Department of Veterans Affairs Real Property and Facilities Management Improvement Act of 2004

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss this body's efforts to reform the U.S. intelligence community.

My distinguished colleagues from Maine and Connecticut have worked hard to develop legislation to address some of the executive branch structural reforms recommended by the 9/11 Commission. To be sure, there is a need to change, the way we do business if we are to effectively battle terrorist organizations, like al-Qaida, and protect the American people from another devastating terrorist attack. But I believe that many provisions of the bill before us are tackling the problem from the wrong angle.

I think it is important that we move forward with deliberate speed. Past efforts, like the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, should set an example. That overhaul of the Defense Department took several years from start to finish. It was a huge undertaking, as is our current effort to reform the intelligence community. The 9/11 Commission did a good job of cataloguing and critiquing the failures of 9/11--I believe it spent some 18 months on that effort. But it spent far less time developing the recommendations to solve the problems. We are now acting on those recommendations over a period of less than 2 weeks on the Senate floor. It is important to ask whether, in the middle of a war, it is wise to attempt such a fundamental reorganization with a deadline of October 8 for Senate consideration, a conference and then adoption of a conference report.

Nevertheless, I will support moving this legislation forward, as the President has strongly urged us to do, so that we may try to resolve outstanding issues in the Senate-House conference committee. As Congress prepares its final intelligence reform bill to be sent to the President, we must be especially careful to do no harm. I will continue to press the issues about which I am concerned during the conference.

Today I plan to discuss: No. 1, how the 9/11 Commission recommendations fail to thoroughly address the problems it identified; No. 2, deficiencies in the Governmental Affairs Committee proposal; and No. 3, what I think we should be doing instead--focusing on intelligence community reform, instead of just reorganization. I will also touch very briefly on two additional areas in which I had proposed amendments: visa reform, and tools and resources for fighting terror.

Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger identified one of the key problems with the 9/11 Commission recommendations:

[The Commission] has . . . proposed a substantial

reorganization of the intelligence community--changes that do

not logically flow from the problems that the Commission

identified in its narrative.

The Commission identified four categories of failures by the U.S. Government that ultimately led to the attacks of September 11, 2001: imagination, policy, capabilities, and management. After reviewing the 9/11 Commission's narrative of these failures and studying its 41 recommendations to prevent future such failures, I am hard pressed to see what most of the recommendations have to do with the problems identified.

I will briefly touch on each of these broad problems identified by the Commission and assess how they will be addressed by both the Commission and later the Senate's legislation.

First, lack of imagination. I agree that this problem was a significant contributor not only to the failure of intelligence community to predict the 9/11 attacks, but also the vast majority of the intelligence failures that have plagued our intelligence community over the past 20 years. A lack of imagination is simply an extension of the much broader and more pervasive cultural problems such as risk aversion, group think and a lack of competitive analysis that continue to hamper our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. I will deal with these problems in more detail later; but it is clear that none of the Commission's recommendations or this bill's provisions begin to address this culture problem; and, in fact, one recommendation could substantially increase risk aversion, a problem exacerbated by the bill's redundant provisions piling on layers of civil liberties and privacy review.

The Commission itself notes that ``Imagination is not a gift usually associated with bureaucracies,'' and so it is ironic that Commission proposes to create an even more bureaucratic intelligence structure. Chairman Kean and Vice Chairman Hamilton contend that an empowered NID will foster competitive analysis and quash group think because that individual will draw on the perspectives of all the intelligence agencies, rather than just the CIA, as the DCI is now more likely to do.

But a convincing case can be made that the creation of national intelligence director with budgetary authority over most of the intelligence community could actually exacerbate the community's lack of imagination. Under such a centralized system, it is far more likely that agencies, like DHS's Information Analysis office, will be inclined to provide a commonly accepted view because the NID will control their budgets. As such, they will lack the protection that their previous patron--the Department of Homeland Security, in this case--provided them. Risk aversion and group think are, therefore, likely to become even more widespread problems.

The second failure identified by the Commission is one of policy. Here the report faults not the intelligence community, but political leaders, including Members of Congress, for failing to act even when there was a clear threat. Terrorists had demonstrated time and time again that they were at war with us: in 1993 at the World Trade Center; in 1995 at a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia; in 1998 at the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and in 2000 with the bombing of the USS Cole. Almost a decade of attacks resulted in little more than a single cruise missile strike that destroyed a pharmaceutical plant.

This failure of decisionmaking really calls for a fix that can't be legislated--good leadership.

The Commission makes a number of related recommendations on how to fight the war on terror, with the goal of making another attack less likely. These range from the obvious, ``make a long-term commitment to Afghanistan,'' to the irrelevant and unwise, declassifying the overall intelligence

budget. On the whole, however, most of recommendations are already being implemented in some fashion, and have been underway since shortly after the attacks. I commend to my colleagues a fact sheet prepared by the White House detailing its implementation of the majority of the 9/ 11 Commission's recommendation.

On a more specific level, one area where not enough work has been done is that of terrorists' travel. The Commission correctly identifies the importance of the problem arguing, ``[f]or terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons,'' and I am, therefore, surprised that the Commission and the committee have decided to put that issue on the backburner. I will return to this issue in more detail shortly, but it is one area where Congress can make an important contribution to U.S. security and we should not abdicate that responsibility.

The third failure is one of capabilities. It is here that the 9/11 Commission highlights numerous glaring weaknesses in how the intelligence community shared information, prepared for potential attacks and planned for U.S. responses. The Commission recommends improvements in information sharing and the parts of this legislation that seek to implement these are important.

Regardless of how we ultimately decide to organize the intelligence community, it is important that we improve and streamline information sharing. Congress has already taken some important steps toward that objective. For example, the PATRIOT Act, enacted shortly after the September 11 attacks, improved information sharing by breaking down legal barriers between intelligence and law enforcement, but it is clear we will not be able to make the Patriot Act provisions permanent in this bill.

Unfortunately, the 9/11 Commission overlooks the fact that solving the capabilities problem requires far more than just improving the sharing of information. The problem extends beyond what intelligence is available to an analyst at any given time. The 9/11 Commission, the Joint House-Senate Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks, and the recently completed Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigation into pre-war intelligence on Iraq all point to far deeper deficiencies. They identify core cultural problems. Indeed, too often the right information is not collected due to, among other things, excessive risk aversion, and analysis of the information is not adequately questioned to ensure that group think has not replaced sound judgment.

The Commission focused on only one recommendation for fixing a laundry list of problems with the CIA's collection and analysis, and only one recommendation on improvements to the FBI's intelligence capabilities. On the other hand, the Commission devoted three recommendations to protecting civil liberties, though none is designed to prevent a future attack.

The last failure identified by the Commission is one of management. It is this failure that leads the Commission to recommend the creation of the National Intelligence Director. The report highlights the inability of then-DCI George Tenet to mobilize the entire intelligence community after he issued a memo stating, ``We are at war'' with terrorists. However, the 9/11 Commission's report states that the DCI's memo had ``little overall effect on mobilizing the CIA.'' If even the CIA, where the Director has complete budgetary and line control, did not respond to the DCI's memo, we should not be confident that simply putting someone at the top of a new organizational chart is the panacea that some claim.

It warrants noting that the 9/11 Commission details an example, from before 9/11 and the changes that followed, where the intelligence and law enforcement communities were able to mobilize, break down stovepipes and information was shared ``widely and abundantly.'' This example--termed the ``Millennium Exception'' by the Commission--focuses on the last weeks of December 1999, when the government ``acted in concert to deal with terrorism.'' The Government's approach to this threat, demonstrate the power of strong leadership and commitment, despite what some call a disjointed intelligence organization.

Too often problems of management have less to do with organizational structure, and more to do with the managers themselves. I fear that we are rushing to implement sweeping organizational changes because it is the easy thing to do, not because it is necessarily the right thing to do. In the meantime, the hard work of changing the culture of the community seems to have been pushed to the side.

The Senate is currently considering a reorganization package that contains a number of the 9/11 Commission's 41 recommendations. Among the most significant, the bill establishes a Senate-confirmed national intelligence director with strong budget, personnel, security, and other authorities; creates a national counterterrorism center, NCTC, to integrate intelligence capabilities and develop joint counterterrorism plans; redefines the National Foreign Intelligence Program as the National Intelligence Program--which includes the national collection agencies within the Defense Department, NSA, NGA, and NRO; and contains provisions that require the establishment of an information sharing network.

The bill is called the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. But it does not reform the intelligence community; it reorganizes it. It does not get at the fundamental problems in the intelligence community identified by the 9/11 Commission and the other intelligence investigations and inquiries over the last several years. And, unfortunately, in at least one glaring respect, it violates the first rule of medicine and legislating in that it does do harm. Moreover, even if the reshuffling of bureaucracy can ultimately be made to work, doing so now, while our country is at war, makes it very hard to supply our strategists, planners, and warfighters the information they need, when they need it.

I have taken under careful advisement the cautious tone of many former and current officials. For example, in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on August 17, 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated:

In pursuit of strengthening our nation's intelligence

capabilities, I would offer a cautionary note. It is

important that we move with all deliberate speed; however,

moving too quickly risks enormous error . . . And we are

considering these important matters while waging a war.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, recently released a statement, signed by an experienced group of former officials, urging similar caution. The statement was endorsed by: former Senators David Boren, Bill Bradley, Gary Hart, Sam Nunn, and Warren Rudman; former Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and William Cohen; former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre; former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates; former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger; and former Secretary of State George Shultz. It said:

Rushing in with solutions before we understand all of the

problems is a recipe for failure.

In his testimony, Secretary Rumsfeld discussed in detail his concerns about how intelligence community reorganization could potentially adversely affect the Defense Department. He expressed his strong reservations about the national collection agencies--the NSA, NGA, and NRO--being removed from the Defense Department, where they are now located, and aligned under the direct leadership of the national intelligence director. He stated:

``We wouldn't want to place new barriers or filters between

the military Combatant Commanders and those agencies when

they perform as combat support agencies. It would be a major

step to separate these key agencies from the military

Combatant Commanders, which are the major users of such

capabilities.

