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Statement of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
On the Nomination of John D. Negroponte
To be the Director of National Intelligence
April 21, 2005
Mr. President, it is not easy for a member of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence to oppose Ambassador Negroponte's nomination
on the floor of this Senate. I am well aware that many do not share
the concerns, and the views I will express this afternoon have not
been arrived at casually.
The Ambassador is the consummate diplomat, a dedicated public servant,
a well-liked person who is popular with Members of the Senate of
both political parties. He has been confirmed by the Senate for
a variety of posts. I have voted twice for those confirmations,
but I am not convinced that Ambassador Negroponte is the right man
for this job. I have reached this judgment based on my strong belief
that a prerequisite for this position should be a willingness to
be direct and forthcoming with policymakers even when the truth
is difficult. Unfortunately, directness was nowhere in sight in
the Ambassador's responses at his confirmation hearing last week.
At that hearing, the Ambassador was not even as direct and forthcoming
in discussing controversial matters as he has been in the past.
For example, at the hearing I discussed with the Ambassador his
service in Honduras. I made it clear at the outset that I understand
it makes no sense to relitigate a war that took place in Central
America more than 20 years ago. In spite of the lengthy news accounts
printed that morning, the morning of his confirmation hearing, providing
new information documenting the Ambassador's continued backing of
the Contras after the House had voted to halt U.S. support, I chose
not to focus on those issues. I raised the Honduras issue last week
and return to it this afternoon because I believe the record of
the Ambassador's service there is particularly telling in terms
of his judgment and his willingness to confront difficult facts,
which I believe are two key
requirements for the Director of National Intelligence.
For example, I find it especially troubling that the Ambassador's
perception of the human rights situation in Honduras differs so
dramatically from that expressed by the Central Intelligence Agency,
the InterAmerican Court, the Honduras Human Rights Commission, and
others. The Central Intelligence Agency released a report entitled
"Selected Issues Relating to CIA Activities in Honduras in
the 1980s'' which found:
Honduran military committed hundreds of human rights abuses since
1980, many of which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned.
The CIA report linked the Honduran military personnel to death
squad activities.
Mr. Negroponte, on the other hand, said in a September 12, 1982,
letter that was printed in the New York Times Magazine that:
Honduras's increasingly professional armed forces are dedicated
to defending the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of the country, and they are publicly committed to civilian
constitutional rule.
The InterAmerican Court for Human Rights heard cases concerning
human rights abuses in Honduras. In 1989, the Court found:
A practice of disappearances carried out or tolerated by Honduran
officials existed between 1981 and 1984; and
The Government of Honduras failed to guarantee the human rights
affected by that practice.
In an October 23, 1982, letter printed in the Economist, Ambassador
Negroponte wrote:
Honduras's increasingly professional armed forces are fully supportive
of this country's constitutional system.
The Honduran Human Rights Commissioner released a report on forced
disappearances that occurred in Honduras during Ambassador Negroponte's
tenure. The report states:
[t]here existed within the Armed Forces a deliberate policy of
kidnapping and forcibly disappearing persons.
Yet the introductory passage of the 1983 State Department Country
Report issued while Mr. Negroponte was Ambassador stated:
The Honduran military, which ruled the country for almost 20 years
before 1982, supports the present civilian
government and is publicly committed to national and local elections,
which are scheduled in 1985, as well as the
observance of human rights.
The fact is, when you read what the Ambassador has said about
Honduras, and what the CIA and others have said about the same time
period, it is as if John Negroponte was an ambassador to a different
country.
Given these sharp differences, I asked the Ambassador last week
to reconcile this very large gap between what he saw and what others
reported. I expected an answer that would have at least acknowledged
these very substantial differences and indicated that in hindsight
the Ambassador would have been more outspoken about human rights
practices.
Instead, the Ambassador tried to dismiss the issue altogether by
simply saying the differences were not so great, something I thought
was pretty hard to fathom, given the accounts I had provided to
him.
The fact is, in trying to brush off this issue of Honduras, the
Ambassador actually showed less candor last week than he has in
the past. For instance, at his 2003 hearing before the Foreign Relations
Committee when he was being considered for Ambassador to the United
Nations, Mr. Negroponte stated the following about Honduran human
rights abuses:
Maybe it was a mixed picture, Senator. I am more than willing
to acknowledge that.
