Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. That is correct. We tried to draw some lines. They are not always clear because there are a lot of programs that overlap, but to say that anything in the national intelligence budget should go to the national intelligence director, that is his or her job. There are other programs that are uniquely the work of the Defense Department--I am going to put it another way: that are totally used by the Defense Department for tactical intelligence to support the work of one service of the military or a joint military action. But those assets are not used for anything else in our intelligence community nonmilitary and, of course, they should go for budget control to the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Absolutely. We preserve that. There are one or two amendments that are seeking still to clarify that break that we will debate and vote on I would guess before this bill is finally considered, but that is exactly what we have done in the underlying bill.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I say through the Chair, that power would be seriously limited, which is to say the personnel transfers under the amendment would have to be done in accordance with procedures to be developed by the national intelligence director with the concerned department head and only for periods up to 1 year, and that is a constriction that says to the national intelligence director: You do not have the latitude to do what you think is necessary to protect the national security interests. This is a little bit like saying to a general: You can only make a decision for a short period of time in moving your troops around to better confront the enemy and achieve victory. It makes no sense. It is a critical part of the overall proposal of our bill and the 9/11 Commission. If the Senator from Ohio would give me a moment, this morning, the Family Steering Committee composed of families of victims of 9/11 sent a letter to every Senator commenting on some of these amendments. With regard to this amendment introduced by the Senator from West Virginia, No. 3845, they say that the 9/11 Commission has stated repeatedly that the power of the purse is critical for the national intelligence director position. S. 2845, the underlying bill, provides for the national intelligence director to be empowered with budget execution and transfer authorities. The NID also needs to be able to transfer personnel in response to threats, which is what the Senator's question goes to. So the families conclude: In summary, we oppose amendment No. 3845 introduced by the Senator from West Virginia and others because it reduces the authority of the national intelligence director. I thank the Senator.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to thank our friend and colleague from Ohio for both his thoughtful consideration of this legislation and his very relevant questions this morning, which I do believe help to illuminate the consequences on one of the amendments we are going to vote on today. Last week, the Senator was here in a less friendly posture. It is always better to have him on our side, and I thank him very much for caring enough about this critically important legislation to come over and be part of this debate. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise in support of this amendment. It builds on some extraordinary work done by the bipartisan membership of the Governmental Affairs Committee on a separate bill before we were assigned responsibility for this intelligence reform months ago in which the chairman and Senator Carper played leading roles. I give them both great credit. There is nothing more difficult than funding formulas around this place, for understandable reasons. I think this amendment strikes the right balance in the distribution of homeland security grant funds. The balance is to make certain we apply the dollars across our country in a way that protects us against the enemy we face, the terrorist enemy we face that is ruthless and unpredictable. To some extent, we think we understand them. The probabilities are they will strike more at large cities and visible and symbolic targets, but the reality is we cannot have our focus on what this enemy will do to us or aspire to do to us, be limited to the dreadful and tragic experience of September 11 in which they hit visible symbols of America's greatness because this same terrorist ilk has struck throughout the world at other kinds of targets that are not so visible, at buses with innocents on them, and other means of transportation, at gatherings of people in Iraq adjacent to places where Iraqis are lining up to apply to become security officers. So that is the balance we are trying to strike which is to give special attention to the larger cities that are more likely to be targets but to understand that in a way that we have never experienced in our history before, all of America is potentially a target because these people do not ever play by anybody's rules of warfare. They strike at the most vulnerable targets. That means they could strike anywhere. The Governmental Affairs Committee spent many months working on this compromise legislation. The amendment incorporates the text of that Governmental Affairs legislation, unanimously approved, to help streamline our funding for first responders around America. It ensures that a very significant part of the homeland security funding will be determined on the basis of the risks and threats that particular communities face, which moves us substantially in the direction that the 9/11 Commission recommended. At the same time, this amendment will guarantee that each State, and therefore the localities under the State, continues to receive a minimum amount of funding to build up essential capabilities to both prevent and respond to a potential terrorist attack. So I am pleased this amendment appears to be acceptable on both sides. I join in urging its adoption.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I appreciate what the Senator said. I must say that Senator Collins and I in crafting the underlying bill were very careful to make sure we did not diminish the accountability the national intelligence director will have to the internal executive branch budget procedures or to Congress. There is a movement of authority here. The movement of authority is from the Department of Defense to the national intelligence director. The Byrd amendment would eliminate that, would force the money to go back to the Department of Defense. I want to assure the Senator that internally the limits of transfer authority in our bill are quite clear. The national intelligence director has to get approval from the Office of Management and Budget. More to the point, on congressional oversight, our legislation doesn't alter today's balance between the executive and legislative branch at all. For example, on page 28, paragraph (4) of the bill: Any transfer of funds under this subsection shall be carried out in accordance with existing procedures applicable to reprogramming notifications for appropriate congressional committees. Page 29, paragraph (5)(A): The National Intelligence Director shall promptly submit to appropriate committees of Congress a report on any transfer of personnel . . . And finally: ``Any transfer of funds or personnel cannot exceed applicable ceilings established in law for such transfer'' by that Congress. So my question is why my friend from North Dakota thinks in any way this proposal, which does move budget authority from the Defense Department to the national intelligence director, alters the authority of Congress to hold these people accountable?