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“SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S13948-S13952 on Nov. 5, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kansas for conducting this time for morning business.
I rise in a very different mood today--different from any other mood I have been in since I had the privilege of becoming a Member of this body. I had the privilege of serving for 8 years in the House of Representatives, and now for a year in my first term in the Senate. During my last 2 years in the House, I served on the House Intelligence Committee. For the past year now, I have served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, under the strong leadership of the Senator from Kansas, Senator Roberts, as well as his vice chairman, Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia. We operate in a very bipartisan way in both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
I was privileged to serve alongside of the now-ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee in conducting a very thorough and detailed review of the intelligence community leading up to September 11 and particularly concluding with a report detailing the failures in the intelligence community leading up to September 11, 2001. All of this oversight work has been done in a very bipartisan way since I have been in the Senate. Again, we have operated within the Intelligence Committee in a very bipartisan way. We can have our differences, and we have had them; but it has been a very healthy debate up to this point in time.
Unfortunately, yesterday, the Republicans on the Senate side of the Intelligence Committee came into possession of a two-page memorandum that details a systematic way in which the other side of the aisle intends to undermine and attack the President of the United States on the intelligence information not only leading up to the conflict in Iraq, but also moving beyond that, into the policy area--again, trying to undermine the policy of the President of the United States with respect to the conflict in Iraq.
This is a different road than the Intelligence Committees on the House and Senate sides have been down before. It is not the kind of road an Intelligence Committee should be traveling down. I rise to say that I don't know where this memo came from. I have seen a copy of it. I don't know whether it was staff driven or member driven. I have great respect for the members of the Intelligence Committee on both sides of the aisle, and I don't think anyone on the other side of the aisle would intentionally try to undermine the operation of our troops in Iraq today. Yet, as I looked at this memorandum and read through it, there was a very clear and definite outline of undermining the policy of the President of the United States, the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and anybody involved in the current conflict with Iraq.
If that particular outline were followed, it would be devastating not only to this body--the bipartisan integrity of this body--but it would have the potential effect of truly undermining the operation in Iraq.
I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will rethink the position if it is one in which they are moving toward. I hope they will certainly disavow any knowledge of the position or intent to undermine the operation in Iraq from an intelligence or oversight standpoint within the Senate Intelligence Committee with respect to a report we are going to be concluding and preparing within a matter of days or weeks.
I truly hope we can move forward in a positive way, with a strong, positive attitude toward ensuring the operation in Iraq is concluded in a satisfactory manner, and that the intelligence community can move forward knowing they have the support, in a bipartisan way, of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the matter-of-fact ideas and plans laid out in this memorandum will certainly not be carried out.
I thank the chairman for his leadership and position on this. I yield the floor.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Missouri, Senator Bond.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who I believe is doing a very fine job under very difficult circumstances, leading a bipartisan inquiry, which is the legitimate scope of the Intelligence Committee on how we can improve our intelligence system.
When we are fighting the battle against terrorism, there is no question that intelligence is the coin of the realm. There is no way we can deter terrorist attacks by threatening to retaliate or administer retributive justice to those who make terrorist strikes against us. When you are dealing with suicide bombers, there is not going to be anything left for us to retaliate against or take retribution against.
Finding the holes in our intelligence system, and how we can do a better job, is a major challenge. I joined the Intelligence Committee this year because I realized how important it is to the future of peace and security in the world and to our own security. I know from personal experience that we and our staffs--and particularly our staffs--have been engaged in an exhaustive examination of what the intelligence was prior to declaring Operation Iraqi Freedom. This was a major effort.
As those in the Chamber may know, I have supported the President. I supported the Iraqi supplemental, and I thank our colleagues for passing that bill to defend our troops and also to make sure we build Iraq so we can move our troops out.
But when the revelation came out yesterday of a memorandum apparently from Democratic staff, minority staff on the Intelligence Committee, indicating there was a different agenda, I was very much concerned. The key element in the Intelligence Committee, unlike any other committee, is that we have to do our work in confidence. We have to be able to maintain the confidence of the intelligence community that comes before us. We must protect intelligence sources, and we cannot get engaged in partisan battles.
Yet the memorandum that came out yesterday has such interesting quotes such as:
Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials.
They are not looking at the Intelligence Committee; they are looking at the administration. They say:
We need to look at activities of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the State Department.
