[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19361-19362]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  JOINT INTELLIGENCE REPORT POST-9/11

  Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, earlier this afternoon a 
declassified version of the report of the House and Senate Intelligence 
Committees on the events of September 11, 2001, were released to the 
public. I will take a few minutes to recognize those who performed a 
great public service in producing this report and to commend it to my 
colleagues and those who are watching. The public version of this 
report is available at the Web site of the Government Printing Office, 
www.access.gpo.gov.
  This report fulfills the commitment that was made to the American 
people and particularly to the families of those who perished in this 
tragedy. The commitment was to conduct a thorough search for the truth 
about what our intelligence agencies knew or should have known about 
al-Qaida and its intentions prior to September 11. It was then to apply 
the lessons learned from that experience to reform the intelligence 
community in such a way as to mitigate the likelihood of a repetition 
of September 11.
  This was a historic first-of-a-kind effort. For the first time in the 
history of the Congress, two standing committees, the House and the 
Senate, joined together to conduct a special inquiry with its own 
staff. That staff was led by the very capable Ms. Eleanor Hill. The 
staff reviewed nearly 1 million documents and conducted some 500 
interviews. The joint inquiry committee held 22 hearings last year, 9 
of which were open to the public. The result of this effort was 
released today.
  This document includes both findings of fact and 19 recommendations 
for reform. I am extremely proud of the commitment that the Members of 
the House and Senate Intelligence Committee have given to this review. 
I would especially like to recognize the vice chairman of the Senate 
committee, Senator Shelby, and the chairman and vice chairman of the 
House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Porter Goss and Congresswoman 
Nancy Pelosi.
  The report's findings are grouped in 24 subject areas, but they have 
a single bottom line: The attacks of September 11 could have been 
prevented if the right combination of skill, coordination, creativity, 
and some good luck had been brought to the task.
  There is an abundance of important information in this report that 
suggests, for example, institutional resistance to making 
counterterrorism a high national priority prior to September 11. This 
resistance took many forms. It included a lack of information sharing 
among key agencies. It included budget cuts at the Department of 
Justice for the FBI's counterterrorism program. Simply put, those 
problems contributed to the Government's inability to successfully 
launch an offensive against al-Qaida.
  As an example of this difficulty, a previously classified finding, 
No. 14 in the report, states that senior military officials were 
reluctant to use military assets to conduct offensive counterterrorism 
efforts in Afghanistan or to support or participate in CIA operations 
directly towards al-Qaida prior to September 11.
  In part, this reluctance was driven by the military's view that the 
intelligence community was unable to provide the intelligence necessary 
to support military operations. For example, the report confirms that 
between 1999 and 2001, U.S. Navy ships and submarines armed with cruise 
missiles were positioned in the north Arabian Sea. Their mission was to 
attack Osama bin Laden, but it was a mission frustrated because they 
were not able to get the actionable intelligence which only could have 
come by our ability to place spies close enough to al-Qaida to tell us 
what that organization would be doing and where Osama bin Laden might 
be on any given day.
  The report makes it clear we should have known that potential 
terrorists were living among us. Indeed, two of the terrorist-turned-
hijackers lived with an FBI informant in San Diego, CA, for 6 months or 
more in the year 2001. A resourceful FBI agent in Phoenix wanted to 
follow up on suspicions about foreign-born students who were honing 
their skills at American flight schools. Officials at FBI central 
headquarters shut him down.
  To assure the American people that we take such actions seriously, we 
included a recommendation, No. 16, that calls for the Director of 
Central Intelligence to implement new accountability standards 
throughout the intelligence community. These standards would identify 
poor performance and affix responsibility for it. It would also set a 
standard to recognize and reward excellent performance.
  Had such standards been in place 2 years ago, we might have been able 
to hold those whose performance fell short of what our country deserves 
accountable for their errors, omissions and commissions, particularly 
in the critical period immediately before September 11.
  Had these standards been implemented last year, it is possible the 
Nation could have avoided the embarrassment and damage to our 
Government's credibility that has occurred because of the use of 
discredited intelligence information in the President's State of the 
Union Address. So far, we have seen no one suffer more than the 
indignity of a newspaper headline in either incident.
  With the release of the joint inquiry report, it is time to look 
ahead and continue to implement the important reforms of the 
intelligence community that are necessary and to enhance the Federal 
Government's partnership with State and local law enforcement and other 
first responders.
  If the recommendations in this report are heeded by the White House, 
by the agencies, and by this Congress, we should be able to make great 
strides in improving the security of the American people.
  It is my intention to introduce legislation soon, with cosponsorship 
of members of the joint inquiry, that would implement the reforms which 
require legislative action. I hope it will move expeditiously to 
passage with the full support of the administration. I will also begin 
that effort with a sense of outrage because we have lost valuable time.
  It took 7 months, almost as long as it took to conduct the inquiry, 
for the intelligence agencies to declassify the portions of the report 
that we are releasing today.
  What are the consequences of that 7 months' delay? One is that the 
momentum for reform, which was at a high tide in the weeks and months 
immediately after 9/11, has begun to diminish despite the scope of the 
tragedy. We will learn shortly whether we can reinvigorate that reform 
movement. This Senate will face the test of its will to do so. I, for 
one, am committed to see this report is not forgotten or overlooked.
  In my view, the delay reflects the excessive secrecy with which this 
administration appears to be obsessed and which is keeping important 
findings of our work from the American people. Such censorship also 
saps the urgency of reform and precludes the American peoples' ability 
to hold its leaders accountable.
  The most serious omission, in my view, is part 4 of the report which 
is entitled ``Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain 
Sensitive National Security Matters.'' That section of the report 
contained 27 pages between pages 396 through 422. Those 27 pages have 
almost been entirely censured. This is the equivalent of ripping out a 
chapter in the middle of a history book before giving it to your child 
or grandchild and then telling her ``good luck on the test.''
  The declassified version of this finding tells the American people 
that our investigation developed ``information suggesting specific 
sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while 
they were in the United States.''
  In other words, officials of a foreign government are alleged to have 
aided

