Posted on 05/19/2002 6:58:04 PM PDT by Gillmeister
DURING THE COLD WAR years, the clear number-one priority of U.S. intelligence was the Soviet Union and its satellites, but there were other priorities as well, including the People's Republic of China, North Korea, the Middle East and the countries the Soviet Union and/or China were trying to take over.
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The end of the Cold War and the shredding of the Iron Curtain reduced the major threat to the U.S. but did not eliminate the threat altogether. Indeed, the number of threats from that direction actually increased: Many of the cold warriors continued to lead or angle for leadership positions in Russia and other former Soviet states. Four former Soviet republics had nuclear missiles (Congressional Record, Aug. 3, 1993, pages H5695-96).
Other long-standing hot spots remained hot, most notably the Middle East, China and North Korea.
And a type of threat that had not been prominent before, terrorism, came increasingly to the fore. In some cases it was state-sponsored terrorism; in other cases it was not.
Each threat requires the U.S. intelligence community to hand-tailor a counterforce. Developing that counterforce requires that the U.S. know intimately the nature of the particular threat. Knowing the threat in turn entails "human intelligence" -- in other words, spies.
A spy must know the language and the culture and must appear to be part of the culture. He must know, or get to know, key people in the group that poses the threat. As a result, a spy who is of Russian extraction, speaks Russian, understands the Russian culture and knew many highly-placed Soviet officials couldn't be flown to Afghanistan and be expected to become an effective spy there overnight, or probably ever. To spy in Afghanistan we need Afghans or people of Afghan extraction. To get them positioned to gather the information we need, we have to "turn" key Afghans or wait until our spies can enter the Afghan inner circle.
Then the U.S. intelligence agencies would have to employ enough analysts who understood well the Afghan languages to plow through the volume of messages coming out of Afghanistan.
All that requires money and eats up at least a portion of the savings flowing from the demise of the Soviet Union.
Funding for Intelligence Activities, 1993-99: The Backdrop
The George H.W. Bush administration and the then-Democratic-controlled Congress had begun paring back intelligence funding with the breakup of the Soviet Union. By the time of the 1992 Intelligence authorization bill they had so reduced funding for the intelligence agencies that Intelligence Committee chairman Dave McCurdy (D-OK) said they had reached "the outer limit on which the intelligence community can reasonably be expected to reduce spending next year" and that "To require further cuts would be to risk severe damage to the ability of the [intelligence] community to provide intelligence necessary to policymakers" (quoted at Congressional Record, Aug. 3, 1993, page H5678). Nevertheless, and despite McCurdy's warning, "those cuts were effectively doubled in the [1992] appropriations process" (ibid.). What's more, the 1992 Intelligence authorization ordered the intelligence agencies to reduce their workforces by more than 17.5 percent over five years (id. at H5704).
The 1993 (Fiscal 1994) Authorization Bill
In 1993, despite the fact that the first World Trade Center bombing had occurred on February 26 of that year, the Democratic-controlled Intelligence Committee proposed even deeper cuts, 3.8 percent below the amount authorized in 1992 and 3.7 percent -- more than $1 billion -- below the amount President Clinton had requested (id. at H5677, H5697). Adjusted for inflation, the 1993 bill proposed to go below the 1992 authorization by 6.8 percent.
But that wasn't enough for some Members. Congressmen Bernie Sanders (VT), the only avowed Socialist in Congress, and Major Owens (NY), a Democrat who is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, offered an amendment to limit "the total amount of the individual authorizations" to "not more than 90 percent of the total amount authorized to be appropriated by the . . . [1992 Intelligence authorization]" (id. at H5692).
In support of their amendment Sanders advanced two arguments: first, that "The Soviet Union no longer exists" and, second, "that massive unemployment, that low wages, that homelessness, that hungry children, that the collapse of our educational system is perhaps an equally strong danger to this Nation, or maybe a stronger danger for our national security" than the threats that remain (ibid.).
Sanders' second argument, what he terms a matter of "priorities in how we spend our national wealth" (Congressional Record, May 13, 1999, page H3131), is a total non sequitur. There is no secure job if the nation isn't safe. If the nation collapses, no wages will be paid, food stamps will be worthless and there won't be an education system. A nation's first order of business must be the safety and security of its people.