They talk about preparing additional views. And they say:
Among other things, we will castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.
They talk about an independent investigation, and they say:
We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation on the administration's use of intelligence at any time.
When you talk about what goes on and how intelligence is used, that is a topic of debate in the political realm, and there is no shortage of that debate in particularly the Democratic primaries right now. We see many of the candidates who are arguing very forcefully about it. I am disappointed that the discussion in the Presidential primary has totally ignored or forgotten the old adage that politics stops at the water's edge; that we should not be getting into political battles when we have troops in harm's way, and there is no question we have troops in harm's way.
It appears this memo suggests there is, at least at the staff level, a Democratic game plan to make the Intelligence Committee a focal point for the 2004 Presidential debates. This memorandum said:
Yet, we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of the senior administration officials who made the case for a unilaterally preemptive war.
Those are pretty harsh words. Those are the words of a political attack.
Unfortunately, it is not just the staff who has been talking about them. There is an article in the Sunday Telegraph of London quoting a Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee:
We want to know whether the administration put pressure on the agencies to come up with certain kinds of information. It's a question that's been explored at great length in Britain. If the Republican leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee is determined to protect the administration at any cost, we'll do the investigative job on our own.
I can assure you that this inquiry goes into every area that we can find in the intelligence operation, in many intelligence agencies, how that information is developed. There are suggestions that there is improper influence. This is something we are exploring assiduously. The committee staff has interviewed many members of the Intelligence Committee, anybody who might have information. They have been asked: Were they pressured? Was the information tainted or changed or pressured? And absolutely not. If there is evidence of pressure, that will undoubtedly be included in the chairman and vice chairman's report.
Moreover, I tell you regrettably, it will be leaked almost immediately because the committee has a tendency right now to leak like a sieve. There was one person who said he had a problem, and I turned to my colleague on the Intelligence Committee and said: Let's take bets on how long before it is on the national news wire. It was less than an hour. It turns out that the analyst did not have any problem with the intelligence related to the operations of Iraq, but it came out immediately.
The question that is being raised that some of our Democratic colleagues want to address in the Intelligence Committee is: Can we find a way to undercut the President, the Vice President and the administration? That, I submit, is not the role of the Intelligence Committee. The Intelligence Committee has a very important responsibility. We need to determine how to improve our intelligence system to win the war on terrorism, not to win the war for the White House.
What is the job of the Intelligence Committee? Is it to determine and argue with the policy or is it to find out if the intelligence-
gathering information is appropriate? The people in the intelligence community have to deal with information that is fragmentary. We criticized them as a result of 9/11 for not having connected all the dots and come together to forecast and perhaps forestall the attacks of 9/11. Now we are saying they didn't have enough information, but this information has been available and has been supplied by the Intelligence Committee for some time.
I quote a statement by the President. The President said:
Heavy as they are, the cost of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction, he will deploy them, and he will use them.
Those are the words of the President talking about intelligence that he received. And by the way, that was a speech on December 16, 1998, by President Bill Clinton. That was based on the information he was receiving at the time.
If that intelligence was grossly inaccurate or inadequate, then we in the Intelligence Committee need to fix it. I happen to think there were some major mistakes made 7 or 8 years ago in the intelligence community when they decided to restrict severely the number of human intelligence sources they could use by refusing to take intelligence sources from people who didn't meet the highest moral and ethical standards. Frankly, those people often don't deal with terrorists and provide us the information we need.
We need to do a better job. We are making improvements in intelligence, but I don't think anybody will say we have an intelligence system that is as good as it should be. I can tell you, the battle over how intelligence is used is a broader political battle.
Leaving aside the question of whether it should be carried on while we have troops in harm's way in Iraq, it is not a question, in any case, to be fought out in the Intelligence Committee by trying to change or develop information that is not there.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair, and I urge our colleagues to remember that the battle of the Intelligence Committee is to win the war against terrorism, not to win the White House.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, how much time do we have remaining?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator retains 15 minutes.
Mr. ROBERTS. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Arizona.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona is recognized for up to 5 minutes.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee and applaud him for the work he has been doing and commiserate with him today. Having served on that committee for 8 years, I know how difficult it is to keep focused on the important intelligence issues that confront our country, especially in this time of war, and do that in a way that maintains the traditional bipartisan relationship that has heretofore characterized the members of the Intelligence Committee.
