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NEWS CONFERENCE WITH REPRESENTATIVE JANE HARMAN (D-CA), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER, AND OTHER DEMOCRAT COMMITTEE MEMBERS
SUBJECT: PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
LOCATION: HOUSE RADIO-TV GALLERY, WASHINGTON, D.C.
TIME: 11:00 A.M. EST DATE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2005
(Federal News Service (Middle East))
REP. JANE HARMAN (D-CA): Good morning, everyone. I'm Jane
Harman, ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, surrounded
for the moment by four colleagues from the minority side. We expect
two to be joining us shortly.
Two weeks ago, I gave our chairman, Peter Hoekstra, a reasonable
work plan, seeking his approval for the committee to complete its
review of certain aspects of prewar intelligence on Iraq. That work
plan was attached to a press release from two years ago, which then-
Chairman Porter Goss and I issued promising a thorough and focused
review of prewar intelligence on Iraq. We said that we would follow
the facts wherever they may lead, and that the review would include
staff interviews, hearings, both classified and open, and a report.
At any rate, last week I received Chairman Hoekstra's answer at a
press conference which he held in this space, and that answer was a
long letter and his declaration that he and Senate Chairman Pat
Roberts had decided on a market-sharing arrangement where the Senate
would continue an investigation of WMD and the House would stop its
investigation, and instead would look at other subjects, including an
important subject of leaks.
Nonetheless, our members -- elected exactly the same way that
senators are -- are concerned that our work and our perspectives will
not be heard as the public rightly learns about the incredible
faulty intelligence leading up to the war on Iraq. We think this is
wrong. We have prepared a long letter, which we are today giving to
Chairman Hoekstra and which we will explain in this press conference.
We've also prepared a letter to the National Security Adviser, Stephen
Hadley, rebutting a claim that he has made that we see precisely the
same intelligence as the president does. We do not see that
intelligence. I think that fact is well-known. What we basically see
are finished intelligence products that reflect the consensus of the
community, and that letter makes it clear.
So it is my pleasure to have the members of our committee explain
in detail what these two letters say and then to take your
questions at the end.
And let me start with a very senior member of the committee,
Alcee Hastings, of Florida.
REP. ALCEE HASTINGS (D-FL): Thank you very much Representative
Harman.
Several of the aspects of the letter that we are sending to
Chairman Hoekstra outline things that he spoke and made a definitive
determination on as to whether or not we should proceed. One of the
areas is whether or not there was political pressure. There are
outstanding questions concerning the issue of whether analysts were
pressured by policymakers. And in July `03, CIA Deputy Director
Richard Kerr issued a report that stated that CIA analysts felt
political pressure to conform their analysis to the views of
policymakers. Our committee interviewed the former ombudsman for
politicization for the CIA in September of `03. Notes of his
interview are classified, but they shed light on this important issue.
The WMD commission concluded that analysts did not necessarily
feel overt pressure to change analysis, but that the environment
shaped and distorted -- and I quote them -- "the analysts'
assumptions."
It created an environment conducive to analytical mistakes in which
analysts did not sufficiently question their assumptions, and the
environment led to, quote, "groupthink," unquote.
We strongly believe that this issue warrants further
investigation, so that we can assure the American public that the same
mistake does not recur, given the enormous challenges and threats we
face today.
One final point:
If there was no political pressure, then I would ask our
distinguished vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, to
explain to the American public why it is that he spent so much time in
the run-up to the war in Iraq at the CIA. I know of no vice president
in the history of this country that went there as often. Wouldn't it
be interesting to know who he met with, what they talked about, and
what, if any, political pressure occurred.
REP. HARMAN: Thank you.
Let me just add one thing I neglected to mention, and that is
that attached to our letter to Chairman Hoekstra is a classified
annex, and that annex quotes the transcripts of hearings we held in
our committee spaces and the questions that these members asked of
witnesses. We did our best -- one could always improve, but we did
our best to get to the bottom of the intelligence leading up to the
war in Iraq. We asked some very tough questions. And I'm sorry that
you can't read these transcripts, but I know our chairman can. And I
hope that that will be part of his effort to reconsider the decision
that he made last week.
It's now my pleasure to introduce Representative Eshoo from
California, who is ranking member on our Technical and Tactical
Subcommittee.
REP. ANNA ESHOO (D-CA): Thank you, Jane.
Anna Eshoo, 14th Congressional District, from California.
I'd like to just call your attention to the first paragraph of
the letter to Chairman Hoekstra. "It is the Intelligence Committee's
responsibility to conduct rigorous oversight. That's our obligation
to the American people, and neglecting the lessons of the Iraq WMD
debacle is an abdication of our responsibility and dangerous for our
country."
Now I just want to set something up in a frame. Think of some of
the largest issues that have faced our country, challenged us to
investigate.
And it falls to the Congress in terms of our oversight; and in our
case, the House Intelligence Committee, intelligence and how it was
used in the run-up of the war. Abu Ghraib. Black prisons. It's a
long, dark list. No investigation. No investigation by the House
Intelligence Committee.
