April 21, 2005
Statement of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden On the Nomination of John D. Negroponte To be the Director of National Intelligence
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; andThe 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 the9/11 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.Next Article
