Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), another member of the committee.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers), the only former FBI member on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. The greatest responsibility of the intelligence community is to protect our country from attack. Today's debate should flow from this simple premise which should not be controversial, contentious, or partisan. The 9/11 attacks have led us to war, to war with an unconventional enemy that hides literally around the globe. The full energies of the intelligence community are directed to finding and monitoring that enemy abroad, but our most pressing and immediate concern is with those foreign terrorists who may be even closer to home, those within the borders of the United States. The USA PATRIOT Act has provided basic and fundamental tools to investigators to help them find foreign spies and terrorists who may seek to harm our Nation. The continued acts of alleged terrorism in London today should continue to highlight the urgency of these efforts and the critical nature of the PATRIOT Act authorities. Within days of the first London bombings, British authorities were able to rapidly identify the bombers and follow their trail to other terrorists. The PATRIOT Act would be essential to do the same in the United States to investigate or prevent an attack. By now, you have all seen the chilling photograph of the very first group of London bombers to gather in a rail station. In the United States the authorities of the PATRIOT Act likely would have been used to obtain that photograph. In the London investigation, there has been extensive cooperation between the London Metropolitan Police and the British intelligence agencies. In the United States, that cooperation would not be possible without the PATRIOT Act. British investigators then obtained leads from a terrorist phone to tie them to the coconspirators of the first group of bombers. In the United States, the authorities of the PATRIOT Act likely would have been used to obtain those records. Mr. Chairman, our counterterrorism investigators in the intelligence community can do truly remarkable work to find terrorists and to piece together the puzzle of their networks, but to do that they need modern legal authorities to deal with modern threats. Behind all the rhetoric, the PATRIOT Act is simple, sensible, reasonable and necessary. I urge all Members to support the intelligence community in its effort to fight terrorism. Support this bill and keep America safe.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), the chairman. I thank him for the work that he has done on this bill, and managing this bill on the floor today. Later on today, there will be an amendment coming forward that is being sponsored by my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) any myself. And what this amendment will do is it will ensure that the Corps of Engineers uses the criteria that it used in 2004 for the projects in the harbors that will be dredged under this bill. It is important to my district. I represent a district with over 200 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, and a number of different harbors, and the Corps of Engineers had proposed a criteria that would have meant that a number of my harbors would no longer have qualified for dredging. Well, when you are along the shores of Lake Michigan, you begin to realize that, for many of these communities, both from an economic development, both recreational and commercial, the harbor is the lifeblood to these communities. When this amendment is brought forward, and it is going to be supported by the gentleman managing the bill, I thank him for his support. As that amendment becomes part of the bill, it will ensure that the harbors, these kinds of harbors will get the dredging that is necessary to keep them open.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to offer congratulations and recognition to Mr. Charles E. Allen as he completes his tour of duty as the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection. Since its creation by the Congress 7 years ago, he has served in this position with distinction. Mr. Allen was appointed as the first Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection. As such, he was responsible for Intelligence Community collection management, and specifications for our next generation of collection systems. During these past 7 years he has come to personify the position, personalize the management of this nation's scarce intelligence collection assets, confound his early critics, and overall achieve positive results beyond even the expectations of his supporters, who are legion. His service has been a great asset, and Congress has regularly drawn upon his experience and judgment. A native of North Carolina, Mr. Allen has served the Central Intelligence Agency and the Nation with distinction since 1958, holding a variety of positions of increasing responsibility both in analytic and managerial capacities. He served overseas in an intelligence liaison capacity from 1974 to 1977, and from 1977 to 1980 he held management positions of increasing responsibility and importance in the Directorate of Intelligence. Mr. Allen served as program manager of a major classified project, from 1980 to 1982 in the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, and was subsequently detailed to the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he held a senior position in strategic mobilization planning. In 1985 the Director of Central Intelligence requested Mr. Allen's return from the Secretary of Defense's office to serve as the National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism, and later as Chief of Intelligence in the CIA's newly established Counterterrorist Center. Many of Mr. Allen's successes have and shall continue to remain secret, but two that have become more publicly known illustrate his contributions; he played a key role in apprehending the hijackers who killed an American citizen on