That raises, in my view, one of the most serious issues that we
continued with. And I think that it's an abdication of the
responsibility of the majority -- of the majority -- in terms of not
producing a product for the American people to examine. It falls to
us. They can't do this for themselves. If we can't be the truth
seekers and learn from what we have done -- that's what makes our
country so great and so strong -- then there is something wrong.
And so I think that it's important to be able to put this
information out. There's much that I wish that we could put out.
But this is one of the most frustrating roles that I've ever played
since I've come to the Congress in my 13 years of service, to be part
of a committee that essentially, because of its leadership, has closed
its eyes and looked the other way. And you won't find any instrument,
no document from the House Intelligence Committee in terms of
investigations on some of the biggest issues that have faced our
country.
Thank you.
REP. HARMAN: I appreciate that.
I feel compelled to add that we have done vigorous oversight
since 9/11, though not on this issue. I was ranking member of the
terrorism Subcommittee, then chaired by now-Senator Saxby Chambliss,
when we produced, I thought, a very effective report on mistakes made
by the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency leading up to 9/11.
We are capable of doing good oversight. We actually have stood up an
oversight subcommittee, which Congressman Bud Cramer is the ranking
member of. That subcommittee is doing work.
What is frustrating and what we want to address in this press
conference is that the work on this subject has been shut down; and
not only is that wrong in terms of the proper oversight role of our
committee, but it hurts our country in terms of its credibility with
respect to intelligence products now being produced for Iran, North
Korea and other dangerous parts of the world. This committee, if it
functions well, can help those products be the best they can be, and
can help add to the credibility that our intelligence community has
and needs to do its work around the world.
It's now my pleasure to introduce Rush Holt of New Jersey.
REP. RUSH D. HOLT (D-NJ): Thank you, Jane.
This is not the last crisis -- Iraq is not the last crisis this
country will face. This is not the last time that we will need
intelligence that's based on good methods, critical thinking -- in
fact, skeptical thinking that really looks at the uncertainties in the
intelligence. We have to learn to get this right. There will be
other times when we need it.
Now, the president has said that those who are raising questions
about the war in Iraq and how we got there are trying to rewrite
history. Actually, that's not true. History has not been written.
History cannot be written, because no one has allowed the facts to be
assembled. That's what we're talking about right here. We've tried,
but we've been blocked.
It is of critical importance and it's, of course, ironic that at
a time when we are fighting a war in the name of democracy and the
freedoms, including freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry, that
here we are stymied in our freedom of inquiry. And it's freedom of
inquiry not for political points or our personal curiosity. It is so
that we can, for the future, have an intelligence system that is based
on critical thinking, skeptical thinking and good methods. That's the
point.
REP. HARMAN: That was good, very good.
REP. : Hear, hear.
REP. HARMAN: And finally, let me introduce our rookie, John
Tierney of Massachusetts -- hardly a rookie to the Congress, but we
can tease him, at least for another year, on the committee. And he,
by the way, was the original author of the letter all nine of us sent
to the White House regarding the security clearance of Karl Rove.
REP. JOHN TIERNEY (D-MA): Thanks, Jane. John Tierney from the
6th District of Massachusetts.
You know, sometimes it pays to be a new member of a committee,
because you sort of look at the fundamentals of what it is the
committee is supposed to be doing. But in fact, you know, Congress
has two responsibilities. One is to legislate, and the other is
oversight. And it's incumbent upon us to accept those
responsibilities. You can't go forward in the proper direction unless
you understand where you've been and, if there have been missteps,
what you need to do to correct them.
So we need to conduct rigorous oversight. It's our obligation to
the American people.
If we neglect trying to determine the lessons from the Iraq
weapons of mass destruction situation, we'd be abdicating our
responsibility. It'll be dangerous to this country. If we neglect
those lessons, we risk the exact same -- making the same exact
mistakes that we made regarding Iran or North Korea.
The decision to block this committee's oversight on that issue of
Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, the lead-up to the war, is, in our
opinion, anyway, irresponsible and dangerous.
We understand that the chairman is under maximum pressure from
the White House to protect this administration from criticism. And
this administration and apparently now the chairman take all criticism
as political criticism, when I think you've heard quite clearly that's
not the case. We made a respectful and detailed and very appropriate
request to have an oversight hearing on these matters. We got back a
nine-page diatribe of partisan politics and misleading accusations.
That, to me, is what partisanship is, and what should not be involved
in this ongoing situation. A simple "No" would have sufficed, you
know, but apparently isn't possible.
REP. : It's not -- (off mike). (Chuckles.)
REP. TIERNEY: What is the defensive crouch all about? If in
fact there was no politicization, there were no misleading comments
made or misdirection made, then let's have the investigation find that
out. If there were, it is not political, it is the responsibility of
this committee to determine that, so it won't happen in the future.