The Defense Department worked tirelessly in the decade after the first gulf war to ensure that the speed and scope of intelligence support to military operations would be improved for future conflicts. It was General Schwartz kopf's view that the national intelligence support during Desert Storm was not adequate. Now, as we have seen from the success of our military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the broader War on Terror, ``gaps and seams,'' as Secretary Rumsfeld refers to them, have been drastically reduced.

General Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also expressed his

concerns on the subject during his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, stating:

. . . for the warfighter, from the combatant commander down

to the private on patrol, timely, accurate intelligence is

literally a life and death matter every day. . . . As we move

forward, we cannot create any institutional barriers between

intelligence agencies--and of course that would include the

National Security Agency, the National Geospacial-

Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance office

and the rest of the warfighting team.

I am concerned that the reorganization package before the Senate places this effective system in jeopardy.

In S. 2485, the NSA, NGA, and NRO remain within DOD; but this is somewhat deceiving. These national collection agencies will also be within the newly defined National Intelligence Program. The Committee- reported bill would essentially remove the Secretary of Defense from any meaningful management role over these agencies.

First, the national intelligence director would have the authority to appoint the heads of these agencies, albeit with the concurrence of the Secretary of Defense. What makes this unusual and potentially problematic? Well, consider the fact that the Director of the National Security Agency, a general officer, is dual-hatted as the Deputy Commander for Network Attack, Planning, and Integration at Strategic Command, or that the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office also serves as an Under Secretary of the Air Force. These positions truly support the mission of the Defense Department

Second, the national intelligence director would have the authority to execute the budgets of these agencies. It is one thing to say that the NID should manage the entire budget for the National Intelligence Program, and, therefore, to help develop agencies' budgets and even receive their appropriation. It is quite another to altogether remove the Secretary of Defense from the loop by requiring that the NID suballocate funding directly back to the agencies. This effectively removes the Secretary from the management loop.

I have studied the Defense Secretary's testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as the testimony of other experts. I am also aware that there were some good amendments in the committee markup to help preserve the Defense Department's equities. But I am still not convinced that we are doing no harm. As General Myers commented during the course of the Senate Armed Services Committee's discussion on the subject, ``[T]he devil's in the details.''

I recognize that during the course of the Senate's debate on this bill, several of my colleagues have offered amendments to ensure that the equities of the Defense Department are protected, and I applaud them for their efforts.

So, while I am not convinced we are doing no harm--particularly with respect to ensuring our warfighters have the intelligence support they need--I am also not convinced that we are necessarily doing much good. Again, the solutions of the 9/11 Commission, and, in turn, the Senate bill, don't seem to match the problems.

I would like to discuss an example of what I believe we could do to help minimize our chances of another catastrophic terrorist attack--by addressing cultural problems in the intelligence community, including risk aversion, group think, and a failure of leadership.

I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for 8 years and participated in the first of the post-9/11 evaluations--the joint Senate-House inquiry, formally named the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. Along with the current Intelligence Committee chairman, I offered additional views to that report which, had I been part of the 9/11 Commission, I would similarly have submitted. Those additional views describe the core cultural problems in the intelligence community that can't simply be solved by reorganizing agencies. On this, the Commission report and the bill before us missed the mark in many respects.

First, let's consider risk aversion, which plays out not only in the intelligence community, but also in foreign policy decisionmaking, economics, business investments, and so on. There are many potential reasons for risk aversion--a particular action might have adverse, unintended consequences, might get one into trouble with one's superiors, or might simply draw unwanted attention, just to name a few. When an individual or a government acts, there is always a calculation of risk; but some governments and some individuals are more willing to take chances than others. This is a product of both leadership and environment.

An aversion to taking risks--even when they should be taken--plagues our intelligence community. Indeed, in the course of our congressional inquiry on the 9/11 attacks no intelligence or law-enforcement agency escaped being described by its own officials as hampered by an aversion to thinking critically, exposing their views to others, and being willing to boldly take risks. Time and time again, this has contributed to intelligence failures--most recently, of course, 9/11 and the intelligence communities' claims about Saddam's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

The 9/11 Commission also addressed the issue of risk aversion within the CIA, noting the net result for that agency pre-9/11:

. . . an organization capable of attracting extraordinarily

motivated people but institutionally averse to risk, with its

capacity for covert action atrophied, predisposed to restrict

the distribution of information, having difficulty

assimilating new types of personnel, and accustomed to

presenting descriptive reportage of the latest intelligence.

One of the most well known examples of the problem of risk aversion in the context of the 9/11 attacks was the FBI's failure to respond to the ``Phoenix Memorandum,'' written by a Phoenix special agent who wanted to alert his superiors about suspicious individuals seeking pilot training. The now-famous electronic communication to FBI headquarters recommended that the FBI consider seeking authority to obtain visa information from the State Department on individuals who obtained visas to attend flight school.

The intelligence operations specialists at headquarters who reviewed the memo told the staff of the congressional joint inquiry that they had decided among themselves that seeking that authority raised profiling concerns. These concerns stemmed at least in part from previous public allegations of racial profiling against FBI agents who had questioned two Middle Eastern men acting suspiciously on a flight from Phoenix to Washington, DC, in 1999.

On a broader--not case-specific--level, the intelligence community's clandestine service has been seriously hampered by an aversion to taking risks. According to the 9/11 Commission's report, James Pavitt, the head of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, recalled that covert action had gotten the clandestine service into trouble in the past, and he had no desire to see it happen again.

It is likely that this ``trouble'' was at least in part a result of congressional actions, for example the 1976 Church Committee investigation, which was set up in the wake of revelations about assassination plots organized by the CIA. The investigation resulted in some 183 recommendations, and subsequent legislative proposals and debate that consumed considerable attention over a number of years. In part, that debate focused on specific, clearly defined limitations and prohibitions on intelligence activities.

Obviously, as we move forward with reforming congressional oversight of the intelligence community, there will be a need to balance strong and effective oversight with not hamstringing the community and creating an even more risk averse environment.

The culture of risk aversion in the clandestine service was also accentuated by executive branch actions during the Clinton administration. For example, risk aversion in the clandestine service was compounded by the 1995 Deutch Guidelines, CIA guidelines promulgated by then-Director of the CIA, John Deutch, which severely limited the ability of CIA case officers to meet with and recruit foreign nationals who may have been involved in dubious activities or have blood on their hands. Incidentally, during his tenure, Mr. Deutch also conducted a CIA-wide ``asset scrub,'' which applied an inflexible reporting standard to all CIA spies

that, if not met, resulted in their automatic firing. How can you effectively penetrate an organization or adversarial regime without dealing with unsavory characters? Thankfully, the Deutch Guidelines were finally repealed by the DCI in July 2002; but, their repercussions had a lasting effect on the culture of the Directorate of Operations.

So, here we have a clandestine service unwilling to take the risks that are, by nature, part of the job. Compound that with the fact that the DO had few resources. Between 1992 and 1998, the Central Intelligence Agency closed one-third of its overseas field stations, lost one-quarter of its clandestine service case officers, lost 40 percent of its recruited spies, and CIA intelligence reports declined by nearly one-half.

The result of this deterioration of a key part of our intelligence community was that, before 9/11, we had not one human source inside al- Qaida's command structure. What did the 9/11 Commission recommend to transform the clandestine service into a unit more effectively able to penetrate al-Qaida.

The CIA Director should emphasize . . . ``(b) transforming

the clandestine service by building its human intelligence

capabilities; (c) developing a stronger language program,

with high standards and sufficient financial incentives; (d)

renewing emphasis on recruiting diversity among operations

officers so they can blend more easily in foreign cities; (e)

ensuring a seamless relationship between human source

collection and signals collection at the operational level;

and (f) stressing a better balance between unilateral and

liaison operations.

As Reuel Gerecht, American Enterprise Institute scholar, commented in a recent article in the Weekly Standard, ``That's it. In a 447-page report on the intelligence failings of 9/11, the clandestine service gets nine lines. The important bit--`transforming the clandestine service . . .' is a 10-word platitude.'' The intelligence reform bill we are considering this week similarly fails to delve into this central problem. Even if we put the resources back in, we have not figured out how to deal with the mentality now ingrained in our covert officers.

Finally, as I previously noted, I believe the bill currently before the Senate will exacerbate the risk aversion problem in at least one respect: its creation of an excessive, redundant bureaucracy to oversee the protection of privacy and civil liberties. Should there be protections and oversight? Yes. But should there be so many layers of such oversight that intelligence officers are more worried about getting into trouble than about adequately performing their missions? Certainly not.

The provisions in this bill dealing with privacy and civil liberties are quite extensive. In summary, the bill establishes: two officers within the National Intelligence Authority, one responsible for privacy, the other for civil rights and civil liberties; an Inspector General within the National Intelligence Authority, who, in part, monitors and informs the National Intelligence Director of any violations of civil liberties and privacy; an Ombudsman within the National Intelligence Authority to protect against so-called politicization of intelligence; an independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board with extensive investigative authorities; and privacy and civil liberties officers within the Departments of Justice, Defense, State, Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, the National Intelligence Authority, the Central Intelligence Agency, and any other department, agency, or element of the Executive Branch designated by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to be appropriate for coverage.

These provisions reach far beyond what the 9/11 Commission recommended--an executive branch board to oversee the protection privacy and civil liberties. The President already created such a board through executive order on August 27.

Under the construct offered in the Governmental Affairs Committee bill there will simply be too many people performing the same task. It will be inefficient; it will be counterproductive; and it will add yet another legal hurdle for our intelligence officers to overcome. Our goal should be to make it easier for them to do their jobs--to detect and prevent future catastrophic terrorist attacks--not more difficult. Let's not forget why we are reforming the intelligence community. It is to prevent another 9/11. The problem is not that we invaded suspects' privacy, but that we didn't know enough about them to prevent the attack.

I offered an amendment to S. 2845, which I discussed several times on the floor of the Senate, to eliminate some of this redundant oversight. I withdrew that amendment reluctantly, but with the understanding that the issue would be resolved in conference. I plan to continue to press my case on this matter because I believe it is central to ensuring that we do not make worse the already existing problem of risk aversion within the intelligence community.

