INTELLIGENCE REFORM

Senator Levin believes that Congress’s passage of Intelligence Reform legislation represents a victory in many respects for those who think our intelligence services are in need of change. However, he believes that the failure to retain provisions to allow Congress to more effectively carry out its own oversight responsibilities means that victory is only a partial one.

The Congress set out on that road to reform with the goal of creating a strong Director of National Intelligence (DNI) with real budget power and adequate control over intelligence community personnel. Another goal was the creation of a strong National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) with authority to conduct strategic counterterrorism planning and to assign roles and responsibilities for counterterrorism activities. On these points, the Intelligence Reform legislation can be judged a success.

But Senator Levin believes that the creation of a DNI and NCTC will not solve all, or even the most critical problems in our intelligence community. He believes that establishing a strong DNI makes it even more important that Congress enact reforms to ensure intelligence assessments are not influenced by the policy judgments of whatever Administration is in power. A strong DNI must not simply be a stronger “yes man” for a White House. History has too many examples of the disastrous results that occur when intelligence assessments are shaped to support policy goals.

Forty years ago, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara invoked dubious classified intercepts to support passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was used by President Johnson as the legislative foundation for expanding the war against North Vietnam.

Director of Central Intelligence William Casey manipulated intelligence during the Iran-Contra period. The bipartisan Iran-Contra Report concluded that Director Casey “misrepresented or selectively used available intelligence to support the policy he was promoting.”

The intelligence failures before the Iraq War were massive. Intelligence reports dropped nuances, qualifications and caveats; the CIA director called it a “slam-dunk.” Too often, the CIA told the Administration and the American people what it thought the Administration wanted to hear. Notwithstanding the CIA’s claims, the first overall conclusion in the bipartisan report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee in July stated, “Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting.”

These are life and death issues. For example, evaluating the implications of North Korea’s nuclear program or Iran’s nuclear intentions requires that Congress and the public are confident that intelligence assessments represent the facts, as they are objectively assessed, not shaped to serve the policy goals of a White House.

One way to avoid the politicization of intelligence is to strengthen congressional oversight. The 9-11 Commission itself said, “Of all our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among the most difficult and important.” The original Senate-passed bill contained important provisions Senator Levin authored to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, White House opposition resulted in most of these being left out of the final bill.

For example, the final bill omits bipartisan Senate-passed language that stated explicitly that intelligence should not be shaped to serve policy goals. It leaves out Senate-passed language providing the NCTC Director authority to testify before Congress without first having to seek permission from the Administration.

The Intelligence Reform bill also omits a Senate-passed provision requiring the DNI to provide Congress timely access to intelligence information. The history of the intelligence community either not answering or slow walking requests for information from Congress is a long one. This stonewalling of Congress is simply unacceptable and a more powerful DNI could make matters worse.

Senator Levin believes that Congress should be proud that the Intelligence Reform legislation accomplishes the important goals of creating a strong DNI and NCTC. But he also believes that until Congress enacts provisions, omitted from the reform bill, to provide the tools necessary to carry out its oversight responsibilities and hold the new, more powerful DNI’s feet to the fire on providing objective intelligence assessments, intelligence reform will remain incomplete.