Sanders' first argument, that the bill's funding must be excessive since "the Soviet Union no longer exists," was supremely illogical. Member after member of the Intelligence Committee, Republicans and Democrats, eviscerated it. Thus, Committee Chairman Dan Glickman (D-KS):
"We live in a world in which more countries, some of whom are not friendly to the United States, are aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, in which the expertise and equipment needed to develop those weapons and their delivery systems are readily available on the open market, a world in which regional conflicts requiring some commitment of U.S. forces are becoming increasingly frequent, and in which terrorists are less reluctant to bring their deadly activities to our shores.
"The World Trade Center, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Washington Monument, the Golden Gate Bridge -- it can and it is happening here in our country" (Congressional Record, Aug. 3, 1993, page H5678).
"Further reductions will, in my judgment, increase the risk that unacceptable gaps in intelligence coverage will result" (ibid.).
Charles Schumer (D-NY), now the senior senator from New York:
There has been a "steady rise of State-sponsored terrorism around the world, terrorism that has become more extreme, more deadly, more autonomous, and more heavily armed, and unfortunately, for the first time, more active on American soil.
"Our success or failure to fight State-sponsored terrorism will depend more than ever on intelligence activities than just about any other leg of national security. If we cut the budget beyond the levels contained in this bill, the happiest people may well be terrorists in Hamas and Hezbollah and their patrons in Libya, Syria, Iran, and Iraq" (id. at H5684).
Former Committee chairman Dave McCurdy (D-OK):
"[T]o enact the provision offered by the gentleman from Vermont I believe would totally disrupt an orderly drawdown of the intelligence community, would pose a very serious threat to the very eyes and ears that we need in a very tumultuous world, where there are, indeed, very serious risks to our national and international security" (id. at H5704).
Senior Committee Republican Larry Combest (R-TX) also criticized Sanders for proposing an across-the-board cut without having studied the classified portions of the bill and without having reviewed the justifications for the amounts sought. "To make such cuts," he said,
"by a percentage or a number grabbed out of the air totally undercuts the duty of Congress to make responsible, informed decisions based on a close scrutiny of the costs and benefits of specific programs" (Congressional Record, Aug. 3, 1993, page H5693).
To that criticism Sanders airily replied,
"My job is not to go through the intelligence budget. I have not even looked at it" (id. at H5692) (emphasis added).
Even President Clinton weighed in against the Sanders amendment, writing that
"The reductions already proposed by the House Committee on Intelligence will in themselves test our ability to manage prudently reductions of the intelligence budget while we simultaneously seek to meet the new security challenges which confront the country. Therefore, I will oppose an amendment on the House floor which seeks to reduce intelligence spending beyond the reductions already proposed by the committee" (July 27, 1993 letter from President Clinton to Committee Chairman Glickman, quoted id. at H5696).
When the vote was taken, the Sanders-Owens amendment was rejected, 104-323 (1993 Vote No. 391, Aug. 3, 1993). In percentage terms, 75.6 percent of voting Members opposed it, only 24.4 percent supported it. But more than a third -- 37.9 percent -- of voting Democrats voted for the Sanders amendment. They included Whip David Bonior (D-MI), Armed Services Committee Chairman Ron Dellums (D-CA), Armed Services Committee subcommittee Chair Pat Schroeder (D-CO) and two of the four Chief Deputy Whips: Butler Derrick (D-SC) and John Lewis (D-GA).
The 1994 (Fiscal 1995) Authorization Bill
In 1994 the Democratic-controlled Intelligence Committee proposed still further cuts in the Intelligence budget: 2.2 percent below the amount President Clinton requested and 3.8 percent (6.4 percent after adjustment for inflation) below the previous year's authorization (Congressional Record, July 19, 1994, pages H5815, H5843). Committee Chairman Dan Glickman admitted that "This is the third consecutive year in which the committee has reported an authorization which is below both the President's request and the amount authorized the year before" and that "cuts in spending . . . have amounted to approximately 7 percent in the aggregate [before adjusting for inflation] over the last 3 years" (id. at H5819).
More alarmingly, Committee member and former CIA agent Porter Goss (R-FL) pointed out that, in real terms (i.e., adjusted for inflation), "The authorization levels in this bill are 16 percent below what they were in 1992, and total intelligence spending has declined by 20 percent since 1990" (id. at H5816). And Glickman conceded that, under the bill, "The numbers of people who are employed in the intelligence community is [sic] coming down approximately 20 percent" (id. at H5843).
