Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator for that answer. I completely agree with her. It is important to step back and perhaps state the obvious. Why do we capture enemy combatants? Why do we take prisoners of war? Two reasons, really. The obvious one is to get them off the battlefield against us so they can no longer attempt to kill Americans in uniform and, in the case of the war we are in with Islamist terrorists, to kill civilians. That is first--get them off the battlefield. The second purpose--and this has been the traditional purpose of taking prisoners of war as long as there has been warfare in human history, and all the more so now--is to gather intelligence from them that will assist us in defeating the enemy and protecting our goals and protecting the lives of our men and women in uniform. That traditional purpose for taking prisoners of war is all the more critical in the unconventional war we are in against a brutal enemy that doesn't strike from battleships or tactical air fighters or military tanks or even in uniform; they strike us from the shadows, and they strike civilians as well. It is very important to approach this amendment understanding that we are trying to increase, in a reasonable way, the capacity of those who work for us to protect our security and freedom to interrogate detainees that we have captured in the war against terrorism. One of the purposes is to gather intelligence, which will help us protect the lives of Americans and of our allies. The preface to the Army Field Manual says it applies to the active Army, the Army National Guard, and the U.S. Army Reserve, unless otherwise stated. So as to the field manual, recognizing that these words create limited applicability of the manual outside the Army, the Army Training and Doctrine Command authors had the wisdom to warn that this manual was ``Army doctrine,'' and it would have to be adapted, altered to apply to other ``military departments'' or other military service. If the interrogation techniques in this manual are not ideally suited for military services other than the U.S. Army, why should civilian interrogation professionals in the intelligence community, and particularly those who are in support of a high-value detainee interrogation, those who get the most powerful and influential and dangerous prisoners of war, be forced to comply with a document written for a defined military unit, which is the U.S. Army? I ask my friend from New Hampshire that question.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Again, I thank my friend from New Hampshire, but I want to go back to something I said earlier. We have described the purpose of this amendment--what I call the due process we have put into it, the mandate that it comply with existing international norms and treaties, and, obviously, to comply with our law. I want to say to my colleague that it is certainly not my intention--and I ask my colleague is it her intention--that any of the measures we are authorizing--the interrogation tactics for the worst of the terrorist detainees--should or could equal what is conventionally known as torture? In other words, we are not attempting to legalize torture with this amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Again, Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. Just in listening to her, it seems so unacceptable that we are basically telegraphing to our enemy exactly the range of tactics that we will use against them as part of the interrogation. We have set some quite appropriate constraints in this amendment consistent with our values and our laws and international law so that we are not going to get anywhere near torture. But when a member of al- Qaida or a similarly associated terrorist group is captured, I want that person to be terrified about what is going to happen to them while in American custody. I want them not to know what is going to happen. I want the terror they inflict on others to be felt by them as a result of the uncertainty of not knowing they can look on the Internet and find out exactly what our interrogators are going to be limited to. Again, we will not tolerate torture. We will not tolerate what happened at Abu Ghraib. I think the limited interrogation in the Army Field Manual was an understandable but excessive reaction to the extreme and unacceptable behavior by Americans at Abu Ghraib. I hope this amendment will facilitate a return to the kind of sensible middle ground on which we will not be shackling our interrogators as they try to get intelligence, within the law, to protect our freedom and the safety of those who are fighting for us. So I want to ask my friend from New Hampshire whether she thinks we have now a kind of one-size-fits-all approach to interrogation that is posted online. In other words, our laws should make it easier, within the law, not harder, to gather intelligence to keep Americans safe. Yet it seems the current policy runs counter to that basic principle. Does my friend from New Hampshire agree?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from South Carolina for participating in our colloquy, and, of course, I totally agree with him, first of all, on the principle. As he has said very well, and he knows the law very well or better than anyone around here, the Supreme Court has made clear an American citizen, who by his or her acts has declared themselves to be an enemy of the United States, can be treated as an enemy combatant. If we change that now, it is not only wrong on principle, but it is absolutely the wrong time to do this. Let me speak now for a moment--and I am privileged to be the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I say to my friend from South Carolina, I not only believe it, but it is shown by the facts. I wish I had the numbers exactly in front of me. But if we chart attempts at terrorist attacks on the United States--and here I am limiting it to people who are affiliated with the global Islamist extremist movement--there were a few after 9/11, but in the last 2 or 3 years, the numbers have gone up dramatically. I hasten to say these represent a very small percentage of the Muslim-American community. But of course it doesn't take too many people to cause great havoc. We have been effective at law enforcement and, frankly, we have been lucky that all but two of these attempts have been stopped. But I think we would find law enforcement officials, Homeland Security officials saying the toughest and most dangerous threat right now to the homeland security of the American people comes from homegrown terrorists who have been self-radicalized or radicalized by somebody else.