the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and he correctly brought to the DCI's attention certain matters which served to stimulate the Iran-Contra investigation. Mr. Allen served as the National Intelligence Officer for Warning from 1988 to 1994 and chaired the Intelligence Community's Warning Committee. From these positions he issued timely warnings of events of momentous importance, confounding most intelligence officers who did not share his prescience. Mr. Allen was awarded the National Intelligence Medal for Achievement in 1983 by DCI Casey and the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service in 1986 by President Reagan. In 1991, he was presented the CIA Commendation Medal for provision of warning intelligence in Desert Shield/Desert Storm. He and his wife, Kay, reside in Herndon, Virginia, where they raised four children. Madam Speaker, Mr. Allen has already enjoyed a long and luminous career in intelligence, and as he steps down from his current position I hope all my colleagues will recognize the extraordinary contributions Mr. Charles E. Allen has made to our National Security as a lifelong professional intelligence officer. I hope my colleagues will honor him as a great American and pioneer in the management of intelligence collection inter alia. Finally, Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our confidence in his continued ability and willingness to serve the Nation as she shall call upon him.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, today before closing general debate, I would like to briefly offer congratulations and recognition to Mr. Charles G. Allen, as many of us know him, Charlie, as he completes his tour of duty as the assistant director of the Central Intelligence Agency for collection. He has served the intelligence community with great distinction, and I will later seek consent in the House to submit a more lengthy tribute into the Record. But just briefly, he is a native of North Carolina. Mr. Allen has served the Central Intelligence Agency and the Nation with distinction since 1958, holding a variety of positions of increasing responsibility, both in analytical and managerial capacity. He served overseas in an intelligence liaison capacity from 1974 to 1977, and from 1977 to 1980 he held management positions of increasing responsibility and importance in the Directorate of Intelligence. I think that all of the Members in the House, and all of the Members and the staff on the committee who have gotten to know Mr. Allen over the last number of years, number one, we are glad that he is still working on special assignment with Mr. Goss; but we really want to extend our congratulations to him for almost slightly over 45 years of service to this country within the intelligence community, a real national asset in the intelligence business. Madam Speaker, I include for the Record a statement on Assistant Director Allen.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, in closing, again I would like to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the staff on both sides of the aisle who have worked to put together a very, very good bill, my colleagues on my side of the aisle. We have put together, I think, a very, very strong bill. I think it deserves broad bipartisan support. It sets us in the right direction. As my colleague has indicated, there is more work to do. We do need to take a look at the technical programs. These are critical to the long- term success of our intelligence community, to make sure that public policymakers have the information that we need to make the right decisions. I appreciate the gentlewoman from California's (Ms. Harman) support as we have gone through this process and recognizing that there are issues and concerns about the performance of some of these programs and so that we have the agreement on that. Where we are disagreeing and having some discussions right now is what is the most effective way to respond to those problems and issues. We want accountability. We want performance. We want to spend the taxpayer dollars wisely. And I am sure that as we continue to go through this process, work with our colleagues on the other side of this building, and work with the administration, we will come to a conclusion, hopefully, that we can all agree to. I applaud the committee and our work in taking some of these steps that I think we all recognize needed to be taken and that we are committed to addressing those problems. With that, Madam Speaker, I would encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2475, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. This is a very good bill, a bill we can be very proud of, and a bill that every Member of the House can and should support. Before I talk about some of the details in the bill, I would like to recognize the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman). We have worked hard on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to keep this committee focused on the job that needs to be done and to do so on a bipartisan basis, and I thank the gentlewoman for working with us in that process and being able to maintain that spirit as we bring this bill to the floor on a bipartisan basis. I also thank her staff and our staff for helping us through this process in bringing this bill here today. Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago when he was chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Porter Goss, now director of the Central Intelligence Agency, asked me to take a strategic look at the technical capabilities within the United States intelligence community. He wanted me to see how the technical intelligence collection systems all work together, evaluate their individual contributions to national security, and see if there were redundancies to understand the affordability of the many systems and, most importantly, understand the impacts on the rest of the intelligence community. What Mr. Goss really asked us to do was to go back, and we have expanded that in the committee over the past 8 or 9 months, to take a look at the strategic framework that we face in the world today and how we should respond to the threats. So we spent a considerable amount of time looking at the threats that America faces: What is the threat environment that is out there today; what do we expect it to be in 3, 5 and 7 years, so we can shape the proper intelligence community to give our policymakers and our military the right information to make good decisions and keep our soldiers safe? We have then taken that to take a look at the feedback we have gotten from the 9/11 Commission, the feedback we have gotten from the WMD Commission as to the particular strengths within the intelligence community and also some of the particular weaknesses. So as we put this bill together, we really focused on making sure that we had a good balance between our human capabilities, the investment we were making in our human capabilities for the long term, and the investment we were making in our technical capabilities. This bill does that by investing more in our human capabilities. On the technical capabilities, it takes a very, very hard look at the different programs that we have in place there. It makes sure that what we do is put in place programs that will complement each other, give us the information that we need, and hopefully put us on a framework and on a pathway to balancing human capabilities with our technical capabilities. Also in that area, this bill moves forward and holds some of our contractors accountable for their performance. This is an area where tactically we may disagree on some of the points on how to make that happen, but we are very much in sync on a bipartisan basis that we need a strategic plan and we need to have our contractors perform. It will also lay the framework for a discussion we will have throughout this year about how to make sure that in a time where we have limited budgets and limited programs underway, that we maintain the industrial base here in the United States. So there are a lot of things that we do in this bill to make sure that we have got the balance and are moving in the right direction on our technical capabilities. Another key element of this bill is we have heard consistently from our field personnel and others within the intelligence community, especially those involved in the counterterrorism effort, that we cannot fund counterterrorism on an ad hoc basis. So what we did in this bill is we have authorized the majority of the dollars that we believe will be needed to build our intelligence capability and to fund the war on terrorism. We think it is important to send to the intelligence community a clear signal of how much money they are going to have so they can do the appropriate planning and the ramping up of resources in the waging of this global war on terrorism. As I said at the beginning of my statement, we have done this on a bipartisan basis. We have taken a strategic look at what the intelligence community, where it needs to be and where it needs to go. We are going to continue working in that effort. I think as Members see through the debate, we have made a lot of progress and there is more work to do. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), a member of the committee.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment, but I do not object to the amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 331, I call up the bill (H.R. 2475) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2006 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I will not oppose this amendment. I believe the author will have a perfecting amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused, as I listened to those on the other side as to whether we have or have not done oversight. The author of the amendment says there has been no oversight. My ranking member applauds the work that the committee has done in its role of doing oversight on a bipartisan basis. Mr. Speaker, we are at a time of war that was not begun by the making of the United States. We are at war against an international terrorist movement that has engaged our country in a clash of values driven by those who fundamentally oppose American democracy and freedom. The 9/11 Commission emphasized the importance of engaging the terrorists in the ``struggle of ideas,'' noting that many views in the Muslim world of the United States are ``at best uninformed about the United States and, at worst, informed by cartoonish stereotypes among intellectuals who caricature U.S. values and policies. Local newspapers and the few influential satellite broadcasters, like al Jazeera, often reinforce the jihadist theme that portrays the United States as anti- Muslim.'' Mr. Speaker, comments that significantly exaggerate and overstate the situation in Guantanamo Bay do nothing but reinforce the false perceptions of America that have encouraged our enemies. There is aggressive oversight under way by the executive branch and by Congress into our detention procedures. It is only because of this aggressive oversight and the freedoms provided by American democracy that we are having this discussion in the first place. The system is working properly, and we should continue to let it work; and for those who do not know about the work that is going on, perhaps they could ask. So when senior Members of Congress, including a member of the minority leadership in the Senate, exaggerate and distort these issues, including by comparing American soldiers to Nazis, those comments do nothing but reinforce the false prejudices abroad that have led us to war. As an example, I note that the al Jazeera network gave prominent coverage to the remarks of a Member of the Senate comparing the actions of U.S. soldiers to Nazis, Soviet gulags, and a mad regime like Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. A columnist in the Chicago Sun Times said of those remarks: ``He should at least be made a little uncomfortable over what he's done.'' What did he do? ``In a time of war, make an inflammatory libel against his country's military that has no value whatsoever except to America's enemies.'' We are better than those who oppose us. Our oversight has exposed our weaknesses. Now is the time to move on. To quote from President Roosevelt's ``Man in the Arena'' speech: ``It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.'' I want this Congress to be seen as a doer of deeds. If we fail, we fail while daringly great. To do anything less would be unworthy of the House of Representatives. Self-loathing of America on the floor of this House accomplishes nothing but fueling the fires abroad that seek to destroy America's democracy and our way of life. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this motion to recommit.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time, I thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for that change. I think the reason we are accepting the amendment is in the spirit that it was offered by my colleague from New York and, I believe, my colleague from Connecticut. We on the committee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) and myself have laid down as one of the parameters and one of the things that we expect from the oversight subcommittee is to vigorously and aggressively track the implementation of the intelligence reform bill. I agree in the time that the gentlewoman and I have been in Congress together until we pass Federal prison industries reform, this will be one of the most significant pieces of legislation that we will have worked on together. There are some talking points on the technicality as to what ``fully operational'' means, and those types of things; and whether it is fully operational now and whether it could have been fully operational before June 17, because that is when the law came into effect, we fully understand and appreciate the concern that the gentlewoman has in bringing this amendment forward, that we on the committee and that Congress and the American people be fully informed as to the progress we are making in implementing the intelligence reform bill. We are committed to doing that. We are committed to staying informed on the committee, riding herd over the director of National Intelligence to make sure that this bill is implemented to the full intent of Congress when we passed it. So it is in light of the spirit of that approach that we accept this amendment. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, and our partner in making sure that we have a solid and strong intelligence community as well as the best fighting forces, the best military in the world.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Madam Speaker, as we take a look at the technical programs and we take a look at the structure of the intelligence community, at the end of the day it is about the people in the intelligence community. As we have conducted our oversight responsibilities in developing this bill, we have had the opportunity to meet and work with many of the intelligence professionals throughout the community and around the world. I believe I can speak for the rest of my colleagues when I say that we hold in the highest regard the work accomplished by these dedicated U.S. intelligence community personnel. At great sacrifice, often under extreme and intense conditions, and at great personal risk, the men and women of the intelligence community continue to perform their missions with great energy, professionalism, and devotion to the national security mission. I commend these patriots for their heroism, their integrity, and their perseverance. These honorable people form the first line of defense for our Nation. Our freedoms and the very security of our country rely on their successes. Those successes are things we cannot and do not often have the opportunity to talk about. Unfortunately, and quite wrongly, it is the rare but overlooked publicized failures that they are credited with. I stand here today and say thank you to these tremendous people. They deserve our support, and that is what we are doing with this legislation today. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Madam Speaker, I would like to get to some of the specifics of the legislation. I want to make an observation about the overall position we have taken. It is my belief, and we have seen it today, that we may be harshly criticized by some for being too bold or aggressive with some of our actions. Indeed, we have already been told that we were not incremental enough. I want to take head-on those who take such positions. There is no question that what is being proposed today is bold and sweeping in some areas. Without getting into the classified specifics, based on our strategic review, we are cutting back dramatically in some cases, on some technical programs that have had poor performance or could be modified for better utility for the Nation's intelligence efforts. We are terminating some programs that we do not believe fit in the overall architecture for the intelligence community. We have analyzed these programs extensively, asked the tough questions, and focused on the resulting intelligence output. To paraphrase from a Hollywood movie line, these programs have been weighed, they have been measured, and they have been found wanting. We are then taking the resulting savings and applying that to historically underfunded areas in the human intelligence and human capital areas. Specifically, we are focusing needed emphasis on adding human intelligence specialists, improving the training of analysts, improving the training of case officers, and making more robust the infrastructure necessary to gain their expertise, and then better employ that expertise. We have quite simply in the past paid too much lip service to those basic needs, while continuing to fund expensive technical programs that, although important, do not make up for the lack of analysts, lack of worldwide coverage, lack of training, and lack of basic infrastructure. In sum, we are doing the heavy lifting that should have been done long ago. We are acting boldly and positively on the task our former chairman gave us. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.