Second, group think. This problem is not unrelated to the problem of risk aversion. The result of analysts' fears of taking risks is often that they are unable to think outside the box, to break free of the generally-accepted assumptions held by their agency or by the rest of the intelligence community.

In his August 16 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger discussed the problem at length, stating:

Different organizations will drift gravitate towards

different ways of organizing reality--based upon their range

of responsibilities and, also, their interests in a narrower

sense. Most individuals make themselves comfortable in their

own organizations by not challenging a prevailing consensus.

Another cause of group think is simply a lack of imagination. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Henry Kissinger raises some important questions about the reforms currently being pursued. He states that the basic premise of the ``current emphasis on centralization'' through the creation of a director of national intelligence ``seems to be that the cause of most intelligence failures is inadequate collection and coordination.'' Kissinger believes, however, that ``the breakdown usually occurs in the assessment stage.'' He attributes that breakdown to a failure of imagination to connect the dots of available knowledge. His op-ed describes in detail how a lack of imagination led to the major intelligence failures of the last 4 decades: the 1973 Middle East War, the Indian nuclear test of 1998, the September 11 attacks, and the failure to find WMD stockpiles in Iraq.

How do we solve this problem? Well, let's take the issue of Iraq's weapons. The Senate concluded in its bipartisan report on the intelligence community's assessment:

The presumption that Iraq had active WMD programs was so

strong that formalized IC mechanisms to challenge assumptions

and ``group think,'' such as ``red teams,'' ``devil

advocacy,'' and other types of alternative, or competitive

analysis, were not utilized.

Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger recommends precisely what the bipartisan report said was lacking. In his testimony, SASC, August 16, he stated:

The only solution within an organization is to establish a

Devil's Advocacy organization to challenge the prevailing

beliefs.

This is an imperfect solution, as Secretary Schlesinger further notes, but, still, if we had had such mechanisms, we would have had a far greater chance of reaching the truth. Yet, neither the Commission nor the Committee recommends such a ``red team'' or ``devil's advocacy'' entity or process. We will have to do it by amendment.

This is one place where we can learn from our past successes and failures. Historically speaking, ``red teams,'' have been helpful inside and outside of the intelligence community. In the 1970s, for example, the intelligence community persisted in underestimating the size and scale of the Soviet arms build-up. In response, Congress created a ``red team'' called Team B to review the IC's analysis. Team B's report, which documented how far off the intelligence community was, laid the foundation for President Reagan to rebuild the U.S. military in the 1980s.

More recently, the Rumsfeld Commission on the ballistic missile threat was created to play devil's advocate with the findings of the intelligence community. Not surprisingly, the Commission found the estimates far off, dramatically underestimating the time it would take for a country to procure or produce a ballistic missile.

The chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, recognize the group think problem in their

September 8 Washington Post op-ed, and offer that their proposed reforms ``institutionalize information-sharing, thus guaranteeing a competitive airing of views.'' They further state:

We don't want dissent quashed by group-think; we want

competing analyses to be shared broadly . . .

But as key experts, like Henry Kissinger and Jim Schlesinger, point out, it is valid to question whether centralized intelligence--which we are now pursuing--encourages conformity, making the problem of group think worse. At best, that structural change will do nothing to affect the problem.

Last, but certainly not least, leadership is a problem that simply cannot be solved legislatively. Conversely, good leadership can potentially solve the other cultural issues I have identified.

Al-Qaida's attack on Washington and New York occurred after a long period of poor leadership at the highest levels of the U.S. Government regarding terrorism. Despite repeated assaults on the United States and its interests, the U.S. Government was still unwilling to treat terrorism as a true national security issue until after 9/11.

This was, of course, partly a failure of political leadership. But the intelligence community is not absolved, either. The problem of inadequate allocation of resources in the intelligence community, for example, was at least partly a result of confused leadership in the community. In spite of a 1998 declaration of war on al-Qaida by the Director of Central Intelligence, two key organizations--namely, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration-- were not allowed, though they offered, to throw their support behind the antiterror effort.

Counterterrorism analytic centers were fragmented across the administration at the Pentagon, the CIA, and various FBI locations. Only after 9/11 did various intelligence and law enforcement entities begin to put aside their parochialism and work together in a more productive manner. And certainly reorganization was a partial fix for the problem--in particular, the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC, which merges and analyzes all threat information in a single location under the direction of the DCI, has been beneficial. But, with better leadership of the intelligence community, the condition would not have been so prevalent in the first place. It would not have taken a monumental disaster for these entities to cooperate more effectively with one another.

I would now like to briefly discuss visa reform. I am pleased that the Collins-Lieberman bill, with the addition of Kyl amendment No. 3926, will at least tighten up immigration law to require, in statute, that most temporary visa applicants be personally interviewed by State Department consular officers during the application process, and that all such applicants be required to actually complete their visa applications to get a visa. Past misuse of immigration law allowed 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers to enter the United States without completing their applications or being interviewed.

Some might question why such State Department regulations need to be included as statutory language in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Section 214(b) of the INA governs the admission of nonimmigrants to the United States. It presumes that an alien who applies for a temporary visa actually intends to stay in the United States permanently ``until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular office'' that he intends to stay temporarily. This means that the burden of proof is on the alien to show that he is eligible to receive a visa and that he will not overstay or otherwise violate the terms of the visa. Had the State Department required its consular affairs officers to implement section 214(b) correctly, and thus to conduct in-person interviews and require that visa applications be completely and accurately filled out, to meet the burden of proof requirement, the tragedy of 9/11 could have been prevented.

The intent of Section 214(b) was not carried out by the State Department consular affairs officers who issued visas to the 9/11 hijackers. Fifteen of the 19 men who flew hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania countryside were Saudi nationals who should have been denied admission to the United States under section 214(b) because their visa applications contained inaccuracies or omissions. These were not trivial mistakes in spelling or punctuation. The applications omitted such fundamental information as: means of financial support, home address, and destination or address while in the United States. According to an October 28, 2002 National Review article by Joel Mowbray under the title and subtitle ``Visas for Terrorists: They were ill-prepared. They were laughable. They were approved,'' only one of the 15 applicants listed an actual destination address for inside the United States. The rest listed locations such as ``California,'' ``New York,'' or simply ``Hotel.''

Section 214(b) should also have been used to require face-to-face interviews of those applying for nonimmigrant visas. Only two of the 15 Saudi hijackers were interviewed by State Department officials. Such laxity by consular officers, however, occurred under guidelines and practices put in place by senior State Department officials. According to cables and other written notices sent over time by Mary Ryan, who was Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs on September 11, 2001, shortening the visa application process wherever possible was a ``very worthy goal.''

Such top-down guidelines were explored in an October 2002 GAO report, ``Border Security: Visa Process Should Be Strengthened as Antiterrorism Tool.'' The report says the State Department's written guidelines and resulting practices for visa issuance allowed for ``widespread discretionary adherence among consular officers in adhering to the burden of proof requirements included in section 214(b).'' The GAO report also says the State Department's ``Consular Best Practices Handbook'' gave consular managers and staff the discretion to ``waive personal appearance and interviews for certain nonimmigrant visa applicants.''

The 9/11 Commission was provided detailed information about the State Department's use of section 214(b) and its contribution, in my opinion, to the tragedy of 9/11. In a letter to the 9/11 Commission on April 23, 2004, I said how important it was that the 9/11 Commission focus on the State Department's contribution to the dysfunction of the visa-issuance system prior to September 11. In a followup letter on May 13, 2004 to the Commission, I stated that correct use of the statutory law governing nonimmigrant visa issuance could have kept several, if not all, of the 9/11 hijackers from entering the country.

The amendment that the bill managers have accepted is based on the regulations promulgated by the State Department in the Foreign Affairs Manual it issued after September 11. It requires that all aliens who apply for a nonimmigrant visa submit to an in-person interview with a consular affairs officer. Although the primary purpose of the in-person interview is to determine whether an applicant will overstay his or her visa, it is also a prime opportunity for a consular affairs officer to gauge the intent of the applicant to try to make sure that the applicant does not intend to harm the United States. I recognize that not every person may have to be interviewed, so my amendment allows applicants under the age of 12, individuals over the age of 65, diplomats, and certain other individuals to be exempt from the in- person interview requirement if the consular affairs officer deems it appropriate.

My amendment also requires that, even if the nonimmigrant visa applicant falls into a category for which an interview is not necessarily required, one will be required if he is not a national of the country in which he is applying for a visa; if he was previously refused a visa; or if he is listed in the Consular Lookout and Support System. CLASS is the State Department's database that lists all applicants about whom the Department has security concerns. Finally, my amendment requires that all applicants for nonimmigrant visas provide complete and accurate information in response to every question on the nonimmigrant visa application. This is to ensure that the application is completely filled out and that the applicant has provided enough information to meet the burden of proof required by section 214(b) of the INA.

The codification of these few provisions will help ensure that terrorists are not able to enter the country using legally issued visas. Provisions to that effect ought to be in any piece of legislation aimed at preventing additional terrorist attacks on this country. I appreciate the willingness of Senators Collins and Lieberman to work with me to modify the amendment to make it acceptable.

Before I close, I want to note that I have separately discussed another related area in serious need of attention: making sure we have the legal authorities and resources we need to effectively fight terror. I had prepared several amendments on this topic, which I intended to introduce to this bill, but because some Members erroneously believed that these amendments were highly controversial, I chose not to pursue them.

These amendments, one of which was my Tools for Terrorism, TFTA, bill in its entirety, others of which were parts of that bill, should not have been considered controversial. TFTA is not new--it is composed of bills that have been pending, have been approved by the Justice Department, and have been the subject of nine separate hearings. TFTA consists of all or part of 11 bills currently pending in the House and Senate. Every provision of the bill previously has either been introduced as a bill in the House or Senate or had a committee hearing. Every provision of the bill has the full support of the Justice Department. Collectively, the provisions of this bill have been the subject of nine separate hearings before House and Senate committees and have been the subject of four separate committee reports. Furthermore, collectively, the bills included in TFTA have been pending before Congress for 13 years.