Politicization of intelligence is one of the greatest dangers that we
run in this sphere.
The fact of the matter is, the integrity of this House and the
integrity of the committee are at stake, and it's the chairman's
responsibility and the majority's -- not just the minority's --
responsibility to protect the integrity of this House and of this
committee, and to do the work that should be done.
None of us should have to go back to our constituents and say, "I'm
sorry. We won't be doing oversight on one of the greatest, most
important intelligence situations of our lifetime to determine whether
there was a failure in intelligence or whether was a misuse of
intelligence because the party in power is afraid it may embarrass
somebody in the White House that happens to be in their same party."
That's unacceptable. The American people think it's unacceptable.
Where's the coverage that we saw in the Watergate days and other days
where the integrity of this institution was paramount and partisanship
was damned?
Thank you.
REP. HARMAN: As one who was a staffer on the Senate side during
Watergate, I can appreciate that last comment.
Let me point out too that Chairman Hoekstra last week told you
that he thought it would be redundant for us to look at this issue
because the Senate was looking at it. Well, he had another option
available to him, and that would have been to create a joint inquiry,
which some of us participated in with respect to 9/11. It was an
extremely productive enterprise. That report was again one of the
precursors of the very strong recommendations of the 9/11 commission,
as was legislation we introduced, all the Democrats on this committee,
that ultimately became the Office of the DNI.
So we're proud of the work we do. We try very hard to be
positive contributors, to keep America safer, not just Democrats
safer, not just on a partisan basis, but we have to have someone to
engage with. And that's why this is so disappointing, not just to us
personally, but it's a huge loss of expertise and dedication and
commitment, we think, for the House and for our country.
Finally, last but not least, is our member Silver Reyes, who's
standing right behind me, from Texas.
REP. SILVESTRE REYES (D-TX): Thank you very much, Jane, for
getting us this opportunity to -- I think to set the record straight
is an accurate way to describe this. And I say that because as the
president and members of his administration the last few days, the
last week have been talking about those Democrats that have criticized
his policy in Iraq and the way that we got into Iraq, and questioning
whether or not Democrats are committed or whether or not there's
historical revision going on, and citing the fact that, listen,
Congress sees the exact the same intelligence that the president does.
And that's not accurate. In fact, that's very inaccurate.
And we depend -- as members of Congress sitting in the
Intelligence Committee with a responsibility to do oversight, we
depend on the administration and the agencies that work within that
administration to tell us the situation as they see it, to give us an
analysis, and to give us the kind of information that we need to know
what those threats are out there.
We don't see the president's daily briefings. And I think we've
seen over the course of the last year or so that intelligence was
cherry-picked, regardless of what the vice president says, it was
cherry-picked, and it was, in my opinion, misrepresented to give
members of Congress on both the House and the Senate side a sense of
urgency that Saddam Hussein was part of 9/11 and part of -- an
instrumental part of fighting the war on terrorism.
I don't defend Saddam Hussein. I'm glad he's gone. But there
were other ways to take him out. And I don't believe that going to
war the way we did is in the best interest of the men and women that
depend on us as policymakers to use and exercise good judgment as we
commit them to danger.
Whenever -- and I did not vote for that resolution, and I did not
vote for that resolution because I was on this committee for almost a
year before 9/11 occurred, and part of my questions as we got
briefings from the different agencies looking at intelligence was
always, what connection was there between Saddam Hussein or Iraq and
9/11? And for about a year, the story was that there was no
connection. They could not see any connection. Every once in a while
somebody would say something like, well, if you stretch it, maybe
there was this bit of information or that bit of information that
might have somebody could draw a conclusion.
So in February I was particularly perturbed when all of a sudden
the people that were briefing us all of a sudden made an 180 degree
turn and were starting to tell us exactly what we were hearing from
the president and members of his administration about that connection.
And so after one particular hearing, I was so upset that I didn't
get much sleep that night, and actually got up very early and typed
out a memorandum to then-Chairman Porter Goss and Ranking Member Jane
Harman.
And I essentially said in that memorandum: Listen, for a whole year
we've been told that there is no connection; all of a sudden yesterday
at our hearing, we were told something completely different. And I
think one of two things is occurring here. Either we haven't been
told the right information for a year, or now somebody's had an
epiphany and because of the pressure that's being put on, now they are
being forced to make this connection. Either way, we have a serious
responsibility as members of Congress and as those charged for
oversight of the intelligence community, to look into this.
And so I wrote this memorandum. I didn't cite any classified
information. I didn't make any -- in my opinion -- any disclosures of
any kind. And so if I can show that. I wrote the memo, again, to the
ranking member and to the chairman asking that we do our job of
oversight, that we do what we were intending to do.
And the results of that was the majority, in typical fashion of
the cover-up Congress that we're in, put a note up here that said,
"Treat this memorandum as classified." And there was, again -- I
can't tell you what's in the body of this thing. In fact, this is a
representation, because I don't want to be brought up on ethical
charges that I've disclosed any kind of intelligence or other things --
even though it's been shown that the White House can pretty much carry
on relationships with people and jeopardize our intel community's
personnel.
