Senate Select Intelligence Committee Holds Hearing on Worldwide Threats to Intelligence Community

FDCH TRANSCRIPTS
Congressional Hearings
Feb. 11, 2003

Senate Select Intelligence Committee Holds Hearing on Worldwide Threats to Intelligence Community

DEWINE:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Director Mueller, thank you very much for supplying us with this two-page summary. I think it is a very good summary of what you have done, "FBI Entities Created to Address Terrorist Threat." I would commend it to my colleagues in the Senate.

You have talked about what the FBI is doing to attempt to reform itself and really change the whole overall direction. To play the devil's advocate for a moment, there are some people, director, as you know, who believe that the FBI never really will be able to make that transformation and that you can't do domestic intelligence. And I know you and I have talked about this. And of course, you believe that you can make that.

Let me ask you a couple of questions. One, can you describe for us how well the computer upgrade process is going? The computer system at the FBI has been a mess, very antiquated.

How much is it going to cost to upgrade it? How long is that upgrade going to take?

MUELLER:

Let me just start to discuss the essential to upgrading our computer system, and that was having a team in, bringing a team on board of former CIOs, individuals from private industry who have gone through this process before. And we, over the last year, have been lucky to recruit a number of individuals who, regardless of the salary they are paid, want to serve their country.

And so we have, rather than just the one or two individuals who have been in the industry before, we have upwards of 15, who are shepherding our upgrade in technology. And having that team on board was absolutely essential.

With regard to the hardware, we have put in over 20,000 desktops and computers over the last year, to give us the capability at the desktops, with Pentiums as opposed to 386s or 486s. Critical to our improvement is having the local area networks and, more importantly, the wide area networks, the band width to exchange information and the very technically challenging networks that are necessary should be in place by the end of March.

We have over 600 points around the country that have to be served by these networks. And we expect those to be done by the end of March.

Our principal software application, called Virtual Case File, which is being developed by a number of agents, as well as contractors, should be on board and on everybody's desk by December.

DEWINE:

Which is quite an exciting prospect, as you have explained it to me.

My time is very limited. When do you think that will be up?

MUELLER:

It will be up in December.

DEWINE:

That will be up in December. And the total cost for this will be what, do you think?

MUELLER:

I would have to check the figures. It's several hundreds of millions of dollars. But I would want to be specific. I can get you, quite obviously, the total cost.

DEWINE:

And this whole process should be completed by when?

MUELLER:

Well, it's an ongoing process. The bulk of it will be completed by December of this year. But what we wanted to do was put into place a computer and information technology that won't serve us just in the next six months or the next year, but put in place a technology that can be upgraded yearly.

So it will be an ongoing process. But the bulk of it, I expect to be done by December of this year.

DEWINE:

Director, for those critics who say that you can't make this transformation, when's a fair time for us to, as the oversight committee, to look back and say, to make the judgment whether you have made the transformation or not? This is a tremendous sea change for the FBI.

MUELLER:

I think in some respects, it is. In other respects, it is not.

I think it's fair to ask: what have we done since September 11th? I divide it between the collection capabilities. And I think the bureau, the agents have always had the collection capabilities and, indeed, have been some of the best collectors of information in the world.

What we have lacked in the past is the analytical capability, both in terms of the analysts, as well as the information technology. And we have, since September 11th, almost doubled the number of analysts. We have developed a college of analytical studies. And we have brought in, an George Tenet has helped us, with 25 analysts to help us, in the meantime, on the analytical capability of the bureau.

The analytical capability will be much enhanced by having the databases, the analytical tools in which to search those databases. And I would expect, by the end of the year, we will be much enhanced.

But the fact of the matter is, since September 11th, I think just about every individual in the bureau understands that it is of foremost importance that the bureau protect the United States against another terrorist attack. And that mind shift came as of September 11th. And the bureau, I believe, has welcomed the opportunity to meet this new challenge, as it has in the past, met previous challenges.

DEWINE:

Thank you, director, very much.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

DEWINE:

Director Tenet, in regard to Afghanistan, talk to me a little bit about Al Qaida and other terrorist groups. What impact are they having there now?