That said, in the interest of allowing the Senate to move forward quickly, and noting that some of the provisions of my TFTA bill are included in the House version of the Intelligence Reform bill, I have decided to continue to try to press my case during the House-Senate conference.

My intention today was not to create a sense of futility in this body's efforts, but rather to express reservations about the proposed solutions and highlight those areas I know need to be resolved if we are to effectively wage the war on terror. A careful reading of the congressional joint inquiry report, the Senate's Iraq intelligence investigation, and the 9/11 Commission's narrative of the failures that led to 9/11 all point to far deeper deficiencies than can be solved by bureaucratic reorganization.

I plan to vote for this bill, but I do so recognizing that it is imperfect, and also with the clear intention of continuing to press my case for various modifications in conference.

Finally, while it is true that, if we do reform right, we will be able to improve our intelligence, it will never be the case that our intelligence is perfect. It is next to impossible to imagine every possibly means by which we might be attacked. As Judge Richard Posner points out in his New York Times Book review:

The [9/11 Commission] narrative points to something

different, banal and deeply disturbing; that it is almost

impossible to take effective action to prevent something that

hasn't occurred previously.

This does not mean we should not try; it does mean that we have to be realistic about the limitations of intelligence.

Those limitations make solid political leadership all the more important. Intelligence, diplomacy, military, law enforcement--these are all tools in our arsenal to fight the war on terror and whatever other threats may come our way. Decisionmakers must be willing to use them effectively. That is what will offer our greatest protection against another devastating attack.

Mr. President, I have come to the floor to speak about the issue of reimportation of prescription drugs. I also wanted to talk for a moment about the tax bill that is being negotiated by the conference committee between the House and Senate, especially with respect to the runaway plant issue and tax incentives that now occur for those who shut down their American manufacturing plants and export jobs. I will speak about those two issues briefly.

Before I do that, I'd like to address some of the remarks of my colleague from Georgia, who was speaking when I came to the floor of the Senate.

I disagreed strongly with my colleague when I heard his speech at one of the national political conventions. He certainly had every right to give that speech. I disagree strongly with the presentation he gave on the Senate floor, but he has every right, of course, to express those opinions on the Senate floor.

I have great respect for my colleague from Georgia. I honor his service. He has provided great public service to this country in many different ways, so I honor that service.

But I, of course, reserve the right to disagree with my colleague as well, just as he came to the floor and disagreed with some of the votes that have been cast by Senator Kerry.

The last time I was on the floor when my colleague from Georgia came to speak, he was offering a proposal that we take away the right of the American people to vote for Senators. He proposed instead that Senators be appointed or selected by State legislatures, and that the right of the people to vote for Senators should be rescinded.

Well, I thought that did not sound like a very modern approach. We left that idea a long time ago in this country, and I got up and spoke and indicated I did not have quite such a pessimistic view of this country's future and certainly did not agree that we ought to revert back to the States appointing their Senators and taking away from the American people the right to elect Senators. But that was the only previous occasion I recall on which I took the floor of the Senate and disagreed with my distinguished colleague from Georgia. I must say, however, that I feel compelled to disagree once again.

I have not come to the Senate floor to be critical, ever, of President George W. Bush's military record. I would not do that. And I would not be critical of Senator Kerry's military record. Both of them served.

My colleague came to talk about Senator Kerry's record in voting for defense for this country. This is not a new technique in American politics. This is timeless. It always happens that someone stands up and points at someone else and says: You don't represent this country's interests in defense. You don't support a strong defense. You are not willing to stand up when you need to stand up and be counted and support a strong defense for this country.

Sometimes that works. But let me just say this. I don't think it works when you point at someone who decided on graduation from Yale that he would volunteer to go to Vietnam; not only that, he would volunteer to serve on a swift boat, where he was certain to be involved in hostile action. He didn't have to do that. He did that, he volunteered. He received a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, three Purple Hearts, and still has fragments in his body from the wounds from which those Purple Hearts arose. I don't think it works to point fingers at that man and suggest he, somehow, is weak on defense.

My colleague's assessment of Senator Kerry has changed some. Senator Reid pointed out that in March of 2001, at a banquet in Georgia, my colleague from Georgia introduced Senator Kerry. Here is what he said about him:

My job tonight is an easy one. It's to present to you one

of this Nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best

known and greatest leaders, and a good friend.

Then he said this, my colleague from Georgia:

John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public

education, boost the economy and protect the environment.

Let me say that again because it is important. It is at odds with what we just heard from my colleague from Georgia on the floor of the Senate this afternoon. Speaking of John Kerry, my colleague from Georgia said:

John has worked to strengthen our military.

This is a speech from March 1, 2001. What is the difference between then and now? John Kerry has had the same record on defense.

Incidentally, John Kerry has supported a great amount of this country's defense: the Apache helicopter, Aegis, The Bradley, Black Hawk, B-2 bomber, C-17 cargo jets, F-16, F-18, Tomahawk missiles, C- 130s, and I could go on and on and on. Billions, tens of billions, yes, trillions of dollars for defense Senator Kerry has voted for.

What is the difference between March 1, 2001, in my colleague's assessment of Senator Kerry where he said ``John,'' speaking of Senator Kerry, ``has worked to strengthen our military,'' what is the difference between that and the discussion we have just heard today? The difference is, it's an election year and my colleague has, apparently, decided to change his mind. If there were an Olympic event called ``stretching,'' I have a couple of personal nominations for who might win the gold medal.

This ought not be, in American elections, an attempt to find out who is the worst. It ought to be a search for who is the best. Who can best lead this country? Who has a vision for the future that grows our economy, that protects our country, protects our homeland, provides for a strong defense, protects the environment? It is a search, in my judgment, for who is the best, not who is the worst.

We have two candidates running for President, both fully qualified to serve in that office. It does not serve our country well to point at one and say somehow he is weak on defense, doesn't support defense, especially when it is so at odds with the record. But it is now an election year. I guess almost anything goes.

There is a term, I suppose, for changing one's mind, and it is called flip-flop. I have not used it, but some have used it to the point of significant repetition this year. I will not use it here

except to say what we have just heard today is at significant odds, not only with the record of a member of our caucus who has served with great gallantry but also at odds with the previously stated views of the person who made the speech today.

Let me end as I began and say I honor the service of the Senator from Georgia. I disagree with him about these issues. Four weeks from today this country will see fit to make an informed choice between two men who strive to serve for the next 4 years as this country's President. Both candidates, I am sure, care about national security. Both care about homeland security. As was stated in the debate last week, both love this country.

I submit, just as one Senator, both are qualified to serve in that office. Both parties have nominated people they choose to support and support aggressively. I come to the Senate floor today to simply say this: John Kerry is someone with whom I have served for many years. I have watched him vote. The fact is, he supports a strong defense for this country. He always has and always will. When it came time to answer his call, his country's call, he left one of the prestigious colleges in this country upon graduation and said: Let me volunteer. He went to Vietnam. He went in harm's way.

There is no amount of energy or wind that can be exerted by others who will change the basic fact of a voting record that is in strong support of America's defense.

I am happy to yield.

That is correct.

I say to the Senator, I have, in fact. I serve on the appropriations subcommittee here on the Senate. I care a lot about this country's defense. And I voted against the MX missile program, because I felt it was a terrible waste of money. But I am a strong supporter of defense. I believe anyone who looks at my record will understand the weapons programs I supported, significant weapons programs, have added strength and boosted this country's capability.

Because I serve on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, I watch what others do as well. From a firsthand knowledge, I say that Senator Kerry has a strong and aggressive record in supporting this country and supporting a strong defense for this country.

No question about that.

My colleague from Georgia was talking about Vice President Cheney and John Kerry. I didn't quite understand that comparison of their records on defense. I have lived a couple of doors down from Dick and Lynne Cheney for a number of years. I know them well. I would never come to suggest somehow that Dick Cheney doesn't support a strong defense. And I know John Kerry very well. I certainly wouldn't come to suggest he doesn't support a strong defense. Both of them have records that demonstrate a support for this country's defense.

Well, enough about that. I didn't come to the floor of the Senate to speak about that. But I felt that there should be some response to the statement by the Senator from Georgia this afternoon which I think, frankly, is not supported at all by the facts.

American Jobs

On May 5 of this year, we had a vote in the Senate. That vote was on an amendment that I had offered, together with my colleague, Senator Mikulski from Maryland. The intent of the vote was to shut down a loophole that rewards U.S. companies that move their manufacturing jobs overseas.

Yes, we have that kind of loophole. It is a perverse, insidious loophole in our Tax Code that says: Shut down your U.S. manufacturing plant, get rid of your U.S. employees and outsource those jobs, and, God bless you, while you leave this country, we will give you a tax cut.

Talk about a perverse incentive to do exactly the wrong thing, that is it.

We are now seeing the conference committee between the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee meet and negotiate over a FSC/ETI bill, sometimes also called the ``jobs bill.'' If they finish putting this bill together in conference and do not include a provision to eliminate this perverse incentive, they will have done precious little to help protect, nurture, and strengthen American jobs.

Incidentally, when I offered this amendment on May 5 of this year, the amendment was tabled by a vote of 60 to 39. Sixty Members of the Senate voted to say they did not want to shut down a tax loophole that provides an incentive for companies to fire their American workers and move their U.S. jobs overseas. So that loophole still exists in tax law.

Now I read in the paper this morning they really do not want to pay for the cost of this FSC/ETI bill by shutting down loopholes. This is unbelievable.

We have American companies now that decide they want to do business through a post office box in the Bahamas or the Grand Caymans. Why? Do they want to be a citizen of the Grand Caymans? Not exactly. They just want to avoid paying U.S. taxes so everyone else can pay taxes that these folks do not pay.

I suggest that once companies have decided to move their corporation and run their business out of a mailbox in the Bahamas for the purpose of avoiding U.S. taxes, the next time they get in trouble maybe they ought to call the Bahamian Navy to protect them. I understand the Bahamian Navy has 20 people. Maybe the next time one of these companies gets in trouble with some expropriated assets or other issue they can call on the combined flexed muscle of the Bahamian Navy.

