this legislation. I strongly agree
with the need to better organize our Government to protect our
homeland, but I do not support all the provisions of this bill.
Two such provisions are addressed by the pending Thompson amendment,
which I strongly support, which would strike titles II and III of the
underlying legislation. These titles have been of concern to me for
some time, and in a letter dated July 17 of this year, which I ask now
unanimous consent to print in the Record at the conclusion of my
remarks, I so expressed my concerns to the managers of this
legislation.
[[Page S8528]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 1.)
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, title II mandates the establishment of a
National Office for Combating Terrorism, and title III mandates the
development of a national strategy for combating terrorism and homeland
security response. I note that the administration is strongly opposed
to both of these titles.
The arguments against title II are not unlike the questions I posed
to the distinguished Senator from South Carolina regarding his measure,
which is also pending before the Senate. And that is, we should accord,
as a legislative body, the Congress, the maximum flexibility to our
President, be he Democrat or Republican, in establishing that structure
he deems necessary in his Department to best serve his style of
discharging the obligations of the Office of President.
Our President respectfully says to the Congress: I do not need what
is proposed in title II.
Again, on October 8, 2001, following the tragic events of September
11, President Bush formed the Office of Homeland Security in the
Executive Office of the President to oversee immediate homeland
security concerns and to propose long-term solutions.
Governor Ridge has discharged with great distinction the
responsibilities of that office. They worked hard under the President's
guidance to produce a comprehensive plan that now deserves our serious
consideration and support.
Again, the mandate to establish an Office for Combating Terrorism
within the Executive Office of the President of the United States, in
my judgment, would be redundant to the structure currently in place,
particularly since the President has already stated his intention to
retain the position of Assistant to the President for Homeland
Security. I urge the Senate to respect the right of the President under
the Constitution to establish his office, his infrastructure, which
best serves his style of management.
Turning to a second concern, and that is budget review and
certification authority provided for in this legislation to the
proposed Director of the National Office for Combating Terrorism, in my
view, such authority will undercut the ability of several Cabinet-level
officials, most notably the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State,
Attorney General, and the Director of Central Intelligence, as well as
the new Secretary of Homeland Security, assuming the Senate and the
House act, to carry out their primary responsibilities.
In the case of the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense--
and I have had the privilege in my 24 years in the Senate of working
with a succession of those Secretaries--the Secretary of Defense has a
wide-ranging responsibility to protect the vital U.S. interests and to
protect against the threats that are ever mounting against our Nation.
The Department, under the leadership of Secretary Rumsfeld, is
currently engaged in an all-out global war against terrorism designed
to bring to justice those responsible for the September 11 attacks on
our Nation and to deter would-be terrorists and those who harbor them
from further attacks. The Secretary of Defense must ensure that the
Department is adequately and properly funded to carry out its many
missions.
Pending before the Congress is the largest increase in defense
spending in many years, decades, but it is necessary. Our committee,
the authorization committee, together with the Appropriations
Committee, will soon bring their respective conference reports to this
body for approval, and I anticipate rapid approval by both Houses of
Congress.
It would be unwise to subject portions of the budget of these
respective Cabinet officers to a veto in many respects.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. THOMPSON. Would the Senator like additional time?
Mr. WARNER. I ask for an additional 2 minutes.
Mr. THOMPSON. I yield 2 additional minutes to the Senator from
Virginia.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. I turn now to title III. The pending legislation requires
the development of a national strategy for combating terrorism and
homeland security response. I have been the author, with colleagues on
the other side of the aisle, Senator Nunn, who was chairman of our
Committee on Armed Services, and Chairman Levin, the current chairman,
and urged that these various reports concerning the security of our
United States be brought by the administration to the Congress in a
timely manner so we can make our appropriate decisions on the budget.
Time and again, our committees have done that. It has been, generally
speaking, a good response by successive administrations on this
subject.
When the President established the Office of Homeland Security, he
directed Governor Ridge to develop a comprehensive strategy to protect
the United States from attack, which is right here. Therefore, I think
it is again redundant for this specific section in title III to be
enacted which more or less formalizes, again, the necessity for
producing this report which the President has voluntarily done.
I see the distinguished Senator from Connecticut in the Chamber. I
commend him for the hard work he has done, and I strongly urge that
this body be given the opportunity soon to make its final deliberations
and that this important legislation be adopted in whatever form is the
will of the Senate.
I congratulate the Senator from Connecticut, as well as the Senator
from Tennessee.
I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, July 17, 2002.
Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman,
Chairman,
Hon. Fred Thompson,
Ranking Member,
Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, Washington,
DC.
Dear Senator Lieberman and Senator Thompson: On July 15, I
joined with Senator Levin in sending a letter to your
Committee on the Bush Administration's proposal to create a
Department of Homeland Security. That letter addressed issues
in the Administration's proposal which fall under the
jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Today, I
am writing to express my concerns about certain aspects of S.
2452, the National Homeland Security and Combating Terrorism
Act of 2002, which was reported out of the Government Affairs
Committee on June 24, 2002. While I support the overall
intent of the legislation and agree with the need to better
organize our government to protect our homeland, much has
changed since this bill was reported to the Senate.
In the intervening weeks, the President has proposed the
establishment of a Department of Homeland Security and the
most fundamental reorganization of the United States
Government since the passage of the National Security Act of
1947. This proposal is the logical culmination of a very
deliberate process that started when then-Governor George W.
Bush established homeland security as his highest priority
during a speech at the Citadel in September 1999, stating,
``Once a strategic afterthought, homeland defense has become
an urgent duty.''
Following the tragic events of September 11, President Bush
formed the Office of Homeland Security in the Executive
Office of the White House to oversee immediate homeland
security concerns and to propose long-term solutions.
Governor Ridge and others have worked hard under the
President's guidance to produce a comprehensive plan that now
deserves our serious consideration and support.