Having served there for 8 years, I never saw the kind of blatant, partisan politics emerge that has apparently emerged as revealed in this memorandum that has been discussed this morning. It is a disgusting possibility that Members of the Senate would actually try to politicize intelligence, especially at a time of war, even apparently reaching conclusions before investigations have been performed.
This memo refers to the fact that, for example, if we carry this plan out that has been discussed already, we will identify additional views and castigate--well, I will quote it exactly:
Our additional views will, among other things, castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.
In other words, before something is even done, the plan has already been devised about how they are going to criticize the majority about something it has not even done yet. This is blatant partisan politics.
Now, our Democratic colleagues have denied that this memorandum represents their plan. One of two things is true. It either is or it is not. If it is, it is reprehensible. If it is not, there is a sure way to prove it and that is to repudiate the memorandum and to ensure that this plan of action is never carried out. So we shall see.
Are the denials of the Democrats going to result in this plan being repudiated and not carried out? That will be the test of whether this is really the plan of the Democrats.
I note that parts of the plan appear already to have been set in motion. The first item of the plan:
Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to new disclosures. . . . We are having some success in that regard.
I mean, this is being done. This is not a plan that somebody had, an idea that is out in the future someplace. It is part of what is currently a Democratic process in the committee.
Secondly, the suggestion that there should be an independent commission, well, while there is some confusion in the memo about when to ``pull the trigger'' on that, the ranking member on the committee has already called for an independent commission. So there appears to be some elements of a plan that are already in play, but I am willing to accept the denials of my Democratic colleagues that this represents their proposed course of action. As I said, the sure way to prove that is for them to repudiate it and to ensure that, in fact, that plan does not go forward.
I note one other thing. There is much in this memo that deals with how the Republican position will be characterized. We are talking about a Republican Senate position. I urge my Democratic colleagues to consider this. It is unethical and improper under the rules of the Senate to characterize the motives of fellow Senators. We all know that. We do not do that. That begins the breakdown of the comity that must exist in this body.
I do not question my colleagues' motives and clearly they should not question mine, but there is an opportunity in this memorandum for questioning motives. I want to bring this to the attention of people because clearly this should not be a part of anything we do in this body.
In the summary, the memorandum itself says:
Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.
I think it may be inappropriate to question the motives of senior administration officials, as well as Senators. In any event, as I say, there is much in here that goes to the questioning of the report that they presume will be prepared by the majority. That would be a breach of ethics, and I urge my colleagues to strongly consider what that would result in and to repudiate this memorandum because of language like that.
We do not need more reviews. We have already had the review that was conducted when I was on the Intelligence Committee that resulted in a lengthy report. The Kean Commission is doing its work right now; and, third, we have the Intelligence Committee doing its work. So I think that enough review has occurred. We certainly should not let partisan politics intrude into the important work of the Intelligence Committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas retains 10 minutes.
Mr. ROBERTS. I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee for yielding me this time. I will adhere to the 4 minutes because I know that he wants to wrap this up, too.
First, I want to thank the chairman for his diligence in trying to make sure the Intelligence Committee does its job and does its job in a nonpartisan, bipartisan way. I went on the Intelligence Committee this year because I believe it was one of the most important committees in the Senate. I like the fact that while the committee's work is always difficult, the committee worked together in a bipartisan way and has not become a political tool.
I have also expressed myself that I am concerned about the intelligence that we have received before going into Iraq, and the intelligence that is available even today. So I am not one who is going around trying to make excuses for the intelligence community. But my approach is different. I think we need to find out where our problems are, where we need more assistance, and how we can do a better job in the future.
It should not be about the blame game. It should not be about politics. It should not be about trying to find a way to blame it on the President or the Vice President or anybody else, even though obviously there will be some criticism directed at one place or another. The thing we need to do is to make sure we have the intelligence that our officials need and our military men and women need, and that should be the focus.
This memorandum outlines a political plan of attack in the Intelligence Committee. Our adversaries around the world must be smiling this morning. They must be enjoying watching us fight among ourselves instead of focusing on doing what we need to do to get the kind of intelligence we require to do the job against the terrorists around the world. This memorandum is a very sad commentary. While I am not quite sure of its origin, whether it was written by a particular Senator or by a staff member at the direction of a Senator, it clearly is something that a Democrat staff member, working with some members of the Intelligence Committee, drafted.
