国会纪录：2003年7月24日（参议院）Page S9887-S9888联合情报报告发布9/11佛罗里达州格雷厄姆先生。主席先生，今天下午早些时候关于2001年9月11日活动的房屋和参议院情报委员会报告的解密版本，已向公众公布。我将用几分钟的时间来表彰那些在编写这份报告过程中为公众做出杰出贡献的人，并向我的同事和正在观看的人推荐这份报告。本报告的公开版本可在政府印刷局的网站www.access.gpo.gov上查阅。这份报告履行了对美国人民，特别是对在这场悲剧中遇难者家属的承诺。我们的承诺是彻底调查我们的情报机构在9月11日之前知道或应该知道的关于基地组织及其意图的真相。然后，我们将利用从这一经验中吸取的教训，改革情报界，以减少类似事件再次发生的可能性9月11日。这是一次历史性的第一次努力。众议院和参议院这两个常设委员会在国会历史上第一次联合起来，与自己的工作人员进行特别调查。该工作人员由非常能干的埃莉诺·希尔女士领导。工作人员审查了近100万份文件，进行了约500次面谈。联合调查委员会去年举行了22次听证会，其中9次对公众开放。今天公布了这项努力的结果。本文件包括事实调查结果和19项改革建议。我对参众两院情报委员会成员对这次审查所作的承诺感到非常自豪。我要特别感谢参议院委员会副主席谢尔比参议员和众议院情报委员会主席兼副主席波特·戈斯议员和南希·佩洛西议员。该报告的调查结果分为24个主题领域，但它们有一条底线：如果能将技能、协调、创造力和一些好运正确地结合起来，9·11袭击本来是可以预防的。本报告中有大量重要信息表明，例如，在9月11日之前，机构抵制将反恐作为国家的高度优先事项。这种抵制有多种形式。这包括关键机构之间缺乏信息共享。其中包括司法部削减联邦调查局反恐计划的预算。简言之，这些问题导致政府无法成功地对基地组织发动进攻。作为这一困难的一个例子，先前的一项机密调查结果（报告第14号）指出，高级军事官员不愿意在9月11日之前利用军事资产在阿富汗开展进攻性反恐努力，或支持或参与中央情报局直接针对基地组织的行动，这种不情愿是因为军方认为情报界无法提供支持军事行动所需的情报。例如，报告证实，1999年至2001年期间，美国海军舰艇和配备巡航导弹的潜艇被部署在北阿拉伯海。他们的任务是袭击奥萨马·本·拉丹，但这是一项失败的任务，因为他们无法获得可采取行动的情报，而这只能通过我们将间谍安排在离基地组织足够近的地方，告诉我们该组织将要做什么以及奥萨马·本·拉丹在任何一天可能在哪里来实现。报告清楚地表明，我们应该知道潜在的恐怖分子就住在我们中间。事实上，2001年，两名恐怖分子劫持者与一名FBI线人在加利福尼亚州圣地亚哥生活了6个月或更长时间。菲尼克斯的一名足智多谋的FBI探员希望跟进关于外国出生的学生在美国飞行学校磨练技能的怀疑。联邦调查局中央总部的官员关闭了他。为了向美国人民保证我们认真对待这些行动，我们提出了第16号建议，要求中央情报局局长在整个情报界实施新的问责标准。这些标准将确定不良绩效并追究其责任。它还将设立一个标准来表彰和奖励优秀的表现。如果这类标准在2年前就已经实施，我们可能会追究那些表现不符合我国要求的人的错误、遗漏和佣金的责任，特别是在9月11日之前的关键时期。如果这些标准在去年得到实施，美国有可能避免因总统国情咨文中使用不可信的情报信息而造成的尴尬和对我国政府信誉的损害。到目前为止，在这两起事件中，我们看到没有人比报纸标题更受侮辱。随着联合调查报告的发布，it is time to look ahead and continue to implement the important reforms of the intelligence community that are necessary and to enhance the Federal Government's partnership with State and local law enforcement and other first responders. If the recommendations in this report are heeded by the White House, by the agencies, and by this Congress, we should be able to make great strides in improving the security of the American people. It is my intention to introduce legislation soon, with cosponsorship of members of the joint inquiry, that would implement the reforms which require legislative action. I hope it will move expeditiously to passage with the full support of the administration. I will also begin that effort with a sense of outrage because we have lost valuable time. It took 7 months, almost as long as it took to conduct the inquiry, for the intelligence agencies to declassify the portions of the report that we are releasing today. What are the consequences of that 7 months' delay? One is that the momentum for reform, which was at a high tide in the weeks and months immediately after 9/11, has begun to diminish despite the scope of the tragedy. We will learn shortly whether we can reinvigorate that reform movement. This Senate will face the test of its will to do so. I, for one, am committed to see this report is not forgotten or overlooked. In my view, the delay reflects the excessive secrecy with which this administration appears to be obsessed and which is keeping important findings of our work from the American people. Such censorship also saps the urgency of reform and precludes the American peoples' ability to hold its leaders accountable. The most serious omission, in my view, is part 4 of the report which is entitled "Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters." That section of the report contained 27 pages between pages 396 through 422. Those 27 pages have almost been entirely censured. This is the equivalent of ripping out a chapter in the middle of a history book before giving it to your child or grandchild and then telling her "good luck on the test." The declassified version of this finding tells the American people that our investigation developed "information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States." In other words, officials of a foreign government are alleged to have aided and abetted the terrorist attacks on our country on September 11 which took over 3,000 lives. I would like to be able to identify for you the specific sources of that foreign support but that information is contained in the censured portions of this [[Page S9888]] report which are being denied to the American people. What are the consequences of this? It significantly reduces the information available to the public about some of the Government's most important actions, or more accurately, inactions prior to September 11. Second, it precludes the American people from asking their Government legitimate questions such as, How