Ranking Republican Combest charged that those cuts were far too steep:
"In all but one of my 6 years on this committee we have turned out an authorization bill showing cuts to intelligence in real terms. . . . We are now cutting away muscle and sinew. Savings can now be measured only in risks taken" (id. at H5820).
"[T]his bill endangers some critically important and fragile intelligence capabilities, such as in the area of human intelligence" (ibid.).
Committee member Bill Young (R-FL), who was also the ranking Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over defense spending, warned that "[T]his bill is not adequate" (id. at H5823).
Committee member Doug Bereuter (R-NE) cautioned that funds for "human intelligence" -- spying -- were being "severe[ly]" cut:
"[H]uman intelligence collection . . . is facing severe cuts that mandate worldwide retrenchment . . . . Intelligence collection for whole regions of the world must be virtually written off" (id. at H5822).
And -- curiously -- Major Owens charged that, under the Committee bill, the CIA wouldn't have "the capacity to do the job that needs to be done with respect to terrorism.
"They do not know enough Arabic. They do not have enough people to deal with the fundamentalist Islamic revolution. They cannot deal with that" (id. at H5844).
Why did the Intelligence Committee's bill cut so deeply? Committee member Doug Bereuter (R-NE) gave the answer:
"[O]ur Democratic colleagues on the committee tell us that the committee must cut deeply because a majority of the Democratic Caucus is critical of U.S. intelligence, and we might otherwise be unable to carry the bill without draconian cuts on the floor" (id. at H5822; emphasis added).
But Sanders and Owens still proposed an across-the-board cut limiting each account in the bill to "not more than 90 percent of the total amount authorized to be appropriated by the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994" (id. at H5842). Considering inflation, that would have meant a minimum cut of 12.6 percent below the previous year.
It was another sight-unseen amendment. Committee member Jim Bilbray (D-NV) said he had "talked with staff, and they [Sanders and Owens] have not gone up and looked at the budget" (id. at H5845). Neither Sanders nor Owens denied that accusation.
Committee Chairman Glickman said the Sanders-Owens amendment was "misguided" and "should be defeated" (id. at H5843). Senior Republican Combest was more direct, calling it "reckless in the extreme" (id. at H5844).
Ironically, one of those who spoke, and voted, in favor of the Sanders-Owens amendment was Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), whose district includes the World Trade Center. "[T]he fact is," he said, that with the Soviet Union gone, with the cold war over, if we cannot reduce our intelligence budget by 10 or 20 percent, then we are wasting a heck of a lot of money" (id. at H5846). The World Trade Center had already been bombed once, and not by Soviet agents, but he was proposing to shrink America's intelligence capability even more.
The House rejected the Sanders-Owens amendment decisively, 106-315 (1994 Vote No. 333, July 19, 1994). Republicans voted against it overwhelmingly, 8-163, but 39.0 percent of voting Democrats (97 of 249) voted for it.
Among the leading Democrats voting for the Sanders-Owens amendment were Whip Bonior, Chief Deputy Whips Derrick and Lewis, Appropriations Committee Chairman Jamie Whitten (D-MS), Armed Services Committee Chairman Dellums, Armed Services subcommittee Chair Schroeder and Intelligence Committee member (now Senator) Bob Torricelli (D-NJ).
The next day something quite unusual happened: There was a recorded vote on passage of the Intelligence authorization. Normally it passes by voice vote.
The bill passed by the lopsided vote of 410-16 (1994 Vote No. 336, July 20, 1994). The 16 dissenters included two Democrats with important responsibilities for national-security matters: Armed Services Committee Chairman Dellums and Armed Services subcommittee Chair Schroeder.
The 1995 (Fiscal 1996) Defense Appropriations Bill
On April 19, 1995 the United States experienced the most destructive act of terrorism it had faced to that point: the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that left 168 people dead and hundreds more injured. While that was a case of domestic terrorism, it showed the world -- including foreign would-be terrorists -- how vulnerable America was.
Less than five months later Sanders and Owens renewed their war on intelligence funding. They offered an amendment to the appropriations bill that covers the foreign intelligence agencies, the Defense appropriations bill, to limit funds for the National Foreign Intelligence Program to not more than "90 percent of the amount made available for such Agencies . . . from the appropriations provided in . . . [the previous year's Defense appropriations bill]" (Congressional Record, Sept. 7, 1995, page H8648).
