"On this new battlefield, conventional weapons and conventional thinking will not be sufficient, nor will a fortress mentality ensure adequate protection for our citizens both here and abroad. We can better secure our embassies and our military bases, and we have been and should continue to do this. But as we saw on September 11, the terrorists will always search for and find that weak spot, that chink in our armor that makes us vulnerable; and in a free society, there will necessarily be weak spots. Therefore, we need to recognize what the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has recognized for some time, and that is that intelligence rules this battlefield like never before."
Congressman Kirk says the real reserve of linguistic abilities among tribal and less-used languages across countries is the Peace Corps (Part 2)
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), a distinguished member of our committee and a ranking member on the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence.
Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.
No one yet knows why we did not receive warning of this tragedy, and indeed whether such warning could have been acquired in this instance short of some stroke of luck. We must answer those questions in order to do better. But that will take time of course.
I commend the chairman and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), our ranking member, as well as all my colleagues on the committee for thinking hard about what steps should appropriately be taken in this bill in the short time available between September 11 and today, and as the executive branch prepares for its upcoming global campaign. I believe the committee took sensible steps to mandate changes where needs and solutions seemed clear, and to inform the executive branch of issues and problems that as of now we think must be addressed in the coming months and years.
Intelligence is clearly important to every step in the counterterrorism campaign: trying to detect plans and preparations, attempting to interdict the terrorists and their equipment and funds, helping the recovery from an attack, tracking down the perpetrators and striking back at them. I serve as the ranking member of the subcommittee overseeing the intelligence community's technical collection systems, such as satellites and aircraft and other means to take pictures and listen to communications. These systems contribute to all phases of counterterrorism.
Besides human intelligence, signals intelligence offers the greatest potential to discern the plans and intentions of terrorists. It is well known that NSA, the largest and most important element of our SIGINT system, is handicapped by technical and management problems. The committee, for several years, has been trying to work with the executive branch to overcome these problems. It remains to be seen whether NSA's present difficulties played any role in our ability to get wind of this attack. The bill before the House sustains our emphasis on instilling rigor in NSA's program management processes and improves significant increases in resources.
Imagery can provide good information on terrorists' infrastructure and training activities, but not on plans. Imagery also provides critical support to operations against terrorists because it can help to track them, to target them, to assess the effects of military strikes. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency, like NSA, has for years suffered from lack of expertise and program planning and management, and inadequate support from the DCI and Secretary of Defense. In particular, NIMA clearly has insufficient funds to meet even the minimum performance goals set for it by the intelligence community and the Defense Department. The committee, once again, is recommending steps to help remedy these changes.
I point out also that NIMA and its predecessors have always helped in recovery from disasters, whether natural or man-made. The relationships with FEMA and the State and local governments are strong and efficient. Contributions to homeland security in the future will be very substantial, in partnership with the Geological Survey.
Before September 11, the administration was exploring new approaches to satellite intelligence collections. The committee agrees that these ideas need to be looked at carefully, especially in light of new changes.
Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I will confine the balance of my remarks to border security.
As I think all of us understand by now, there is virtually no inspection of cargo entering the country by ship, rail, and truck. It is in practice very difficult to expand inspections substantially using current methods. We must instead use new information technologies and sensing technologies and forge new ways of inspecting and securing cargoes in cooperation with industry and trading partners.
The bill begins to address this issue. It adds money to begin acquiring a capability to identify and track merchant ships. It also provides funds and direction to various executive branch agencies and Departments, including the Department of State, to expand cargo tracking capabilities. Finally, the bill would authorize funds to test new technology to detect dangerous and illegal material and any kind of container rapidly and automatically.
The bill does not provide explanations or a cure for the crisis we are in, but it does provide the basis for conducting the coming campaign, sustaining our position with respect to all our other intelligence requirements, and preparing for future improvements. I urge its adoption.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), who is the chairman of our Working Group on Terrorism and Homeland Security.