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Well, there is no question our enemies have declared it part of the battlefield. The very official commencement of the war against Islamist terrorism, 9/11, was an attack on America's homeland, on civilians.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Absolutely true. Al-Qaida and like Islamist terrorist groups.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. It is a combination, truthfully.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Right.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I would say what has happened here since 9/11, and what we needed to have happen, is that the old stovepipes have dissolved and we have military, civilian, CIA, FBI, each with a focus, working together. For instance, the Army doctor who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, our committee did an investigation in that case. He was actually communicating with the radical cleric Awlaki in Yemen over the Internet. That was picked up by international intelligence operatives. Part of the story is it wasn't transferred effectively to the Army so they could grab him before he committed the mass murder at Fort Hood. But I have to say for the record, the primary responsibility for counterterrorism now in the United States is with the FBI that has developed an extraordinary capability since 9/11. But it works very closely with the CIA, gathering international intelligence, NSA, homeland security, and the military.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Right.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. That certainly should be the case, and we have had this circumstance in reality. They are all part of the same enemy. In the case the Senator posits, they have all been part of the same plot to attack the American people.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. That is the law. As the Senator has said and Chairman Levin has said several times in the debate, there may be some in the Chamber who don't like it, but that is what the U.S. Supreme Court has said very clearly.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. No.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Yes, it does. The Senator is making a very important point. It goes back to the colloquy the Senator from New Hampshire and I had, which is, when we capture an enemy combatant, we do so for two reasons: One is to get that enemy off the battlefield, the second is to gather intelligence. Sometimes the second purpose is more important than the first because it can lead us to other plots against the American people.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I do. There has been a lot of talk about the Constitution. The Constitution makes very clear that the primary responsibility we have in the Federal Government is to provide for the common defense, to protect the security of the American people.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend. I absolutely agree. I talked to professionals in this business of interrogation, and they say some of the most effective interrogation takes time. I have had people describe to me detainees who were totally uncooperative, and they were asked over and over for days and weeks and months, and then finally broke and began to give information that was critically important for the protection of our country. So I do agree. I want to stress two things the Senator from South Carolina has said because it is very relevant to the attempt to give special status to Americans deemed to be enemy combatants in the contravention of existing U.S. Supreme Court rulings that say if you are an American and you are found to have joined the enemy, then you can be treated as an enemy combatant, which common sense tells you is what you are. Here is what I want to say, and this is important to what we are here for. There are two kinds of due process that are put into the bill, the underlying language and the compromise that has been adopted on the treatment of detainees. One, for the first time there is a judicial process to determine the status of the detainee, whether evidence shows that the detainee should, in fact, be treated as an enemy combatant. The second is that while the enemy combatant is subject to indefinite incarceration, that indefinite incarceration is subject to annual review now. So we can determine, according to a stated series of standards, whether that person----

Mr. LIEBERMAN. That is absolutely right. The Senator stated earlier-- and it is an important point--this is the danger we get into as we start to treat people who are terrorists as common criminals, or even uncommon criminals, which is that the criminal law aims at imposing a penalty, doing justice, incarcerating somebody as a result. The law of war is aimed at making sure that enemy combatants, prisoners of war, are taken off the battlefield----

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Until the war is over.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend from South Carolina for his expertise in this area and also his sense of principle. We have colleagues on the floor who want to speak. I want to say a final word. I know the Senator from South Carolina is particularly worried about pending amendments that would alter the way in which the underlying bill now treats enemy combatants who are citizens of the United States. The underlying provision in the bill on detainee treatment fills a gap in our law that has been harmful and difficult for our military to deal with because there is no law about how to treat detainees. Senator Graham worked very closely with Senator Levin and Senator McCain to draft this compromise, and it is a good compromise. As he knows, if I had my preference, there would be no waiver in this because I believe anybody who is an enemy combatant is an enemy combatant and as a matter of principle ought to be held in military custody and tried