My point is simple. We have a real problem in this country with the outsourcing of jobs. In the last 4 years, we have actually lost jobs at a time when we are supposed to be creating jobs. We have an expanding population. We need new jobs. But we are losing jobs.

I will not give the same speech I have given previously about the Radio Flyer and Huffy bicycles, those quintessentially American products that are now being made in China. I will not talk about the all-American cookie, the Fig Newton, now being made in Monterey, Mexico, so that it is now Mexican food. I will not give the speech about the outsourcing of these jobs to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and China. But if this country does not wake up soon and get rid of these pernicious loopholes in the tax law that say, ship your U.S. jobs overseas and we will give you a big tax cut, if we do not do that, we are not going to succeed.

Growing an economy requires us to do the right things. We cannot talk about growing the economy and then support tax loopholes and say, by the way, ship your U.S. jobs overseas. That does not work. We are outsourcing jobs every single day and no one seems to care much about it.

Incidentally, that also relates to the trade deficit, because when we outsource the jobs and ship the products from those jobs back into this country, it means we exacerbate the trade deficit, which is the largest deficit in human history.

One can make an argument as an economist--I used to teach a bit of economy in college--one can make an argument that the budget deficit is money we owe to ourselves. We cannot make that argument with respect to a trade deficit. We owe a trade deficit to other countries. It will be paid inevitably by a lower standard of living in our country in the future.

The largest trade deficit in history ought to be cause for substantial alarm in this Chamber and at the White

House. Yet there is almost a conspiracy of silence all around this town about a trade deficit that, in my judgment, hurts this country very badly.

Incidentally, Lou Dobbs has written a book about this trade deficit. I encourage colleagues and others to read it. His program, more than any on television these days, is talking about the danger of this trade deficit.

At any rate, as they finalize this jobs bill in conference, which is going on as I speak, they need to come back to the amendment I offered last May 5 with my colleague, Senator Mikulski. They need to shut down this perverse incentive in tax law, which gives benefits and encouragement and financial help to companies that move their jobs overseas.

Reimportation of Prescription Drugs

Let me make one other point on another subject that I think is critical. We are told we are near the end of this session. Perhaps on Friday of this week we will complete our work and then come back for a lameduck session, which happens to be a terrible idea. Perhaps, because this Congress has not done much of the right kind of work or much of the work it needs to do, we will have to have a lameduck session.

As we near the end of this session, the one relentless issue that many Members of Congress say they care about and want to do something about is the issue of the prices of prescription drugs. We pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and there are far too many in this country who cannot afford them.

Senior citizens are 12 percent of our population yet they consume over one-third of the prescription drugs in America. Senior citizens have reached that point in their lives when they have a fixed income. Yet one-third of the prescription drugs are taken by our senior citizens. Why? Because they must. These are lifesaving drugs, miracle drugs. My hat is off to the pharmaceutical industry and to the researchers at the National Institutes of Health and others who have helped create these new drugs, but miracle drugs offer no miracle to those who cannot afford to take them.

I sat on a bale of straw the other day at a farm in southern North Dakota with a fellow who is 87 years old. He told me: I fought cancer for 3 years and I think I finally have beaten it. This is an 87-year- old man. I fought cancer for 3 years and I think I finally won. For those 3 years, my wife and I drove to Canada to buy the prescription drugs I needed to fight this cancer.

Why? Because the same FDA approved drug, the identical pill, is put in the same bottle, made by the same company, but is priced at a dramatically lower price in Canada.

He said: For 3 years, we went to Canada to save that money because we had to. Senior citizens should not have to go to Canada to save money on prescription drugs.

He is right about that. I would prefer that pharmacist be able to go to Canada to purchase those lower priced prescription drugs from the pharmacist in Canada, come back, and pass the savings along to the consumers in our country.

By getting rid of the artificial barriers that prevent re- importation, we would put downward pressure on prescription drug prices in this country so people would not have to go anywhere but their local drugstore to purchase prescription drugs. They could purchase them here for a fair price. But we are charged the highest prices in the world for these drugs.

We are told by the Food and Drug Administration that if we reimport prescription drugs from Canada in any organized way that there would be a safety issue. We are told by the Secretary of Health and Human Services that there may be a safety issue. We are told by the President that he thinks maybe we should look at this but there might be a safety issue.

That suggests somehow that Americans are not able to do what Europeans have done everyday for years. The Europeans have something called parallel trading. Their parallel trading programs allow someone from Germany to buy a prescription drug from Spain, someone from France to buy a prescription drug from Italy.

They don't have any safety issues in Europe. The marketplace determines the price for the drug, and the market puts downward pressure so the Europeans don't pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs as we do. They do what is called parallel trading, and there are no safety issues at all. European officials have testified before our committees. The safety issues simply are not there. It is a bogus issue.

We have drafted a bipartisan piece of legislation called the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act. Myself, along with Senators Snowe, McCain, Stabenow, Feingold, and others, we have drafted a bipartisan piece of legislation that systematically addresses the safety issues so that there cannot be any safety concerns. Our bill would allow the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada and from other major developed countries and would put downward pressure on prescription drug prices. The House of Representatives has passed such a bill. That bill is on the calendar at the desk. The bipartisan bill which we have introduced is similar to the bill that is at the desk. Yet we are unable to get a final vote in the Senate.

We have had substantial discussion. I had a discussion with the majority leader on this subject at midnight one night earlier this year on the Senate floor. I had a hold on a nominee. I withdrew that hold because I believed we had an agreement that we were going to work toward an opportunity to have a vote on this legislation. I believed that agreement with the majority leader existed. He now indicates it was not an agreement for a vote. He indicates it was an agreement that a process would begin and that the authorizing committee would work on this. The authorizing committee worked on it, to be sure. They would have markups scheduled and markups cancelled, markups scheduled and markups cancelled. The fact is, they never were able to get a bill out of committee because they couldn't get consensus on anything. We have a consensus on the bill that is on the calendar. We have a consensus on the bipartisan bill. If there is a vote on that in the Senate, it will pass by a significant margin. We don't need another consensus. There is a consensus that already exists. What we need is a vote on the floor of the Senate.

I encourage the majority leader once again to allow us the opportunity to cast this vote. Senator McCain, Senator Snowe, myself, Senator Stabenow, Senator Feingold, Senator Daschle, Senator Kennedy and many others have worked very hard on this issue. In my judgment, it is a disservice to those who deserve to pay fair prices for prescription drugs not to have a vote on this bill. It is a disservice to their interests for us not to complete work on this bill during this session of the Congress.

I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record two editorials. One is by the Chicago Tribune and it is entitled ``Shielding the Drug Industry.'' This says essentially what I have said:

While Congress dithers, States and cities skirt if not

break the law by helping seniors and others take advantage of

lower prescription-drug prices in Canada.

And the editorial talks about the desperate need for Congress to pass a law dealing with reimportation. They specifically feel that the legislation that is before the Congress would be meritorious and they talk about Peter Rost who is vice president of marketing for one of the largest drug companies who broke ranks with the drug industry in the last couple of weeks and publicly endorsed the proposal in Congress that my colleagues and I have sponsored.

Then I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a New York Times editorial that is titled ``The Senate's Chance on Drug Costs.''

If Dr. Bill Frist, the Senator majority leader, knows

what's good for the body politic, he will allow a quick floor

vote on the drug reimportation bill he has been bottling up

for the benefit of President Bush and the pharmaceutical

industry.

As I have indicated, there is a bipartisan group of Senators who have worked a long while on this issue. The House of Representatives passed this idea by a wide bipartisan margin. This is not a partisan issue. It is bipartisan.

My hope is that the majority leader will decide that as a matter of scheduling, we will, before we adjourn sine die, address this issue and resolve it for the benefit of the American people. There is no safety issue. Everyone knows that is a bogus issue. To continue to raise that issue suggests somehow that Americans are unable to do what the Europeans have done routinely year after year. That is, put together a system--we call it reimportation; in Europe it is called parallel trading--that is safe for consumers and that puts downward pressure on prescription drug prices.

I yield the floor.

Mr President, I rise to address a very specific but invaluable component of the intelligence reform package before us today.

As many may know, before the release of the 9/11 Commission report earlier this year, I introduced stand-alone legislation--cosponsored by Senator Mikulski--creating an Inspector General for Intelligence. The ``Intelligence Community Accountability Act of 2004'' proposed an independent inspector general for the entire intelligence community-- all fifteen agencies and department members. I introduced this legislation largely as a result of my experience as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee which undertook a year-long investigation on the pre-war intelligence of Iraq.

I commend the efforts and tremendous work of the authors of the underlying bill--they have embraced the concept and spirit of my earlier bill and have included language in their legislation creating an Inspector General for the National Intelligence Director. I would also like to thank Senators Roberts, Mikulski and Feinstein for their support in being original cosponsors of an amendment I was prepared to offer on this subject. I will not offer that amendment but I want to make clear my intentions to continue working for better and more comprehensive accountability in our intelligence community.

In that vein, I want to express my strong opposition to any amendment or proposal that would weaken the language on the authorities and powers of the NID's inspector general. Any such amendment, if accepted or approved, would be a grave step backward in an area that is in critical need of a step forward. . . . I am of course talking about accountability in the intelligence community.

Any amendment to scale back the IG provisions of the bill would fly in the face of the 521-page report that followed the committee's investigation on Iraq pre-war intelligence and would ignore vital problems of information sharing that have been found throughout the community.

Any inspector general who is to serve the National Intelligence Director must have the power and authority to access employees and information in the agencies that lie in the national intelligence program. How can an IG be effective if his hands are tied because of turf battles and arguments over jurisdiction?

My preference would be to enhance some of the authorities of the NID's inspector general as proposed by the underlying bill, but I would rather work to preserve the bill's language as it exists now than to gut it through the passage of any proposal that rescinds the abilities of the IG to delve into the coordination and communication between and among the various entities of the intelligence community.

Issues of accountability have often been central to the work we as Senators do in seeking to bring better government to our constituents-- particularly when matters of national security are at stake.