While I support the establishment of a Department of
Homeland Security, I do not support creating a National
Office for Combating Terrorism as outlined in Title II of S.
2452. In my view, establishing this position within the
Executive Office of the President would be redundant to the
structure put in place by the President on October 8, 2001.
The President has already stated his intention to retain the
position of Assistant to the President for Homeland Security.
I have serious concerns about the budget review and
certification authority provided to this proposed Director of
the National Office for Combating Terrorism by S. 2452. In my
view, such authorities would undercut the ability of several
Cabinet-level officials, including the Secretary of Defense,
the Secretary of State, the Attorney General and the Director
of Central Intelligence, to carry out their primary
responsibilities. In the case of the Department of Defense,
the Secretary has wide-ranging responsibilities to protect
vital U.S. interests and to prevent threats from reaching our
shores. The Department, under the leadership of Secretary
Rumsfeld, is currently engaged in an all-out global war
against terrorism--designed to bring to justice those
responsible for the September 11 attacks on our nation and to
deter would-be terrorists and those who harbor them from
further attacks. The Secretary of Defense must ensure that
the Department is adequately and properly funded to carry out
its many missions. It would be
[[Page S8529]]
unwise to subject the budget carefully prepared by the
Secretary of Defense to a ``decertification''--in essence, a
veto--by an official who does not have to balance the many
competing needs of the Department of Defense and the men and
women of the Armed Forces.
I also note that Title III of S. 2452 requires the
development of a National Strategy for Combating Terrorism
and the Homeland Security Response. When the President
established the Office of Homeland Security, he directed
Governor Ridge to develop a comprehensive strategy to protect
the United States from terrorist attacks. President Bush
unveiled his Homeland Security Strategy earlier this week,
precluding the need for the requirement in Title III, S.
2452. Legislating anything other than a periodic review and
update of this strategy would be burdensome and would divert
attention and resources away from the Administration's focus
on homeland defense and the global war on terrorism. As the
President stated in releasing the Homeland Security Strategy
on July 16, ``The U.S. Government has no more important
mission than protecting the homeland from future terrorist
attacks.'' We in the Congress should do all we can to help
our President achieve this goal.
I hope my comments are useful as you continue your work on
this important legislation.
With kind regards, I am
Sincerely,
John Warner,
Ranking Member.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I am proud of the work our Governmental Affairs
Committee has done. It was a very open process. We included provisions
recommended by members of both parties. I think it is a strong
proposal. Obviously, there is some disagreement with the White House
about parts of it, but I repeat what I have said before, that we are in
agreement on: First, the basic necessity to better organize our
homeland defenses, because this disorganization which exists now is
dangerous. Second, there is broad bipartisan agreement on this bill we
have reported out of our committee and the White House about what I
have estimated to be 90 percent of the components of the bill. We are
having a series of tussles about the remaining 10 percent. The sooner
we resolve them, the better. The sooner we get this bill passed and on
the way to a conference committee with the House and authorize the
administration to set up this new Department, the safer the American
people will be.
I appreciate the Senator's call for expedited action, and I hope and
pray that others in the Senate heed that call.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. THOMPSON. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to speak in
opposition to the idea for a National Office for Combating Terrorism,
which would be a position confirmed by the Senate, because I believe
the responsibilities which are enumerated in the bill can be handled by
the Secretary for Homeland Security so that it is not necessary to have
another position of Director for the National Office for Combating
Terrorism.
As the responsibilities are set forth in section 201(c), first to
develop national objectives and policies for combating terrorism, that
is a core function for the Secretary of Homeland Security. Second, to
directly review the development of a comprehensive national assessment
of terrorist threats, again, I believe is something which can be
handled by the Secretary of Homeland Security, which is a position to
be confirmed.
Another responsibility enumerated in the statute is to coordinate the
implementation of the strategy by agencies with responsibilities for
combating terrorism, and there again it is my view that that can be
handled by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Another responsibility is to work with agencies, including the
Environmental Protection Agency, to address vulnerabilities identified
by the Director of Central Infrastructure Protection within the
Department. Again, that is a matter which can be handled by the
Secretary of Homeland Security.
Another responsibility is to coordinate, with the advice of the
Secretary, the development of a comprehensive annual budget for the
program and activities under the strategy, including the budgets of the
military departments and agencies within the national foreign
intelligence program related to international terrorism, but excluding
military programs, projects, or activities relating to force
protection.
I believe there is sound reason for having budget authority to
coordinate overall the intelligence functions. However, again, I think
to the extent we grant that overall budget authority, the logical place
to put it is in the Secretary of Homeland Security.
As the other responsibilities are enumerated, to have the exercise,
function, and authority for Federal terrorism prevention and response
agencies, again, these are matters for the Secretary of Homeland
Security.
The intent of the drafter of these provisions is correct in seeking
to provide the coordination, but to have another officeholder confirmed
by the Senate and in the West Wing is not advisable. The analogy to the
National Security Council position now held by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, I
think, is inapposite and does not apply to making the Director for the
National Office of Combating Terrorism a confirmed position.
There is a real need on the overall coordination, to be sure we have
all of the agencies responsible for intelligence and analysis under one
umbrella, such as the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency,
the National Security Agency, and all of the intelligence agencies.
A point worth repeating is that had we put all of the dots together
on matters known prior to September 11, 2001, there was a veritable
blueprint and September 11 might well have been prevented. There was
the Phoenix office of the FBI reporting on a man taking flight
training, a big picture of Osama bin Laden on his wall, and other
respective connections to al-Qaida. We had the two terrorists known by
the CIA in Kuala Lumpur who turned out to be terrorist pilots of planes
on 9/11. The information was not given to the FBI or the INS in a
timely fashion. There was the threat given to the National Security
Agency on September 10, 2001, which was not transcribed, that something
was going to happen the next day. It was not interpreted until
September 12, after the events of 9/11 had occurred.