(Mr. CHAMBLISS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for his work that he has done on this bill, and to our ranking member, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). It has been a great bipartisan effort. I rise in support of H.R. 2883, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002.
As chairman of the committee's new Working Group on Terrorism and Homeland Security, and as a former firefighter, I have had a particular interest in ensuring the swift passage of this critically important bill before us today. There is much in this bill that enhances our Nation's counterterrorism capabilities, and I will address some of these provisions in just a moment.
In the aftermath of the tragic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the President came here and told us that America is at war. He mentioned
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the new battlefield we have now to navigate as a Nation. It is a battlefield that is not clearly defined and that will often be devoid of clear targets. It is a battlefield that stretches across the globe and involves a complex support network, false documents, illicit financial transactions, and fanatical individuals who are willing to commit suicide to further their twisted causes, whatever they may be.
On this new battlefield, conventional weapons and conventional thinking will not be sufficient, nor will a fortress mentality ensure adequate protection for our citizens both here and abroad. We can better secure our embassies and our military bases, and we have been and should continue to do this. But as we saw on September 11, the terrorists will always search for and find that weak spot, that chink in our armor that makes us vulnerable; and in a free society, there will necessarily be weak spots. Therefore, we need to recognize what the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has recognized for some time, and that is that intelligence rules this battlefield like never before.
Intelligence is the only way in which we will get at this problem. It is the only way in which we can discover the plans and intentions of the enemy, thwart his efforts to attack us, and locate him so that we can punish him swiftly and decisively when he manages to get through our defenses.
H.R. 2883 addresses a number of key shortfalls in the capability of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to combat terrorism. The bill substantially increases investments for FBI counterterrorism capabilities. It increases funding for language training across the intelligence community. A lack of linguists with fluency in languages spoken by most terrorists has plagued the intelligence and law enforcement communities and must be addressed more decisively than ever before.
H.R. 2883 also promotes a more focused analytical effort against the terrorist target. More and better threat analysis needs to be applied to all forms of threat reporting to give us the maximum chance for piecing together the puzzle that might help us to avert attacks such as occurred on September 11. This bill makes analysis a top priority.
The capabilities of CIA's counterterrorism center, our first line of defense overseas, also have been significantly augmented by provisions contained in this bill. Our subcommittee, headed by myself and my colleague, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), has been working very hard, very diligently, not only on the September 11 incident but on other issues involving international terrorism and homeland security, and this bill gives us more flexibility. I urge support for 2883.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), just praised by her colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss). She is the ranking member, as was mentioned, on the Working Group on Terrorism and Homeland Security of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
(Ms. HARMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time and for her graciousness, and also thank the chairman of the full committee and the chairman of the Working Group on Terrorism and Homeland Security for their bipartisanship and professionalism at all times on this committee.
Mr. Chairman, intelligence is a field in which I have worked for many years and in several different capacities. I was privileged to serve on this committee during my prior tenure in Congress and welcomed my reappointment. I represent a district where the Nation's sophisticated intelligence satellites are built, and served on the congressionally mandated National Commission on Terrorism, which made important recommendations in June of last year.
I have long been critical of the ad hoc ways in which our intelligence community has operated; how a community built with Cold War priorities was ill prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century. On September 11, everything and everyone changed. But let me be clear: the men and women in our intelligence agencies are as devastated as the rest of America by the horrific attacks against our homeland. These are good and talented people who work in an organizational structure and under a Cold War-era culture that needs to change. Today, we take the fundamental steps necessary to change both the structure and the culture.
As my committee colleagues have said, the bill directly addresses shortfalls in the intelligence community's counterterrorism efforts, intelligence collection and analysis, and threat reporting. It revamps and reinvigorates our intelligence agencies. The bill provides new tools and resources for preventing terrorism and supporting our Armed Forces in future conflicts. This bill authorizes aggressive recruitment of human assets, makes significant investments in foreign language capabilities, and unravels the knots that have impeded the sharing and integration of intelligence information and analysis across all levels of government.