I saw firsthand the consequences of serious inadequacies in accountability during my 12 years as a member of the House Foreign Affairs International Operations Subcommittee and as Chair of the International Operations Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During the 99th Congress, I worked to bring the State Department Accountability Review Board into fruition as part of the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1986.

Among other issues, it was a lack of accountability that permitted the radical Egyptian Sheik Rahman, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, to enter and exit the U.S. five times totally unimpeded even after he was put on the State Department's Lookout List in 1987, and allowed him to get permanent residence status by the INS even after the State Department issued a certification of visa revocation. In 1995 and again after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, I introduced legislation establishing Terrorist Lookout Committees in our embassies and consulates abroad--all in an effort to create more accountability in the protection of our homeland.

In this same vein, my membership on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has allowed me to realize that the need for greater levels of accountability in our intelligence community is and must be a priority. It is all too evident that in addressing the key concerns and problems seen in the management of our intelligence agencies, accountability is an area unquestionably in need of dramatic improvement.

I am pleased that as intelligence community reform has gained momentum, the concept of an inspector general has been very much a part of the debate. Indeed, an inspector general is included in the broad and comprehensive intelligence reform legislation authored by Senator Feinstein--legislation that I was proud to co-sponsor earlier this year.

An inspector general for the whole intelligence community was also included in reform legislation offered by Senator Graham, the former chairman of the Senate intelligence community. Language creating a community-wide inspector general was contained in the proposal by current Intelligence Committee Chairman Roberts as well as the recent bill offered by Senators McCain and Lieberman.

And as I indicated, an inspector general is included in the underlying bill crafted by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. I commend and, once again, thank all of my colleagues for including this key component in their proposals. This bill takes a step forward in addressing the key issue of intelligence community accountability and it should not be weakened by any additional amendments or modifications.

The belief that any new Director of National Intelligence should have an independent inspector general is one that few seriously dispute. In testimony before the intelligence committee in July, former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre stated that an inspector general ``will help far more in driving and shaping the quality of outputs from this community.'' And Secretary of State Colin Powell called an inspector general a ``good idea'' while speaking before the Governmental Affairs Committee.

When I first drafted and then introduced my stand-alone legislation in early June, I had certainly envisioned that the inspector general the bill would establish would reside within a newly re-organized intelligence community. When I introduced my bill, I stated then that it was intended to be part of a larger initiative to overhaul the entire intelligence community's organizational structure. We have reached that point, and I am here today to continue my efforts to ensure that the final product the Senate approves contains the best possible mechanisms to bring accountability to the community.

As I indicated earlier, I have participated in this national debate on bettering our diplomatic, intelligence and national security services on many fronts and for many years. But it was as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which spent a year reviewing the pre-war intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, the regime's ties to terrorism, Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses and his regime's impact on regional stability that I realized the real and dire need for intelligence community change.

In looking at the intelligence community, we must remember that it is an amorphous entity made of up fifteen agencies, parts of departments, and independent bodies all spread out within our Federal Government. They each have their own mission, chain of command, procedures, history and institutional paradigms. The necessity for a stronger, independent head of the intelligence community became obvious to me and that measures must be legislated and instituted to hold the community and its amalgamation of agencies more accountable for the failures and shortcomings we had discovered.

The committee's report on the pre-war intelligence on Iraq revealed systemic flaws in the intelligence community, perhaps, most notably in many instances, a stunning lack of accountability and sound, ``hands- on'' management practices. These poor management practices contributed to the mis-characterization of intelligence reporting on Iraq's WMD programs.

I recognize that intelligence analysis is an imprecise art, with rarely--if ever--any absolutes; however, our report revealed that many judgements regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and capabilities were based on old assumptions allowed to be carried over year after year, virtually unchecked and unchallenged, without any critical re-examination of the issue.

In short, there was a lack of analytic rigor performed on one of the most critical and defining issues spanning more than a decade--that of the preponderance of weapons of mass destruction within Iraq and the looming threat they posed to Iraq's neighbors and to the U.S.

Intelligence community managers, collectors and analysts believed that Iraq had WMDs, a notion that dates back to Iraq's pre-1991 efforts to retain, build and hide those programs. In many cases, the committee's report showed that the intelligence community made intelligence information fit into its preconceived notions about Iraq's WMD programs.

From our review, we know the intelligence community relied on sources that supported its predetermined ideas, and we also know that there was no alternative analysis or ``red teaming'' performed on such a critical issue, allowing assessments to go unchallenged. This loss of objectivity or unbiased approach to intelligence collection and analysis led to erroneous assumptions about Iraq's WMD program.

For example, the committee's review showed that analysts minimized reporting from a biological weapons source because the source reported information that did not fit with their beliefs about the existence of mobile biological weapons facilities.

We also know that the key judgment in the National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle ``probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents'' overstated what was in the intelligence reporting. This review revealed that some intelligence community UAV analysts failed to objectively assess significant evidence that clearly indicated that non-biological weapons delivery missions were more likely.

In addition, the committee's report revealed that, despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that the aluminum tubes Iraq was trying to procure were for artillery rockets, some intelligence community analysts rejected information and analysis from experts, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Department of Energy, who refuted the claim that the tubes were being procured for use in Iraq's nuclear weapons program. This information was rejected because it did not fit into some analysts' notion that Iraq was procuring these tubes as part of its nuclear reconstitution effort.

Clearly stated, the intelligence community failed to ``think outside the box,'' a phrase often used by the community's analytic cadre to describe more innovative approaches to examining a problem set.

Critical thinking and objectivity are crucial elements in both the collection and analytic trade crafts and ought to be ingrained, by appropriate training and effective oversight by management, in every collector and analyst entering the ranks of the intelligence community. Management has the responsibility to ensure analysts are trained to produce--and actually produce--the best, most objective, unvarnished assessments, and both management and the analysts and collectors have the responsibility to ensure that their trade-craft is practiced properly.

Along this same line of accountability, our report revealed how poor leadership and management resulted in the intelligence community's failure to convey the uncertainties in many of

the assessments in the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

For example, the intelligence community assessed that Iraq had mobile transportable facilities for producing biological warfare agents but failed to alert intelligence consumers that this assessment was based primarily on reporting from a single human intelligence source to whom the intelligence community never had direct access and with whom there were credibility problems.

In the analysis on Iraq's chemical weapons activities, the intelligence community failed to explain that several assessments were based on layers of analysis of a single stream of intelligence reporting regarding the presence of a tanker truck that was assessed to be involved in the possible transshipment of chemical munitions.

Finally, during coordination sessions with Secretary Powell in preparation for his speech before the United Nations in February 2003, the intelligence community was instructed to include in the presentation only corroborated, solid intelligence.

In fact, from our review we learned that the DCI told a national intelligence officer who was also working on the speech to ``back up the material and make sure we had good stuff to support everything.'' When Secretary Powell spoke before the UN, he said that every statement he was about to make would be ``backed up by sources, solid sources . . . based on solid intelligence.''

Incredibly, from our review, we know that much of the intelligence provided or cleared by the CIA for inclusion in Secretary Powell's speech was incorrect and uncorroborated. For example, the IC never alerted Secretary Powell that most of the intelligence regarding Iraq's mobile biological warfare program came from one source with questionable credibility nor did anyone alert Secretary Powell to the fact one of the sources cited in his speech was deemed to be a fabricator--something known by IC analysts since the May 2002 issuance of a ``fabrication notice.''

An independent, over-arching community-level inspector general who can delve into the communication between and among agencies, or the lack thereof, can assist in bridging the disconnects that lead to such failures. This IG should be properly empowered to reach into and across the bureaucratic and organization lines that separate each community agency so that next time, if the Department of Energy's assessments about the intended use of aluminum tubes by a dangerous regime are ignored or cast aside, someone can be held accountable.

There is no question that the intelligence community requires systemic changes. We are here today to do just that. Americans have a right to know that their intelligence services are doing the best job possible in protecting their security. I say this even while I must recognize the dedication and professionalism of the thousands of Americans who make up our intelligence community.

Each day across this country and around the world, they labor, mostly without recognition, to keep this country safe from harm. Our intelligence employees work under very demanding conditions and in environments that are extremely dangerous and can often shift without notice.

It is their vigilance upon which we rely to give us the forewarning necessary to counter the many dangers present in our world. Although it is impossible to directly express our deep appreciation for their efforts, we have an obligation to express our eternal gratitude to those who serve America so well.

Yet, however appreciative we are of the service done by those who work in the fifteen agencies that make up our nation's intelligence community, we as a Congress have a responsibility to continue to work to find ways to help them do an even better job, and more importantly, to ensure that any failures are not repeated and that we learn from past mistakes. At the same time, we have an obligation to the people of this country to ensure that both pride and comfort in our intelligence services exist. The people of this Nation, and those of us elected to represent them, have a right to know that when mistakes are made, corrections soon follow. That is what brings us here today.

I ask unanimous consent that a chart entitled ``Decades of Terrorism'' be printed in the Record.

This chart beside me illustrates in the starkest of terms, what we are dealing with. . . ..and what this legislation is all about. I call the contents of this chart to the attention of my colleagues to serve as a reminder of ``the big picture.'' The goal of this reform movement is and has always been to make sure our intelligence agencies are better equipped, organized and managed so that we are in a greater position to detect threats and stop attacks. We want an intelligence community that is better prepared to ensure we don't keep adding to this list.

I also refer my colleagues to a quote from the preface of the 9/11 Commission Report: ``The massive departments and agencies that prevailed in the greatest struggles of the twentieth century mush work together in new ways, so that all the instruments of national power can be combined.'' This bill we are debating today speaks directly to this charge. And it is my view that a strong Inspector general is a vital component of that effort.

An inspector general will help to enhance the authorities of the National Intelligence Director that we will shortly create, assisting this person in instituting better management accountability, and helping him/her to resolve problems within the intelligence community systematically.

Ideally, the inspector general for intelligence should have the ability to investigate current issues within the intelligence community, not just conduct ``lessons learned'' studies. The IG should have the abilities to seek to identify problem areas and identify the most efficient and effective business practices required to ensure that critical deficiencies can be addressed before it is too late, before we have another intelligence failure, before lives are lost.