Perhaps most importantly, there was the effort to obtain a warrant
under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as to Zacarias
Moussaoui, and had that warrant been obtained, there was an actual
treasure trove of information linking Moussaoui to al-Qaida.
The FBI used the wrong standard, as disclosed in the testimony of
Special Agent Coleen Rowley, who appeared with FBI Director Mueller on
June 6 at an oversight hearing by the Judiciary Committee. In Agent
Rowley's letter, she talked about the U.S. attorney in Minnesota
requiring 75 to 80 percent probabilities. Agent Rowley thought that was
wrong. She thought the standard should be a preponderance of the
evidence, more likely than not--51 percent, as she put it. However, she
was wrong as well because the standard is articulated in the case
captioned Gates v. Illinois, an opinion written by then-Justice
Rehnquist, saying the standard was suspicion, and Justice Rehnquist
went back to the Krantz case with Chief Justice Marshall talking about
suspicion on the totality of the factors. However, there was ample
evidence to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant for
Zacarias Moussaoui.
It would have been thought that the FBI would have had its house in
order after their experience on Wen Ho Lee, when at the highest levels
of the Justice Department, the matter rightfully went to the Attorney
General at that time and they declined to issue a vice warrant and
later determined, even by the review of the Justice Department, there
was probable cause. That matter was subjected to very intense oversight
by the Judiciary Committee at that time.
We have pursued the oversight on Zacarias Moussaoui. We found in
closed hearings--this much can be disclosed--the FBI agents are still
not applying the correct standard. I wrote to FBI Director Mueller on
July 10, 2002. We had the hearings on July 9. I asked when they would
apply the right standard. Earlier this week on Tuesday there was
another oversight hearing by the full Judiciary Committee, this time
publicly, and the Department of Justice representative acknowledged
[[Page S8530]]
the wrong standard had been applied, but says they have corrected it
with examples. We are waiting to see the specifics.
The impact of this is that there ought to be one umbrella under which
the analysis of all of the intelligence agencies occurs. The amendment
which has been offered here, the provision of section 201, which the
pending amendment seeks to strike, has a laudable purpose. It is
seeking that kind of coordination, but it simply does not require a
director for a national office of combating terrorism, which would be a
confirmed position.
The language in the bill needs to be specified so the burden is on
those who oppose the coordination to come forward. I wrote to Governor
Ridge on August 1 referring to a meeting which had been held the
previous day. I think it appropriate to quote briefly from this letter.
I was very pleased to hear the President's affirmative response
yesterday to the proposal to have analysis from every intelligence
agency--CIA, FBI, DIA, et cetera--under the umbrella of the Department
of Homeland Security with the Secretary having the authority to direct
those intelligence agencies to supply his Department with the requisite
intelligence data.
The key language of the responsibilities which I believe should be in
the bill, and I intend to offer an amendment if we cannot get this
worked out by agreement is that the Directorate of Intelligence within
the Department of Homeland Security shall be responsible for the
following:
(1) On behalf of the secretary, subject to disapproval by
the President, directing the agencies described under
subsection (a)(1)(B) to provide intelligence information,
analyses of intelligence information and such other
intelligence-related information as the Directorate of
Intelligence deems necessary.
The thrust of this language would give the Secretary the authority to
command all the analyses unless the President disapproves. However, the
language to have the President direct the Secretary to have this
oversight responsibility is unworkable because you cannot take it to
the President to ask for his authority on each occasion. However, if
there is strong reason to disallow the Secretary's authority in a
specific case, then it is subject to disapproval of the President. I do
not think that is necessary, but in order to avoid any controversy, the
language ought to be included in the statute.
Although I have already put this letter in the Record before, I think
it is worth including at this stage of the debate, so I ask unanimous
consent that the letter be printed in the Congressional Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, August 1, 2002.
Hon. Tom Ridge,
Director of Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
Dear Tom: I was very pleased to hear the President's
affirmative response yesterday to the proposal to have
analysts from every intelligence agency (CIA, FBI, DIA, etc.)
under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security
with the Secretary having the authority to direct those
intelligence agencies to supply his Department with the
requisite intelligence data.
As I said in the meeting in the Cabinet Room yesterday, I
think that had all of the intelligence information known
prior to September 11th been under one umbrella, the
terrorist attacks of September 11th might have been
prevented.
Senator Thompson, as I understand him, did not disagree
with that ultimate approach except to express the view that
he thought that changes in the structure of the intelligence
community should await further studies. My own strongly held
view is that we have a unique opportunity to make the changes
in the intelligence community now because of the imminent
terrorist threats; and, if we don't act now, we will be back
to business as usual.
As you and I discussed in our meeting of July 29, 2002,
there have been many proposals to place the intelligence
agencies under one umbrella, including legislation which I
introduced in 1996 when I chaired the Intelligence Committee,
and the current proposals which have been made by General
Scowcroft.
I suggest that Section 132(b) of the bill reported by the
Governmental Affairs Committee be modified by adding at the
beginning a new paragraph (1) to read as follows:
(b) Responsibilities.--The Directorate of Intelligence
shall be responsible for the following:
(1) On behalf of the Secretary, subject to disapproval by
the President, directing the agencies described under
subsection (a)(1)(B) to provide intelligence information,
analyses of intelligence information and such other
intelligence-related information as the Directorate of
Intelligence deems necessary.
I am sending copies of this letter to Senator Lieberman and
Senator Thompson so that we may all discuss these issues
further.
My best.
Sincerely,
Arlen Specter.
Mr. SPECTER. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Miller). The Senator from Tennessee is
recognized.
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania
for his remarks and his support of the Thompson amendment. I thank the
Senator from Virginia for the same. I think both of these Senators,
without dispute, would be recognized as people who have been students
and have been leaders in the areas we are dealing with today. I think
their support on this important amendment is crucial.
