Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, taking a look at this amendment, I say to my friend from Virginia it may be that we can work this one out together because I believe we have a common interest, which is by the changes we are making in law, creating the national intelligence director, not to otherwise alter the authority of various department heads--State, Energy, Homeland Security, Defense, et cetera, that the Senator has enumerated--but clearly the underlying Collins-Lieberman bill does alter some of those authorities by creating authority in the national intelligence director. Except for that, I do not think there is any intention to otherwise undercut. So the language is a bit worrisome on first look, which is that nothing in the act shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect the authority of these officers. Well, we do want to affect the authority to the extent stated in the Collins-Lieberman proposal, but not otherwise.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. No, I am not. But if I might say briefly--

Mr. LIEBERMAN. That should be on the record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I want my denial of that intention to also be in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Well, I think we should reason together a little bit on this. In other words, I am concerned, in the broadest reading of this, this amendment could be read to undercut everything else the bill does. I do not believe the Senator would intend to do that.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Right. But only, if I understand it, to protect the authority of the departments except as we specifically alter them in the bill. So, for instance, the national intelligence director will have certain budget authorities or transfer authorities under the bill, as it exists, which do alter the authority of some of those constituent departments--State, Energy, Homeland Security, Defense, et cetera. I would not want this language to obviate the impact of all of those changes.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Right.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. If I might, I hear what the Senator is saying, and this goes back to the debate we have had off and on over the 5 days in which we have been on the bill. Let us take the Department of Defense, because that is a concern we have that has been expressed. This was something we argued with regard to the so-called Specter amendment which would have created line authority in the national intelligence director over all the constituent intelligence agencies, including those in the Department of Defense. Senator Collins and I argued we do not want to go that far. We want the Secretary of Defense to maintain line authority over NSA, NRA and NGA. On the other hand, we do want-- and we may argue this on another amendment--the national intelligence director to be able to have the budget authority we give him and have the transfer authority, et cetera. Maybe we are heading in the same direction. I think this is one we can try to work out.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Just a final word: We have been quite focused and specific when we have granted authority to the national intelligence director. So, therefore, all the other authorities the law gives to the various department heads enumerated in the Senator's amendment would not be affected. I see that language--perhaps we should consult with the representatives of the White House, too, to find out what their particular concern was. We have amended the authority, or even affected the authority of the existing departments, along the margins here.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. It is a very important question and I am prepared to give a very short and direct answer which I believe is reflected in the bill, which is that the national intelligence director is explicitly intended to be the principal intelligence advisor to the President of the United States. There should be no doubt about that. It will give him two roles: One as administrator of the intelligence community--but then, why? To be the principal intelligence adviser to the No. 1 user of intelligence, not the only one but the President of the United States as Commander in Chief.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, through you, of course, I say to the Senator, I do not believe it is a weakness. Here is the judgment we had to make: The Director of Central Intelligence now is effectively the principal intelligence adviser to the President, but as we have seen and stated over and over again in this debate, the record shows that the DCI has not had enough authority to coordinate the activities of the intelligence community to create the kind of unity of effort that we need to make sure we do not have a repeat, at worst, of September 11 and, in a very different way, of what everybody acknowledges was an imperfect functioning of the intelligence community prior to the Iraq war, as documented by the Senate Intelligence Committee. So we want to give him some authority, but we specifically rejected what would effectively be a department of intelligence, taking NSA, NRO, and NGA out of Defense, taking the counterterrorism out of the FBI, Information Analysis out of the Department of Homeland Security, et cetera, et cetera, making it a department. We are trying to strike a balance where you preserve the autonomy of those departments' line control, but you put them all together, particularly in that counterterrorism center, so that the director is hearing from all of them and is accountable, and then reports on these intelligence matters to the President. Incidentally, the Collins-Lieberman proposal does make clear--I will just read from section 111: The National Intelligence Director shall be responsible for providing national intelligence-- (1) to the President; (2) to the heads of other departments and agencies of the executive branch; Also consumers, the Defense Department the largest of the consumers. (3) to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior military commanders; (4) to the Senate and House of Representatives and the committees thereof; (5) [and] to such other persons or entities as the President shall direct. So there is no question there is a balance. But I think it is a balance that serves the Nation's interests well. We have power in the NID, but we have not broken the line of authority in other Departments. As I believe I heard Senator Warner say at one point, I presume the national intelligence director, in the exercise of his responsibilities, will, from time to time, bring with him to advise the President the head of the CIA, the head of the Homeland Security Department, whoever seems relevant on a given occasion, but to say that for intelligence there is one person ultimately accountable, and that is the national intelligence director.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. President, I, obviously, respect and appreciate the concerns that my friend from Alabama has. I want to assure him that we have been over this. And the two things--one, is that not just the 9/11 Commission but a lot of folks, not universally felt, but a lot of people feel that the drug czar has not been all that the position could have been because he did not have any budget authority. He formed the budget but did not really have the muscle. As a matter of fact, Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton, in their report, specifically said they did not want the national intelligence director to be like the drug czar. Second, one of the conclusions I gather from the Scowcroft Report, but also others, including 9/11, is that what has happened up until now is that the Director of Central Intelligence has basically been the Director of the CIA--of course, the same person--and not had the time or the clout to coordinate the rest of the intelligence community. That is part of the failure prior to September 11. That is why we specifically recommend breaking them in two, creating this director over everybody. The CIA is an important part, but there are a lot of other important parts. The FBI counterterrorism and the NSA, NRO, and NGA, as the Senator well knows, in terms of numbers of employees and the amount of the budget, are very big entities that, for now, have been too much outside the control of the Director of Central Intelligence. So as I say, we have tried to balance. In some way, it might have been neater to take all the pieces and put them under a new secretary of intelligence, but then you really would have, for instance, broken the chain of command in the Defense Department. We didn't want to do that. We are trying to have a balance to say when it comes to intelligence, there is one person accountable, and that is the national intelligence director. I thank the Senator. I think this kind of discussion is very important to getting all of us to a point where we can not only proceed with the amendments but go ahead and ultimately next week adopt the bill and have a good feeling about it. Hopefully, we can lead the Senator from Alabama over his buyer's anxiety right now.

