Testimony
of Robert S. Mueller, III
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Before the House Appropriations Committee
Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State,
the Judiciary, and Related Agencies
June 3, 2004
Good afternoon Mr. Chairman, Congressman Serrano, and members of the Subcommittee.
Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the FBI’s vision to enhance
our enterprise-wide intelligence capabilities. As I described in my testimony
in March, we have spent the past two and a half years transforming the
FBI and realigning our resources to combat international terrorism and
other evolving national security threats, including criminal threats. We
are now focusing our reform efforts on strengthening our intelligence program
and improving interagency coordination.
While
we, and many of our critics, are generally satisfied
with our progress in building an enterprise-wide
intelligence capability, a healthy skepticism persists
about the FBI’s ability to fully execute its
plans. Some, including members of this subcommittee,
have proposed alternatives to the Bureau’s
current intelligence structure. As we have progressed
with implementation of our Intelligence Program,
we too have seen the need to strengthen our intelligence
organizational structure.
Mr.
Chairman, at your request, the National Academy of
Public Administration (NAPA) undertook a review of
the FBI’s intelligence and counterterrorism
programs. As a result of its review, NAPA, in conjunction
with the General Accounting Office (GAO) and the
Congressional Research Service (CRS), developed several
proposals to expedite and enhance the FBI’s
counterterrorism reforms and to strengthen our domestic
intelligence function. We have worked closely with
NAPA, GAO and CRS on these proposals and would like
to commend them -- and you -- for these efforts.
As
you know, Mr. Chairman, the FBI supports the concept
of an intelligence service within the FBI. In my
view, this concept consists of two basic components:
(1) creation of a new Directorate of Intelligence,
and (2) more effective control and use of resources.
Before discussing these two issues, I would like
to take a few moments to discuss several principles
that I believe must guide any reform effort if we
are to successfully address the most critical threats
facing our nation.
First,
any reform proposal must recognize that intelligence
is fundamental to successful FBI operations. Intelligence
functions are woven throughout the fabric of the
Bureau, and any changes to this integrated approach
would be counterproductive. Intelligence is embedded
in every aspect of the FBI workforce and organization
-- the Agents, the analysts, the Laboratory, the
Cyber Division, the Investigative Technologies Division,
and even training. The FBI can take the devices and
techniques of our adversaries, analyze them, and
put together information of great use to our partners
in state and local law enforcement and the Intelligence
Community.
Second,
we must continue to integrate intelligence and law
enforcement operations. We must be able to employ
both intelligence and criminal tools as part of an
integrated counterterrorism strategy that gives us
the flexibility to move seamlessly from intelligence
gathering to disruption at a moment’s notice.
Third,
analysis should be fully integrated into intelligence
collection and other operations so that intelligence
can drive the investigative mission.
Fourth,
we should have centralized management with distributed
execution. Central management should support national
collection efforts, information sharing, and dedicated
strategic analysis that pulls intelligence from all
FBI offices and across programs, and ultimately drives
planning and the allocation of resources.
And
fifth, we should limit stove-piping of intelligence
collection and analysis and encourage synergy in
our own operations and in collaboration with our
partners.
With
these guiding principles in mind, we support the
creation of a strong intelligence service within
the FBI that leverages our formidable collection
capabilities and fully integrates our law enforcement
and Intelligence Community partners.
Proposed
Intelligence Directorate
The
first step toward our “service within a service” is
to build upon the Office of Intelligence to create
a Directorate of Intelligence with broad and clear
authority over intelligence-related functions. The
authority of the Executive Assistant Director for
Intelligence (EAD-I), who now provides policy and
oversight, would be extended to cover all intelligence-
related budgeting and resources.
It
might be helpful for me to explain the proposed organization
in terms of how it will support each critical intelligence-related
function. I will begin with management of our intelligence
requirements process – the ongoing cycle of
identifying intelligence gaps and directing collection
to fill those gaps.
Management
of Intelligence Requirements and Collection
We
currently have an Intelligence Requirements and Collection
Unit that provides independent and centralized management
of the FBI’s intelligence requirements and
collection functions. The efforts of this Unit would
be strengthened by: (1) working with target experts
to develop collection strategies to fill gaps in
our knowledge; (2) developing, implementing and overseeing
FBI standards for the validation of assets and sources;
and (3) making intelligence from human sources available
across program lines.
Information
Sharing
The
EAD-I has been given responsibility for information
sharing policy, and we expect demands in this area
to increase. In particular, we need to ensure the
FBI’s full participation in the Justice Intelligence
Coordinating Council, the DOJ’s Law Enforcement
Sharing Initiative, the DCI Advisory Group, and other
entities.
Our
contingent at TTIC would be part of the Directorate
and would be fully incorporated into our information
sharing efforts.
Customer
Support
To
enhance our support of outside customers in state
and local law enforcement, the Directorate would
evaluate customer satisfaction, tailor the FBI’s
support to each major customer, and ensure that our
partners are receiving the information they need
from the FBI.
Strategic
Analysis
To
boost our strategic analysis efforts, the new Directorate
would be responsible for the organization and implementation
of strategic intelligence campaigns to support major
cases, crisis response, and significant threats.
The Directorate would work with operational counterparts
to design, organize, implement, and manage an FBI
intelligence system support structure.