I was particularly taken with the comments of Senator Warner as he
related his thoughts listening to the President a little while ago
before the United Nations. I had the same thoughts. The President made
a magnificent speech. In part, it was a legal brief, where he outlined
ad seratim the various instances where Saddam Hussein had rejected the
sanctions that had been placed on him by the United Nations, rejected
the resolutions that had been passed by the Security Council time and
time and time again, rejected inspectors, rejected sanctions, basically
rendering what the United Nations and the international community as a
whole and specifically the Security Council, what they had done,
rendering it a nullity.
I thought it was a very effective walk through history. There was no
secret information disclosed. It was a rendition of what we all should
have known. The people who were listening to him today were taken on
that walk down memory lane of all the things that have happened since
1990 and the attempts that the United Nations have made, the attempts
the Security Council have made, all thwarted by this one country, as he
continued to oppress his own people, as he continued to either attack
or plan attacks for others, as he continued to develop his weapons of
mass destruction, as he finally acknowledged, yes, he did have chemical
and biological weapons after lying about it for all those years and our
inspectors telling us he had a virtual Manhattan nuclear project the
last time we went in there. And now he has closed us out and we are
wringing our hands over what we know and what we do not know.
That is our position. Internationally, the entire world is, because
he has put us in that position, once again, and deprived us of any
knowledge of exactly what he is doing, although we know he has the
intelligence, he has the scientists, he has the infrastructure, the
capability, the know-how, the desire, everything, except possibly
enriched uranium with which to make a nuclear weapon. Unfortunately,
there is a lot of that in the world. We do not know whether he has it.
Part of it was an effective legal brief. Part of it was
inspirational. It was an appeal to the United Nations for it not to
become irrelevant in terms of world peace. If the U.N. and the Security
Council allow a country such as this, a regime such as this, to thwart
the very purpose of the creation of the United Nations, then what
authority, what standing, what moral suasion is it going to have in the
future when the next tinhorn dictator comes along and hunkers down and
takes a little bombing and goes on with his suppression of people and
killing of innocents and using weapons of mass destruction on his own
people as he prepares for the next attack. I thought it was very
effective.
And what is the relationship between Saddam Hussein and terrorism?
The President pointed out one of the most dangerous circumstances we
can contemplate is having a regime such as his with the ability to
transfer his capabilities over to terrorists.
We know he has a long history of relationships with various terrorist
organizations, including some with al-Qaida. Are we to assume he would
not ever use as a surrogate someone to do his dirty work? It is
extremely relevant to the battle on terrorism. I think those who urge
that we totally clean up the battle on terrorism over here, because it
is a distinct problem, before we address the situation in Iraq are
missing that point.
[[Page S8531]]
Which brings us to the bill we are considering today. It is very
relevant. It is a homeland security bill. This is where all the
chickens come home to roost in regard to our Nation's security.
What concerns me about this bill is that in more than one instance
there is an attempt to diminish the President's authority. This bill
would not give the President authority that other Presidents have had.
Most all of the Members serving here today served under President
Clinton. It would take away authority President Clinton had with regard
to national security. This bill would lessen--give less authority, in
terms of the management of this monolithic new Department we are about
to create, than the head of the FAA has to manage the FAA.
With regard to the subject matter that is addressed by the Thompson
amendment, we would not give the President the right to have his own
adviser inside the White House as he deals with all these issues. That
concerns me. I do not think that is going in the right direction.
We are not going to do anything in this Congress to diminish
Congress's traditional role. Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens have made
it clear that they are not going to stand back and let the traditional
appropriations authority of the Congress be set aside. Senator
Lieberman has made that clear. The bill reflects that position. I am
sure we will be able to work out something along those lines that does
not diminish our authority in any way. We have the power of the purse.
We have the power of the purse.
This bill creates many positions, including the new Secretary, that
will be Senate confirmed. He will have to come before this body. So we
are not diminishing the authority of the Congress. What we are doing is
establishing a brandnew, important Department that we are going to have
to approach in a bit of a different way than we have approached other
Departments at other times because we have not been very successful
with other Departments at other times. This Government is rife with
Departments and governmental agencies that have waste and fraud and
abuse, sending out checks for billions of dollars to people who are not
even alive; losing large pieces of equipment, at least on the books,
such as ships and things of that nature; having the GAO come before us
year after year after year, saying these agencies are not doing any
better. They cannot pass an audit. Government as a whole cannot pass an
audit. We do not know what assets and liabilities we have. We cannot
keep up with them. It is a mess.
We are pulling 22 of these agencies into a new Department. We cannot
approach it the same old way. We have to have a 21st century paradigm
in order to address a 21st century problem.
Most of the rules we are operating under now were created in the
1950s when we had a paperwork Government. People came into Government
at this position, worked for 20 years, and were promoted in lockstep in
these 15 steps, with 10 steps within each of the 15, totally unable to
address modern-day problems.
As the GAO tells us we cannot handle the information technology
challenge that faces our Government, private industry has been able to.
We have been trying to incorporate information technology capability in
the IRS for years. We have spent billions of dollars and still the
computers will not talk to each other--and they are not the only ones.
We have human capital problems. We have financial management problems--
year after year.
So that is all the background for considering an amendment such as
this, which addresses the bill where it creates a new Office of
Combating Terrorism.
We are suggesting the President ought to have a little flexibility, a
little traditional flexibility to have, in the White House--not over at
the new Department but in the White House--a person he chooses to
coordinate not only what is going on in the new Department but the
important national security, or homeland security, entities that are
not in the new Department. Coordination is needed.
We have that coordinated. The President established an Office of
Homeland Security. The President established an Office of Combating
Terrorism within the NSC. Those are already there. You say we need them
Senate confirmed. NSC is not Senate confirmed. We have a Senate-
confirmed position we are creating in the new Secretary of the
Department of Homeland Security.
This bill, as it is drafted now, mandates the development of a
national strategy. We have a national strategy. We have had it since
July. I don't know whether the idea is to set the old one aside and
come up with a new one or submit the one the President has already put
out again. This was a good idea back several months ago. Time has
passed it by.