At the same hearing he said:
Could I have been more vocal? Well, you know, in retrospect, perhaps
I could have been.
So you have to ask, as I have done, Why would the Ambassador be
less direct last week than he had been previously? Certainly there
was no national security reason for him to duck questions about
events that are decades old. Perhaps the newspaper articles that
morning made him fear Congress would get into issues he might find
uncomfortable. That is certainly understandable, but it is absolutely
unacceptable for a nominee tapped to head our Nation's intelligence
community at a time when directness and forthrightness is more important
than ever before.
Throughout his confirmation hearing, on issue after issue, the Ambassador
ducked and avoided giving anything resembling a straightforward
answer.
I asked the Ambassador whether he foresaw his office involving itself
in decisions relating to the implementation of the PATRIOT Act's
surveillance powers, and in particular whether his office might
weigh in on whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation should seek
a FISC warrant.
His answer?
Senator, I am not entirely certain what my authorities would be
under FISC.
I asked the Ambassador whether he would be willing to take a fresh
look at the United States rendition policy, possibly the most controversial
weapon being used in fighting terrorism today. Rendition involves
sending a suspected terrorist from one country to another without
court proceedings. Republican and Democratic administrations have
used renditions in the past, but their use has increased significantly
since 9/11, and the policy has certainly changed. Previously, most
suspects were rendered to the United States. Now it works the opposite
way. More and more often the United States is rendering suspects
to foreign countries. News reports indicate that
suspects are frequently being rendered to countries known to torture
suspected terrorists, such as Syria, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and Saudi
Arabia. While the United States gets assurances from foreign governments
they will not use torture, U.S. officials have little control over
the situation once a suspect is in the hands of the foreign country.
Rendition is the practice used to address a very difficult dilemma.
America may lack the evidence to bring a suspected terrorist into
court; there is some proof of wrongdoing, but not enough for a court
of law. If the suspect is not an American citizen, it is possible
to send them elsewhere to be dealt with, but that can be a dicey
prospect.
Renditions get suspects off the streets, something which makes Americans
safer. But the tactic has raised serious concerns for many of our
citizens and for many people in other countries as well. I have
heard those concerns, but I also recognize that renditions can serve
a legitimate and valuable purpose. It is a question of how this
policy is
carried out. Our country needs to have a frank and candid and direct
discussion about this policy of rendition. But, before that can
happen, there needs to be some answers to some tough questions:
Have any suspects been rendered based on faulty intelligence and,
if so, what amount of intelligence should be necessary before a
rendition takes place?
Are there certain countries to which the United States should not
render suspects?
Are the assurances the United States gets in the rendition area
sufficient with regard to the use of torture?
Does the United States need to retain more control of suspects it
renders, especially to countries that have weak human rights records?
How good is the intelligence the United States is getting from rendered
suspects?
What is the effect of a rendition policy on America's diplomatic
relations with other countries?
These are some of the important questions that need to be answered.
So in an effort to examine Ambassador Negroponte's openness and
to try to determine his judgment in a difficult area such as this,
I asked the
Ambassador whether he would be willing to take a fresh look at our
rendition policy; not a point-by-point description of what he would
do, but simply would he be willing to take a fresh look, a new inspection
of this country's approach in rendition.
The Los Angeles Times summed up the Ambassador's response to my
question about rendition with four words. They said: ``Negroponte
avoided the question.''
The Ambassador, I would point out, ducked other important questions
asked by members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
For example, our colleague from Michigan, Senator Levin, asked the
Ambassador to explain what action he would take if the Ambassador
concluded policymakers were making public statements that differed
from the classified intelligence. There was no direct answer to
that important question asked by Senator Levin.
Senator Feinstein sought detailed information on how, with regard
to countries such as Iran and North Korea, the Ambassador intended
to assure the United States developed much needed credible intelligence.
Ambassador Negroponte responded:
Well, Senator, the law prescribes a number of approaches to this.
Then I asked the Ambassador about the issue of overclassification
of material in the area of national security. This is an issue that
has concerned many in the Senate, of both political parties. I have
been interested in this matter for some time.
I was, frankly, flabbergasted when 9/11 Commissioner Tom Kean, who
did such a superb job in his work, with Lee Hamilton, former Member
of the other body--Tom Kean said 75 percent of everything he saw
when he chaired the
9/11 Commission that was classified should not have been classified.