As Sanders noted, that amendment was different from the amendments he and Owens had offered in previous years. While previous years' amendments had proposed to cut spending in all intelligence accounts, this version was a rifle shot aimed strictly at "intelligence gathering activities" (id. at H8648) -- in other words, at the people and activities tasked with uncovering the September 11 plot in advance. Accounting for inflation meant that, under this Sanders-Owens amendment, intelligence-gathering activities would have 12.8-percent less purchasing power in Fiscal 1996.
Opponents of the Sanders-Owens amendment quoted a speech President Clinton had recently made to CIA employees in which Clinton had said:
"Today, because the Cold War is over, some say that we should and can step back from the world and that we don't need intelligence as much as we used to; that we ought to severely cut the intelligence budget. A few have even urged us to scrap the central intelligence service.
"I believe these views are profoundly wrong. I believe making deep cuts in intelligence during peacetime is comparable to canceling your health insurance when you're feeling fine. . . .
"Now, instead of a single enemy, we face a host of scattered and dangerous challenges. They are quite profound and difficult to understand. There are ethnic and regional tensions that threaten to flare into full-scale war in more than 30 nations. Two dozen countries are trying to get their hands on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. As these terrible tools of destruction spread, so too spreads the potential for terrorism and for criminals to acquire them" (id. at H8649).
The House scotched the Sanders-Owens amendment by an overwhelming 93-325 (1995 Vote No. 643, Sept. 7, 1995). Republicans rejected it by 13-216 while, among Democrats, 79 voted for it (42.0 percent), 109 against it.
Democratic Whip Bonior, Chief Deputy Whip John Lewis, the Appropriations Committee's new ranking Democrat Dave Obey (D-WI), Armed Services Committee ranking Democrat Dellums and Intelligence Committee member Torricelli voted for it. Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt was absent from that vote but voted earlier and later that day, leading to the suspicion that he may have "taken a walk" to avoid going on the record. Also absent under similar suspicious circumstances was new Chief Deputy Whip Rosa DeLauro (D-CT).
The 1995 (Fiscal 1996) Authorization Bill
When the Intelligence authorization bill reached the House floor the following week, Barney Frank (D-MA) offered an amendment that would reduce "the aggregate amount authorized to be appropriated . . . [in the current bill] by three percent" but provided that "The President, in consultation with the Director of Central Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense, may apply the reduction . . . by transferring amounts among the accounts or reprogramming amounts within an account" (Congressional Record, Sept. 13, 1995, page H8829).
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) was one of those making the case for the Frank amendment. Disregarding the facts, she said:
"[T]he cold war is over. We won! It is time for the Defense and Intelligence budgets to reflect this reality.
"The Frank amendment is a reasonable amendment to the Intelligence budget. . .
". . .
"Three percent? That's not much. That's reasonable. Let's cut the bloated intelligence budget. Let's ask the CIA to sacrifice for a change" (id. at H8831).
The House rejected the Frank amendment, 162-262 (1995 Vote No. 654, Sept. 13, 1995). Republicans opposed it by 37-193 but Democrats voted for it by a margin of nearly two to one (124-69).
Voting for the Frank amendment were 11 very important Democrats: Minority Leader Gephardt, Whip David Bonior, Intelligence Committee member and now Whip-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Chief Deputy Whips Rosa DeLauro and John Lewis, Democratic Caucus Vice-Chair Barbara Kennelly (D-CT), ranking Armed Services Committee Democrat Dellums, ranking Appropriations Committee member Obey, members of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee Martin Sabo (D-MN) and Bill Hefner (D-NC) and Intelligence Committee member Torricelli.
The Conference Report on the 1995 Authorization Bill
The House adopted the conference report on the authorization bill by voice vote but the debate on it was significant because the two sides' positions stood in such sharp contrast. Arguing for less intelligence spending, Barney Frank said that
"Yes, there are in the world today very unpleasant people running countries. You look at Iran, you look at Iraq, you look at North Korea . . . . They make miserable the lives of millions, and if they could they would do great damage. But, collectively, they simply do not rise to the level of a threat of [sic: to] the United States" (Congressional Record, Dec. 21, 1995, page H15497) (emphasis added).
On the other side, Intelligence Committee member Bill Richardson (D-NM) insisted additional funding was required because, for one thing,
"[W]e need more human intelligence. We need more spies. We need more people getting us intelligence. . . . [W]e need covert action" (id. at H15498).