The suggestion is made that this new person inside the White House,
confirmed by the Senate over the President's objection, would have
budgetary authority that would allow this new person to decertify the
homeland security budget. The budget goes to him before it even goes to
OMB. What kind of situation is that going to be? What if you were asked
to take on the job of new Secretary of Homeland Security knowing that
your budget was going to go to some guy over in the White House and he
had to be satisfied before it even got to you? How would you like it
over at the OMB, when we are going into a period of deficit, when
people, apparently in this Congress, still think we can have guns and
butter indefinitely, we don't have any problem spending helter-skelter,
left and right?
He has to balance all that. And he has a guy over in the White House
who has only one priority, homeland security. And as important as it
is, it is not the only priority this Government has. But he has veto
power over the Government.
There never has been a circumstance like this in the history of
Government. There never has been a big Department, like the Department
of Homeland Security, and what we are creating, with authority and
responsibility and jurisdiction over the issue at hand, homeland
security in this case, and a White House-confirmed position with
decertification budget authority all at the same time.
I think it would absolutely be havoc for any administration, Democrat
or Republican. I think it would lessen accountability, not increase
accountability. Goodness knows, we need increased accountability.
The President has said he is going to keep Governor Ridge. I don't
know whether the idea is we will give this new fellow an office down at
the other end of the hall or that the President is not being square
with us, that he will really get rid of Ridge or that he will give
Ridge this job. I don't know what the idea is. The President said he is
going to keep up the office. He is entitled to have his own counsel, as
Presidents traditionally have.
So I urge we not do that. I urge we maintain the status quo there;
that we not take another step to restrict the President, to restrict
either his national security authority that Presidents traditionally
have, restrict the new Secretary's authority to manage the Department,
in the new age and time and challenge that we face, and we not restrict
the President within his own office in terms of whom he wants to bring
in and have confidential conversations with, who cannot be called up to
the Hill at any time.
I said early on in this discussion before these bills were presented
that ultimately it was clear Congress was going to have somebody's leg
to chew on. Congress needed to have somebody who is accountable to come
up here and testify. I didn't particularly welcome this back and forth
as to who was going to talk and what office they would talk in and what
other office they would not talk in. I don't think that would do any of
us any good. I knew that ultimately somebody was going to have to come
up here and be a spokesman and be accountable. We now have that. That
is the new Secretary. That is the new Department of Homeland Security.
We don't need it with regard to the position in the White House. The
President said he doesn't want it. I believe on these close questions,
if indeed my colleagues believe it is a close question, that we ought
to give the President the benefit of the doubt. He is now, without
boast, the leader of the free world. As we are facing the challenge of
terrorism and the challenge that is presented by Saddam Hussein, as
evidenced by his speech today, the
[[Page S8532]]
ears of the entire world were trained upon him. That is not anything to
do with him personally. That is the position of the President of the
United States.
In times such as these, if you can compare any other time with this--
especially in times of war, especially in times of issues of war and
peace--whoever is President of the United States is the leader of the
free world and is the leader in espousing those values that we hold
dear, knowing as the entire world does that we are going to be on the
front lines of any enforcement action the world deems necessary for the
cause of freedom and democracy.
That is not a hokie sentiment. That is not Democrat-Republican. That
is just reality.
I hope as we consider these issues that my colleagues will give on
balance the call for a bit of flexibility, at least as much as we have
given prior Presidents, and at least as much as we have given heads of
these other agencies when facing challenges that are much less than
what we are facing today.
I urge my colleagues to vote for the Thompson amendment.
I yield the floor.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I stand in strong support of the Craig-
Domenici amendment to improve the tragic health of our Nation's
forests. Years of complete fire suppression has resulted in unnaturally
dense forests. In many places out West where nature would have 50 trees
per acre, there are 500 trees per acre, this tremendous build-up in
hazardous fuels significantly increases fire danger and makes trees
more prone to insect infestations.
The facts are clear: Unnaturally dense forests result in unnaturally
hot burning and fast moving fires. The Forest Service and other land
management agencies have known the facts for years but have been
hamstrung, in large part due to shifting political winds.
And here is the dilemma: interest groups and agencies argue about
what needs to be done while forests go up in flames, endangered species
are destroyed, and human life and property are jeopardized.
The amendment that we are proposing does not point the finger at any
one group or agency. Rather, this amendment moves beyond the politics
and focuses on results consistent with plans developed by the Western
Governors' own ``10-Year Comprehensive Strategy for a Collaborative
Approach for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the
Environment.''
Where the agencies are unable to proceed with hazardous fuels
reduction, this amendment directs the Secretaries of Agriculture and
Interior to expedite responsible forest management projects in a
balanced way and is very similar to language previously passed by this
body to allow for fuel reduction in certain other western States.
This amendment looks at the facts. In this year alone, 62,924 fires
have scorched more than 6.3 million acres of land across this Nation.
But what about people, how has wildfire affected our communities?
Since April of this year in my State of Colorado, 12 communities, 141
subdivisions totaling 81,068 people have been evacuated because of
wildfire. When those Coloradans returned after being evacuated, they
found 384 homes burned to the ground and 624 other structures
destroyed.
Although property damage and widespread dislocation are devastating
on communities, the wildfire season of 2002 has proved even more
tragic. Wildfires have claimed the lives of 10 firefighters in
Colorado, and 21 in the nation. Returning to a pile of ash instead of
your home is one thing, coming home without a father or sister is
another altogether.
Without responsible hazardous fuel reduction, this year's fire
situation is bound to repeat itself and I cannot allow this to happen.