We have removed many of the stovepipes that have characterized the organizational structures of our intelligence community and worked to substitute a more seamless integration of responsibilities and missions.
Mr. Chairman, once this bill passes, we still have more to do. The Working Group on Terrorism and Homeland Security, of which, as you heard, I am ranking member, has an aggressive agenda of public hearings, classified briefings/hearings, visits, and possibly legislative action. I believe we must pass the legislation that six committee Members introduced yesterday to give Cabinet-level status and budgetary authority to Pennsylvania Governor Ridge, who assumes his new job as Director of the Office of Homeland Security on Monday.
Mr. Chairman, the events of September 11 will be an ever-present reminder of the threats we now face. Reform starts today. I urge support of this legislation.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), who is chairman of our Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I also rise in strong support of the intelligence authorization bill.
As chairman of the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, I have had the opportunity to closely review the President's intelligence budget request and participate in the creation of this bill. I should note that our review occurred both before and after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
There is no question that in the wake of these heinous attacks on America and the world there were some significant changes made to this legislation and some additional funds that are recommended. However, I would offer that, on the whole, this bill changed very little from the direction it was headed prior to September 11. Even before the attacks, the committee had taken some very tough positions with respect to the form and function of the United States intelligence community. Indeed, the committee has, over the past 6 years, tried to persuade the administration to more properly fund the Nation's first line of defense, that is, its intelligence community.
However, the fact is since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, too little funding priority has been given to our national intelligence functions. Many intelligence needs have been left wanting for lack of funding, and the Congress has been forced to intercede in an effort to begin to rebuild our human and technical intelligence collection and analysis capabilities.
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Our focus was on changing the Cold War footing to one that is more flexible and adaptable to the new world order threats.
Prior to the attacks, our funding efforts were limited to working "at the edges" of many the problems, because we had to live within a set of artificial constraints. After the attacks, however, the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), had to "take off the gloves."
With their superb leadership, we crafted a bill which took on tough and
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seemingly intractable problems with additional funding authorizations necessary to begin to make a real difference.
Mr. Chairman, the post September 11 bill before us makes a real difference. It recommends significant funding to gain, train, and maintain a quality workforce. There is increased funding for language instruction and follow-on maintenance training. It recommends: Additional funding for counterterrorism analysis and focused regional studies; significant additions for processing, exploiting, and disseminating the vast amount of data that we collect around the world; investments in a more dynamic and flexible technical collection architecture for the future; and a down payment on replacing one of our most critical, but aging, ballistic missile intelligence collection systems.
Mr. Chairman, this is a good bill; and I recommend support of it by everybody in this Chamber.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit) who is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Policy and National Security, a new subcommittee of our committee.
(Mr. CONDIT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this bipartisan authorization act. In the wake of the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, nothing is more timely than addressing the needs of the intelligence community.
Nothing is clearer to me than the need to increase our resources in the area of human intelligence and highly skilled analysts and people with specialties in foreign languages. The bill encourages the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to invest in the intelligence capital by pushing recruitment efforts and funding advanced training programs. It will help increase our ranks of human intelligence collectors, the critical key in gaining precise information on terrorist organizations. It is critical that we not only increase the number of intelligence gathering analysts, but we must also provide them with the tools to do the job.
This bipartisan bill will provide our intelligence community with the assets that they need to wage an aggressive campaign against terrorism. I commend the chairman and the ranking member for their leadership in this area. I would like to thank the chairman for his openness to take suggestions from our side of the aisle and to make this a strong bipartisan effort. I would commend both of them for their efforts.
I rise in strong support of this bipartisan authorization act. In the wake of the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, nothing is more timely than addressing the significant issues facing the intelligence community. We must provide direction, resources and guidelines to carry out the crucial mission of providing intelligence to policy makers and our armed forces.
