Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume and rise in support of H.R. 2883.
At the outset I want to commend our chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. GOSS), our distinguished chairman, for the manner in which he conducted the committee's business. His willingness to be sensitive to the views of committee Democrats and to ensure they are reflected in the work of the committee is much appreciated. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Chairman, the bill was prepared in the aftermath of the horrific events of September 11, but it is not a comprehensive response to them. Some additional resources in areas where these events demonstrated an obvious need are provided, but it will take more time and more facts before we can, or should, go further. At this point one thing is clear. We did not know about the plans of the terrorists who attacked our country with sufficient specificity to prevent those attacks. What is not clear is why.
In the weeks ahead much time will be devoted in the intelligence community and elsewhere in trying to determine why we did not know, but, more especially, to prevent anything like this from happening again.
Mr. Chairman, I have tremendous respect for the men and women who serve in our national security agencies, whether they be diplomats, military personnel, intelligence officers, law enforcement officials or those who protect our borders and our skies. They perform with great courage and dedication under conditions which are routinely challenging and frequently dangerous, and they have had much successes combating terrorism. They just cannot talk about their successes.
As the events of September 11 demonstrate, however, more needs to be done. Determining the best steps to take to lessen the chances that last month's events could be repeated will require critical and innovative thinking. I am hopeful that the independent commission established by Section 306 of the bill will play a constructive role in that regard.
For intelligence needs generally the bill provides several billion dollars more than appropriated last year and several hundred million dollars more than requested by the President for fiscal year 2002. It continues several initiatives begun earlier, among them an effort to ensure that the technologically complex and expensive information collection systems that have been developed are paired with effective systems to process, exploit and disseminate intelligence to those who need it to make decisions or to take actions.
There is currently an imbalance between collection and processing, exploitation and dissemination that, if not addressed, will greatly lessen the value of some extremely capable collection systems.
To be effective, our human intelligence officers need to have a better grounding in the languages and cultures of the regions where difficult targets, like terrorists, are most comfortable. A much greater emphasis needs to be placed on recruiting and maintaining a workforce with diverse skills, backgrounds and ethnicity. This is an area in which the intelligence community as not been as aggressive as I would like. I hope for measurable improvement in the future with the encouragement and resources provided by the bill.
There have been suggestions in recent years that an insufficient emphasis has been placed on human intelligence. That has certainly not been true with respect to the work of this committee. Funds have been consistently provided above those requested for this intelligence discipline, and the committee has sought to ensure that the added funds were used exclusively to enhance the performance of clandestine collectors in the field.
Human intelligence was once again the focus of our work this year, and that would have been true even if the events of September 11 had not occurred.
There have been concerns that case officers have been discouraged from taking the risks necessary to recruit assets with access to important information, particularly in areas like narcotics trafficking, weapons proliferation and terrorism.
Attention has centered on guidelines promulgated in the CIA in 1995 which require headquarters-level approval before an individual with a record of human rights abuses or violations of U.S. criminal law may be recruited. These guidelines were intended to protect officers in the field from charges that they had committed the United States to a relationship with unsavory individuals without adequate consideration. Despite repeated assurances from senior CIA officials that these guidelines had not had a negative impact on the quality or quantity of assets, it has become clear that the perception that the opposite was true has taken root.
Section 403 of the bill deals with that perception by directing the guidelines be rescinded. It is very important, however, that there be some rules in this area, not because anyone is so naive as to believe that we can get more information about the plans of drug traffickers or terrorists without associating with individuals involved in those activities, but because decisions about committing the United States to those kinds of associations are too important to be made exclusively by relatively junior officers in the field.
They should be made, instead, by senior managers better able by virtue of their experience and their access to reporting from a wide variety of sources, to weigh the potential value of the information to be provided by a possible recruit against the potential harm to the United States should the fact of our association with that person become known.
That kind of risk versus gain analysis is essential if human intelligence activities are to be seen as consistent, rather than at odds with, U.S. policy and values.
Section 402, besides rescinding the current guidelines, directs that new guidelines be established. It is my expectation these new guidelines will streamline the approval process without weakening the protections that process is meant to provide. I especially want to commend our colleague, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. BEREUTER) for his leadership in this area and his willingness to reach consensus with us on it. I think the language of this bill is an improvement on the past and I thank him for his leadership and his cooperation.
Mr. Chairman, intelligence is a risky, dangerous and expensive undertaking. It is also crucial to our security as a Nation. I urge the adoption of the bill.