The 1996 (Fiscal 1997) Authorization Bill
The 1996 authorization was, said Committee Democrat Richardson, "the first major piece of legislation where the shift into human intelligence is dramatic, the way it should be." "It is critically important," Richardson said, "that we understand Islamic fundamentalism. That is going to take more linguists. To be perfectly candid, it will take more spies" (Congressional Record, Sept. 25, 1996, page H11057). The 1996 authorization bill provided the funds to begin to do that.
Both Sanders and Frank offered amendments to cut it.
Sanders' amendment proposed to reduce the authorized level of intelligence spending to "not more than 90 percent of the total amount authorized to be appropriated by . . . [the previous year's authorization Act]" (Congressional Record, May 22, 1996, page H5403) for a total reduction, including inflation, of at least 13.0 percent. Frank's amendment proposed that "the aggregate amount authorized to be appropriated by this Act . . . is reduced by 4.9 percent" but permitted "The President, in consultation with the Director of Central Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense," to "apply the reduction . . . by transferring amounts among the accounts or reprogramming amounts within an account . . . so long as the aggregate reduction in the amount authorized to be appropriated by this Act, equals 4.9 percent" (id. at H5421).
The House rejected the Sanders amendment by 115-311, almost one to three (1996 Vote No. 185, May 22, 1996).
Republicans voted against the Sanders amendment by 22-209. On the other hand, 47.4 percent of voting Democrats (92 of 194) supported Sanders' amendment, including the Whip, David Bonior, two of his chief deputies, John Lewis and DeLauro; Armed Services Committee senior members Dellums and Owen Pickett (D-VA); ranking Appropriations member Obey; and Intelligence Committee member Torricelli.
The House also defeated the Frank amendment, but by a narrower 192-235, or 45.0 percent to 55.0 percent (1996 Vote No. 187, May 22, 1996).
Fewer than one sixth of voting Republicans supported the Frank amendment; the result was 37 for, 193 against. But 78.6 percent of voting Democrats, more than three fourths (153 of 196), supported it. Voting for it (or, in Torricelli's case, paired for it) were all of those who had voted for the Sanders amendment plus Minority Leader Gephardt, Caucus Chairman Vic Fazio (D-CA), Caucus Vice-Chair Kennelly, Armed Services Appropriations subcommittee members Sabo and Hefner, senior Armed Service Committee member John Spratt (D-SC) and Intelligence Committee member Pelosi.
The Frank amendment thus attracted every single elected member of the House Democratic leadership and most of the appointed leadership as well.
The 1997 (Fiscal 1998) Authorization Bill
On July 9, 1997 the House prepared to take up the Intelligence authorization for Fiscal Year 1998.
Whip David Bonior decided to contest the bill's even being brought to the floor for debate.
The rule. Before a bill can be considered, the House must agree to the ground rules governing debate, such as: How much time will be allowed for general debate before the amending process begins? What if any amendments will be in order? Those ground rules are incorporated into a procedural piece of legislation called a "rule" which the House must adopt before it addresses the merits of the bill itself.
The rule proposed for consideration of the 1997 Intelligence authorization was non-controversial. The only restriction on amendments was the provision, by then an "established" "precedent" for Intelligence authorizations, that each amendment have been submitted in advance for printing in the Congressional Record. That procedure allowed the Intelligence Committee staff to review proposed amendments to make sure that they didn't disclose classified information (Congressional Record, July 9, 1997, page H4946). No one spoke against the rule; in fact, Bernie Sanders spoke "in strong support of the rule" (id. at H4947).
Bonior's assault on the rule -- he was one of two Members to vote against it -- was thus an objection to the merits of the bill itself, i.e., to its funding levels. Had his position prevailed, the entire bill would have had to be pulled from the floor. His side lost, 425-2 (1997 Vote No. 252, July 9, 1997).
The bill. The authorization bill itself sought 1.7 percent more than the previous year's authorization (Congressional Record, July 9, 1997, page H4950) in order to address the major deficiencies in U.S. intelligence, principally "to fund the restoration of an analyst cadre pared too lean over the past couple of years . . ." (Congressional Record, July 9, 1997, page H4953).
Both Sanders and Frank tried to cut the funding the bill proposed.
Sanders' amendment initially sought to limit funding to "not more than 90 percent of the total amount authorized to be appropriated by . . . [the preceding year's authorization]" (id. at H4961). On the floor, however, he revised it so that it sought a 5-percent reduction instead (ibid.). Adjusted for inflation, the 5 percent was really a 7.3-percent cut vis-à-vis the previous year's budget.