But this is the kind of situation that we're involved in here,
the cover-up Congress, the Congress that refuses to do its job of
oversight. And we should all, collectively as Americans, including
members of the media, be outraged at that. I'm outraged as a member
of this committee that I have to be accountable to other members and I
have to tell them, well, we haven't looked into that; we try to do
things like say, "Listen, let's do our job," and they classify the
memorandum.
There's only one possible reason why this memorandum that I wrote
was classified; that's to put it under -- sweep it under the rug, put
it under the auspices of the classified folder of the committee and
not let it see the light of day.
So I am, as a member of this committee, as an American and, I
will tell you, as a proud veteran, I am disgusted that we are not
allowed to do our work. And those kinds of things have to change.
The American people have to understand it's an important issue.
REP. HARMAN: Let me just point out that we did double-check our
rules to see if there as any authority in them to permit the majority
to classify that letter. We could find none. But out of an abundance
of caution, which all of these members feel -- we know we're entrusted
to protect the nation's secrets and we take our responsibility
seriously -- out of an abundance of caution, we didn't share that
letter with you today.
But let me point out that one of the other problems that we would
like to address in this committee is selective declassification of
material that's going on every day and every night by the executive
branch.
We've been joined by Dutch Ruppersberger, another good member of
our committee.
And finally, I want to call on Bud Cramer briefly to talk about
the new oversight subcommittee which I mentioned, and then we will
take your questions.
REP. ROBERT "BUD" CRAMER, JR. (D-AL): Thank you, Jane. And I
thank my colleagues for taking their time out on this incredibly
interesting time in this session of Congress.
I'm Bud Cramer. I'm from the 5th District of Alabama. I've been
in Congress for eight terms now. I was on the Intelligence Committee
back in the early '90s, and I went back on the Intelligence Committee
just after 9/11, when we were involved in a joint House-Senate inquiry
which went on for weeks and months, as it should, in picking that rock
up and looking at what's under the rock to determine what lessons we
could learn, what we needed to recorrrect with regard to the way the
intelligence community reacted or didn't react to the information that
could have led to a different reaction on our part and maybe prevented
9/11.
I want to make you aware that I am the ranking member of a new
oversight subcommittee. Oversight should be, obviously, the primary
charge of this entire committee. If we can't continue to look under
that rock and learn from the lessons of the past, if we can't react to
the 9/11 commission and we can't retool the way we work, the way we
react to the intelligence community, the way we hold the intelligence
community's feet to the fire, then why should we exist?
I think we're capable of doing this. And I think we are in this
new subcommittee. We are probing. We are going out. We are
redirecting the way we cause the agencies to react to us. So I think
we can do it.
I think we should do it. Good, bad or ugly, this matter deserves
bipartisan attention, and we should give it that kind of attention.
So I join with my colleagues today to express the frustration that --
just give us the opportunity to do this job. We can do it.
REP. HARMAN: Thank you. We'll now take your questions.
Q Is that the only letter of its kind up here expressing that
level of concern?
REP. HARMAN: To my -- well, the only letter that's been treated
in this fashion that I've ever seen. Committee members over the years
have expressed their views. I don't think you would consider any of
us shy back here. We've expressed our views in committee hearings, in
public settings, directly to our chairmen. Pete Hoekstra and Anna and
I were all elected in -- and Alcee -- were all elected in the same
year, and we have a cordial relationship going back 13 years.
REP. TIERNEY: But Jane, you have the annex to our letter, which
sets forth a number of those --
REP. HARMAN: Well, that's true. I mentioned that earlier. We
have a classified annex to our letter, which includes questions that
these members asked in classified hearings, which was the occasion we
had, because the intelligence presented to us was classified. And
those questions, as one can see when one reads the hearing
transcripts, didn't get answered.
Q I'm wondering if you could clarify a little bit what you're
saying. You mentioned Abu Ghraib, the black sites and the Iraq
intelligence as things that will need to be investigated. Are you
saying there's no oversight going on in committee right now on those
subjects? Or are you saying --
REP. ESHOO: Well, there have been hearings. But our
responsibility in terms of oversight is not to just have hearings.
You take the information that's culled from the hearings and use that
as a tool to investigate, so one can learn and then make
recommendations.
There isn't any investigative product that has been put out, both
under Chairman Goss and Chairman Hoekstra. There haven't. Find it.
Give it to me. It's like close your eyes; what do you see? They're
not there. Why? They have really refused to investigate. And I
think that this is a failure. It's a failure for our country. It's a
failure for the American people. It's an enormous sense of
frustration on the part -- on our part. Ultimately, you know -- I
mean, the majority rules, so it's up to them. This is at their
doorstep. And I'm not into fault and blame. I wish that this was
something that were otherwise.
