[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 146 (Monday, September 15, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H8103-H8104]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  NATIONAL SECURITY INTERAGENCY REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share my 
perspective

[[Page H8104]]

on an essential reform to ensure the security of our Nation. We must 
reform our national security system to ensure effective interagency 
operations. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee and co-
chair of the House National Security Interagency Reform Working Group, 
implementing reform of the national security system is one of my 
highest priorities. Our current interagency process is broken. There 
are regulatory, legislative, budgetary, resource and culture 
impediments to effective interagency operations. These problems are 
independent of personalities, policies and particular presidential 
administrations. In order to protect the United States interests and 
its citizens, it is critical that reform to executive and legislative 
processes be allowed to better the integration among currently stove-
piped departments.
  A successfully integrated interagency process will empower the United 
States to more effectively employ our nonmilitary instruments of power 
abroad. This ability will allow us to more effectively fulfill our 
interest while reserving the use of lethal force as a last resort. In 
fact leaders and policy makers need two things; first, an overarching 
national strategy that frames the intent of all policy on national 
security; second, a toolbox of resources that can be configured, 
hopefully in a preventive way, to fulfill our strategic objectives.
  The current interagency system was devised over 60 years ago for a 
different era and is based on a very specific national security 
strategy when security was primarily a function of military 
capabilities wielded by one department in overseas missions. At the 
time, major combat operations and nuclear deterrence were the principal 
focus of U.S. national security strategy. This strategy required 
limited coordination of activities between vertically structured 
military and civilian departments and agencies.
  Today, national security involves a much wider array of issues that 
can be addressed only with a broader set of capabilities that are 
highly synchronized and carefully calibrated.
  Many agencies are not conscious of or prepared to act in their 
national security roles. Many civilian departments and agencies do not 
believe they have a role in the national security system, and the 
cultures of these organizations produce few, if any, incentives for 
staff to participate in national security missions. These agencies 
often lack ``expeditionary'' capabilities. Even if they have the desire 
to help, they may be prevented from doing so by a combination of 
factors including personnel shortages, lack of resources, lack of 
statutory authorizations and regulatory constraints.
  Additionally, interagency operations are not governed by standard 
concepts and procedures. Without common processes, interagency 
operations tend to be very ad hoc. For example, Paul Bremer, head of 
the Coalition For Provisional Authority in postwar Iraq believed that 
he reported to the President through the Secretary of Defense and did 
not want to be bogged down by ``the interagency process.'' National 
Security Adviser Rice's senior deputies, simply to get information, 
were relegated to checking the CPA website every day to see what new 
orders Bremer had issued. Such arrangements are enormously inefficient 
and liable to produce erratic outcomes.
  We must ensure that civilian agencies have the resources required for 
effective integration with the Department of Defense. Think what could 
have been done to deter the growth of criminal militias in Iraq if the 
Department of Treasury had been able to assist in the rapid 
implementation of simple electronic banking systems to get money and 
payroll to the people of Iraq during the post conflict stabilization 
period.
  A new National Security Act is needed to update the organization and 
procedures created by the National Security Act of 1947. We need to 
codify an adaptive approach that flattens, simplifies and integrates 
the agencies of the executive branch and the committees of Congress. We 
must ensure all departments and agencies that have national security 
roles have specific objectives, responsibilities and operational 
planning capabilities so they can protect America's interests.
  Second, we should require that personnel who are selected for the 
Senior Executive Service in departments and agencies with national 
security roles have professional development via institutional training 
and operational assignments in agencies other than their own to better 
understand the national security interagency system. Third, we should 
strive to build regional expertise across the departments and agencies 
to ensure a bench of personnel with the knowledge and skills required 
to accomplish departmental and agency missions in all regions of the 
world. For example, we should consider better regional alignment 
between DOD and the State Department.
  As my colleagues and I undertake the challenge of crafting reform 
legislation, I welcome the opportunity to work with all agencies to 
gain their insights on the way ahead for reform.

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