Sanders made two arguments in support of his amendment. One -- "[T]he intelligence community has not experienced the kind of appropriate cuts that had been made with many other agencies . . . " (id. at H4962) -- was demonstrably wrong: The previous year's authorization was 21.4 percent below the level authorized in 1992 (id. at H4988-89). Sanders' other argument --
"Is it appropriate to increase funding for an already bloated intelligence budget at exactly the same time as we propose painful cuts for senior citizens in Medicare, for low-income people in Medicaid, for others in housing, for kids, for the environment? How appropriate is it to say that we will cut $1.5 billion in home health care for seniors but not cut $1.5 billion for an intelligence budget which, in my view and in the view of many, already has too much money?" (id. at H4962) --
was the same old Sanders "priorities" non sequitur. If a nation doesn't have physical safety, it won't be able to enjoy health care, housing, child care or the environment. Security must be a nation's first priority.
Elizabeth Furse (D-OR) offered another obtuse, discredited argument in support of the Sanders amendment: "It is absolutely preposterous to even think about spending more on intelligence when the cold war is over" (id. at H4968).
Porter Goss (R-FL), then and now Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, took Sanders to task. He said:
"[D]espite the fact that the cold war is over, the danger to America and Americans and American interests is clearly not. Anybody who thinks it is might want to look in the newspapers about the World Trade Center bombing or they might want to look in the newspapers about the bombing in Saudi Arabia that regrettably cost the lives of some American troops and much wounding of hundreds of American troops . . ." (id. at H4962-63).
Goss also excoriated Sanders for proposing "indiscriminate" across-the-board cuts, including on activities "where program funding has already been reduced by significant amounts." He added:
"To make cuts by a percentage or a number grabbed out of thin air, whether it is 10 percent or 5 percent or any other percent, completely undercuts the duty of Congress to deliberate and make thoughtful decisions on behalf of our constituents in the best interests of the Nation.
". . .
"To my colleagues who favor this amendment, let me ask, to what specific programs are they opposed? What should we cut back? Which programs should be terminated? Which intelligence targets should be dropped? Specific modifications to intelligence programs would be more appropriate than the broad brush approach that the gentleman proposes" (id. at H4963).
The House rejected the Sanders amendment, 142-289 (1997 Vote No. 253, July 9, 1997).
Only a few voting Republicans -- 27 of 225 -- voted for the Sanders amendment, but 55.6 percent of voting Democrats did, 114 of 205. Its Democratic supporters included Minority Leader Gephardt, Whip Bonior, Chief Deputy Whips John Lewis and DeLauro, the top Democrats on the Armed Services and Appropriations committees, Ron Dellums and Dave Obey, and two new ranking Democrats on Armed Services subcommittees, Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) and Marty Meehan (D-MA).
Barney Frank's amendment proposed to cut all accounts in the authorization by 0.7 percent but, as his previous amendments had done, gave "The President, in consultation with the Director of Central Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense," the authority to transfer amounts among accounts or reprogram amounts within an account (Congressional Record, July 9, 1997, page H4986).
Democrats supported the Frank amendment by 158-39, or 80.2 percent to 19.8 percent. All of the Democrats' elected leadership (Gephardt, Bonior, Fazio and Kennelly) voted for it, as did DeLauro, John Lewis, newly appointed Chief Deputy Whip Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Dellums, Obey, Abercrombie, Meehan, Defense appropriators Sabo and Hefner and Intelligence Committee member Pelosi. Republicans voted against the amendment by 23-199 but it almost carried: The final tally was 182-238 (43.3 percent of voting Members for versus 56.7 percent against) (1997 Vote No. 255, July 9, 1997).
The Conference Report on the 1997 Authorization
Because of Clinton administration opposition, the conference report on the 1997 Intelligence authorization bill didn't preserve the increases the House bill had made; to the contrary, the conference report was "a significant reduction in funding for intelligence activities from our authorization passed by this body in June" and, "when combined with some of the actions we have taken in appropriations, will mean the intelligence community will do without some much needed resources in several areas" (Congressional Record, Nov. 7, 1997, page H10176) (Committee Chairman Goss). "Let me be blunt," Goss added:
"I do not believe that the intelligence community is sufficiently prepared to meet the demands that are being placed upon it now, much less in the future. In other words, the community simply cannot deliver all that is expected or all that is desired of it today" (id. at H10177).
Ranking Democrat Norm Dicks (D-WA) agreed wholeheartedly:
"We are not spending enough money today on intelligence" (ibid.).