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, if I may respond.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Then I will be happy to yield back. There is a misunderstanding, and I want to see if I can clarify it. There are three parts of the amendment offered by the Senator from West Virginia and others. Two have to do with transfers of personnel and money and whether they can be limited in any way. We believe it is not right for Congress to limit the authority--here I mean amounts of money or personnel of the nature of how long the national intelligence director, whom I have been calling the general we do not have now of our intelligence forces, can transfer personnel or money to fight the war on terrorism, to plug a gap that he sees existing in his ranks, to respond to a crisis that occurs somewhere in the world. That is the kind of flexibility we want to give him. That is subject to oversight, but that is a limitation on the power the national intelligence director has in our bill, recommended by the 9/11 Commission, supported by the families of those who died on 9/11. That is one part. We can argue about that. But it is definitely a cut in the authority of the national intelligence director to help us wage war on terrorism.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I want to make clear again, there is an alteration of authority and accountability here but not between the executive branch and Congress. The alteration of authority and accountability is between agencies of the executive branch, between the Defense Department and the national intelligence director because, as has been said over and over--and talk about accountability, we are spending, by most estimates--and I cannot say the exact number because it is classified--we spend over $40 billion a year on our intelligence agencies, and the 9/11 Commission and Members of this Congress know it and tell us there is no one in charge. What kind of accountability is that? One of the main purposes of this bill is to put someone in charge, the national intelligence director, and to hold him accountable. I want to repeat, there is nothing in this bill--there may be some alteration of authority that comes through in the congressional oversight reforms that are coming from Senator McConnell and Senator Harry Reid among different committees of the Congress, but all the review and approvals that Congress has for appropriations now will exist when this bill passes. But the national intelligence director will have more authority than the Director of Central Intelligence has today. It is true the Department of Defense, which currently, strangely, receives more than 80 percent of the intelligence budget and then funnels it out to the intelligence community, will lose some of that authority. There is nothing in this bill--if you see it, bring it to us. Senator Collins and I will review it and see if we can alter it. That is not our intention. I want to say what bothers me about the amendment, apart from the transfer, is that it strikes a section in our bill which we thought was process, was routine, which simply says: If we are to give this national intelligence director some authority for the budget, we have to give the Treasury the authority to set up accounts for that person in the Treasury so he can spend it, but he has to spend it according to the appropriations of Congress. He has to spend subject to all the oversight, notification, and accountability of Congress. I remain puzzled, and I do feel very strongly that this amendment will do serious damage to our proposal, unanimously adopted by the committee based on recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and strongly supported by the families of the victims of 9/11.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I could not disagree more with the Senator's understanding of the language in the bill. If there is any basis to the Senator's understanding, we ought to sit together and see if we can fashion a change, because the intention, as I understand it--and perhaps the Senator from Maine may want to speak to this section--was to simply make clear that as we are giving budget authority, and we are giving authority to the NID, but we are holding him or her accountable--as we give that authority to the NID, an account has to be created in the Treasury where he can receive that money, which now goes to the Defense Department. Our reading of this part of this amendment was that if the formation of these accounts for the national intelligence director at the Treasury is prohibited, then the money is going to go back to Defense again and they are going to undercut the new national intelligence director and go back to the stovepipes. We have no intention to create pots of money that the NID will do whatever he wants with. Incidentally, any transfer of funds from within the intelligence community--and the budget of this agency itself is not going to be large; it is going to oversee a budget for agencies that is going to be large--will have to be made according to the normal procedures with notification to Congress. We have not altered that at all. We have even said explicitly that the power--we want to create as much strength in this office as possible. The power in the Appropriations Committee each year to set certain ceilings on transfers remains untouched. We reaffirm it in our proposal. So we have very different views of this part of the Byrd amendment, and if there is any basis for what the Senator from North Dakota is saying, we ought to sit down and figure out how to correct it because we just want to help this office to work. We do not want to give them any authority to hold billions of dollars of money without holding them accountable.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I say to the Senator from West Virginia----

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator, and I will give it right back. I say to the Senator from West Virginia most respectfully, we are here. We have been working on this bill in our committee since the end of July. We have listened to a lot of people in the committee. We have altered parts of it. Just last week in 5 days of consideration, several of our colleagues introduced amendments. We thought they would do damage to the bill but they had some merit. We reasoned with them. We came up with clarifications. Sometimes we accepted whole amendments. Perhaps there is some lack of clarity in this particular part that we can resolve together, but on the overall question, I say to Senator Byrd, we do not have time. It is 3 years plus since these terrorists struck America and killed 3,000 of our innocents, men, women, children. Every form of citizen and noncitizen happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Well, I did not finish but he can take it over. I just want to say, we are under threat. This Capitol----