I want to optimize -- each one of us wants to optimize our seat on
this committee and our representation of the people that have sent us
here. But it's not there, not on the run-up to the war, the use of
the -- the use of intelligence, not on Guantanamo, not on Abu Ghraib,
and nothing begun on black prisons.
REP. HOLT: Let me -- may I just make a real quick comment about
your specific question? Which is that some of those things have not
even appeared in hearings. Hardly a day goes by that I don't read
something or see something from you, from the media, that we should
have gotten but did not get in our committee.
REP. HARMAN: Well, let me just add one thing. There have been
codels to Guantanamo, as an example. I've been on three of them,
which were hugely unproductive. We got the -- you know, the fly-by
tour. We did not see things that then subsequently learned about,
which was highly upsetting to me and caused me to take certain actions
that I did take in the committee and to question whether Geoffrey
Miller, then the fellow in charge at Guantanamo, had been truthful
with our committee, which I did do in an exchange of letters, which
was not classified.
With respect to some of these other topics, as you know, they are
highly classified, so we really cannot comment about them in this
setting. But it is certainly true that all of us would wish, either
in a classified setting or an open setting, as possible, to do
thorough investigations.
Yeah?
Q Congressman Murtha yesterday spoke essentially on the
immediate future and calling for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops in
Iraq. What are your thoughts on that?
REP. HARMAN: Well, I published a piece in The Hill about three
days ago, setting out my personal views. And they include my view
that the Senate action was very constructive; that it is the White
House that has to tell us, in a very short period of time, what its
strategy is leading to what I would call a successful exit in the
nearest possible time.
I think the hearts and minds of the American people are being
lost by this effort. And I pointed out that there are several things
that could be done right now to make clear the administration's
intentions, including stating unequivocally that we have no desire to
have permanent military bases in Iraq; that we have no designs on
Iraq's oil; that we will do our maximum to stand up the oil production
again in the country, inviting in the neighborhood to help do that, so
that the Iraqis can benefit from what is a huge resource that right
now is not producing adequate resources for them; and finally that we,
the United States, should do our best, as George Mitchell once did in
Northern Ireland, to help forge some sort of permanent, enduring
relationship among the three ethnic groups in Iraq.
And our ambassador has been trying to do this, and I commended him.
As far as Chairman Murtha goes, other members of this committee
who have different positions may want to comment. That is where I
personally stand.
Q Would you agree that the Iraqi people should be told before
the elections that we're going to withdraw troops?
REP. HARMAN: Why don't we have some other members comment on
that.
REP. ESHOO: I think your question is, what did -- in the broad
sense, what did Chairman Murtha's announcement yesterday really mean?
I think, coming from earthquake country, it was a 9.8 on the Richter
scale. Why? Because there isn't anyone in the entire Congress that
can claim the mantle that Jack Murtha can and does. And that's
something that's not given; it's been earned by him. He is one of the
most decorated veterans in our country. He is known as, quote, "a
hawk." There isn't anyone that has taken care of our troops on a
consistent basis since he has come to the Congress of the United
States than Jack Murtha. That is established. Previous presidents
know this. This president knows it. Former members of Congress know
it. The most important part is that our troops and our military know
it.
So for Congressman Murtha to stand up and say that how this war
has been conducted, the mistakes that have been made, and what our
troops have suffered as a result of that -- that it's time to come
out. His timetable, as he stated yesterday, is about six months.
But I think the larger message is -- whether members go on the
resolution or don't, or agree with every last dot or word in the
resolution, is -- and you saw by the reaction of the White House, that
dismal, pathetic statement of the White House -- I mean, why would a
White House fall that low? -- that this conversation is than
alive and well, and that the training wheels that the Iraqis are
riding on really need to be taken away.
Nov 18, 2005 16:23 ET
I believe that it's time for the Iraqis to take over Iraq, as Chairman
Murtha said.
REP. TIERNEY: Can I just add one point? I just want to talk
about the political jujitsu that goes on in Karl Rove White House on
this -- is that you take an individual like Jake Murtha who certainly
doesn't need our defense, but instead of understanding that we need a
discussion of what's going on in Iraq, they do the same thing they
tried to do here. They try to shut down any investigation or any
oversight, and now, they'd like to shut down any discussion about
whether there's an alternative way to proceed in Iraq. And they do
that with a jujitsu of attacking a man who's got impecable
credentials.
And this is a group of people who either have non-existent
military service or questionable military service, some who've got
multiple deferments, who would go and attack an individual who's
decorated, who's been wounded, who's served 37 years in the military,
who's probably the best friend our military personnel have in
Congress. And their answer is not to debate the issue about how and
when we should have a strategy for getting out of Iraq, it's to attack
the messenger and try to shut down the conversation. As Anna says,
that's about as low as you can get, and I don't think the American
people are in line to want to have that go on. They want the
discussion about where we go from here, and Jake Murtha is certainly
first and foremost in putting that information out there. And we
should have that debate and have it now.
