[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H6561]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         9/11 COMMISSION REPORT

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, today the bipartisan 9/11 Commission gave 
their report to Members of Congress, and I think it was a solid report.
  It pointed out we just did not have the imagination to perceive our 
enemies hating us so much that they would use airplanes as missiles and 
attack us in the somewhat cowardly, surprised manner that they did. We 
did not have the capabilities in our intelligence community because we 
looked at it through Cold War visions. We should have been looking 
ahead. Finally, we did have not the right management tools. The CIA, 
the FBI, and other agencies were not talking to each other.
  Therefore, one of their recommendations was to put together a 
national security czar, one person who would be above the CIA and the 
FBI to kind of control the 15 different intelligence agencies. I think 
it is an interesting proposal, one that I think most Members of 
Congress are going to be receptive to.
  They also said that we need to put together a committee, maybe a 
select joint committee between House and Senate, for more oversight, 
perhaps giving it the authority to authorize and appropriate. 
Oversight, Members of Congress are going to be very interested in this, 
and I am looking forward to a good bipartisan effort to address the 
issues raised by the 9/11 Commission.

                          ____________________