As the ranking member of the Intelligence Policy and National Security Subcommittee nothing is clearer to me than the need to increase our resources in the area of human intelligence and highly skilled analysts. We are experiencing an information revolution. Events transpire today on a global scale faster than we ever imagined making our need to collect, interpret and exploit gathered intelligence paramount.
This bill encourages the intelligence community to invest in intellectual capital by pushing recruitment efforts and funding advanced training programs. It will help increase our ranks of human intelligence collectors--the critical keys to gaining precise information on terrorist organizations. Alarming as it may seem, we currently are in a situation where there is more information available than our analysts can review. Given the most recent attacks on the United States, that is an unconscionable position to find ourselves in. It is critical that we not only increase the number of intelligence gatherers and analysts but we must also provide them the tools to do their job.
In May, the subcommittee reviewed intelligence sharing with our NATO allies. I would add this review was very useful after Operation Allied Force--the 1999 Kosovo air campaign. During that campaign, the intelligence community shared critical information such as bomb damage assessment and force protection intelligence with our NATO allies. We investigated the sharing process and procedures to ensure both the protection of classified material and a timely, seamless sharing of intelligence with our allies. In the current campaign against global terrorism, these procedures will continue to be vital to NATO military operations and our own national security.
In June, in conjunction with the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, we heard testimony on terrorism. As a member of the Terrorism and Homeland Security subcommittee, we are currently holding a series of open meetings on this important topic.
Make no mistake, though we have been aggressively pursuing the terrorist threat--and in fact, our intelligence community has disrupted many planned acts of terrorism--it is clear the threat is growing at an alarming rate in terms of its infrastructure and in its sophistication. This bill supports key efforts by our national security agencies to counter these realities.
I commend Chairman Goss and Ranking Member Pelosi for their leadership and for producing a bipartisan bill that will strengthen our national security. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), a valued member of our committee.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I came on this committee thinking I was going to show them something. They have taught me. It is a bipartisan committee. It works very, very well; and I would like to thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). I should have known better, one can always learn something from a good woman.
On this particular committee, there is so much information out there that a Member can always learn a lot. I also want to thank the staff. Many of the staff were former members from our intelligence community. Twenty-four hours a day they will sit and brief Members on any area in the classified area, and I recommend that Members do that more.
I would also like to talk about the defense budget. It is about $200 billion in the deficit primarily because of the 124 deployments that our services were asked to go on during the last administration. If one transposes that over to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, they had to deploy 124 times along with the military. That funding deficit caused them the inability to modernize the systems and equipment that all of us say that they need to do their job.
When I hear some Members, especially from the other body, criticize our intelligence agencies, remember that they did not have the assets. They were denied modernization. Personally, I think they are doing a good job.
I would like to speak to the chairman of the committee. I understand that block 5, long-lead funding for Global Hawk, was eliminated in this, but the chairman has full commitment to support the Global Hawk and Predator programs. Is that correct?
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, that is correct.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida.
Those assets, to know where the enemy is, is very, very important. In January 1972, we were told that there were no SAM sites over the hourglass just south of Hanoi. We did not have the reconnaissance assets that we needed. We went in to strike that target by the hourglass. We lost six airplanes because we did not have that knowledge. The Predator and Global Hawk gives us that knowledge.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), a valued member of our committee.
(Mr. ROEMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Chairman, first of all, before even September 11, I want to applaud the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss) and the ranking member, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), for working in a bipartisan way even before that tragic event. I also thank the very talented staff that we have in this committee for working in a bipartisan manner as well.
Francis Bacon once said, "He who will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils." I have encouraged, as this committee has encouraged, new ways to reorganize and restructure our culture and our targeting in the intelligence community. In the culture, we
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need to push reforms and new ideas even more, to move from a culture that targets sometimes too often nation states, militaries, to a culture that will promote targeting sinister and seamless cell groups of terrorists. We need to move a culture from guards and guns and gates to a culture of targeting tents and terrorism and technology. That is the kind of reform that we need in this bill.