by a military tribunal according to all the protocols of the Geneva Conventions, according to the Military Code of Justice. Incidentally, if these tribunals are good enough for American men and women in the military who face charges, they ought to be good enough for enemy combatants who face charges. But here is my point: The Levin-McCain-Graham provision in this bill on detainees is a compromise. It is a reasonable, effective, bipartisan compromise. It is the kind of compromise that doesn't happen here enough, and so I support it because even though I might have wished it would have gone further, so to speak, it is a lot better than the status quo. And I say that at this moment because I urge our colleagues who now want to come in with other amendments, to essentially undo this bipartisan compromise can do great damage. I am saying myself, yes, I wish it had not given the President the power to waive that he has under the bill and take somebody who is an enemy combatant to a normal article III Federal court, but this provision is a real step forward from the status quo, and I think if we can say that, then we ought to support it. So I hope our colleagues will think twice before trying to undo the compromise, and that if they do go forward with it, that our colleagues on the floor will defeat those amendments.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair, and I thank my friend, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. I rise respectfully to oppose the amendment the Senator from Colorado has offered, though in some measure I thank him for offering it because this has been an important and good debate. My own position, stated briefly, is this: As Senator Levin has said, we are a nation at war. As such we were attacked on 9/11. We adopted in this Chamber the authorization for military force. That is about as close to a declaration of war as we have done since the Second World War. The comparison is exact because what happened to us on 9/11 was in some ways even worse than what happened in December of 1941 when we were attacked at Pearl Harbor. A nation at war that seizes those who have declared themselves to be part of enemy forces and have attempted to attack the American people, or America, should be treated as enemy combatants, as prisoners of war, according to the law of war. To me, that is a matter of principle. Regardless of what statistics one can cite about how well prosecutions have gone in article III courts, that is, to me, not ultimately the point. If we are at war, the people who are fighting against us ought to be treated as prisoners of war. In fact, we are without a policy now, as Senator Ayotte said. The main reason I oppose what Senator Udall is proposing is that he would remove the sections of the current bill that create a policy and send us back to where we are now, where our forces in the field don't know what to do if they capture a member of al-Qaida. If I had my way, the provisions in this proposal on detainees would not have the waivers the President has. It would simply say, if you are apprehended--if you are a foreign member of al-Qaida, and you are captured planning or executing attacks against Americans or our allies in this war, you are put in military custody and you are tried in a military tribunal. This is not the law of the jungle; this is according to American law. These are the same courts in which American soldiers are tried when charges are brought against them, and, of course, we accept and abide by all of the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. But that was not the will of the Armed Services Committee. The Armed Services Committee, in a good, reasonable, bipartisan compromise, has created a system here where the default position--the initial position is to transfer these enemy combatants to military custody. It is a good compromise. It is the kind of compromise that----

Mr. LIEBERMAN.--doesn't happen around here enough. I didn't get everything I wanted out of it, but it is a lot better than the status quo. Therefore, I support the language in the bill and oppose the Udall amendment. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair, and I thank my friend and colleague, the distinguished chair of the Judiciary Committee, for his kindness. Mr. President, as the Speaker sometimes says in the House, it is really a high honor and great personal privilege--with the emphasis on ``personal''--to come to the floor of the Senate to give my strong support to the nomination of Judge Christopher Droney of West Hartford, CT, to serve as U.S. Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. I say it is a high honor because I have profound confidence based on Judge Droney's service as a private attorney, a U.S. attorney, and now for quite a while as a member of the district court in Connecticut. I have great confidence that he will make an excellent addition to this very important court, the U.S. court for the Second Circuit. I say it is a great personal privilege to be able to speak on behalf of his nomination because, as the occupant of the chair, my colleague from Connecticut, knows well, I have known Chris Droney for a long time now. He and his brother John have been very good friends of mine, great supporters, great sources of counsel, great friends. Both are graduates of the College of Holy Cross. The older brother John, who has less of a judicial temperament than the younger brother Chris--fortunately, we are approving Chris here for the court, not John. But John tells me, having been to Holy Cross, it is still politically acceptable to note that the graduates of Holy Cross consider themselves Crusaders. Both John and Chris Droney have been crusaders for what is right in the best sense of the word. I value their personal friendship. We have gone through a lot together, not just in politics, but I have seen their families grow. I have gotten to know their families. I know what they are made of. We have gone through the natural lifecycle tragedies of losing parents, et cetera, together. Chris Droney is a person of real depth and real ability and will make an excellent judge. So I stress the personal part because it adds a dimension that you and I both, Mr. President, have had the opportunity to have, which is, beyond the resume of Chris Droney, which