In short, an inspector general for intelligence that can look across the entire intelligence community will help improve management, coordination, cooperation and information sharing among the intelligence agencies. A strong, effective IG will help break down the barriers that have perpetuated the parochial, stove-pipe approaches to intelligence community management and operations.

As I stated earlier, I was prepared to offer an amendment that would have expanded on the language already included in the underlying bill-- but let me be clear, there are many positive aspects of the inspector general as contained in this bill.

I am pleased, for example, that the bill ensures independence of the IG by including a separate budget account for his office. I also welcome the language pertaining to staffing, reports, subpoena powers and complaint procedures.

I have no doubt that the authors of the underlying bill and I share the same goal--an independent IG with proper authorities to assist in preventing some of the failures I've detailed here today.

As the Chairman of the intelligence committee stated last week on the Senate floor, members of the committee received a frightening briefing

last week in closed session where we were told that despite the current terrorist threat we face, and the high state of alert we live under, information sharing between the intelligence agencies is still not taking place and no one is holding anyone accountable for their failure to do so.

Too many incidents of failure to prevent attacks, failure to properly collect the needed intelligence, failure to adequately analyze that intelligence and failure to share information within the community beg for better accountability in the entirety of the community. Who better to do this than a single IG, who can reach across the community, work with the existing individual agency IG's, and confront any problem with a macro, overarching view? It is my hope that the new inspector general for the NID, as authorized in this bill, will take great strides to guarantee that information sharing and accountability are woven into the fabric of the intelligence community. Mr. President, this is the whole reason we are here today.

Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment on legislation I am introducing today to provide a cost-of-living, COLA, adjustment for certain veterans' benefits programs. This COLA adjustment would affect payments made to nearly 3 million Department of Veterans Affairs, VA, beneficiaries, and would be reflected in beneficiary checks that are received in January 2005, and thereafter.

An annual cost-of-living adjustment in veterans benefits is an important tool which protects veterans' cash-transfer benefits against the corrosive effects of inflation. The principal programs affected by the adjustment would be compensation paid to disabled veterans, and dependency and indemnity compensation, DIC, payments made to the surviving spouses, minor children and other dependants of persons who died in service, or who died after service as a result of service- connected injuries or diseases.

The President's budget anticipates inflation to be at a 1.3-percent level at the close of this year as measured by the consumer price index, CPI, published by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. If inflation is held to the 1.3-percent level, that will be the level of COLA adjustment under this legislation since it ties the increase directly to the CPI increase as measured by the Department of Labor. Whatever the CPI increase eventually turns out to be, however, veterans' and survivors' benefits payments must be protected by being increased by a like amount. The Senate has already concurred with that judgment with passage of a budget resolution which assumes an increase equal to the CPI, and which sets aside the funds necessary to finance the COLA increase envisioned by this legislation.

I ask my colleagues to support this vital legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, as Chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 2484, a proposed bill to simplify and improve pay provisions for physicians and dentists, and to authorize alternate work schedules and executive pay for nurses. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this proposed legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated July 18, 2003.

My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. In this case, I delayed introduction of this measure so that certain provisions of the proposed legislation, which proposes extensive changes in the physician pay policies of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), might be reviewed by the Committee's staff, and by potentially-interested parties, prior to its introduction. I am pleased to state that many constructive ideas have been expressed, and the Committee's staff, working with the VA, the National Association of VA Physicians and Dentists, the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees, and other representatives of VA's labor force, have identified prospective modifications to the proposed bill's text which, all appear to agree, would represent improvements over the language of the legislation forwarded to the Senate in July 2003.

Even so, the bill I introduce today is the bill which the Secretary of Veterans Affairs sent to the Committee in July 2003. I have introduced that bill so that the original ``by request'' legislation might be available to the Senate, and to the public, as part of the public record. As is always my policy with respect to any such ``by request'' legislation, I reserve the right to oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Indeed, as I have indicated, the Committee's staff, with the assistance of VA and other interested parties, is already working on modifications to the bill as proposed by the administration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and a section-by-section analysis which accompanied it.

Mr. President, as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I have introduced today, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans' Affairs, S. 2485, a proposed bill to modify provisions of law relating to the administration of real property assets by the Department of Veterans' Affairs, VA. The Secretary of Veterans' Affairs submitted the elements of this proposed legislation to the President of the Senate by letters dated August 15, 2003, and October 3, 2003.

My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. In this case, however, I have departed from my usual course of simply introducing administration-advanced measures as forwarded to me. Measures that the administration forwarded in August and October, 2003, relate to similar subject matter, namely the administration of VA-controlled real property assets. It is my belief that these provisions, inasmuch as they are related, might be considered in a more orderly fashion as parts of a single piece of legislation. To facilitate that, I have included sections 401-403 of the administration's August 15, 2003, request, and sections 5-6 of the administration's October 3, 2003, request, in the single bill which I have introduced today. As is always my policy with respect to any such ``by request'' legislation, I reserve the right to oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment on legislation which I have introduced today which would, among other things, improve the education and housing benefits of our Nation's veterans. Education and housing benefits administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA, were the essence of one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the 20th Century, the 1944 GI Bill of Rights. Sixty years later, the Veterans' Benefits Improvements Act of 2004, which I introduce today, would build on that historic legacy.

Section 101 of the bill would allow for significant increases in Montgomery GI Bill, MGIB, educational assistance benefits by expanding on ``buy up'' legislation which I authored in 1999 and which was enacted as part of Public Law 106-419. Under the provisions of the existing ``buy up'' program, active duty service members can increase their monthly MGIB ``pay-out'' by making voluntary in-service contributions of up to $600 in addition to the $1,200 aggregate contribution which is made to secure basic eligibility for MGIB benefits. In return for this added $600 ``investment,'' a veteran can secure an increase in his or her monthly MGIB benefit of $150 per month. Assuming the veteran completes a 36-month course of full-time study, the added benefit amount to $5,400, an effective yield of $9 for every added dollar contributed. The legislation which I have introduced today would expand the ``buy-up'' program by allowing service members to voluntarily contribute more--up to $2000--to the program, in return for which they could ``buy'' up to an additional $18,000--or $500 per month over 36 months--in potential MGIB benefits. A service member who contributes the full $2,000 could thus increase his or her aggregate MGIB entitlement to $53,460, the amount that the College Board, an association of over 4,000 colleges and other educational organizations, estimates is necessary today to finance the average cost of tuition, fees, books, room and board, transportation, and expenses for a resident student at a four-year public institution of higher learning.

Section 102 of this bill would authorize VA to carry out a 4-year pilot program under which veterans could extend, for up to 2 years, their eligibility period to use MGIB education benefits. Current law states, in summary, that a veteran is entitled to 36 months of MGIB benefit, but only during a 10-year ``delimiting period'' beginning on the date of discharge from service. Section 102 of my bill would allow a veteran with a ``left-over'' entitlement to apply for a one-time extension of the delimiting period so that he or she might gain vocational or job readiness skills necessary to obtain or maintain employment. I believe that as the workforce evolves, so too must workers in order to stay competitive. Providing veterans with some flexibility in the use of a benefit they have earned--at a point in life beyond the ``delimiting period''--is a sensible approach to helping veterans obtain the skills they may need to stay competitive in a 21st Century workforce.

Section 103 of this legislation would prohibit veterans' education benefits from being considered when determining a veteran's entitlement to Federal financial aid administered by the Department of Education. Under current law, such benefits are already excluded from eligibility calculations in determining eligibility for some forms of assistance granted by Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, e.g., Pell grants and subsidized Stafford loans, but not for other forms of assistance, e.g., unsubsidized Stafford loans and campus-based aid. This legislation would rectify that anomaly by excluding veterans' education benefits from all such eligibility determinations.

Section 104 of the bill would fix yet another anomaly of law applicable to Reservists who are called to active duty. Current law generally specifies that such Reservists are eligible for MGIB benefits if they have served a minimum of 2 consecutive years of active duty. Current law also requires that service members contribute $100 a month during their first 12 months of service to gain eligibility for MGIB benefits. Because the Department of Defense (DoD) activates Reservists for indefinite periods of time, it is impossible for a Reservist to know at the beginning of his or her activation period--when a decision has to be made on contributing the requisite $100 per month--whether he or she will, in fact, end up serving 2 consecutive years of active duty and, thus, whether he or she will become eligible for MGIB benefits. Due to that uncertainty, activated Reservists are, quite reasonably, hesitant to make the requisite contributions. The DoD and VA have worked around this problem; they permit Reservists who end up serving 2 consecutive years to pay the $1,200 contribution at some later point-- but the law does not explicitly authorize that allowance. This legislation would update the law to authorize these ``late'' contributions.

Section 201 of this legislation would increase the maximum amount of the VA home loan guaranty from $60,000 to $83,425. A guaranty of $60,000 allows a veteran to purchase, without a down payment, a home with a value of four times that amount, or $240,000. In many areas of the country, the median cost of housing is over $300,000, effectively limiting the utility of this benefit. This legislation would raise the VA guaranty limit to make the effective amount of a VA loan equal to the so-called conforming loan rate in the non-VA secondary mortgage markets.

Sections 202 and 203 of this bill would expand on legislation I authored in 2002 that added a pilot adjustable rate mortgage, ARM, feature to VA's loan guaranty program. Currently, the pilot program, which expires on September 30, 2005, allows VA to guarantee only so- called ``hybrid'' ARMs. Even then, restrictive adjustment caps have effectively limited the program to only one type of hybrid ARM financing. This bill would give VA permanent authority to guaranty a full range of ARM financing, to include traditional 1-year ARMs and hybrid ARMs with interest rates fixed for periods of 3, 5, 7, or 10 years, consistent with the ARM provisions of the National Housing Act. I believe the housing benefit for veterans should, at the very least, equal that of benefits available for non-veterans through the FHA program.