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I call up again amendment No. 3807 offered by Senator McCain and myself.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I am pleased to send to the desk a modification to the amendment which is essentially a change of one word. I believe having made that one-word change, this amendment implements another section of the 9/11 Commission Report and is acceptable on both sides. I thank my dear friend and colleague, Senator Collins, for all the work we have done together on this amendment, and with other stakeholders who had some concerns about the amendment, generally supported it, and we have worked them all out.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, since World War II, our national laboratories, primarily serving Energy and Defense Department missions, have been the Nation's repository of expertise on nuclear weapons and other national security and technical issues. Although many of these national laboratories are known as Federal Funded Research and Development Centers, or FFRDC's, and are federally financed, lab employees are not Federal employees. They are employees of the contractors who operate these laboratories. This amendment would make employees of the FFRDC's eligible to serve at the National Counterterrorism Center and other national intelligence centers. I agree with the sponsors of this amendment that if the national intelligence director, or NID, determines that he or she needs to tap the experts employed at our FFRDC's to help staff these centers, then he or she should be able to do so. But I also want to make it clear, that it is my understanding that we are not creating a new mission for the FFRDC's or authorizing the creation of a new FFRDC for this purpose. Use of these employees would be subject to the availability of funds to the NID, and would still be subject to the Federal conflict of interest provisions and the Federal Acquisition Regulations. Finally, nothing in this amendment is intended to circumvent staff year ceilings established by law for Defense Department-sponsored FFRDC's or any other FFRDC's.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, that Christopher Alexander, a fellow in Senator Kennedy's office, be granted the privilege of the floor during consideration of S. 2845.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dr. Jonathan Epstein, who is a legislative fellow in Senator Bingaman's office, be granted the privilege of the floor during the pendency of S. 2845 and any votes thereon.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I wonder if I could, through you, ask the distinguished Senator from Arkansas if he is going to comment on Senator Graham's amendment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, after Senator Pryor comments, I will be glad to speak for Senator Graham.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise to support the amendment, as well, and to thank Senator Graham for the characteristic thoughtfulness he brought to this matter and the very constructive additions this amendment makes to the bill and to clarify the authority and the importance of these centers. This is one of the central contributions of this legislation and derivatively of the 9/11 Commission Report. It grows out of the outrageous failure to share information prior to September 11 that the 9/11 Commission Report documents in riveting detail. As the Chair knows, we would establish on the passage of this, a national counter terrorism center to focus all of our efforts from all agencies--unity of effort, joint command operations, et cetera--in the fight against terrorism. We also take this basic idea and say to the national intelligence director, you can set up other centers to deal with other particular problems--maybe a specific threat like weapons of mass destruction or nuclear proliferation specifically or a country or subgroup that may be threatening--the United States, set up a center on North Korea or Iran--and you would guarantee, thereby, in these other centers that all the arms of our Government would know what the others would be doing, would be sharing intelligence and analysis of intelligence through these centers, being able to plan joint operations for the collection of intelligence, very critically important to inform the President and the officers of our Government how to deal with these crisis. Senator Graham's amendment makes clear how important these centers are that the NID can create. I stress, also, the centers are not permanent. They are part of the vision that comes out of the 9/11 Commission Report. The Collins- Lieberman bill before the Senate now is about modern management, 21st century management. If there is a problem, create a center with all your best people around the table planning how to collect and analyze intelligence about the problem, advise the President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, whomever. Once that problem is resolved, that center can and should be terminated. That is the kind of flexibility involved. Senator Graham, as Senator Collins has said, is building on an extraordinary record of experience and very constructive leadership, outspoken, appropriately outspoken leadership in the area of intelligence, and has given us the benefit of that experience with this amendment. I thank him for it. I am happy to accept the amendment on our side.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. It is deserved. I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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