was the information that our Government might have had prior to September 11 utilized after September 11 to enhance the security of our homeland and American interests abroad? Third, almost 2 years after the tragedy of September 11, the administration and the Congress, in the main, have not initiated reforms which would reduce the chances of another September 11. For example, we are allowed to report that the estimates of the CIA's counterterrorism center is that between 70,000 and 120,000 recruits went through al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan before those troops were attacked in late 2001. The important questions as to the significance of that statement, to the security of the American people, are not available. This obsession with excessive secrecy is deeply troubling. The recognition of the evils of secrecy in a free society date back to the beginnings of our Nation. Patrick Henry declared: The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. President John F. Kennedy observed in the first year of his Presidency: "the very word secret is repugnant in a free and open society, and we are, as people, inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers, which are cited to justify." These are traditional American values that are being trampled. So the joint committee included our report with this recommendation, recommendation No. 15. "The President should review and consider amendments to the Executive Orders, policies, and procedures that govern the national security classification of intelligence information in an effort to expand access to relevant information for Federal agencies outside the intelligence community and for State and local authorities which are critical to the fight against terrorism and for the American public". In addition, the President and heads of Federal agencies should assure that the policies and procedures to protect against unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence information are well understood, fully implemented, and vigorously enforced. It is my observation that because classification is used so excessively, the corollary is only a minimal effort to enforce classification of materials that truly do deserve to be classified. Again, I remind my colleagues that these recommendations were written late in 2002 before the current crisis developed over the use and possible misuse of intelligence leading us to war in Iraq. But that crisis has given this recommendation even greater urgency for the Government's credibility with the American people and our credibility with the rest of the world. These qualities have been severely eroded in large part because of excessive secrecy. To regain the people's trust we must bring new transparency to our decisionmakers. We must bring new transparency to our decisionmaking. We must move decisions and governmental information into the sunshine. We owe that and much more to the 3,000 victims of September 11. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. ENZI). The majority leader. ____________________ Congressional Record: July 24, 2003 (Senate) Page S9897 JOINT INTELLIGENCE REPORT POST--9/11 Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise tonight in response to the comments of my friend, the Senator from Florida, about the report that was issued today about September 11. There were a lot of innuendoes and direct statements by the Senator from Florida with respect to the administration, faults on the part of the administration leading up to September 11 and the connection of causation between the administration and some deficiencies with the administration and September 11. Nothing could be further from the truth. My friend from Florida made the comment that the lack of resources in our intelligence community played a big part in the intelligence deficiencies that allowed September 11 to happen. I agree with him 100 percent. What he failed to say is that this administration had been in office less than 8 months when September 11 happened. This administration had not even been through an appropriations cycle. It is this body and the House that made the appropriations over the last several years that, in fact, did lead to a decline in resources, with the leadership of the previous administration, that caused the resources not to be put in the right place, that allowed the problems within the intelligence community to arise. The Senator mentioned