"[T]he administration, taking a view of the future with which I disagree, refused to commit the necessary resources. I believe we will look back at this missed opportunity with great regret and that those responsible for this decision will have many occasions to wish that they had taken a more far-sighted view of the intelligence needs of the next century" (id. at H10178).
"I am worried, frankly, that we are downsizing to such a level that we are going to be spread so thin, especially in the human intelligence area, that we could have problems in the future" (id. at H10180).
The House adopted the conference report by 385-36 (1997 Vote No. 607, Nov. 7, 1997). Of the 36 opposing the conference report, 31 were Democrats, including Whip David Bonior and the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, Ron Dellums.
The 1998 (Fiscal 1999) Authorization Bill
In its 1998 bill the Intelligence Committee continued to try to strengthen intelligence analysis and also, said Committee member Charlie Bass (R-NH), "begin . . . the process, after years of drawdowns and reductions, of rebuilding a clandestine human intelligence program that has provided much of our intelligence on the plans and intentions of terrorists, traffickers and other adversaries" (Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, page H2950).
In February of that year Osama bin Laden and four radical Islamic groups had promulgated a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for the killing of Americans, both military and civilian. But just as earlier terrorist threats, attempts and even successes hadn't deterred the opponents of adequate intelligence funding, bin Laden's order didn't, either: Sanders, this time with Peter DeFazio (D-OR) as his co-author, offered an amendment to cut the Intelligence authorization by 5 percent (id. at H2957).
National Security Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-SC) offered a detailed critique of why he found the Sanders-DeFazio amendment "senseless":
"We have done to our military and to our intelligence agencies what no foreign power has been able to do. We have been decimating our own defenses.
"That is unforgivable . . . . In this dangerous world in which we are living, when not tomorrow but tonight, today, at any minute, this whole world could explode for us. It is just that serious. And here we are fat, dumb, and happy going about our merry ways, not concerned about what could happen to us. Let me tell my colleagues what could happen to us.
"In this day and time you do not have to be a superpower to raise the horrors of mass destruction warfare on people. It could be a Third World country, a rogue nation, or a terrorist group for that matter. They can put together weapons of mass destruction in laboratories in inexpensive low-tech ways. They can marry these weapons of mass destruction with cruise missiles, which can be bought across borders. They can launch them from various platforms, airplanes, submarines, ships, tugboats, extending the range to the extent that it brings everyone under the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
"These weapons of mass destruction are chemical, biological, bacteriological. Can my colleagues imagine having to defend against these kinds of weapons, hideous weapons? Anthrax could be released in the air over Washington, D.C., in a simple way, killing hundreds of thousands of people, and we could not inoculate people fast enough to prevent anything happening to them. That could happen at any time and people are talking about cutting back on our ability to defend against these things or to prevent them from happening. It is unconscionable to even think about it. It borders on leaving our country defenseless when confronting the enemy and all the dangers that we are facing as a country.
"Aside from those weapons of mass destruction, we face all kinds of threats from various sources. This is a very dangerous world. We have to do more instead of less in defending our country and our people. . . . Vote down overwhelmingly this senseless amendment" (id. at H2958).
The House responded, voting 120-291 to reject the Sanders-DeFazio amendment (1998 Vote No. 137, May 7, 1998).
Republicans opposed the Sanders-DeFazio amendment by an overwhelming 21-196 but a majority of voting Democrats (98 of 193) supported it. They included the top two members of the leadership, Gephardt and Bonior, along with Chief Deputy Whips DeLauro and John Lewis, the head Democrat on Appropriations, Dave Obey, and ranking Armed Services subcommittee Democrats Abercrombie and Meehan.
The Conference Report on the 1998 Authorization Bill
The conference report on the 1998 Intelligence authorization came to the House floor on October 7, 1998, two months to the day after al Qaeda terrorists bombed the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Committee member Bill McCollum (R-FL) stressed how only human intelligence can uncover and forestall terrorists' plans:
"Today . . . we face new transnational threats that in many cases arise in smaller, poorer, and more often obscure capitals and cities in Latin America, the Near East, and Africa. . . . Terrorist networks run from rural Afghanistan to Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, the Balkans, and even New York to kill our citizens and threaten our peace.
". . .
". . . [W]e must know the plans and intentions of those behind the transnational threats . . . . We must know all of this before it is too late for us to act. We need to know the who, the where, and the how . . . .