I am going to mention in a moment, there is a person here, and he is a person who exemplifies what we mean when we talk about a judicial temperament, who we know has a great intellect, tremendous legal acumen, who we know is hard-working, and who we know brings common sense to everything he has done. I mentioned John Droney just because they go together as brothers, and there is nothing that matters more to John--the older and obviously less attractive of the two--than the pride he has in his brother's achievements, though John himself, of course, has been a very successful and distinguished member of the bar in Connecticut. So let me focus on the younger brother, who is the subject of our consideration today. I mentioned that Judge Droney attended the College of Holy Cross in Massachusetts, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1976. He went on to attend the University of Connecticut Law School, where he was the notes and comments editor on the Law Review, and earned his J.D.-- doctor of jurisprudence--in 1979. After graduating from law school, he worked in private practice as a litigation associate handling a range of matters, mostly civil at that point. In 1983, he became a partner at the well-respected law firm of Reid and Riege in Hartford, where he represented clients in a wide range of civil matters, including commercial disputes, personal injury actions, property claims, and intellectual property matters. Judge Droney personally tried cases in the Connecticut Superior Court, the U.S. district court in Connecticut, and argued appeals in the Connecticut Appellate and Supreme Courts and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the court for which he is being considered today. During this period, Judge Droney, like his brother, was involved in public life in Connecticut and served, in his case, on the town council of West Hartford as deputy mayor from 1983 to 1985 and as mayor from 1985 to 1989. In 1993, President Clinton nominated Chris Droney to be the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, where he served with great distinction and affect until 1997. As U.S. attorney, he initiated new cooperative law enforcement efforts against gangs, health care fraud, and financial fraud, in addition to personally trying some major cases in Connecticut and across New England and successfully arguing cases before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals--again, the court he is being considered for today in a vote that will occur shortly. Judge Droney was selected by then-Attorney General Janet Reno to serve on the Attorney General's Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys in which he was one of 17 U.S. attorneys selected to assist the Department of Justice on a range of pressing matters. In 1997, after 4 years as U.S. attorney, Chris Droney was nominated to the district court in Connecticut by President Clinton and I might say for the second time was confirmed unanimously by this Senate. Since then, as a district court judge, he has presided over numerous Federal, civil, and criminal trials and has consistently demonstrated sound judgment and great legal acumen in his many decisions covering an array of complex and sensitive matters. Judge Droney's career speaks to a profound commitment to the rule of law and the credibility of the legal system. I know there is a tendency to want to find out, is this judge a liberal, is he a conservative, is he a conservative? I don't think you can put a label on Judge Droney. Some might say he is a moderate. Others might say he is an Independent. I think he is known as somebody who is fair and will take every case as it comes along and decide it on the merits. So now he has been nominated to serve on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. I want to personally express my thanks first to President Obama for submitting his nomination for this very esteemed court and secondly to our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, both of whom have been kind enough to be on the floor and speak on his behalf, Senator Leahy, who is chairman of the committee, and Senator Grassley, the ranking member. I was particularly grateful for Senator Grassley's comments about Judge Droney's capabilities. This is a good man who believes in the law and is tremendously experienced. Incidentally, he sat as a visiting judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and has actually written, I believe, five opinions for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals already. So this is somebody who will hit the ground running with the support of the Senate this afternoon. I will repeat what I said at the beginning. It is not only a high honor and one that I don't take lightly but also a great personal privilege to urge my colleagues to support the nomination of Judge Christopher Droney of Connecticut to be a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today, with my colleagues, Senator Collins, Senator Akaka, and Senator Lugar, to support an amendment to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our government by fostering greater integration among the personnel who work on critical national security and homeland security missions. The national security and homeland security challenges that our Nation faces in the 21st century are far more complex than those of the last century. Threats such as terrorism, proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons, insurgencies, and failed states are beyond the capability of any single agency of our government--such as the Department of Defense, DOD; the Department of State; or the intelligence community--to counter on its own. In addition, threats such as terrorism and organized crime know no borders and instead cross the so-called foreign/domestic divide--the bureaucratic, cultural, and legal division between agencies that focus on threats from beyond our borders and those that focus on threats from within. Finally, a new group of government agencies is now involved in national and homeland security. These agencies bring to bear critical capabilities--such as interdicting terrorist finance, enforcing sanctions, protecting our critical infrastructure, and helping foreign countries threatened by terrorism to build their economies and legal