Section 204 of this legislation resurrects legislation that was approved by the Senate during the 106th Congress, but which failed to pass the House. Current law mandates that VA collect a funding fee when veterans obtain a loan with a VA guaranty, but it also allows for a waiver of the funding fee if the veteran seeking housing assistance has suffered a service-connected disability. For the funding fee to be waived under current law, however, the veteran must already be receiving compensation, an event which can only occur after the service member has been discharged from service. Because VA has a presence at over 136 military discharge sites (where it conducts pre-discharge medical examinations), it is common for someone who is still in service to be adjudged disabled by VA. But because such a service member cannot yet receive veterans' compensation, VA cannot waive the funding fee even though an active-duty service can make use of his or her entitlement to a VA-guaranteed home loan while still in

service. This legislation would rectify that situation by, prospectively, allowing VA to waive funding fees for active duty service members who are eligible to receive compensation as a result of a pre-discharge examinations, but who are not yet discharged from service.

Section 301 of this legislation would rectify what I perceive to be an unintended oversight of the Veterans Employment Opportunity Act of 1998. That statute granted Federal job preferences to two classes of veterans--those who are ``preference eligible'' due to service during wartime or because of service-connected disability, and those who served on active duty for at least three years. The statute also authorized administrative and judicial redress but, by oversight, it limited such redress to the ``preference eligible'' class of veterans only. This legislation would extend current remedies to all veterans who are eligible for Federal job preferences.

Section 311 of this legislation would prohibit the collection of co- payments from veterans receiving VA-provided hospice care. The requirement for co-payments for hospice care is, I think, unduly burdensome in cases where the end of life is near. The Bush administration concurs; it requested this exemption in its fiscal year 2005 budget proposal. I am glad to advance this provision on behalf of the President.

Section 321 of this bill would extend three non-controversial statutory authorities that are now scheduled to expire. The first would extend, until 2009, the requirement that the VA's Advisory Committee on Former Prisoners of War submit a biennial report of its recommendations for improvements to benefits afforded to former prisoners of war. The second would make permanent VA authority to provide counseling and treatment services to veterans who have experienced sexual trauma while in service. The third would extend, until December 31, 2009, a reporting requirement imposed on VA's Special Medical Advisory Group. Finally, Section 331 of my legislation would update the definition of minority group members for purposes of the work of VA's Advisory Committee on Minority Veterans.

Mr. President, the principal thrust of this legislation is to improve and modernize aspects of VA education and housing programs which were first conceived 60 years ago. These improvements, and others contained in this bill, merit the support of the Senate. I request that support, and ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, the Senate has voted overwhelmingly to invoke cloture on the national intelligence reform bill. I voted against cloture on the bill. The Senate leadership, in supporting cloture on this bill--I speak most respectfully--argued that this debate has gone on long enough. In essence, that is what has been stated.

I will soon begin my 47th year in this body. I never thought I would see the demise of the Senate as a debating institution. I am very sorry about that. I have seen the demise of the Senate as a debating institution. I have been here when debate on a bill went over 100 days.

Today's situation is eerily reminiscent of the autumn of 2002. A few 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--I will refer to in that way--against Iraq just weeks before election day.

Like a whipped dog fearing his master, the Senate obediently complied with the demands of the White House, to which our leadership said: let us get this matter behind us; let us get it behind us.

I know many of the Members who come to this body in this day and time are from the other body, and I speak most respectfully of the other body. I came from the other body likewise. But I can remember when I was in the other body I often said, Thank God for the Senate of the United States. That is when I was still in the other body. Thank God for the Senate of the United States. They take their time over there to debate. In this day and time, we do not take time to debate.

Hindsight reveals the mistakes that the Senate made 2 years ago. 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. 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, or certainly scores of amendments, have focused on trying to speed up reforms that we already do not understand. Apparently, few Senators have dared to speak about the need for caution in arranging a massive, secretive bureaucracy. It would be the most secretive around.

The risk that this bill will grow into a hydra-headed monster increases exponentially as election day nears. Many believe the House bill will include a number of provisions unrelated to intelligence reform, all the way from amendments on immigration to reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. I hear lately the House has no intention of adding that last mentioned measure. 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? We have had it happen before. We have been jammed on these important bills. We have had our backs against the wall because of some nearing date, perhaps of a recess, and so forth. What kind of deals with the devil will be made in order to get this bill done in time for election day? That is the big rush--get this bill through 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. 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? If we pass this bill, who knows what may be lurking in the walls surrounding that conference between the two Houses unless the House should decide to accept the Senate-passed bill, making it all the more important for the Senate to take our time and thoroughly debate the bill.

The mistake 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 the question that has burned in the minds of millions of Americans for 3 years: Namely, how did such a powerful Nation fail to defend itself from those attacks?

In chilling detail, the panel's report lays out the facts about how the U.S. Government failed to stop 19 hijackers--not from Iraq--19 hijackers armed with box cutters; 19 hijackers, not from Iraq, not a one. Not even one of those 19 hijackers came from Iraq. Yet some have attempted to tie the hijackers with Iraq.

``The document is an improbable literary triumph,'' declared U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner in the New York Times Book Review. ``However, the commission's analysis and recommendations are unimpressive,'' he said, ``not sustained by the report's narrative,'' he said, ``come to very little . . . [and more] of the same.''

That is pretty 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 ax to grind.

The Senate Appropriations Committee held hearings 2 weeks ago on the September 11 recommendations. A bipartisan array of national security experts pleaded with the Congress as they gave testimony to the Appropriations Committee, pleaded with the Congress not to rush these reforms.

My, what an impressive list of names: The 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--we all remember him. He has been an outstanding Secretary of Defense. He was a Republican--former CIA Director Robert Gates; former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre; former Senator Gary Hart; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger--he indicated we ought to take several months on this bill--former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn--there is a good one for you. I served in the Senate with Sam Nunn. I served on the Armed Services Committee when he was chairman. Here is a man who is a careful, careful legislator--former Senator Warren Rudman, Republican from New Hampshire; former Secretary of State George Shultz, another Republican.

Among them they have decades of knowledge and experience, and the Congress stands ready to dismiss their concerns out of hand.

I pointed out that several of these distinguished persons are Republicans just to emphasize there are several preeminent Republicans who have had great experience in government who say: Wait, take your time. What is the hurry here? Why the big hurry?

This group of 11 experienced public servants who urged the Congress to stop, look, and listen, they have no turf to protect. They have long since left the service of the executive and legislative branches. Why does the Senate not take their advice? Why does the Senate not pause to listen to their sage advice?

Let us remember that 2 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 did not 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--slow down. That is what the Senate is all about.

The Senate is not a second House of Representatives with a 6-year term. Thank God for that. As I said many years ago when I was a Member of the other body, the body that is closest to the people, I said thank God for the Senate. So I did not come to this body with any idea of changing the rules to make it a second House of Representatives with a 6-year term. I never thought that about it. I have thought that it is meant to be a place where men and women could argue as long as their feet would hold them erect. I have said time and again that as long as we have a forum in which elected representatives of the people can speak out, speak out without fear and speak out as long as they want to speak on a matter they feel very deeply about, thank God, the people's liberties will be secure.

But today, as I say, the Senate sloughs off the counsel of these eminent luminaries to slow down. How quickly we turn on the advice of our friends.

I fear the Senate wants change, in some instances, 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 is not even clear why or how the 9/ 11 Commissioners arrived at all of their recommendations. The Commission's report does not explain it. What recommendations did the Commission consider and reject, and why did they reject the recommendations? 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 weapons of mass destruction fiasco? Even as the Senate rushes to pass this intelligence reform bill, with one eye on the public opinion polls, of course, 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.

These agencies are very secretive--very secretive. And look at the power Congress is about to give the national intelligence director. Look at the power. He is not an elected individual. I would hope that the Senate would pause to consider the powers that may be shifted to the executive branch in this legislation. I also hope that Senators will consider if 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, and I hold in the highest regard the members, as I say, of that Commission and for its work. 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.

Mr. President, we are all too focused just on the failings of 9/11. The Senate has not focused enough attention on the intelligence failures leading to war in Iraq, in which, as of the last reading of the news reports, we have lost 1,061 men and women. For what? For what did they give their lives? I would wonder, if I had a grandchild who had gone and lost his life in this war, for what did he give his life? Was it worth it? Was it worth it to invade a country under the new doctrine of preemption, which flies right into the face of the Constitution of the United States?

I did not hear the Constitution mentioned last night in the debate. I am not sure, maybe I had my back turned at the moment. I have a sick wife and maybe, perhaps, I did not hear it. But I certainly did not hear it in the first debate between Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry; not one time did I hear the Constitution mentioned. And I did not hear it mentioned last night. Yet it is mentioned every day throughout this country in the courtrooms of this Nation, the Constitution of the United States. Here we have these Presidential debates and nobody--if I find I am mistaken about last night's debate, I will certainly amend my words in this respect, but I do not believe I missed something there.

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 gases.

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.

As a Member of the Senate and as the then-chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the Senate, I and my committee responded quickly to the attack of 9/11. Within 3 days, Congress passed an appropriations bill, appropriating $40 billion--within 3 days, $40 billion. Congress, both Houses, passed an appropriations bill appropriating $40 billion. In other words, $40 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born, $40 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born--$40 billion. So Congress acted quickly.

We all are concerned. There is no monopoly of concern on either side of the aisle here. I support the effort to reform our intelligence agencies. I support the creation of a national intelligence director. But I do not support this hurry in which we are engaged. We need to stop, look, and listen, debate, offer amendments, answer questions, hold more hearings, like Ted Stevens and I holding hearings in the Appropriations Committee.

I have been one of the harshest critics of the status quo. Intelligence agencies are expected to uncover terrorists 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. Henry Kissinger called attention to that fact.

We are legislating in an atmosphere, just before a Presidential election, that is not conducive to thoughtful reform of these intelligence agencies. But the greatest contribution the Senate can make to the cause of the 9/11 families is to take the time to get those 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 2 years ago, the Senate is being stampeded into voting on major, far-reaching legislation. The result of this ill-considered course is easily seen: Any reforms the 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 11.

Mr. President, a little earlier I made the statement to the effect that I heard no one in last night's debate on either side mention the Constitution of the United States. My press has since called me and told me I was wrong. That, indeed, one of the candidates--and he said Senator Edwards--did mention the Constitution of the United States. Thank God for that.