Colin Powell: Opening Remarks on Intelligence Reform to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee

Document Text

I am pleased to have this opportunity to share with you my thoughts on the reform of the intelligence community. I have been a consumer of intelligence in one way or another throughout my 40 plus years of public service: From the tactical level on the battlefield as a second lieutenant, to the highest levels of the military, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Advisor, and now, as Secretary of State. And I hope that I can offer some helpful insights from the perspective of the conduct of America’s foreign policy.…

Madam Chairman, let me say at the outset that I fully support President Bush’s proposals on intelligence reform. A strong national intelligence director is essential. That strength is gained primarily by giving the NID real budget authority. In that regard, the President’s proposal will give the NID authority to determine the budgets for agencies that are part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program.…

The President’s proposal will require important changes to the 1947 National Security Act, changes I know that members of this committee will be looking at carefully. An example of such a change would be the plan to establish the new position of the Director of CIA and to define the possibilities of that agency, responsibilities that will continue to include the authority for covert action and the need to lead in the area of HUMINT collection.…

As you and the other members of this committee in the Congress are reviewing the President’s proposal, and as you are considering what final product of your very important deliberations will actually be, I would ask that you take into account the unique requirements of the Secretary of State and the Department of State and of the conduct of foreign policy for which I am responsible to the President and to the American people.

Let me give you some insights, if I may, on why the Secretary of State’s needs are somewhat unique, but why they, too, would be well served by such reform as President Bush has proposed.

Diplomacy is both offensive and defensive in its application. At the State Department, we are the spear point for advancing America’s interests around the globe. We are also our first line of defense against threats from abroad. As such, our efforts constitute a critical component of national security.…

The needs of diplomacy require more than a good ability to imagine the worst. They require real expertise, close attention and careful analysis of all source information. To be helpful to me and my colleagues in the Department of State, many of whom are extremely knowledgeable about the countries and issues they cover, the intelligence community must provide insights and add value to the information that we already collect through diplomatic channels. When the intelligence community weighs in with less than this level of expertise, it is a distraction rather than an asset.…

To do my job, I need both tailored intelligence support responsive to, indeed, able to anticipate my needs, and I need informed, competitive analysis. Precisely because my intelligence needs differ from those of the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary of Energy, not to mention the unique requirement of our military services, I’m not well served, nor are they, by collectors and analysts who do not understand my unique needs, or who attempt to provide a one-size-fits-all assessment.…

Any reorganization of the intelligence community must preserve and promote intelligence units that are attuned to the specific requirements of the agencies they serve. Such units should be designed to ensure their independence and objectivity, but at the same time be sufficiently integrated into the parent organization to ensure intimate understanding of what is needed, when it is needed, and how it can most effectively be presented to policy makers. That’s the relationship that I have with INR.

My INR must be able to recruit and retain genuine experts able to provide real value to the policy making process. This requires appropriate and different career paths and training opportunities. We need specialists in INR, not generalists: Late-evening relief pitchers and designated hitters, not just utility infielders. For example, INR is in close touch with all of our embassies, in close touch with the regional bureau chiefs of the Department of State.…

What I need, as Secretary of State, is the best judgment of those most knowledgeable about the problem. INR and the Department of State, more broadly, are home to many specialists who are experts on topics of greatest concern to those charged with implementing the President’s foreign policy agenda. But INR is too small to have a critical mass of expertise on almost anything. INR and the Secretary of State need comparable and complimentary expertise elsewhere in the intelligence community.…

Let me make one other point, Madame Chairman, the intelligence community does many things well, but critical self-examination of its performance, particularly the quality and utility of its analytical products is too often not one of them. Thousands of judgments are made every year, but we’ve got to do a better job of subjecting all of those judgments to rigorous post-mortem analysis to find out what we did right, as well as what we did wrong. When we did something wrong, why did we do it wrong, to make sure we don’t do it wrong again. We have to have alternative judgments in order to make sure that we are getting it right.…

As you know, President Bush has issued an Executive Order to improve the sharing of information on terrorism. We need to extend its provisions to intelligence on all subjects. In this regard, simple but critical guidelines would include separation of information on sources and methods from content so that content can be shared widely, easily and at minimal levels of classification. For this to work, collectors must have clear ways to indicate the degree of confidence that the information is reliable and user friendly procedures for providing additional information for those who need it.…

Similarly, decisions on who needs information should be made by agency heads or their designees not collectors. Every day I am sent information that can be seen only by a small number of senior policymakers who often cannot put the reports in the proper context or fully comprehend their significance. Intelligence is another name for information, and information isn’t useful if it does not get to the right people in a timely fashion.