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Leadership. Character. Commitment. |
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News organizations seeking more information should call Senator Byrd's Communications Office at 202-224-3904. To hear portions of many of Senator Byrd's speeches, visit the Radio page. Also, high-resolution photographs are available from many events. |
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Remarks by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd |
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October 06, 2004 |
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Lack of Intelligence on Intelligence Reform |
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Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks with regard to the rush to pass legislation to overhaul the nation's intelligence services. The West
Virginia Senator pointed to an impressive list of experts who have warned that such a rush to change the system, without greater focus on precisely what is being changed and why, could jeopardize the safety of the American people.
Byrd also pointed to the Senate's recent history of rushing headlong into major issues without thinking about the consequences of its actions or without asking enough questions. Senator Byrd noted that the resolution authorizing the
use of force against Iraq was one example of a rush to act clouding the Senate's best judgment. The Senate has voted overwhelmingly to invoke cloture on the National
Intelligence Reform bill. The Senate leadership, in supporting cloture on this bill, argued that this debate has gone on for long enough. I have been in this Body for a long time, but I never thought I'd see the demise of the
Senate as a debating institution. Today's situation is eerily reminiscent of the autumn of 2002. Two years ago, the hue and cry went up for all Senators to support a massive bureaucratic reshuffling of our homeland
security agencies and a war resolution against Iraq, just weeks before Election Day. Like a whipped dog fearing its master, the Senate obediently complied with the demands of the White House. Hindsight reveals the
mistakes the Senate made two years earlier. Today, the Department of Homeland Security finds itself bogged down by bureaucratic infighting, unresolved turf wars, and insufficient funding. The central argument for the war
resolution against Iraq – the threat of weapons of mass destruction – has disintegrated into a mess of lies and hot air. The calls for Congress to act quickly were revealed to be ill-advised, misguided, misinformed. The
108th Congress has an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the 107th Congress. And, yet, the repeated calls by Senators for immediate action on this bill suggests we have learned very little. Most of the hundreds of
amendments offered to this bill have focused on trying to speed up reforms that we already do not understand. Few Senators have dared speak about the need for caution in rearranging a massive, secretive bureaucracy. The
risk that this bill will grow into a hydra-headed monster increases exponentially as Election Day nears. Many believe that the House bill will include a number of provisions unrelated to intelligence reform, from amendments on
immigration to reauthorization of the Patriot Act. In the rush to pass this bill on a political timetable, what type of Faustian bargains will be struck to jam this bill through the Congress? What kinds of deals with the Devil will be
made in order to get this bill done in time for Election Day? Even one Republican member of the House of Representatives is concerned that a slam-dunk conference would open the door to politically-motivated poison pills.
Mr. President, why is there such a clamor to vote on a bill that is increasingly viewed as a way to make political hay in the hours before a presidential election? Will Senators even get to read the conference report on this bill
before we are expected to vote on it? The mistakes of how the Senate is choosing to consider this bill is not the fault of the 9-11 Commission. That panel is a group of experienced and dedicated public servants.
Their research went straight to the heart of a question that has burned in the minds of millions of Americans for three years: How did such a powerful nation fail to defend itself from terrorism? In chilling detail, the panel's
report lays out the facts about how the U.S. government failed to stop nineteen hijackers armed with boxcutters. "The document is an improbable literary triumph," declared U.S. Circuit Court Judge Richard
Posner in The New York Times Book Review. "However, the commission's analysis and recommendations are unimpressive...not sustained by the report's narrative...come to very little....[and are] more of the same."
That is harsh criticism, and, contrary to what some believe about the critics of intelligence reform, Judge Posner is not protecting his turf and he does not have an axe to grind. The Senate Appropriations Committee held
hearings two weeks ago on the 9/11 recommendations. A bipartisan array of national security experts pleaded with the Congress not to rush these reforms. The list is impressive: former Chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee David Boren, former Senator Bill Bradley, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, former CIA Director Robert Gates, former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, former Senator Gary
Hart, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn, former Senator Warren Rudman, and former Secretary of State George Shultz. Among them, they have decades of knowledge
and experience, and the Congress stands ready to dismiss their concerns out of hand. This group of 11 experienced public servants who urge the Congress to stop, look, and listen have no turf to protect. They have
long since left the service of the Executive and Legislative Branches. Why does the Senate not pause to listen to their sage advice? Let us remember that two years ago, members of Congress fell all over themselves
in a mad frenzy to adopt the advice of Senator Hart and Senator Rudman to create a Department of Homeland Security. Anyone who didn't agree with the Hart-Rudman report was viewed as being obstructionist or out-of-touch. But
today, the Senate sloughs off the counsel of those same two men to slow down on creating a new intelligence bureaucracy. How quickly we turn on our friends. I fear the Senate wants change merely for the sake of
change, and that we do not yet possess an adequate understanding of why we are doing what we are doing. It's not even clear why or how the 9/11 commissioners arrived at their recommendations. The Commission's report doesn't
explain it. What recommendations did the Commission consider and reject, and why did they reject them? Did the 9-11 panel receive any independent assessments of their ideas before they were published? Will
the Commission's proposals prevent intelligence failures in other areas, such as stopping a repeat of the Iraq WMD fiasco? Even as the Senate rushes to pass this intelligence reform bill, with one eye on the public opinion polls and
the other on the adjournment date, we do not know the answer to these questions. Given the Senate's failure to ask more questions about the creation of a Department of Homeland Security and the need for war in Iraq, I would
hope this Chamber would be more circumspect about rushing to restructure our intelligence agencies on the eve of a presidential election. I would hope that the Senate would pause to consider the powers that may be shifted to the
Executive Branch in this legislation. I would also hope that Senators would consider if a such a timid Congress could possibly exercise proper oversight over a powerful and secretive bureaucracy. We are being naive about
these intelligence reforms. It may be comforting to embrace the 9/11 report, but its reforms ignore more fundamental intelligence problems. At the Appropriations Committee hearing on September 21, 2004, I asked Henry
Kissinger: if the 9-11 Commission's recommendations had been implemented in 2002, would our intelligence agencies have come to a different conclusion about Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction? His answer was no, nothing
would have been different. There still would have been false claims of huge stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. We are too focused on the failings of 9/11. The Senate has not focused enough attention on the
intelligence failures leading to the war in Iraq. We have not focused enough attention on the nuclear threat posed by Iran and North Korea. We have not focused enough attention on China. We have not focused enough
attention on the proliferation of deadly germs and gasses. Any of these challenges could be responsible for the next catastrophic attack on our country or our interests, and they are conspicuously ignored by this bill.
Congress is showing myopic vision in failing to see the universe of threats to this country. Terrorism may be the most immediate threat to our country, but it is not the only threat. I support the effort to reform
our intelligence agencies. I have been one of the harshest critics of the status quo. Intelligence agencies are expected to uncover terrorist plots against our country, and produce unbiased, accurate intelligence free from
political interference. The CIA and other agencies have fallen tragically short on both marks. However, I am not convinced that the Congress fully understands the implications of the reforms proposed by the 9-11
Commission, and the rush to vote on these issues before the presidential elections means it will not have that opportunity. But the greatest contribution the Senate can make to the cause of the 9/11 families is to take the time to get
these reforms right. Prematurely cutting off debate on this bill only succeeds in further politicizing a process that is more mindful of Election Day than it is the result of this debate. Like two years ago, the Senate is
being stampeded into voting on major legislation. The result of this ill-considered course is easily seen: any reforms Congress enacts will be the product of rush and haste rather than thoughtful deliberation. We owe more
to the memories of those who lost their lives on September 11th. ### |
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