systems--but many of them have relatively little experience of involvement with the traditional national security agencies. Some of these agencies have existed for decades or centuries--such as the Departments of Treasury; Justice; and Health and Human Services, HHS-- while others are new since 9/11, such as the Department of Homeland Security, DHS. As a result, our government needs to be able to apply all instruments of national power--including military, diplomatic, law enforcement, foreign aid, homeland security, and public health--in a whole-of- government approach to counter these threats. We only need to look at our government's failure to use the full range of civilian and military capabilities to stymie the Iraqi insurgency immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, the government's failure to prepare and respond to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the government's failure to share information and coordinate action prior to the attack at Fort Hood, TX, in 2009, for examples of failure of interagency coordination and their costs in terms of lives, money, and the national interest. The challenge of integrating the agencies of the executive branch into a whole-of-government approach has been recognized by congressionally chartered commissions for more than a decade. Prior to 9/11, the commission led by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, entitled the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, issued reports recommending fundamental reorganization to integrate government capabilities, including for homeland security. In 2004, the 9/11 Commission, led by former Governor Tom Kean and former Representative Lee Hamilton, found that the U.S. Government needed reform in order to foster a stronger, faster, and more efficient governmentwide effort against terrorism. And in 2008, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, led by former Senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent, called for improving interagency coordination in our Nation's defenses against bioterrorism and other weapons of mass destruction. Congress has long recognized that a key way to better integrate our government's capabilities is to provide strong incentives for personnel to do rotational assignments across bureaucratic stovepipes. The personnel who serve in our government are our Nation's best and brightest, and they have and will respond to incentives that we institute in order to improve coordination across our government. In 1986, Congress enacted the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act. That legislation sought to break down stovepipes and foster jointness across the military services by requiring that military officers have served in a position outside of their service as a requirement for promotion to general or admiral. Twenty-five years later, this requirement has produced a sea change in military officers' mindsets and created a dominant military culture of jointness. In 2004, Congress enacted the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act at the 9/11 Commission's recommendation and required a similar rotational requirement for intelligence personnel. The Director of National Intelligence has since instituted rotations across the intelligence community as an eligibility requirement for promotion to senior intelligence positions, and this requirement is helping to integrate the 16 agencies and elements of the intelligence community. Finally, in 2005, Congress enacted the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act to improve our Nation's preparedness for and responses to domestic catastrophes and instituted a rotational program within the Department of Homeland Security in order to integrate that Department. This proven mechanism of rotations must be applied to integrate the government as a whole on national security and homeland security issues. Indeed, the Hart/Rudman Commission called for rotations to other agencies and interagency professional education to be required in order for personnel to hold certain positions or be promoted to certain levels. And the Graham/Talent Commission called for the government to recruit the next generation of national security experts by establishing a program of joint duty, education, and training in order to create a culture of interagency collaboration, flexibility, and innovation. The executive branch has also recognized the need to foster greater interagency rotations and experience in order to improve integration across its agencies. In 2007, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13434 concerning national security professional development and to include interagency assignments. However, that Executive order was not implemented aggressively toward the end of the Bush administration and has languished as the Obama administration pursued other priorities. Clearly, it is time for Congress to act and to institute the personnel incentives and reforms necessary to further integrate our government and enable it to counter the national security and homeland security threats of the 21st century. In June of this year, I joined with Senator Susan M. Collins and Senator Daniel K. Akaka to introduce the bipartisan Interagency Personnel Rotation Act of 2011, S. 1268. Companion legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis by Representative Geoff Davis and Representative John F. Tierney. The legislation was marked up by the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on October 19, 2011. I am pleased that Senator Richard Lugar, ranking member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, has joined as a cosponsor of that bill. Senator Collins, Senator Akaka, Senator Lugar, and I are pleased to offer the Interagency Personnel Rotation Act, with minor modifications from the marked-up version, as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. The purpose of this amendment is to enable executive branch personnel to view national security and homeland security issues from a whole-of- government perspective and be able to capitalize upon communities of interest composed of personnel from multiple agencies who work on the same national security or homeland security issue. This amendment requires that the executive branch identify ``Interagency