Mr. President, I rise today to commend the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for their outstanding work in reviewing the Intelligence Community's activities related to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The report, which was issued jointly last week by two Committees, is the culmination of the hard work of the Committees and their staff to inform the American people of the weaknesses in our intelligence community that need to be strengthened to prevent this type of event from occurring again.

One issue that I find particularly interesting is the focus of the Intelligence Committees' report on how the lack of employees with foreign language skills hampered the Intelligence Community's efforts to meet its mission. Finding 6 of the report states:

Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community was not prepared to handle the challenge it faced in translating the volumes of foreign language counterterrorism intelligence it collected. Agencies within the Intelligence Community experienced backlogs in material awaiting translation, a shortage of language specialists and language-qualified field officers, and a readiness level of only 30% in the most critical terrorism-related languages used by terrorists.

This finding is not surprising. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, FBI Director Robert Mueller made a public plea for speakers of Arabic and Farsi to help the FBI and national security agencies translate documents that were in U.S. possession but which were left untranslated due to a shortage of employees with proficiency in those languages. The Committees' report states that prior to September 11, the Bureau's Arabic translators could not keep up with the workload. As a result, 35 percent of Arabic language materials derived from Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) collection was not reviewed or translated. If the number of Arabic speakers employed by the Bureau remained at the same level, the projected backlog would rise to 41 percent this year.

Unfortunately, the U.S. faces a critical shortage of language proficient professionals throughout federal agencies. As the General Accounting Office (GAO) reports, federal agencies have shortages in translators and interpreters and an overall shortfall in the language proficiency levels needed to carry out agency missions. Further, the Director of the CIA Language School has testified before the Intelligence Committees that, given the CIA's language requirements, the CIA Directorate of Operations is not fully prepared to fight a world-wide war on terrorism and at the same time carry out its traditional agent recruitment and intelligence collection mission. The Director also added that there is no strategic plan in place with regard to linguistic skills at the Agency.

The inability of law enforcement officers, intelligence officers, scientists, military personnel, and other federal employees to decipher and interpret information from foreign sources, as well as interact with foreign nationals, presents a threat to their mission and to the well being of our nation. It is crucial that we work to strengthen the language capabilities and in turn the security, of the United States. Both the GAO review and the Intelligence Committees' report demonstrate that action is needed to help federal agencies more effectively recruit and retain highly skilled individuals for national security positions.

Congress has long been aware of the federal government's lack of skilled personnel with language proficiency. In 1958, the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was passed in response to the Soviet Union's first space launch. We were determined to win the space race and make certain that the United States never came up short again in the areas of math, science, technology, or foreign languages. The Act provided loans and fellowships to students, and funds to universities to enhance their programs and purchase necessary equipment. After the NDEA expired in the early 1960s, Congress passed the National Security Education Act in 1991, which created the National Security Education Program (NSEP). This program was intended to address the lack of language expertise in the federal government by providing limited undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships for students to study foreign language and foreign area studies, and providing funds to institutions of higher learning to develop faculty expertise in the less commonly taught languages. In turn, students who receive NSEP scholarships and fellowships are required to work for an office or agency of the federal government in national security affairs.

While NSEP has been successful, it is obvious that more needs to be done. To address the federal government's lack of foreign language personnel, I introduced S. 589, the Homeland Security Federal Workforce Act, on March 11, 2003. I am pleased to have the support of Senators Durbin, Allen, Voinovich, Warner, Brownback, Chambliss, Rockefeller, and Collins in this effort. Our bipartisan bill would enhance the federal government's efforts to recruit and retain individuals possessing skills critical to preserving our national security. Through a targeted student loan repayment program and fellowships for graduate students, this legislation would help eliminate the government's shortfall in science, mathematics, and foreign language skills.

I am pleased to note that the Committee on Governmental Affairs favorably reported S. 589 in June. When this bill comes before the Senate for consideration, I urge swift passage so that federal agencies with direct responsibility for protecting our homeland have personnel with foreign language and other necessary skills to deter and prevent another terrorist attack.