certain declassification, or failure to declassify certain aspects of the September 11 report that were not included in the report that was released today. Again, he is exactly right. But there is a reason for that. The public does have a right to know everything we can tell them about the facts leading up to September 11. But the intelligence community does not have the right and should not release information relative to sources and methods. The intelligence community is a very complex community. The intelligence community has human assets in place all around the world, gathering information from an intelligence standpoint that is important to saving the lives of Americans. In addition to that, we have methods of gathering intelligence that we simply cannot disclose and divulge to people we are gathering that intelligence from, or it will reduce or significantly lessen, or maybe even not allow us to gather information from them. So it is very important that we not release sources and methods. Last, let me say my friend made the comment about secrecy on the part of this administration, this President. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. Secrecy is not the issue here, as set forth in that report that was released today. The real issue as set forth in that report is the protection of America and the protection of Americans. This administration had done everything within its power leading up to September 11 to make sure the intelligence community had the ability to gather intelligence and that the law enforcement community had the ability to interrupt and disrupt intelligence activity. Unfortunately, as was concluded in the report today--the Senator from Florida was the chairman of the Intelligence Committee that participated in that report--that report says that, in spite of everything, there is nothing that could have been done on the part of the intelligence community that would have prohibited September 11 from happening. What we need to be aware of and what the American people need to be aware of is that the intelligence community has learned a lesson from September 11, and we are moving forward to make sure our children and our grandchildren live in a safe and secure America just like we have enjoyed. We have a lot of recommendations within that report that are being followed today to make sure America is a safer place. While I commend the men and women--and I was part of it--who worked very hard to get that report together, there is a lot of information in that report that was not declassified and which should not be declassified so that we can have a safer and more secure America. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico. Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Senator from New Mexico ought to be doing the thanking. I knew when the people of the Senator's State sent him up here--he thanked us, but we ought to be thanking him; we thank the people of his State for sending him here--we knew when the Senator came that he was going to be a stalwart and someone to whom we could look. We knew we would be getting the "straight scoop," so to speak. Tonight it didn't take the Senator very long to set this record straight. There is no use playing politics with things that do not need any politics added to them. There are already plenty of problems surrounding that big tragedy that came to America. We thank the Senator for telling us the way it is, the way it was, and the way we ought to understand it. This Senator thanks him for that. I wish he had more to say. I hope before it is over, he will have more to say about it. With all of the inferences and implications when things go wrong, there is a political campaign. Just wait, and somebody will find some reason to blame the person running for office. Regardless of how farfetched or how wild, or how irrelevant it is, it will be there. Frankly, we have a Senate with lots of privileges. I like the distinguished Senator from Florida. He had a big job when he had to put that report together. He doesn't have any more to say about it than a lot of other people. He just happens to be running for President. So he has a lot to say. But we thank the Senator very much for his few words which are excellent, as I understand it, and it is something we needed to hear. Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I will have a lot more to say about it later. Mr. DOMENICI. I hope so. ____________________