"For that we must have the eyes and ears of our case officers, and technology, on the streets where these threats originate" (Congressional Record, Oct. 7, 1998, page H9731).
The House adopted the conference report, 337-83 (1998 Vote No. 487, Oct. 7, 1998). David Bonior voted against it and Dick Gephardt and John Lewis missed the vote under suspicious circumstances.
The 1999 (Fiscal 2000) Authorization Bill
The Intelligence Committee's 1999 bill sought to continue the rebuilding of the country's intelligence capabilities. One focus was on hiring more linguists to correct the agencies' serious shortage of people fluent in terrorists' native languages (Congressional Record, May 13, 1999, page H3117).
During the floor debate on the bill, Duke Cunningham (R-CA) reported that National Security Advisor Sandy Berger had told him that the United States is "very, very vulnerable" to a terrorist attack and that "an attack from Osama bin Laden was imminent" (id. at H3136).
But Sanders, DeFazio and Pete Stark (D-CA) persevered in trying to cut the intelligence budget. They offered an amendment to limit the authorization to "not more than the total amount authorized to be appropriated by the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999" (id. at H3131).
Then began a comedy of errors. Julian Dixon (CA), ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, pointed out that, as drafted, the Sanders-DeFazio-Stark amendment wouldn't cut anything "because the 2000 authorization . . . is, in fact, lower than the 1999" (id. at H3132). None of the amendment's authors had bothered to check. Dixon helpfully suggested a change in the amendment -- substitute "Fiscal Year 1998" for "Fiscal Year 1999" -- to accomplish Sanders' and his gang's objective of reducing the intelligence budget. Sanders eagerly accepted the suggestion (ibid.).
The House rejected the Sanders-DeFazio-Stark amendment by a thumping 68-343 (1999 Vote No. 129, May 13, 1999). Among Sanders' minority of 68 were 61 Democrats, including Whip David Bonior, three of his chief deputy whips (Rosa DeLauro and new appointees Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Ed Pastor (D-AZ)) and Abercrombie and Meehan of the Armed Services Committee.
There have been no further recorded votes on cuts to Intelligence legislation.
* * *
There are those who say the September 11 hijack-bombings were a wake-up call. They weren't. The alarms had been sounding with increasing urgency since at least 1983. Here's a partial chronology:
* April 18, 1983: A van loaded with 2,000 pounds of explosives detonates by the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Sixty-three persons are killed, including 17 Americans. The CIA's entire Middle East contingent is wiped out.
* December 29, 1992: A bomb explodes in the Aden, Yemen hotel where U.S. troops bound for Somalia had been staying.
* February 26, 1993: Bombs explode in the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. Six people are killed and more than 1,000 injured. Authorities successfully head off plans to detonate other bombs in the federal building in lower Manhattan, in the UN headquarters in midtown Manhattan and in two commuter tunnels between Manhattan and New Jersey.
* April 19, 1995: A car-bomb rips through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
* June 25, 1996: A truck-bomb kills 19 American servicemen and injures 500 more at the Khobar Towers military barracks in Dharan, Saudi Arabia.
* February 1998: Osama bin Laden and four Islamic groups issue a religious proclamation ordering their followers to kill Americans, civilian as well as military, wherever they can be found.
* August 7, 1998: Nearly simultaneous explosions rock the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 and injuring 4,600.
* October 12, 2000: A motorboat carrying explosives bombs the destroyer U.S.S. Cole in Yemen. Nineteen U.S. servicemen are killed.
In the face of those terrorist attacks, some Members of Congress sought to halt and reverse the downward slide in America's intelligence capabilities. Others, including many of the leading Democrats in the House, ignored all or most of the alarms and sought to eviscerate our intelligence capabilities even further.
During the 1994 debate on the Intelligence authorization Larry Combest (R-TX), then the Intelligence Committee's senior Republican, made a very incisive comment about the Members who thought they could vote to cut our nation's defenses with impunity -- maybe even to applause: "[T]hose who opposed strong defenses in the years before World War II," he said,
"could claim to be demonstrably right year after year. In the gamble of national preparedness they rolled straight sevens and saved the taxpayers billions of dollars -- right up until December 1941 and the debacle of Pearl Harbor. Some people refuse to learn from history, but what was true then is true now: Responsible leaders of this country must fight against the short-sighted tendency to think we can safely cut corners in intelligence and national security" (Congressional Record, July 19, 1994, page H5820).
Now the chickens have come home to roost
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