This year's fires came close enough to my own front porch at one point,
that it was difficult for my wife and me to breathe. Given the drought
conditions that the West is enduring, the situation on the 181 million
acres that are currently classified as a Class 3 fire risk is not going
to get any better.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to reduce the threat
unhealthy forests pose nationwide.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, yesterday, being obviously the first anniversary of
the horrific attacks against us on September 11 of last year, we
commemorated with very moving--and I thought unifying--purpose at
events here in the Capitol in Washington, at the Pentagon, in New York,
and Pennsylvania--and really throughout America and so many places. Our
attention was riveted again on what happened to us and how urgent it is
to act to prevent that horror from ever happening again.
I will state again what I have said on the floor before. I am not one
who believes that another September 11 type of attack against America
is inevitable. It is not inevitable if we are aggressive in searching
out and destroying the remaining al-Qaida terrorists, if we are wise
and strong in marshaling the unique capabilities we have in America to
better organize our homeland defenses. Of course, that is what this
bill is about.
I think the President's statement today at the United Nations is
further testimony and further draws our attention to the urgency of the
challenges we face.
I want to say parenthetically that I thought the speech the President
gave at the United Nations today was a powerful and convincing
indictment of Saddam Hussein and the grave threat he poses--not just to
the United States and to his neighbors in a most critical region of the
world, but to the legitimacy and the authority of the United Nations in
the world community, a United Nations which Saddam has outrageously and
consistently defied and deceived for more than a decade.
I fully support the President's call to action by the United Nations.
I hope the nations of the world will take a look at the record. I think
my friend from Tennessee said it was in some sense a lawyerly
statement. It really was an indictment of the 16 resolutions of the
United Nations that Saddam Hussein has ignored, and he has defied and
thumbed his nose at every one of them. How can the United Nations be
the institution we want it to be--bringing peace and resolving
conflicts--if one rogue leader of one nation treats its orders and
resolutions with such disrespect?
This is a moment of decision for the members of the United Nations. I
hope they rise to the challenge that President Bush has quite correctly
put before them today.
This does bring us back to where we are on this amendment and Senator
Thompson's motion to strike titles 2 and 3 of this amendment which is
before the Senate and which was reported out of the Governmental
Affairs Committee. These were authored largely by Senator Graham of
Florida, who has spoken on them. They are part of an attempt in this
bill to deal not just with homeland security, but to deal with the
problem of terrorism that the President spoke about so eloquently and
convincingly today at the United Nations.
Homeland security is just one part of the battle against terrorism.
We obviously have other parts that are critically important as well--
certainly the Defense Department, certainly our intelligence community,
the State Department, the Treasury, and various foreign aid and public
diplomacy programs, and law enforcement agencies, a lot of which will
not in any sense come under the purview of this new Department of
Homeland Security.
That is why it was the wisdom of the committee--I believe it was
certainly the judgment of the committee--that in addition to creating
the Department of Homeland Security, we would guarantee the kind of
aggressive antiterrorism effort that the country needs now and in the
years ahead by creating in the White House an office to combat
terrorism, to coordinate not just the Homeland Security Department but
the other agencies of our Government that are involved in the fight
against terrorism.
It is my understanding that many have spoken in support of Senator
Thompson's amendment to strike these sections. Perhaps some at the
White House agree that there will be an office in the White House, but
they object to the confirmation requirement in our proposal that the
director of that office be confirmed by the Senate. And there was also
objection to the budget certification authority that we give the
director of the office.
[[Page S8533]]
Senator Graham is a practical and realistic man on matters of this
kind. We know there is concern in the Senate about the requirement of
confirmation of the director of this office and the budget
certification authority. We are consulting with our colleagues to see
if they will support a proposal that would modify these titles by
simply removing the Senate's authority to confirm and the budget
authority given to the director and leave an office of
counterterrorism. This office would be appointed by the President
without confirmation by the Senate, but with a guarantee that the
broader counterterrorism war that we will be fighting for years will
have in the White House, close to the President, an adviser for whom
that is his or her only responsibility.
We think this proposal is a way that Congress, respecting the
President and his authority--this President and Presidents to follow--
can guarantee as much as we can by the law that is in a quieter time
further from the pain and shock of September 11, 2001; that America
will not fall into a slumber and allow itself to be vulnerable once
again as we were a year ago yesterday to terrorism's awful sword.
I report that to my colleagues. I hope members of both parties and
our friends at the White House will consider that as a good-faith
possibility and see whether we can build a consensus to go forward on
it.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time
consumed by the quorum calls be taken equally from both sides on the
time remaining.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and, again, suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I also yield myself 10 minutes on the side
of Senator Lieberman in opposition to the Thompson amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, President Bush could not have made a
better choice for Director of the White House Office on Homeland
Security than Gov. Tom Ridge. We served together in the House of
Representatives. We are personal friends. And I hold him in the highest
regard. He is clearly the right person for this extremely difficult
task and assignment and has done a great job under trying circumstances
and in a very brief period of time.
However, I believe we must keep title II in the bill, which
establishes a National Office for Combating Terrorism in the White
House, with a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed Director, not
as any rebuke to the President or Governor Ridge, but to give Governor
Ridge the tools he needs to be even more effective.
I cosponsored Senator Graham's bill, S. 1449, to establish this
office and supported its inclusion in Senator Lieberman's original bill
to establish a Department of Homeland Security, which I also
cosponsored.
I refer my colleagues to testimony given by Retired General Barry
McCaffrey, before the Governmental Affairs Committee, on October 12 of
last year. He spoke about organizing our Government to protect America.
Here is what he said:
Our government does best when it establishes institutions
for the long haul that are based on rationality, not
personality. . . . The terms of this office--how its
leadership is appointed, where its monies come from, what
powers it wields, who it is accountable to--must have the
permanence of law. . . . Any Cabinet member, current or
former, will tell you how important it is to have the
Commander-in-Chief in your corner. However, when push comes
to shove, it is even more important to have the law on your
side.
General McCaffrey's experience as our antidrug czar at the Office of
National Drug Control Policy brought him to his strong conclusion that
the White House Office on Homeland Security must have its own budget
and the position must be confirmed by the Senate. Without those
ingredients, the Director would have neither the clout to fight
Washington's bureaucracy nor the accountability before Congress to do
his job effectively.