I personally think he's right. I personally think that we should
talk about telling them now, that this isn't going to last forever,
that we are going to be -- start to redeploy our troops, you know,
immediately after the elections, as long as we can do it safely in a
way that gets them out, that we'll have a stand off presence to take
care of any other terrorist activities or emergencies in that region.
But the Iraqis have to learn to stand up, and the rest of the world
community, many of whom haven't been participating because of their
dislike for this administration have to learn that they have real
stability issues in that region. And this will force them to step up
as well.
Q Do you sense some reluctance among your Democratic
colleagues to support this kind of timetable?
REP. TIERNEY: Well, I think everybody will have to deal with the
timetable themselves. Everybody wants to make sure that they are
making a clear case for supporting our troops and keeping them safe
and getting them out as safely as possible, and I think if there's a
reluctance, it's only in making sure that their terminology doesn't
get misconstrued to any way think that they don't want to make sure
the troops are safe and sound.
REP. HARMAN: But I think we could say, I think we would all
agree -- although we might have different views on how to -- that Jake
Murtha expresses a frustration that all of us feel, and that the
burden right now is on the White House not just to engage with us, but
to present what its strategy is for going forward to achieve a result
that gets our troops out safely and stands up a reasonable national
government there, hopefully, that can operate with security.
Another question?
REP. HASTINGS: (Riding/writing ?) under that, Jane, too, was
Congressman Ike Skelton, another decorated hero, also issued
information on yesterday that I think the media should be interested
in regarding a redeployment strategy. I haven't heard from the White
House a real strategy for how this matter ends. I thought that
Congressman Murtha began a discourse that is critical for the White
House to engage with us. There are a variety of views all with the
same intent, and that is, to protect the American troops and to see to
it that they're home safe and secure, and that the American interests
in that region are preserved and go forward.
Q Ms. Harman, I understand -- (off mike) -- now, but there's
still some confusion. What intelligence are members of Congress
eligible to see, and what intelligence are the president and vice
president eligible to see? Is there a difference?
REP. HARMAN: Yes.
Q They say that you were able to see the same thing, and
either you didn't just bother to go look at it, or you saw it and
agreed with it. What's the story?
REP. HARMAN: The answer is, as I said earlier -- and I don't
have the Hadley letter -- here it is -- we've just written a very
thoughtful and brilliant letter to Steve Hadley outlining the answer.
But the answer is we basically see finished consensus products
prepared by the intelligence community. People come in and brief us
at various levels. We do talk to the CIA director and the top people.
We had a recent conversation with John Negroponte, as an example. We
meet with all the agency heads. But then we meet with specialists
within the agencies and with lawyers within the agencies as we have --
as we have questions.
But -- all right, well, I think that's a good idea. Not that you
wouldn't know this. Of course, you personally would know this, but
maybe someone else in the audience might not -- we say we don't have
access to the President's Daily Brief. In fact, the White House
vigorously fought to prevent us from getting access to the daily
brief, the one in August of 2001 related to what he might have been
told prior to 9/11. And not only does the president get briefed every
day, but he has full access to the intelligence community officials at
a set time every single day. That obviously does not apply to us.
Second, we don't have access to operational reports, intelligence
information reports, cables from the field or any other type of raw
intelligence. The exception was when this committee started our
inquiry into WMD intelligence, Porter Goss and I wrote a letter to
George Tenet, then the DCI, and requested the raw intelligence on
which the intelligence products like the National Intelligence
Estimate, the NIE, were based. And the CIA sent up 19 volumes of raw
intelligence, which our committee's staff read, the Democratic staff
read them, and some of the members --
(Cross talk.)
REP. HARMAN: -- yes, actually, I did, too, but I didn't read --
I wasn't going to claim I read every word. But at any rate, we went
through them, and that generated a list of people we wanted to
interview as part of this investigation, and that's when it broke
down. The majority blocked us from conducting those interviews, which
we intended to conduct on a bipartisan basis -- bipartisan staff
interviews first and then members would be involved.
We did produce a letter.
There was a Goss-Harman letter to Tenet in September of 2002, which
was a pretty tough letter, telling him that we believed that the
sources for the intelligence leading up to -- for the products leading
up to the conclusions on WMD were inadequate. I also thought the
analysis was inadequate. But at any rate, we wrote that letter, which
we shared with you a couple weeks ago, and after that things totally
broke down.
Let me just finish on this point. So we don't see the raw
intelligence. We say that we also never saw intelligence that
reflected things that were learned after the congressional vote on the
resolution on Iraq. Hans Blix, it's well known -- it was all over the
press -- in the few months leading up to the military action had been
in Iraq, and he investigated sites that he was given access to. And
he was coming back and telling the U.N., his employer, that he wasn't
finding anything.
The Blix information was discounted in Washington. The claim
was, well, he's coming in the front door and they're moving it out the
back door. But we have never probed that claim adequately, and that
is part of the fair questions we think need to be answered by a joint
Republican-Democratic investigation by the House Intelligence
Committee, which has a considerable reputation and history, legacy, of
investigating things on a bipartisan basis. That's the investigation
that's been shut down.