TENET:

The area of our greatest worry, as you know, are the eastern provinces that abut the northwest frontier with Pakistan. And that's where we think that they continue to try. And either Taliban remnants or Al Qaida remnants continue to operate.

I think we can paint a picture of a country that, in relative terms, is pretty secure in the rest of the country. That doesn't obviate warlordism, factionalism that's occurring. But this is the part of the world that creates these eastern provinces in the northwest Pakistani frontier, the area where we have our greatest worry, greatest insecurity, greatest number of attacks on our forces and our people on the ground. So it's something that we have to work on pretty hard.

DEWINE:

Has that changed? What's the progress there?

TENET:

I think the progress is . . .

DEWINE:

Is it worse than 60 days ago?

TENET:

No, I don't say it's worse. I will say it's something that is a steady state of worry for all of us.

DEWINE:

Admiral, do your analysts have—do you feel an analyst today, after the changes that we have seen made, do you feel your analysts have access across the community to the information that they need?

JACOBY:

Sir, we have made steady progress. I'm not in a position to know, sort of, what I don't know at this point.

DEWINE:

It's a problem, isn't it?

JACOBY:

It is, sir. And it's a point of ongoing discussion and in work.

DEWINE:

Where are we with the FISA information?

MUELLER:

The FISA information is disseminated to the community in real-time now, in ways that had not been before September 11th. And I'd let Mr. Tenet speak to that.

DEWINE:

FISA? I asked about dissemination about FISA.

TENET:

We get this material real-time now, as a result of the Patriot Act, so it's been quite beneficial to both of us. So there is a real-time access so that we can monitor operational data. And Bob uses it for other purposes, operational data as well. But it's moving very quickly.

DEWINE:

What about you, admiral?

JACOBY:

We see it as part of product, very carefully and clearly identified with the appropriate handling requirements attached to it.

DEWINE:

Director Mueller, your written testimony mentioned the FBI's efforts to work with suppliers and manufacturers of WMD materials to coordinate their voluntary reporting of any suspicious purchases or inquiries. How broadly is this effort being conducted? And have the suppliers and manufacturers actually been cooperative?

MUELLER:

It's an effort throughout all of our field offices. And indeed, they have. We have had a number of investigations initiated because a manufacturer will come to us, having received an order from, say, two or three separate countries. And the order for this particular product will be a product that can be used to develop some form of WMD product.

And they will see that the order is all the same and may come from countries in the Middle East or the Far East. It will raise some suspicion. And we have had a number of investigations that have been triggered by just such information coming from manufacturers in the United States.

DEWINE:

So this is working?

MUELLER:

It is working.

DEWINE:

Progress.

MUELLER:

Yes.

DEWINE:

Admiral, your written testimony also describes the long- term trends with respect to weapons of mass destruction and missile proliferation. You describe this as "bleak." This is your words.

You note that 25 countries either possess now or are actively pursuing WMD or missile programs. At this point, we're focusing of course on preventing further proliferation and limiting the ability of rogue nations and unstable regimes from obtaining these weapons. But it's only a matter of time before these technologies are widely spread around the globe.

Let me just ask any members of the panel: how are we planning for that future time, when we get up to that number? Twenty-five countries can certainly change the dynamics of that. And I wonder if anyone wants to comment on that?

Director, you are nodding. Anybody that nods gets to go first.

TENET:

Sir, I think that, as I talked about in my statement, one of the things that worries me the most is the nuclear piece of this. I talked about the domino theory; it may be the nuclear piece. And you've got networks based on countries, indigenous capability, individual purveyors.

And I think that we need to think—and this is a very important policy question and not my question—we need to think about whether the regimes we have in place actually protect the world. In time periods where you could contain this problem to states with regimes, that's one thing.

Today, I'm afraid the technology and the materiel and the expertise is migrating in manners in a network fashion that belies a theory that's based on borders and states. And I think this is a problem because it will play right into ballistic missile proliferation and the mating of nuclear weapons to missiles. And the proliferation piece, when mated to issues like terrorism, I think is the most difficult and most serious threat the country is going to face over the next 20 or 30 years.

DEWINE:

Thank you.