General McCaffrey's testimony was borne out by our experience here in
Congress when numerous committees asked Governor Ridge to testify about
homeland security. He was unable to because he said: I am a staffer of
the President. I am not appointed by the Senate.
Governor Ridge was finally allowed to testify by the White House but
only after the President decided he wanted to create this new
Department.
Title III, which the Thompson amendment would strike, gives the job
of developing a national strategy to combat terrorism and a
comprehensive antiterrorism budget to the National Office for Combating
Terrorism.
Having clout in the budget process is essential. President Bush says
Cabinet Secretaries know that Governor Ridge has his trust and must put
aside turf wars. But what we are setting up here are institutional
structures.
Government officials come and go. Not all will have the close
personal relationship that Governor Ridge enjoys with President Bush.
The President certainly has the right to structure his staff and his
advisors as he pleases, but we have the responsibility in Congress to
pass legislation to establish structures of Government which will
endure.
Let me say this as a parenthetical observation: One of the things I
added to this bill--and in which I have particular pride--is an effort
to try to establish some sort of architecture for computers and
information technology in this new Department. I could go on for some
time about the dismal state of computers at the premier law enforcement
agency of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is
a fact, if you look at the various agencies we will count on to protect
America, that in terms of computer capability, it is almost as if you
were traveling across the world and you picked countries that were
computer illiterate and asked them to communicate with those that were
the most sophisticated. That is what we have in the Federal Government.
What I tried to do with this bill is to establish a standard for
coordinating computer architecture, a Manhattan project. I put it in
the Office of Management and Budget, frankly, because I couldn't assign
it to a higher level and get it passed by committee. That is sad. But
it is a fact. What I believe we are trying to establish in this bill is
to make sure that within the White House there will be someone always
close to the President who is willing to rip through the bureaucracy
and to establish the standards and procedures to make sure that America
is safe. Unless you have someone at that high level close enough to the
President to get it done, someone who is going to deal with it, you
will run into a problem. Saying in this situation that we are going to
have in a Department of Homeland Security someone who is going to be
subjected to Senate confirmation, separate budget authority, is to give
them enhanced authority as well.
Departments and agencies with major responsibilities for homeland
security, including the Department of Defense, State, and Treasury, the
FBI, the entire intelligence community, among many others, are properly
not included in the new Department. There will be a critical job to do
to develop a national strategy for computers, for information
technology and beyond, and coordinate this strategy so that the
agencies of this new Department can effectively combat the threat of
terrorism against the United States.
I hope my colleagues in the Senate will support the language put in
this bill by Senator Lieberman after deliberation in committee and
oppose the Thompson amendment.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
[[Page S8534]]
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I speak in opposition to the amendment,
which would strike titles II and III from this legislation.
These two titles together will provide, within the community
concerned about securing the homeland, the direction and capacity to
develop a comprehensive strategic plan of how to accomplish that very
difficult objective, and then to place within the White House an
officer who is responsible for the specific function of combating
terrorism. The subfunctions of that office will be to coordinate the
variety of agencies that will have some responsibility for implementing
the strategic plan.
Some have thought that no office such as this is necessary because we
are about to bring a whole Department of Homeland Security. We have a
Department of Defense, but we also have within the White House a
national security adviser whose job is to coordinate national security
issues. The reason is because, as broad as the Defense Department is,
it does not contain all of the activities of the Federal Government
that relate to national security. It does not include the State
Department, which has our diplomatic and foreign relations function. It
does not include the Department of Treasury, which has some important
national security responsibilities as it relates to economic issues. It
does not include the Department of Energy, where most of our nuclear
development responsibility is placed.
So we have an agency in the White House to bring all those
Departments that have some national security function behind a common
strategy. This is exactly the purpose of this office within the White
House, and that would be deleted if this amendment were to be adopted.
There will be no entity that has statutory status that will be
responsible, or capable, of trying to bring all of these agencies
together. That is the most fundamental reason.
But there is another reason why I think this office is very
important. In my judgment, the threats the United States will be facing
in our homeland and abroad are likely to escalate over the next period
of time. No. 2, it is exactly during this period of time that this new
Department of Homeland Security is going to be trying to integrate
almost two dozen agencies that have had their homes elsewhere--in some
cases, for a century or more.
It is at this very time that there is likely--I suggest not likely,
but there almost certainly will be considerable resistance to achieving
the cohesion that is going to be necessary to accomplish this
objective. I suggest that it will not be long before we have a debate
on the floor about why did a certain misstep occur or why was a gap
allowed to go unfilled, as we try to put together a structure to
protect our homeland.
I suggest that an answer to those questions is going to be that there
was so much support for the status quo and resistance to the sort of
change that could not be overcome sufficiently and in time to avoid an
unnecessary vulnerability. That is my prediction. I don't believe there
is any suggestion that will give absolute certainty that my prediction
will prove to be false. But I believe that having this office within
the White House, where there is somebody who wakes up every morning
thinking about fighting terrorism, and who is in an office within
walking distance of the President of the United States, will give us a
greater opportunity to achieve the speedy, expeditious, and effective
coordination activities that will be necessary to protect our homeland.
This office has some considerable powers. For instance, it has the
power to certify budgets. Why does it have that power? Because I can
tell you that there is going to be a tendency of an agency that has
been doing a set of functions for a long time, and now they suddenly
have a homeland security function, and when that new function is
battling inside the agency with all of those that have had a long
history and a constituency and a political support base, any new
function is not likely to do very well. We learned that lesson in the
war against drugs. The very fact that Congress made this a priority
didn't result in it being a priority in the agencies that had their
operational responsibility. I suggest the same thing is likely to occur
here.