REP. TIERNEY: Can we stick on that issue, Jane, a little bit
about how, when we don't get all that information, how --
REP. : (Off mike.)
REP. ESHOO (?): Why don't you -- go ahead.
REP. TIERNEY: No, I want Jane to speak on this, because she has
experience. But the fact of the matter is when you don't get the
raw data, you don't get the daily briefings and you don't get some of
that information, then you're left with the White House's
interpretation, the administration interpretation, its
characterization, its exaggerations, whatever, and not being told any
qualifications that might have been with that material. All of those
were important things leading up to people's decision on how to set
policy.
REP. ESHOO: Yeah, nor the reservations that were raised internal
to the intelligence community.
REP. HARMAN: Yeah.
REP. ESHOO: See? So if there were questions raised about
different parts of it, that's not reflected in what was brought to the
Congress. You get a flat statement, a flat interpretation, without
the mix of what was part of, you know, the background of it. And
that's, now as we look over our shoulder, a very large part of this.
So to say unequivocally -- the vice president, the president, all of
their press releases, their statements -- that the "Congress got
exactly what we got" is just flat-out wrong. It's misleading. It's
wrong. The record doesn't show it. It's not the way it operates.
REP. HARMAN: Well, I agree with the general point, but dissents
are reflected in a number of the intelligence products. A problem, we
believe, with some of the products leading up to the war in Iraq was
that the dissents were reflected in footnotes and buried on page 19
rather than being at the center of the front page.
A good intelligence product -- we're not trained analysts, but we
are trained members of Congress who have an oversight responsibility.
A good intelligence product, on the same page, should say what we
know, what we don't know and what we assess. That's the right
product. And what we don't know should then drive the collection for
the next intelligence product. This is a circle. And we are not good
enough at this and we are not honest enough at this -- remember, as we
point out in our letter to Chairman Hoekstra, that the sign on the
front door of the CIA says, "And the truth shall set you free."
REP. HASTINGS: One thing I know for a fact, and I was on the
committee in the run-up to 9/11, and members that are here and some
who have just left questioned an awful lot. And if it is that I had
available -- and we worked pretty hard, all of us do -- if it is that
I had available the same information that the president did, then you
should only hear the questions that I put and other members of this
body put questioning that intelligence. I never saw anything
suggesting to me that there were any weapons of mass destruction, and
I said it repeatedly during that period of time. So if I saw what he
did, then evidently we came to different conclusions.
REP. HOLT: Let me just say that the line that we hear is there
is not much that needs to be investigated, there's not much need for
oversight because you knew all this all along, and further, it's
unpatriotic.
It's unimportant, and yet if you ask for it, it's unpatriotic.
REP. HARMAN: Yes?
Q I wanted to ask about Hoekstra's -- last week he said that
there was going to be investigation into (these leaks ?). He
specifically mentioned the claims of black sites -- (off mike). Now,
some of these would get into areas that -- (off mike) -- could get
into prewar intelligence. The black sites, depending on how you do an
investigation of the leak, could get into some into some of -- (off
mike).
Has he come back to you, because he said he was going to consult
with you --
REP. HARMAN: Right.
Q -- as to how to do these investigations, with a plan --
REP. HARMAN: No.
Q -- for these investigations that might lead to some of the
answers you're seeking?
REP. HARMAN: Well, we've certainly had conversations about the
subject of leaks. All of us deplore leaks. Some of them can and do
compromise our national security. And I have absolute confidence that
this group of people and the staff who work in the dome -- in the
target zone, as we say -- would never leak. We're very careful.
That was why we were all chuckling at Congressman Reyes's presentation
of his letter, which should never have been classified and I don't
think was properly classified, under our rules, in the first place.
Congressman Hoekstra and I have talked about leaks. We have held
two classified hearings, and we will hold an unclassified hearing soon
on the general subject of leaks. We've been briefed about how the
government prosecutes leakers -- no one has missed the fact that there
are very few convictions -- and what the legal framework is.
Now we want to talk to some outside experts about what, if
anything, Congress should do about it. I personally am a cosponsor of
the press shield law. Our committee doesn't have jurisdiction over
that law, but we would, depending on what we decided to do, have
jurisdiction over certain attempts at legislation.
You mentioned -- I cannot comment and I will not comment about
any black sites, or even to confirm anything about that subject.
But on the subject of Valerie Plame, I think Rush Holt should
share with all of you two efforts he made in our committee to get
materials, so that we could investigate.
REP. HOLT: I mean, this is something we can talk about now. You
know as much about it as -- and the whole world knows as much about it
as we do.
Eight separate times in eight separate votes the leadership of
this Congress shut down any effort to look -- to get the information
about the release of the identity of an intelligence employee. It's
something that is central to our responsibility to look after the
well-being and effectiveness of those people that we ask to take risks
for us around the world. In eight separate votes it was shut down.