The
proposal also envisions promoting enterprise-wide
strategic analysis through the development of analytic
products that cross traditional programmatic lines
and identify intelligence gaps to facilitate the
development of collection and dissemination requirements.
The unit will help us forecast future threats, and
drive the allocation of resources and the development
of investigative and intelligence strategies to support
the FBI’s mission. This is analogous to the
DCI’s National Intelligence Council (NIC) that
ensures a full-time focus on strategic issues.
Intelligence
Production and Use
To
support intelligence production and use, we would
build upon existing units to improve the FBI’s
24-hour intelligence production capability, FBI daily
reports, and the FBI’s Presidential Intelligence
Assessments.
Field
Operations
To
support intelligence activities in the field, we
propose integrating intelligence received from Legal
Attaches into the FBI’s overall intelligence
capability. The Field Intelligence Groups (FIGS)
would be thoroughly integrated into the larger Intelligence
Community. We would also focus on the new regional
intelligence centers, such as the recently announced
Counter-Terrorism Unit at the Upstate New York Regional
Intelligence Center.
Human
Talent
To
support vital functions related to human talent,
we would create a new Intelligence Career Management
group to manage the intelligence career track for
agents, intelligence analysts, linguists, and others,
including the development of intelligence training
across the FBI. An FBI Intelligence Officer certification
program would be developed, including U.S. Intelligence
Community Officer Training. This will enable us to
build on our efforts to create career paths for analysts
and intelligence agents.
Language
Translation
The
FBI’s language translators must do more than
straight translation. To be effective, they must
be familiar with the players and understand the context
of what they are translating. This is fundamentally
an analytical function, and accordingly our language
analysts should be fully integrated into our Intelligence
Program as well as our operations. To support this
integration it will be necessary to move the Language
Services Section and the National Virtual Translation
Center to the Directorate of Intelligence.
Program
Management and Support
Last,
but important to the success of this proposal, is
the need to strengthen program management support
to the EAD-I across the elements of the Intelligence
Program. Emphasis would be placed on ensuring consistency
of Intelligence Program priorities with DCI , DOJ
and other senior guidance, developing the annual
Future Threat Forecast, and providing security planning
and guidance. Budgeting, evaluations to measure our
progress, communications and administrative functions,
and support for the EAD-I’s role as Chair of
the JICC would also be a focus of this effort.
Budgeting
Formalizing
and strengthening centralized management of all intelligence-related
resources would be a key responsibility of the new
Directorate. Our initial effort has been the development
of our Concept of Operations for Intelligence Budgeting,
but I believe we can and should move further. The
President’s Fiscal Year 2005 Budget proposes
restructuring the FBI’s budget decision units
from the current ten to the following four: Counterterrorism,
National Security, Criminal Enterprises / Federal
Crimes, and Criminal Justice Services.
We
agree that four decision units are appropriate and
beneficial. The current ten decision unit structure
has intelligence resources spread throughout the
organization. The structure, as proposed in the President’s
Budget, would allow us to more effectively and efficiently
manage our resources based on national priorities
and threat assessments. It would give the FBI needed
flexibility to internally shift resources to higher
priorities, giving us agility to respond to rapidly
developing national security threats.
The
alternative decision unit structure outlined by NAPA,
however, would go further than the proposal in the
2005 Budget with respect to our intelligence resources.
It would also have four decision units, but would
create a new Intelligence Decision Unit, while combining
the Counterterrorism and National Security decision
units, and retaining the Criminal Enterprises / Federal
Crimes and Criminal Justice Services decision units.
If
the NAPA proposal were adopted, the Intelligence
Decision Unit should be comprised of operational
elements including the existing Office of Intelligence
and our TTIC contingent. It should also include programmatic
elements representing analysts across the Bureau,
and administrative elements, such as training, recruitment,
information technology, and security.
The
NAPA structure would further remove internal barriers
that obstruct collaboration across programs, so that
we can better address threats that cross programmatic
lines. It would also provide greater transparency,
so that external stakeholders can more easily identify
the level of resources supporting the FBI’s
intelligence program. And finally, it would provide
internal safeguards for out intelligence resources
by requiring Congressional approval of a reprogramming
request to shift resources out of the Intelligence
Decision Unit.
Conclusion
Mr.
Chairman, this is an ambitious plan and it would
take a lot of work to fully implement. But once accomplished,
this proposal would provide for the centralized management
and FBI-wide execution of integrated intelligence
and law enforcement operations, an independent requirements
and collection management process, and a dedicated
strategic analysis effort. It would create a strong
organizational entity, dedicated to intelligence
sharing with state and local law enforcement, and
create opportunities for DOJ-wide intelligence activities.
The
next logical step would be to expand the career paths
we have established for agents and analysts into
an intelligence career service. This may require
new flexibility related to our ability to hire, promote,
and reward intelligence personnel, and I look forward
to working with you and the Administration to resolve
some of these issues.
In
closing, Mr. Chairman, I want to take a moment to
thank you and the members of the Subcommittee for
your continued leadership and strong support of the
FBI. The funding you have provided has been critical
to our mission and our efforts to transform the FBI.
Over the past two and a half years, we have moved
from an organization that was focused primarily on
traditional criminal investigations to one that is
first and foremost investigating and disrupting terrorist
operations.
I
am pleased to respond to any questions you may have.
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