Press Releases
December 8, 2004
Floor Statement on the Intelligence Reform Bill
Statement of Senator Kent Conrad S. 2845, Intelligence Reform Bill December 8, 2004
Mr. President, I will join many of my colleagues today in voting for the Intelligence Reform bill; however, I do so with some reservations.
First, let me highlight the provisions contained in this bill that are especially important to North Dakota. The bill includes a proposal I authored that would establish a pilot project on the Northern border to enhance security through the use of advanced technologies like remote sensors, cameras, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report recognized that the Northern Border operates with only a fraction of the manpower and resources that are devoted to the Southern Border, but poses no less risk for terrorists sneaking across into the United States. This project will help the border patrol in monitoring the border more effectively and efficiently. Additionally, I am pleased that the bill includes a provision directing that at least 20 percent of any increase in the number of Border Patrol agents be assigned to the northern border. Both of these provisions take a step in the right direction to improve the security of our northern border.
In considering intelligence reform, I embraced the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. They made a major effort to understand what happened on September 11, 2001 and to figure out how we could help prevent future attacks. This legislation never would have passed without their hard work. By adopting one of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, this bill takes a major step toward improving our counter-terrorism efforts. Establishing a National Counterterrorism Center that can both analyze the terrorist threat and do strategic planning for operations to defeat terrorists will make us safer.
This bill would never have become law without the commitment of the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. They demanded real reform, without any further delay. We in Congress owed those families no less.
Some of my colleagues today have said that this bill is the largest reform of our national security agencies since 1947. The provisions I have just mentioned are important reforms. Nevertheless, I remain concerned that creating a new Director of National Intelligence will not do enough. It still leaves too many participants with an opportunity to fail to communicate and cooperate.
No one can argue against the basic rationale for creating a Director of National Intelligence. The American intelligence community has suffered from a lack of coordination and communication, as the 9/11 Commission and many other reports have outlined. This lack of coordination and communication comes in part from the absence of any one person in charge and, ultimately, accountable for the accuracy and timeliness of our intelligence. I strongly agree that we need a national intelligence director. But such a director cannot improve the communication and coordination between the intelligence agencies without the full authority and resources necessary to do the job.
The concern I have with this final bill is that we have maintained the CIA and all of the other intelligence agencies we had before, and added a national intelligence director on top. Instead of consolidating the various intelligence agencies, we have created additional boxes on an organizational chart that I fear will only create more turf battles, thereby undermining our ability to enhance and improve our intelligence capabilities. I was concerned about this issue in the Senate’s intelligence reform bill. The final bill has an even weaker Director of National Intelligence. That makes me even more concerned.
In my view, this bill simply does not provide the national intelligence director with all of the tools he needs to do the job. He will have only a very limited power to move money among the different intelligence agencies. Without strong control over the money, the Director could become just another layer of bureaucratic review.
If that was the end of the story, I probably would have to vote against this bill. But I see this bill as a step in the right direction. Its authors have assured me this is a beginning. In the end, the success of the Director of National Intelligence depends on the President creating procedures that place that official at the heart of the intelligence community, with real authority and real accountability. I am counting on President Bush to do so.