Communities of Interest''--which are subject areas spanning multiple agencies and within which the executive branch needs to operate on a more integrated basis. Interagency communities of interest could include counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, counter proliferation, or regional areas such as the Middle East. This amendment then requires that agencies identify positions that are within each interagency community of interest. Government personnel would then rotate to positions within other agencies but within the particular interagency community of interest related to their expertise. Government personnel could also rotate to positions at offices that have specific interagency missions such as the national security staff. Completing an interagency rotation would be a prerequisite for selection to certain Senior Executive Service positions within that interagency community of interest. As a result, personnel would have the incentives to serve in a rotational position and to develop the whole-of-government perspective and the network of contacts necessary for integrating across agencies and accomplishing national security and homeland security missions more efficiently and effectively. Let me offer some examples of how this might work. An employee of the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, who specializes in development strategy could rotate to a DOD counterinsurgency office to advise DOD in planning on how development issues should be taken into account in military operations, while a DOD counterinsurgency specialist could rotate to USAID to advise on how development priorities should be assessed in a counterinsurgency. A Treasury employee who does terrorist finance work could benefit from a rotation to Department of Justice to understand operations to take down terrorist cells and how terrorist finance work can help identify and prosecute their members, while a Justice employee would have the chance to learn from the Treasury's financial expertise in understanding how sources of funding can affect cells' formation and plotting. An HHS employee who specializes in public health could rotate to a DOD counterinsurgency office to advise on improving public health in order to win over the hearts and minds of the population to counter insurgency, while a DHS employee could rotate to HHS in order to learn about HHS's work to prepare the U.S. public health system for a biological terrorist attack. The cosponsors of this amendment and I recognize the complexity involved in the creation of interagency communities of interest, the institution of rotations across a wide variety of government agencies, and having a rotation as a prerequisite for selection to certain Senior Executive Service positions. As a result, our legislation gives the executive branch substantial flexibility--including to identify interagency communities of interest; to identify which positions in each agency are within a particular interagency community of interest; to identify which positions in an interagency community of interest should be open for rotation and how long the rotations will be; and, finally, which Senior Executive Service positions have interagency rotational service as a prerequisite. To be clear, this legislation does not mandate that any agency be included in an interagency community of interest or the interagency personnel rotations; instead, this legislation permits the executive branch to include any agency or part of an agency as the executive branch determines that our Nation's national and homeland security missions require. Finally, I wish to stress that this amendment is designed to be implemented with no cost to the executive branch. First, this amendment is designed to be implemented without requiring any additional personnel for the executive branch. The amendment envisions that rotations will be conducted so that there is a reasonable equivalence between the number of personnel rotating out of an agency and the number rotating in. That way, no agency will be short staffed as a result of having sent its best and brightest to do rotations; each agency will be receiving the best and brightest from other agencies. Second, this amendment relies on the office that is currently implementing the executive branch's national security professional development program to implement this framework instituted by this amendment. This office is currently housed at DOD, and the legislation would move the office and its three employees to the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, which have oversight responsibility for this framework. Thus, no new staff would be required to administer the framework set forth in the amendment. Third, this amendment has a 5-year implementation period which requires the executive branch to create two interagency communities of interest--for emergency management, and stabilization and reconstruction--to restrict the number of personnel doing rotations to 20 to 25 per year per each of these two interagency communities of interest, and to restrict the rotations to within a metropolitan area in order to avoid any relocation costs. Fourth, this amendment requires that personnel doing a rotation receive the same training by the receiving agency that the receiving agency would provide to its own new employees, rather than more elaborate training that would incur costs. And fifth, this amendment requires that any reports produced pursuant to the amendment be submitted on line rather than published in hard copy. Let me close by answering a common objection to government reorganization. To quote the 9/11 Commission: An argument against change is that the nation is at war, and cannot afford to reorganize in midstream. But some of the main innovations of the 1940s and 1950s, including the creation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and even the construction of the Pentagon itself, were undertaken in the midst of war. Surely the country cannot wait until the struggle against Islamic terrorism is over. I urge my colleagues to take bold action to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our government in countering 21st century national security and homeland security threats by promptly adopting this amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.