Today is the second day of hearings focused specifically on the relationship between the intelligence community and the new department, and I am grateful the Director of Central Intelligence and the FBI Director are able to join us to share their knowledge and their insights, which will assist us enormously as we pull this legislation together. We will also hear from Judge William Webster, who has served as director of both the FBI and the CIA, and Senators Graham and Shelby, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose unique perspectives and experience will similarly improve our work.

Plainly put, it appears the failure of the intelligence agencies to share information with each other was one of our government’s most egregious lapses leading up to September 11^th. We are not, in this chapter of our Committee’s work, going to reorganize the American intelligence and law enforcement coomunities and fix all of their problems.

But we do have a responsibility - in designing a new Department of Homeland Security - to guarantee, as best we can, that it has the best intelligence on domestic security, to help prevent further attacks against our people and homeland.

I am encouraged by Director Mueller’s decision to re-evaluate and overhaul the FBI’s domestic intelligence gathering operations. And I know Director Tenet is also at work to improve the work of the CIA. And they are both working closer together since September 11 than brefore. I commend you both for your efforts.

I am increasingly convinced - and the outstanding group of former intelligence officials who appeared before the Committee yesterday confirmed this for me - that a new intelligence structure is needed for this new department. The witnesses agreed that the new department must have the authority not only to receive all terrorism-related information and data, including, on request, unfettered access to raw intelligence data, but also the new secretary must have the power to task the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to collect information that the new Department believes is critical to its work.

This would be different from the President’s proposal, which envisions a more passive intelligence role for the Homeland Secretary through a new information analysis division, focusing predominantly on critical infrastructure, and requires the President’s approval before the Department of Homeland Security could obtain raw data from the intelligence community. The President’s proposal - which leaves the FBI, the CIA, and a handful of other intelligence agencies primarily responsible for uncovering and preventing terrorist threats on American soil - is a helpful start. But it does not give the Secretary the authority necessary to carry out the full range of his or her duties. I believe our Committee must strengthen how we will staff the Homeland Department’s intelligence unit with the skilled analysts needed for this kind of work.

I am eager to hear from both Mr. Tenet and Mr. Mueller on how you think an intelligence division within the new department can work in relation to your agencies, how its specific responsibilities will complement what your agencies are already trying to do.