When you start talking about castigating the majority or pulling the trigger on an independent investigation, or an independent commission, the Senate voted on that just a week ago and overwhelmingly defeated the idea that we kick the football over to somebody else, let somebody else do our job. I say we should do our job, do it here, and do it in a constructive, aggressive, nonpartisan, bipartisan way.
This is a very debilitating thing that we have seen. One might say, well, maybe we are protesting too much, that this does not necessarily reflect all of the Democrat members of the Intelligence Committee. But already the London Telegraph in London is quoting Democrats in the Senate Intelligence Committee using some of the exact words in the memorandum.
We want to know whether the administration put pressure on the agencies to come up with certain kinds of information.
If the Republican leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee is determined to protect the administration at any cost . . .
I have watched the chairman aggressively pursue information and insist that the administration provide information to this committee. We have not been shrinking violets. We are doing our job.
To have this attack plan come out and make it totally political is one of the most disquieting things I have seen in recent months in the Senate. We should not proceed in this way. I hope the Democrats will disavow this whole approach and say that is not their political plan, that is not their intent. The alternative is chaos in the committee that is so critical to making sure we have what we need in terms of intelligence.
Just this week I proposed that we make the membership permanent on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I know there has been an argument that permanent membership on the committee could impact objectivity, but what I want are members who are experienced enough to do the job.
I thank the chairman for yielding me this time, and I am looking forward to hearing Democrats assure us that this is not what is going on.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham of South Carolina). The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. ROBERTS. How much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Five and a half minutes.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are well aware, we have spent almost 6 months pouring over thousands of documents that are related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and its ties to terrorism. We have interviewed over 100 people. This is probably the most thorough and complete review of intelligence that has ever been conducted, and the committee's process is completely open and transparent to Members on both sides of the aisle.
All staff involved certainly participate on an equal basis. I have worked to ensure the minority's voice has been heard at all times. There should be no legitimate question as to our approach or our dedication to following the information no matter where it leads. I have said that over and over. We have asked the hard questions.
When the inquiry is complete, I believe strongly the facts will speak for themselves. Yet despite all efforts to handle this review in the most professional and bipartisan way, we have learned of an effort to develop a plan to discredit the committee's work, undermine its conclusions, no matter what those conclusions may be.
Our goal is to discover the facts, not to target any individuals or to serve any agenda. We want to know that the assessments reached by the intelligence community were based on sound intelligence and that the policymakers, including the President and the Congress, got the best information possible.
I have been asked, Where do we go from here? The answer is simple: We go back to work. We build a bridge and go back to work. We have a number of documents yet to review. We have a handful of interviews yet to conduct. Then we will begin the process of drafting a committee report and preparing for public hearings. It is critical that all of this take place in an atmosphere of good faith and mutual trust. Secret plans to undermine the committee's work are examples of neither. I urge my friends across the aisle, those members of the committee, to disavow--and if that word is too strong, just to say not to go down this path of a strategy of attack, and join us to work together to complete the business of the committee. The American people, and particularly those currently serving in uniform overseas, deserve nothing less.
I know Senator Rockefeller. He is a good friend. He is a good colleague. We have had a good private discussion. It is time to put this in the past, build a bridge to the future, and let the Intelligence Committee, unique among the committees in the Congress, do our work, our congressional oversight on behalf of national security.
I yield the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on my own time I would like to ask the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee if he would respond to a question.
Mr. ROBERTS. Yes.
Mr. DURBIN. I ask the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is he prepared to say on the Senate floor today that the investigation of this committee will not only look into the conduct and activity of the intelligence agencies, but allow us to follow the intelligence information gathering to its use by the administration, from the President on down, specifically whether the committee, as we have requested on the Democratic side, will take this intelligence information, determine whether there was any influence by the administration on intelligence agencies, and determine whether or not the administration and any of its spokesmen, before the invasion of Iraq, in any way exaggerated or distorted the intelligence that was gathered in portraying the case to the American people?
Mr. ROBERTS. I say to my friend and colleague, we are in the process of conducting an inquiry. That inquiry I would say is about 85 percent complete. We have had full cooperation--not full cooperation but a spirit of cooperation from the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, and the CIA. Once our inquiry is complete, I think I can answer the question the Senator has posed.