This is what Tom Kean said in the extraordinarily important inquiry
he conducted.
The Central Intelligence Agency initially blacked out over 50 percent
of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Iraq's
WMD programs and links to terrorist groups.
I will tell colleagues I thought Chairman Roberts and Senator Rockefeller
did a superb job in guiding our committee to a unanimous judgment
with respect to Iraq and that important report. But if the CIA had
had its way, page after page after page would have been blacked
out.
The National Archives Information Security Office reported 14.2
million classification actions in 2003, twice the number recorded
10 years earlier. The agencies are becoming more creative in terms
of how they overclassify. In addition to the traditional ``limited
official use,'' ``secret'' and ``top secret,'' some agencies now
have ``sensitive security information,'' ``sensitive Homeland Security
information,'' ``sensitive but unclassified'' and ``for official
use only'' classifications, as well. Secrecy has become so pervasive
it makes you wonder whether facts are
being classified for legitimate reasons or to protect the individuals
and agencies involved.
As I mentioned, this has been a bipartisan concern. I am particularly
grateful for the work Senator Lott has been willing to do with me.
We took some modest steps in the intelligence reform bill to open
this process and try to bring some balance back into the area of
classification. But given this history, given the huge explosion
in terms of overclassification of Government documents, I was interested
in what the Ambassador had to say with respect to this.
When I first asked, he said:
Senator, I don't know about classification or overclassification.
But then he went on to make the mind-boggling claim that ``Certainly
the trend in my lifetime has been to reduce levels of classification
wherever possible. And I've seen that happen before my own eyes.''
Troubling as that answer was and the nonanswers that I received
to the other important questions I asked with respect to the PATRIOT
Act and relating to rendition and other topics, as troubling as
what I was told and wasn't told, is it is not only what the Director
of National Intelligence will know that is so important but what
he is willing to
say that is vital.
In spite of the Ambassador's responses to these questions, I have
no question in my mind of Ambassador Negroponte's ability to master
the facts. What I am not confident of is his steadfast commitment
to speaking those facts to ears that do not want to hear them. And
history tells us the consequences of an inability or an unwillingness
to speak truth to power can be disastrous.
This country saw what happened in the Bay of Pigs, an unsuccessful
attempt by United States-backed Cuban exiles to overthrow the Government
of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. It is a classic example of what
can happen when America's intelligence community is unwilling or
unable to be candid. In his review of the Bay of Pigs invasion release
to the public in 1998, CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick identified
numerous failures. These include:
[The f]ailure to subject the president, especially in its latter
frenzied stages, to a cold and objective appraisal by
the best operating talent available, particularly by those not involved
in the operation, such as the Chief of Operations and the chiefs
of the Senior Staffs;
[The f]ailure to advise the president, at an appropriate time, that
success has become dubious and to recommend the operation be, therefore,
canceled and that the problem of unseating Castro be restudied;
The failure to maintain the covert nature of the project--``[f]or
more than three months before the invasion the
American press was reporting, often with some accuracy, on the recruiting
and training of Cubans. Such massive
preparations could only be laid to the U.S. The agency's name was
freely linked with these activities. Plausible denial was a pathetic
illusion.''
This is what the inspector general said. This is not what a partisan
said. Yet the CIA unrealistically plowed ahead, unwilling or unable
to face the reality of the situation that the operation was doomed
to fail, and as a result the CIA was humiliated, many died, our
prestige was damaged.
Throughout the entire time our country was in Vietnam the intelligence
community also failed to be forthright and was plagued by overoptimism.
One example was particularly worth noting.
In 1963, the Board of National Estimate's draft Nation Intelligence
Estimate concluded that ``The struggle in South Vietnam at best
will be protracted and costly [because] very great weaknesses remain
and will be difficult to surmount.''
Unhappy with the pessimistic conclusion, the Director of Central
Intelligence John McCone rejected the draft and instructed the board
to seek the views of senior policymakers in revising the Nation's
Intelligence Estimate.
So the final version of the 1963 stated:
We believe that Communist progress has been blunted and that the
situation is improving . . .
As those who put together the Pentagon papers later observed:
The intelligence and reporting problems occurring during this
period cannot be explained away . . . In retrospect [the estimators]
were not only wrong, but more importantly, they were influential.
As a result, a generation paid the price for the unwillingness or
the inability of the intelligence community's inability to be forthright.