We are moving in that direction. We have an independent commission in this bill. We have emphasis on foreign language skills. We have more emphasis on HUMINT, human spies telling us where people's motivations and targets are; and we have more money for counterterrorism.
I have worked hard on the foreign language skill area, and on page 19 of the report we state, "Written materials can sit for months, and sometimes years, before a linguist with proper security clearances and skills can begin a translation."
We are providing aggressive recruiting for new employees, particularly those with ethnic and language backgrounds needed by the intelligence community. We are providing additional language incentives, especially in the toughest, most critical languages. We are providing increases in funding in counterterrorism for the FBI counterterrorism program, the DCI's counterterrorism program, and HUMINT collection.
Mr. Chairman, we need to do more. While I applaud the bipartisan nature of this committee, while I warmly applaud some of the reforms in this bill, I will be reserved as I watch the process go through the conference later with the Senate to encourage, to push reform, not to lay blame, not to blame individuals where we have so many brilliant and talented people in the CIA and other communities, but to push the reforms needed to change the culture, the target, and the organization that is so critical for us to defend our homeland.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, first I would like to offer my strong support for the fiscal year 2002 intelligence authorization bill. I believe it is a good, bipartisan product that addresses both the urgent short-term needs, as well as the long-term rebuilding requirements in human and signals intelligence.
As a relatively new member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I would like to address just a portion of the bill which I think is very, very critical. It comes out of the tragic incident of April 20, 2001 when the Peruvian military, relying on information provided by the U.S. Government, mistakenly shot down a civilian airplane as part of a drug interdiction operation. Two innocent Americans, constituents of mine, lost their lives due to this error.
In an effort to ensure that this type of incident does not occur again, I have worked closely with the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss) and the committee to secure greater accountability from the executive branch with respect to the oversight of these counternarcotics activities. Section 504 amends current law relating to the immunity of employees and agents of the United States and foreign countries engaged in the interdiction of drug trafficking aircraft. Under this section, the President will annually certify to Congress both the existence of a drug threat in the country at issue and the existence in that country of the appropriate procedures to protect against innocent loss of life.
If our drug interdiction efforts in Latin America are intended to protect the American people from the threat of narcotics, we need to be sure that the methods we use do not create more innocent victims like the Bowers family.
Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) on an excellent bipartisan bill.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), another valued member of our committee.
Mr. REYES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) for developing a bill that is designed to meet the intelligence challenges that our Nation is facing at a critical point in our history. Their leadership on critical intelligence issues has been extremely important to all of us on the committee, in particular to those of us that are on the committee for the first time.
The gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) have recently been the focus of the press. However, it is important to note, Mr. Chairman, that everyone here knows that both the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) and the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Goss) have been working behind the scenes for years on critical intelligence issues. I thank them for their continued commitment to our Nation and the intelligence system that we rely on so heavily.
In a number of hearings that we have had in the committee, I expressed two very important observations. First, the intelligence community needs to pay attention to the diversity that is so critical and representative of our Nation. Both the chairman and the ranking member have been very supportive on that issue.
Secondly, as some of the other Members have mentioned, the emphasis on language diversification is vitally important as we face the challenges in today's intelligence gathering and analysis world.
We need analysts and case officers with language skills and expertise in many foreign areas. At the NSA and the CIA, thousands of pieces of data are never analyzed or analyzed after the fact because there are too few analysts and even fewer with the necessary language skills. This is a deficiency that must be corrected immediately.
Our bill provides bonuses to intelligence employees of the CIA and the Pentagon who are fluent in languages of the toughest and most important targets that we face as a Nation. It is clear that we must do more, and this bill takes the necessary steps to provide the tools necessary for the intelligence community. I urge all Members to support a strong bipartisan bill.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert).
(Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I am constrained, and understandably so, in dealing with the specifics of this bill in terms of dollars and numbers. I would urge all of my colleagues to follow the suggestion of the chairman and the ranking member to visit the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to get the classified briefing and to examine the figures for themselves.
Mr. Chairman, let me stress this to my colleagues. This is a very good bill because it provides more resources for people, for our human intelligence, for our eyes and ears around the world. More resources to add to their numbers and their training, with particular emphasis in language capabilities.
Our dedicated and well-trained linguists who are case officers and covert operatives and intelligence operatives are critically important to operations. They are the essential people part of the equation.
{time} 1015
They are the essential people part of the equation. All the sophisticated technical means in the world, the satellites in the heavens and the specialty electronic devices all over every place are important, but there is no substitute for people. And, quite frankly, with linguistic skills, there simply are not enough of them. This bill recognizes that and supports additional funding directed to the Defense Language Institute. This funding is targeted for linguistic training, not just for the training, but also for the recruitment and retention of proficient instructors. It promotes computer-based training to keep those skills honed, and aims at keeping those classes fully populated with the best and the brightest.
Let me stress, there is no substitute for the people part of this equation. The dedicated men and women in the intelligence community who are serving this Nation at distant points in the globe are to be applauded and supported and we do just that.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
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Boswell) who serves as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
(Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say to whoever is listening that it is my observation in my few months on this committee that we have outstanding leadership with our chairman and ranking member, and I really appreciate it, and I hope all America does. In my former life as a teacher at the command general staff college at the Department of Tactics, I want to assure you that I am aware and I want you to be aware that intelligence is something you have to have. You have to have reliable information before you act.
And I want to tell you this, that I have made also the observation that we have dedicated and professional men and women who work in this community. Nevertheless, the horrendous attacks acts of September 11 require us to think hard about how U.S. intelligence is gathered, analyzed and disseminated so that we are sure intelligence is providing the very best first line of defense for our country.
As the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence, I believe we need better global coverage, allowing us to collect more human intelligence in more places worldwide. As we all are now too well aware, we face terrorist networks with global reach. We are forced into a serious situation regarding our security. We must ourselves place overt and covert collectors in every corner of the world to fight back and utilize well the assistance of our international allies. In addition, for our HUMINT collectors to be effective, their language skills and foreign area expertise overall must be improved and maintained. Career paths for specialists must be fostered. This bill provides the resources and encourages the efforts in the intelligence community to increase the number of front-line field officers and improve their skills.
Furthermore, we have to get smarter at using effectively, across the agencies of the Federal Government, all available information that bears on terrorism. Different agencies of the government have different roles to play, and no one agency can do the job alone. Currently, our capacity to collect information outstrips our ability to exploit what we have. Furthermore, we have not always given proper weight to the most predictive sources of information. The analytic effort in the fight against terrorism must be an all-inclusive effort, with sufficient numbers of analysts deployed where they are needed to make a difference. The Congress may soon vote to authorize new methods and procedures for sharing information. This is all well and good, but the agencies now expected to share information must have state-of-the-art information technology tools and the personnel they need to process, analyze and disseminate critical intelligence to make new authorizations effective.
I urge your support of this bill.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), a former member of our committee.
Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, in the front of this report, the unclassified version which is really worth reading for my colleagues, it says that intelligence is our first line of defense, but too often it is an afterthought. This document and this bill explains why we must have a renewed focus on intelligence. I commend the chairman and the ranking member and the committee for their excellent work on this bill in providing some direction for the future.
The one thing I do want to highlight, and we have discussed this among ourselves, is the need to move forward with the problem of homeland intelligence. It is the most obvious, gaping hole in our protection against terrorism, the ability to prioritize, direct, collect, analyze and inform about activities within the United States and to share information among agencies, much of it completely unclassified, in order to make sure we can defend the homeland of the United States.
I look forward to working with the chairman and my other colleagues in the House to make sure that the intelligence capability of the United States remains strong.