[[Page 19362]]

and abetted the terrorist attacks on our country on September 11 which 
took over 3,000 lives.
  I would like to be able to identify for you the specific sources of 
that foreign support but that information is contained in the censured 
portions of this report which are being denied to the American people.
  What are the consequences of this? It significantly reduces the 
information available to the public about some of the Government's most 
important actions, or more accurately, inactions prior to September 11. 
Second, it precludes the American people from asking their Government 
legitimate questions such as, How was the information that our 
Government might have had prior to September 11 utilized after 
September 11 to enhance the security of our homeland and American 
interests abroad? Third, almost 2 years after the tragedy of September 
11, the administration and the Congress, in the main, have not 
initiated reforms which would reduce the chances of another September 
11.
  For example, we are allowed to report that the estimates of the CIA's 
counterterrorism center is that between 70,000 and 120,000 recruits 
went through al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan before those 
troops were attacked in late 2001. The important questions as to the 
significance of that statement, to the security of the American people, 
are not available.
  This obsession with excessive secrecy is deeply troubling. The 
recognition of the evils of secrecy in a free society date back to the 
beginnings of our Nation. Patrick Henry declared: The liberties of a 
people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of 
their rulers may be concealed from them.
  President John F. Kennedy observed in the first year of his 
Presidency: ``the very word secret is repugnant in a free and open 
society, and we are, as people, inherently and historically opposed to 
secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. We 
decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted 
concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers, which are 
cited to justify.'' These are traditional American values that are 
being trampled.
  So the joint committee included our report with this recommendation, 
recommendation No. 15. ``The President should review and consider 
amendments to the Executive Orders, policies, and procedures that 
govern the national security classification of intelligence information 
in an effort to expand access to relevant information for Federal 
agencies outside the intelligence community and for State and local 
authorities which are critical to the fight against terrorism and for 
the American public''.
  In addition, the President and heads of Federal agencies should 
assure that the policies and procedures to protect against unauthorized 
disclosure of classified intelligence information are well understood, 
fully implemented, and vigorously enforced.
  It is my observation that because classification is used so 
excessively, the corollary is only a minimal effort to enforce 
classification of materials that truly do deserve to be classified.
  Again, I remind my colleagues that these recommendations were written 
late in 2002 before the current crisis developed over the use and 
possible misuse of intelligence leading us to war in Iraq. But that 
crisis has given this recommendation even greater urgency for the 
Government's credibility with the American people and our credibility 
with the rest of the world.
  These qualities have been severely eroded in large part because of 
excessive secrecy. To regain the people's trust we must bring new 
transparency to our decisionmakers. We must bring new transparency to 
our decisionmaking. We must move decisions and governmental information 
into the sunshine. We owe that and much more to the 3,000 victims of 
September 11.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. ENZI). The majority leader.

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