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, before the Senator from Missouri leaves the floor, I thank him for his statement. I thank him for his kind words about Senator Collins and me, which she certainly deserves and I am glad to be along with her on that ride. I thank him for the specific question and assure the Senator on my behalf, one, that Senator Collins and our committee were focused throughout the deliberations on making sure this substantial reorganization of our intelligence assets not in any way diminish the availability of intelligence to the warfighter. In fact, in the best of all situations, we believe the recommendations that we have made will improve intelligence to the warfighter. By way of reassurance, I want to quote from GEN Michael Hayden, Director of the National Security Agency, who said in testimony before the other body: An empowered national intelligence director who would direct authority over the national agencies should not be viewed as diminishing our ability or willingness to fulfill our responsibilities as combat support agencies. He was speaking on behalf of the three. It was quite illuminating, in talking to General Hayden and others. They are in direct daily contact, particularly with the combatant commanders. They have people out in the field right now with those combatant commanders, particularly in the most active areas of the world, such as the central command, which includes Iraq and Pakistan. After having described that close integration of national intelligence assets with the warfighters, General Hayden concluded: It is inconceivable to me that any future leader of the National Security Agency could or would ever act any differently. GEN James Clapper, head of the NGA, National Geospatial Agency, expressed exactly the same sentiments to us. I want to reassure the Senator from Missouri, more to the point of his question, that to the extent we are able--and I am sure if we are not, the Armed Services Committee will--we will definitely keep a close eye as this new system is implemented to make sure our intention, which is that this reform improves intelligence for our warfighters, in fact is being realized.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I join in thanking the Senator from Minnesota. Senator Coleman really hung in there with us and did the hard work in July, August, and September, both in attending the hearings and in helping to draft a bill over a 2-day markup. His statement today means a lot to us personally, but I hope and believe it will mean a lot to the other Members of the Senate because it is a strong explanation of why this bill is urgently necessary. People asked earlier: What is the rush? People today asked: What is the rush? The rush is, we were attacked on September 11. It is more than 3 years later, and Congress has not acted to adequately reorganize our intelligence assets community, which the 9/11 Commission told us, and everybody agrees, does not have a leader in charge. Right now--what is his name?--Zawahiri, the second to bin Laden in al-Qaida, last week put out another tape urging Islamist terrorists around the world to attack America and Americans. So we are at war, and we are not properly defending ourselves. That is the urgency. The Senator from Minnesota has spoken very eloquently today, both for the bill and against weakening amendments. That is really going to be the test over the next couple of days as we move to cloture and adoption of the bill. The bill is in good shape now. We have listened, we have negotiated with some people, accepted some amendments that we thought would not hurt the bill and would strengthen or clarify it. As the Senator from Minnesota knows, a line has to be drawn and some of these amendments take too much out of the bill and would hurt the purpose, which is to better protect the American people. So I thank the Senator very much for what he has said, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Senator Collins has spoken exactly for me as well. I look forward to working with the Senator. It is a good amendment. There is one part that doesn't go to the heart of it, and we hope to look over it for a bit more and then I hope before along we can accept the amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I have great respect for the Senator from Alaska. He has always contributed to our country in so many different ways. I have great respect for his long experience in matters of defense and intelligence. I assure him of this. He raised the question about whether the Senator from Maine and I understand what we are doing. Let me assure him, we understand. We have spent a lot of time studying this issue. The 9/11 Commission has spent a lot of time studying this issue. We disagree with the amendment of the Senator from Alaska. We have a difference of conclusion about policy, but we understand exactly what we are doing. What we are doing is saying that the billions of dollars that are spent every year on intelligence is the people's money. Unless there is a national security reason not to tell them what the bottom line is we are spending, they have a right to know. One of the consequences of that is that there will be more accountability. Acting Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin said to our committee: I think it would make some sense to declassify the overall number of the foreign intelligence program. It would reenforce responsibility and accountability. This is nobody who was pulled in out of nowhere to run the CIA. He spent his entire career, more than 30 years, in intelligence.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. No. I would like to----

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Excuse me, he talked about national intelligence before our committee. It is the bottom line, a gross number. The colloquy between the Senator from Montana and the Senator from Alaska was interesting but bore no relevance whatsoever to the proposal in our bill. Do you think we would make this recommendation if we thought it would compromise the security of anybody in our intelligence community? Let me ask you this: How would it? It is the bottom line. It is not even the 15 constituent agencies of the intelligence community. This does not compromise anybody's security any more than the Defense Department budget compromises the security of our soldiers, or the DEA budget, which is public, Drug Enforcement Agency, compromises the security of any of our drug enforcement agents, or the FBI budget. People in DEA and FBI are involved in very dangerous work. Anyway, it is only the bottom line.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I thank Senator Warner for the initiative and for the reasoning that we have done. We have come up with a result that is a wise and solid balance. We are creating a new position--national intelligence director--but we want that position to work particularly closely with the Secretary of Defense. This compromise says that on the critical national intelligence agencies-- NSA, NGA, and NRO--that are now in the Defense Department, whereas the initiative to head that department was previously in the national intelligence director, we are giving it back to the Secretary of Defense but asking for concurrence from the national intelligence director before it goes to the President.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. In fact, this amendment broadens the involvement of the national intelligence director in these important nominations. I thank the Senator for his cooperation. It shows that Senator Collins and I are willing to hear and accept a good idea.