Now our country deals with those consequences.
Many in the Senate will remember George Tenet told the President
of the United States that the weapons of mass destruction case against
Iraq was a ``slam dunk.'' Now America knows what George Tenet knew
and what he was unwilling or unable to tell the President of the
United States, that it wasn't a slam dunk at all.
The Niger yellowcake, the high-strength aluminum, the mobile weapons
lab, the aerial vehicles, the intelligence provided by Curveball
and the Iraqi National Congress witnesses, all of this intelligence
was questionable and was being questioned by at least some members
of the intelligence community.
However, George Tenet was not direct. He was not forthcoming. He
told the President of the United States what the President wanted
to hear. Whether he was unwilling or unable to be straight with
the President, I cannot possibly determine. What I do know is that
as a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence I want to do
everything I can. I know every Member of the Senate wants to make
sure these mistakes are not
repeated. The stakes are simply too high.
The Intelligence Reorganization Act gave the Director of National
Intelligence a whole lot of responsibility but very little enforcement
power. As the Director works to make 15 intelligence agencies pull
together, his credibility will be his currency. Critical to his
success will be the understanding of all concerned that this person
is going to be direct, that the person will be forthcoming, that
the person will make sure that no matter who the truth hurts, no
matter what policymakers think, they are going to get the facts.
Here is what I think the country needs. The United States needs
a Director of National Intelligence who is going to speak truth
to power, somebody who has, in Hamilton's words, the ``gumption''
to tell the President and other senior policymakers what they don't
want to hear.
The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence who
has the knowledge and the experience to step in and begin fixing
the problems facing the intelligence sector immediately.
The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence who
will break down existing walls inhibiting analysts throughout the
intelligence community and, when appropriate, officials and citizens
outside that realm from getting access to the information they need
to keep Americans safe. The United States needs a Director of National
Intelligence willing to, when necessary, go head to head with the
agencies under his control, especially the Department of Defense.
If the Director lets them push him around, he is doomed.
The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence to
take control over the intelligence budget. Before Congress created
the position, the intelligence community lacked a leader willing
to make tough budget priority and tradeoff decisions. Each agency
asked for funds. It was, in effect, a matter of passing the request
along. This
has to stop. There are not limitless resources. A strategic view,
not a parochial lens, ought to be guiding budget decisions.
The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence to shape
the intelligence agencies he oversees into a true community because,
at this point, the phrase ``intelligence community'' is pretty much
a misnomer. While coordination and cooperation have improved, the
individual intelligence agencies persist in maintaining their own
culture and collection practices. As the military services have
learned to fight jointly, our intelligence collection agencies need
to learn how to act together to gather critical information our
policymakers and warfighters need to protect our country.
The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence who
recognizes he cannot do this alone. This position is new and its
authority, while substantial, is unclear. His fights with the administration
over matters of significant national policy need not, and should
not, always be kept quiet. If the Director of National Intelligence
is to succeed, he will need to look to allies in the executive branch
and here in the Congress to help.
While Ambassador Negroponte is surely a skilled diplomat and has
many allies in the Senate, Senators of both parties I admire greatly,
I am not confident the administration's nominee will meet these
expectations.
For that reason, I will be voting no on the nomination of Ambassador
John Negroponte to be Director of National Intelligence.
Mr. President, I want to wrap up with one additional point. I am
pleased to be in strong support of General Hayden, who will, when
the nominee is confirmed, be the deputy. I thought General Hayden's
directness and openness at his confirmation hearing was particularly
welcome.
For example, I asked him, on the matter of privacy rights, which
is pretty important, given his past background at the NSA, how he
would handle that issue. I think there was a sense it is possible
to fight terrorism ferociously while still protecting civil liberties.
General Hayden, in contrast to what we heard at the earlier confirmation
hearing, was refreshingly direct in his responses, where he talked
about pushing right up to the line--I believe those were his exact
words--but being sensitive to civil liberties.
So I am pleased to be able to say, on the floor of the Senate, I
am looking forward to the support General Hayden will be receiving
from the Senate shortly. I expect Ambassador Negroponte and General
Hayden to be approved. My door will be open to both of them. As
a member of the Intelligence Committee, it is my hope that both
of these
individuals will not hesitate to ask me and ask colleagues for help.
The safety of our country depends on the performance of these two
individuals in this key post.
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