REP. TIERNEY: And just within that, for those that do engage in
conversations about the identity of our officers throughout the world
or whatever, we have written two letters, one back in June or July,
telling the president that he should obviously withdraw the security
clearances of Karl Rove, because at that point it was clear that there
were conversations that were going on with members of the press about
that individual who's an officer, and recently have found that
also on an executive order that exists, that says whether or not you
did it criminally or that actually if it was done negligently or
whatever, you still under executive order should have that security
clearance withdrawn -- not just Karl Rove, but anybody in that White
House who has been having conversation with the press about officers
of our agencies or whatever should have their security clearance
withdrawn. And that's a simple matter for protection of the people
that work for us, take on dangerous assignments and look at this
committee in Congress and others to protect their well-being out
there, just as every troop in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere depends
on us to protect them.
REP. HARMAN: And that point was just made by a long list of
former CIA senior officials in a letter demanding that the security
clearances of anyone who was involved -- even recklessly or carelessly
-- should be revoked.
One last question.
Q (Off mike) -- you satisfied with what Mr. Negroponte has
been doing and how well he's been doing it?
REP. HARMAN: Well, one issue that we are working on through this
oversight subcommittee -- in fact, I'd like to call on Dutch
Ruppersberger -- is the standup of the DNI. We -- certainly I
consider myself one of its parents. I was intensely involved in the
effort to get the legislation passed, and then as a member of the big
-- one of the big four in the conference we had. I have said
repeatedly that it's 50 percent law and 50 percent leadership. I'm
not defending the fact that the law is perfect. It's not perfect. No
law that Congress passes is perfect. But it was as good a compromise
as we could reach, and it's adequate.
Now comes the leadership part, and I think that there are some
leadership deficits that have to be filled. And the standup has to go
faster, there has to be a greater sense of urgency. And these are
issues that we have raised both in classified settings and in public
settings with the senior members of the Office of DNI.
And I'd just like to call on Dutch Ruppersberger, since he has
focused particularly on the FBI and the changes it needs to make in
this new structure.
REP. C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER (D-MD): Well, first thing, with
respect to DNI, whenever you start a new organization, you're going to
have some problems in the beginning. But we don't have a lot of time.
Al Qaeda's not going to be waiting for us to put the DNI together.
I think, based on what I've seen so far right now, the team of
Negroponte and Hayden are attempting to put together a system where we
will have information sharing.
Where the real test is going to come, though, will be in two
areas. First, it will be in their budget. And let's see the budget
that's going to be coming forward and where the priorities are going
to be. And the second is how they're going to deal with friction.
For instance, is Rumsfeld going to attempt to play hardball? So far,
that hasn't happened. What we need to do now, though, is -- well, it
has to an extent, but not -- (laughter) -- I hear -- (inaudible) --
the facts.
(Cross talk and laughter).
REP. : We'll get our turn.
REP. RUPPERSBERGER: You'll get your shot. Right. I think right
now than anything we really have to focus on where FBI is. The
FBI is responsible for our national security. We are concerned that
there's cells throughout this country that might be active. And I
think it's very relevant that we have this new organization that's put
together to create an intelligence agency within the FBI, and that we
have members from the CIA working with them, because it's going to be
a change from arresting and indicting to really gaining intelligence
and working and getting that intelligence from across the world,
acting on it quickly and then disseminating that information, so that
we don't shut down tunnels or New York City unless it's -- we have the
relevant information, and it's been investigated.
REP. HARMAN: Yeah, well, I -- just let me close on that note.
There are signs of progress. We just want this to go faster. We've
called Negroponte and Hayden the dynamic duo. They're a good pairing.
They bring a lot of skill sets to their jobs. Negroponte needs now to
be called Director Negroponte, no longer Ambassador Negroponte,
because his job description is very different. Bob Mueller met with
Chairman Hoekstra and me yesterday -- the director of the FBI -- and
we were talking about some of the progress he's making and how hard it
is, no question about it, to stand up this new separate intelligence
service, but he's doing it. And he needs to do it, and he's got some
good leadership of that effort.
I just want to close with the fact that the terrorists are here.
This should surprise noone. It certainly concerned me, but didn't
surprise me that a terror cell was wrapped up in Torrance, California,
in my congressional district, fairly recently. It was astute work by
the Torrance Police Department with a big assist by the FBI. This is
the kind of thing we have to be looking for now. We have to be
effective. We have to prevent and disrupt these cells before they
attack us. But this requires something else too, and it requires
vigilance by a committee like ours, so that we make certain that the
legal authorities are right, the leadership is right, and there is a
healthy skepticism and respect for the civil liberties of Americans.
It's a big job. We're ready to do it. We need the majority to engage
with us, and we're asking Chairman Hoekstra to reconsider what we
think was a very ill-advised decision to ship all jurisdiction over
this critical issue to the Senate.
Thank you very much.
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