Of all our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among
the most difficult and important. So long as oversight is governed by current
congressional rules and resolutions, we believe the American people will not get
the security they want and need. The United States needs a strong, stable, and
capable congressional committee structure to give America's national
intelligence agencies oversight, support, and leadership.
Strengthen Congressional Oversight of Intelligence and Homeland
Security
Few things are more difficult to change in Washington than congressional
committee jurisdiction and prerogatives. To a member, these assignments are
almost as important as the map of his or her congressional district. The
American people may have to insist that these changes occur, or they may well
not happen. Having interviewed numerous members of Congress from both parties,
as well as congressional staff members, we found that dissatisfaction with
congressional oversight remains widespread.
The future challenges of America's intelligence agencies are daunting. They
include the need to develop leading-edge technologies that give our policymakers
and warfighters a decisive edge in any conflict where the interests of the
United States are vital. Not only does good intelligence win wars, but the best
intelligence enables us to prevent them from happening altogether.
Under the terms of existing rules and resolutions the House and Senate
intelligence committees lack the power, influence, and sustained capability to
meet this challenge. While few members of Congress have the broad knowledge of
intelligence activities or the know-how about the technologies employed, all
members need to feel assured that good oversight is happening. When their
unfamiliarity with the subject is combined with the need to preserve security, a
mandate emerges for substantial change.
Tinkering with the existing structure is not sufficient. Either Congress
should create a joint committee for intelligence, using the Joint Atomic Energy
Committee as its model, or it should create House and Senate committees with
combined authorizing and appropriations powers.
Whichever of these two forms are chosen, the goal should be a structure-
codified by resolution with powers expressly granted and carefully limited-
allowing a relatively small group of members of Congress, given time and reason
to master the subject and the agencies, to conduct oversight of the intelligence
establishment and be clearly accountable for their work. The staff of this
committee should be nonpartisan and work for the entire committee and not for
individual members.
The other reforms we have suggested-for a National Counterterrorism Center
and a National Intelligence Director-will not work if congressional oversight
does not change too. Unity of effort in executive management can be lost if it
is fractured by divided congressional oversight.
Recommendation: Congressional oversight for intelligence-and
counterterrorism-is now dysfunctional. Congress should address this problem. We
have considered various alternatives: A joint committee on the old model of the
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy is one. A single committee in each house of
Congress, combining authorizing and appropriating authorities, is another.
- The new committee or committees should conduct continuing studies of the
activities of the intelligence agencies and report problems relating to the
development and use of intelligence to all members of the House and Senate.
- We have already recommended that the total level of funding for
intelligence be made public, and that the national intelligence program be
appropriated to the National Intelligence Director, not to the secretary of
defense.19
- We also recommend that the intelligence committee should have a
subcommittee specifically dedicated to oversight, freed from the consuming
responsibility of working on the budget.
- The resolution creating the new intelligence committee structure should
grant subpoena authority to the committee or committees. The majority
party's representation on this committee should never exceed the minority's
representation by more than one.
- Four of the members appointed to this committee or committees should be a
member who also serves on each of the following additional committees: Armed
Services, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, and the Defense Appropriations
subcommittee. In this way the other major congressional interests can be
brought together in the new commit-tee's work.
- Members should serve indefinitely on the intelligence committees, without
set terms, thereby letting them accumulate expertise.
- The committees should be smaller-perhaps seven or nine members in each
house-so that each member feels a greater sense of responsibility, and
accountability, for the quality of the committee's work.
The leaders of the Department of Homeland Security now appear before 88
committees and subcommittees of Congress. One expert witness (not a member of
the administration) told us that this is perhaps the single largest obstacle
impeding the department's successful development. The one attempt to consolidate
such committee authority, the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, may
be eliminated. The Senate does not have even this.
Congress needs to establish for the Department of Homeland Security the kind
of clear authority and responsibility that exist to enable the Justice
Department to deal with crime and the Defense Department to deal with threats to
national security. Through not more than one authorizing committee and one
appropriating subcommittee in each house, Congress should be able to ask the
secretary of homeland security whether he or she has the resources to provide
reasonable security against major terrorist acts within the United States and to
hold the secretary accountable for the department's performance.
Recommendation: Congress should create a single, principal point of
oversight and review for homeland security. Congressional leaders are best able
to judge what committee should have jurisdiction over this department and its
duties. But we believe that Congress does have the obligation to choose one in
the House and one in the Senate, and that this committee should be a permanent
standing committee with a nonpartisan staff.