We are on the right track. We want to get at the timeliness and the credibility of the intelligence that was provided. We had four goals to do that, agreed upon by Senator Rockefeller. We will do that job. At that particular time, why, the Senator's question would be pertinent.
I yield.
Mr. DURBIN. Let me reclaim the time. The response or lack of response from the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee explains why we are in the Chamber today. There are two responsibilities of this Intelligence Committee: Not only to determine whether the intelligence agencies did their job but whether or not the information they generated was correctly portrayed by the administration.
I have just asked the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee directly whether this investigation will go into the use of intelligence information by the administration, and you heard his response: Only after we have completed the first round of inquiry about intelligence agencies would we consider asking the question whether anyone in the administration exerted influence on intelligence agencies or mischaracterized the information coming from those agencies.
That was the direct question. There was an opportunity for the chairman of the committee to say point blank that we will allow this investigation to take its normal course, and he deferred. He said we will wait to a later time. That, I believe, is the source of frustration within this committee.
Our ranking member on this committee, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, has shown the patience of Job. He has tried literally for months to encourage and convince the Republican majority on this committee to have a full and complete investigation. That is what the American people deserve. That is what this committee should do. But, sadly and unfortunately, the Republican majority has built a wall and said we will gather all of the information and all the investigation about intelligence--but we will not breach that wall and go over the other side to see how the administration used this information.
That is the critical issue. How can you have a complete investigation without asking both questions? Unfortunately, it has been a decision by the Republican majority that they will not allow us to look into the use of intelligence data.
I have never seen this memo that has been referred to. No one has ever given it to me. I certainly had no role in the preparation of this memo. I don't know what it said. But if that memo expressed the frustration of many Senators on the committee that we have created this firewall to protect the administration, then the memo, frankly, speaks to real feelings.
The Intelligence Committee historically has been bipartisan, as it should be. Our efforts on the Democratic side were to urge the Republican majority to take perhaps the uncomfortable but necessary step so that the investigation would be complete. You heard what Chairman Roberts said this morning. He is not prepared to take the investigation of the Intelligence Committee to the use of intelligence data. And as long as that wall has been created, sadly, this cannot be the kind of investigation the American people deserve.
Just several weeks ago--maybe 2--Senator John Corzine of New Jersey came to the floor and asked for an independent commission on the intelligence that was gathered and how it was used by the administration before the invasion of Iraq. At that time his amendment was rejected by the Senate. It was opposed by Chairman Roberts of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Senator Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat. They said: Stay with the investigation of the Intelligence Committee.
I, frankly, took a different position. I really think this debate this morning proves the point that it is now time to appoint an independent commission--independent and bipartisan--that will literally take this investigation wherever it leads. If the chips fall on a previous administration or this administration, so be it. It is not our role in the Intelligence Committee, nor in Congress, to protect any political party or administration. Our role is to protect the United States of America. Our responsibility is national security. Once the chairman of the committee, as he said this morning, decided this investigation will not go into the use of intelligence data, it is clear that this Intelligence Committee cannot do its job as it should. It makes the case now more than ever that an independent commission needs to be appointed so there is integrity, transparency, and believability in this process.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield for a question.
Mr. LOTT. I appreciate that because I believe Senator Roberts did respond to your question.
I didn't mention any names quoted in this London Telegraph article. But, Senator Durbin, you are quoted as saying that a public split and new inquiry is inevitable. I hope that is not a quote from you.
Mr. DURBIN. Well, it is a quote from me.
Mr. LOTT. Because to prejudge----
Mr. DURBIN. Reclaiming my time----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senators will respond to each other through the Chair.
Mr. DURBIN. Responding to my friend from Mississippi, let me say that quote is accurate, that quote is mine, and what you heard from our chairman this morning is the reason for the quote. If we do not allow a complete and full investigation, a split is inevitable. If a decision is made to protect this administration at any level at the expense of the credibility of this investigation, we are not serving the American people well.
Senator Rockefeller has tried time and time again to convince the chairman, the Republican chairman of this committee, that we need a complete investigation. He said repeatedly to Senator Rockefeller, I have been led to believe, what he said on the floor this morning: We are going to draw the line. We will not look into the use of intelligence.
That, sadly, I think, is the reason we are here today and tied in this political knot. It is time for an independent commission.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
(The remarks of Mr. Hollings pertaining to the introduction of S. 1821 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
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