House Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House
Select Committee on Intelligence, issued the following statement on the House
floor tonight in support of H.R. 4628, the Intelligence Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2003. It authorizes a significant increase in the fiscal year 2003
budget for 11 U.S. intelligence agencies and intelligence-related activities.
"Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume and rise in support
of H.R. 4628.
I want to begin by complimenting the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee,
Congressman Porter Goss, for the manner in which he has guided the committee.
He has been consistently fair and always true to his word. The committee’s
reputation for bipartisanship has been enhanced by his disposition toward encouraging,
and respecting, the views of all Members
The Chairman has explained well the provisions of the bill. It recommends substantially more money - many billions of dollars more - than was provided for the current fiscal year. If the amounts recommended in the bill are appropriated, the intelligence community will receive the largest one-year increase in funding, on a percentage basis, in at least the last two decades.
Much of this increase is directly attributable to the September 11th attacks. Although no amount of money can guarantee that there will not be additional instances of terrorism, the funding recommended by this bill should make it harder to undertake a successful future terrorist attack like those conducted on September 11.
The committee’s priority must be on making sure that this money is spent well, on programs and activities that will produce results not only against terrorism, but against other important intelligence targets as well.
Intelligence is integral to the protection of the American people, and our national interests at home and abroad. Whether our interests are defined as providing security to a special operations team in Afghanistan or passengers in an airliner in the skies over California, timely and reliable intelligence is a necessity. Although there may be differences over the manner in which some intelligence activities are conducted - and indeed, we have our differences - I think we all place a value on the protective responsibility being discharged effectively. To do that, a big investment in technology and in people is required. The investments necessary to enhance mission success in this area are recommended in this bill.
Mission success is produced by things other than money. The world has changed greatly since I joined the committee 10 years ago. At that time, the intelligence community was primarily focused on the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, it is primarily focused on fighting terrorism. I have been concerned that the intelligence agencies have not been quick enough to recognize the changes in training, tactics, and methods of operation required to shift from dealing with a fixed target like the Soviet Union, to more nimble targets like weapons proliferation or terrorism. I think the record suggests that the shift has been harder to accomplish than had been presumed; in fact, in some areas, it has not been fully implemented yet.
For example, the pace toward creating a more diverse workforce in the intelligence community, and in improving the language capabilities of the workforce has been too slow. Although I recognize that the relatively small numbers of new employees able to be hired across the community since the end of the Cold War made it difficult to change the composition of the workforce significantly, hiring is now accelerating in all of the agencies. I expect that community leaders will use this opportunity to contribute to mission success by redoubling their efforts to attract and advance people with diverse religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, and with capabilities in those languages in which the agencies have traditionally been weak.
H.R. 4628 does much to emphasize language training and to provide incentives to maintain proficiency. Partnerships with entities outside of government to improve the language skills of current employees, as well as new hires, are encouraged. An amendment is expected to study the feasibility of establishing a reserve corps of linguists. These are good initiatives that do much to address one of the intelligence community’s biggest needs. I want to commend particularly Mr. Roemer, Mr. Condit, Mr. Reyes, Mr. Boehlert, and Mr. Gibbons for their leadership within the committee on the language issue. Their efforts have been ably assisted from outside the committee by Congressman Sam Farr, in whose district the Defense Language Institute is located, and who has worked tirelessly, as reflected in this bill, to improve language training programs.
The bill continues to emphasize the kinds of human and technical collection programs necessary to deal with targets like terrorist groups. This emphasis, however, should not ignore the imbalance across the intelligence community between collection and the ability to make use of what is collected through timely processing, exploitation, and dissemination.
Progress has been made on dissemination, which was one of the most important intelligence shortcomings during the Gulf War, but not enough attention has been paid to making sure that analytic capabilities are sufficient. Agencies need more analysts, more translators, and more equipment to speed the process of converting data into intelligence. This bill provides some much-needed funding in these areas. I hope that the Administration will sustain these important initiatives in future budget submissions.
We are rapidly approaching the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Although the World Trade Center site has been cleared and the rebuilding of the Pentagon proceeds, the mourning for the victims continues and the life of the nation has been affected profoundly. The committee is engaged in a process of evaluating the performance of the intelligence agencies in the months leading up to the attacks, and in assessing how that performance can be improved to better ensure our security in the future.
An important step in that process was taken last week with the release of the report on intelligence capabilities prepared by the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, ably led by Congressman Saxby Chambliss and Congresswoman Jane Harman.
The report will be a valuable tool for the inquiry being conducted jointly by the House and Senate intelligence committees. When the report of the joint inquiry is completed, I believe the nation will have a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of our intelligence agencies on September 11, and how weaknesses can be addressed.
The report of the joint inquiry, however, will be limited necessarily by the jurisdiction of the intelligence committees. Despite our best efforts, many of the questions of the families of the victims will not be answered by the committee’s work. We owe those families the most thorough, and independent, investigation possible. Examining all of the issues raised by the attacks will require, in my judgment, an independent commission. I hope such a commission will be established soon.
Mr. Chairman, I urge approval by the House of the bill."