Unless you have somebody to tell that agency that unless you put an
additional $15 million into carrying out your part of the strategic
plan of homeland security, we are going to decertify that part of your
budget--that is the kind of clout it is going to take--if we don't feel
that this issue is worthy of giving this office that kind of
responsibility, then I am afraid we are going to be coconspirators in a
plot which is going to have a bad conclusion.
So I urge that if, as I anticipate, there will be a motion to table
the Thompson amendment, that motion be supported so we can retain this
important position within the White House, recognizing that its
ultimate power is going to come from the President himself, but it will
give the President, who wants to have the most effective homeland
security, an agency that we in Congress have established and,
therefore, have invested our confidence in, which he appoints, and
which will have the capability to give us the best hope that we can
accomplish our objective of defending the homeland against terror.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, very briefly, I thank the Senator from
Florida, Mr. Graham, for his hard work on this part of our bill. It is
work that really goes back to last fall. I think he is absolutely
right. I appreciate his accommodation to the fact that there may be
Members of the Senate who support the basic idea of an office in the
White House to coordinate our antiterrorism efforts in various agencies
but are concerned about the power the current language gives the Senate
to confirm the nominee to that position. Therefore, we will offer a
motion to table at the time the vote on Senator Thompson's motion to
strike comes up, with the intention of offering a second-degree
amendment to give Members the opportunity to vote on the concept of an
office of counterterrorism in the White House, to coordinate our
antiterrorism efforts, without the necessity for Senate confirmation,
which the President, we know, opposes.
I yield the floor.
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield back the
remainder of our time. It is imperative that we have a vote in 2
minutes. The Senator from Utah wanted a moment. From looking at the
clock, we have 2 minutes until 2 o'clock; is that right?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. THOMPSON. How much time does each side have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee has 12 \1/2\
minutes. The Senator from Connecticut has 28 seconds.
Mr. THOMPSON. The Senator from Connecticut has how much?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. He has 28 seconds.
The Senator from Utah is recognized.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I strongly support Senator Thompson's
amendment to strike the portions of Senator Lieberman's substitute
amendment that would create a National Office for Combating Terrorism
in the White House. Senator Lieberman's substitute would create this
Office in the White House in addition to creating the Department of
Homeland Security. I initially question the wisdom of creating two
separate offices with identical goals and overlapping jurisdiction,
when the entire point of creating a single Department of Homeland
Security is to oversee and coordinate the efforts of many different
agencies in this immensely important area. But I have another, more
pressing concern: encouraging good decision-making.
Senator Lieberman's bill would make the heads of both the National
Office for Combating Terrorism and the Secretary of Homeland Security
subject to confirmation by the Senate and congressional oversight
hearings. So far as the office in the White House is concerned, I
disagree with such an
[[Page S8535]]
invasive approach. We need to be mindful of the important role that
confidential communications play in the deliberative process for all
important decisions--including the decisions that we as lawmakers make
after careful and candid discussions with our staff. Just as we would
be wary of those who would seek to intrude into these communications,
so too should we be reluctant to interfere with the President's
deliberative process and the frank communications he has with his
advisers in the White House on critically sensitive issues such as our
nation's security. Of course, I have no objection that the head of the
new Department of Homeland Security be Senate-confirmed, but it simply
does not follow that such an approach should be extended to the
President's own advisor on these issues.
As responsible lawmakers, we must recognize that we simply do not
have the same license to specify the duties of the President's senior
advisers in the White House as we do to specify the duties of agency
officers and staff members who exercise legislative duties. We should
take our cue in this area from the National Security Act of 1947, which
established the National Security Council. As we all know, the
President may appoint very senior advisors to the NSC--like Dr.
Condoleezza Rice--who are not subject to confirmation by the Senate.
That fact certainly does not detract from Dr. Rice's stature, but in
fact enhances it. Anyone who deals with Dr. Rice knows that she has the
backing of the President--precisely because she has his confidence and
is beholden to no one else.
There certainly must be an advisor within the White House who advises
the President on matters that pertain directly to our homeland
security, as the President has recognized. But there is absolutely no
reason why that office should be made--and micro-managed--by Congress.
Why does both the head of the Department of Homeland Security and the
President's Homeland Security Advisor need to be confirmed by the
Senate? There is no doubt that Homeland Security is of paramount
importance, but so is national security in general. And does this mean
we are going to require that Dr. Rice be Senate confirmed? How about
Karl Rove and Andy Card? A step in this direction is simply misguided
and unwise.
I yield the floor.
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield back our time if
the Senator is.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I am. I yield back our time as well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I move to table the Thompson amendment
before the Senate. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Akaka) and the
Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Torricelli) are necessarily absent.
Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby)
and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Smith) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Clinton). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 41, nays 55, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 214 Leg.]
YEAS--41
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Byrd
Carnahan
Carper
Cleland
Conrad
Corzine
Daschle
Dayton
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham
Hollings
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Stabenow
Wellstone
Wyden
NAYS--55
Allard
Allen
Bayh
Bennett
Bond
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Campbell
Cantwell
Chafee
Clinton
Cochran
Collins
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Domenici
Ensign
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Miller
Murkowski
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Roberts
Santorum
Sessions
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Voinovich
Warner
NOT VOTING--4
Akaka
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Torricelli
The motion was rejected.
Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. GRAMM. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Vote On Amendment No. 4533
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No.
4533. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the
roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Akaka) and the
Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Torricelli) are necessarily absent.
Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr.
Smith) is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 48, nays 49, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 215 Leg.]
YEAS--48
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Campbell
Cantwell
Carnahan
Carper
Cleland
Clinton
Conrad
Corzine
Daschle
Dayton
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Stabenow
Wellstone
Wyden
NAYS--49
Allard
Allen
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Chafee
Cochran
Collins
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Domenici
Ensign
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Miller
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Voinovich
Warner
NOT VOTING--3
Akaka
Smith (NH)
Torricelli
The amendment (No. 4533) was rejected.
Mr. THOMPSON. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
____________________