Congressional Record: May 21, 2002 (House)
Page H2820-H2834


 
  DEFENDING PRESIDENT BUSH REGARDING KNOWLEDGE OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, 
THREAT, AND DETAILING UPCOMING TRAVEL TO RUSSIA, UZBEKISTAN, CHINA, AND 
                              NORTH KOREA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Issa). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) 
is recognized provisionally for half the time remaining until midnight.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I take the time this 
evening, and thank the Speaker and the staff for bearing with me, to 
basically perform two functions.
  First of all, I will respond to those critics of President Bush who 
have taken unfair shots at him over the 9-11 situation, and will 
factually refute what people like the minority leader, the gentleman 
from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), have said publicly about this President 
somehow not heeding evidence that was provided to him.
  I am going to present the true facts of what we could have and should 
have done prior to September 11 that I think would have allowed us to 
both understand what was about to occur and to have done something 
about it.
  The second action I am going to discuss this evening is an upcoming 
trip that I will be leading to Russia, Uzbekistan, Beijing, China, as 
well as Pyongyang, North Korea, the first delegation going into that 
country, and Seoul, South Korea, at the end of this week.
  Mr. Speaker, let me start out by saying, first of all, in response to 
many of the media pundits who have spent the last week or 10 days 
criticizing President Bush and have publicly said that he had 
indications that should have alerted him to the upcoming attack on the 
World Trade Center, nothing could be farther from the truth. The facts 
are all in. The data the President got were basically individual 
elements provided by individual agencies about potential acts that 
might be against our country, nowhere near the immensity of what we 
actually saw on September 11.
  They were bits of information, like the CIA saying there might be an 
attempt to hijack an airplane, but no linkage of that act to an attack 
on the Trade Center; or the fact that other agencies were looking at 
pilots that were obtaining licenses and had no intention of landing an 
airplane. Each of these bits of information, while being provided to 
the upper levels of our government, in and of themselves would not lead 
anyone to believe that an imminent attack was about to occur on the 
Trade Center.
  But Mr. Speaker, as I said on September 11 on CNN live at 12 noon 
from the roof of a church across from the Capitol, on that day the 
government did fail the American people. Now, the President did not 
fail the American people, but the government failed the American 
people.
  I am going to document for our colleagues today, and for the American 
public and the media, steps that we took in the years prior to 
September 11 when our agencies and the government did not respond. This 
started back in the Clinton administration and continued during the 
Bush administration.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, during the late 1990s, I chaired the Committee 
on Research for our national security, which meant that my job was to 
oversee about $38 billion a year that we spend on cutting-edge 
technology for the military.
  One of those projects that I helped get additional funding for was 
the Information Dominant Center that the Army was standing up down at 
Fort Belvoir, technically known as the LIWAC. This Land Information 
Warfare Assessment Center was designed to monitor on a 24-hour-a-day 
basis 7 days a week all of our military classified systems, those 
systems used to run the Army. Each of our services was in the process 
of standing up an entity like the one that the Army stood up at Fort 
Belvoir.
  Back in 1997, as I was supporting increased funding for this 
capability, I was amazed in two trips that I took to Fort Belvoir that 
the Army was not just able to maintain security over their information 
systems, but they were able to use new software tools and high-speed 
computers to do what is commonly called ``profiling,'' to take vast 
amounts of information about the classified and unclassified 
information and process it and analyze it so that a picture could be 
drawn and a threat could be developed, proliferation could be 
monitored.

                              {time}  2310

  Now, this was back in 1997. In fact, I had a chance to use these 
capabilities and I think this story, more than any other, underscores 
the inabilities of our agencies on September 11 to really understand 
the threat that was emerging.

[[Page H2821]]

  As you might recall, back in 1997 we had gotten into a war in Kosovo 
to remove Milosevic from power. All of Congress was not supportive of 
that conflict. In fact, I opposed the initial involvement with 
President Clinton by our troops, not because I have supported Milosevic 
but because I felt that we did not force Russia or allow Russia to play 
a more vibrant role in helping us to get Milosevic out of power.
  Two weeks after the bombing campaign started, I started to receive 
telephone calls and started to receive e-mails from my Russian 
colleagues in the State Duma. People who are senior leaders who called 
me and e-mailed me and said we have a real problem. Your policy of 
bombing Milosevic and innocent Serbs is causing the Russian people to 
lose confidence in what America's real intent is, and you are driving 
Russia further away from our country. And I said what do you want me to 
do? They said we need you to convince your president that Russia can 
help play a role in ending the war and getting Milosevic out of office. 
And the Russians told me that they wanted me to go to Belgrade in the 
middle of the conflict, that they would arrange a meeting with 
Milosevic.
  Well, I told them that that was very much undoable because we were in 
the middle of a war. We were bombing Serbia at the time. But I asked 
them to put that request in writing and they did. Within the next few 
days I got a letter on official Duma stationery where the Russians 
outlined their desire to take me and a delegation of Members of 
Congress to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. They outlined who would come from the 
Russian side and they committed that they would have a meeting with 
Milosevic personally with a date and time certain. They also agreed to 
visit a refugee camp of our choosing so we could show them the damage 
that Milosevic had caused innocent people, and they also agreed to 
release the three American POWs that were being held hostage.
  When the letter came, it also included the name of an individual I 
did not know. His name was Dragomir Kric. The Russians had told me that 
this individual was very close to Milosevic personally, that the 
Russians trusted him, and that he was the guy that would get Milosevic 
to agree to the terms to end the hostilities against the Serbian, 
Yugoslavian people.
  The Russian request I then took to the State Department with my 
colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) on the other side. 
We had a 1 hour and 30 minute meeting in the Office of Deputy Secretary 
of State Strobe Talbott. We outlined for him what the Russians had 
requested for us and that we were willing to lead a delegation into 
Belgrade in spite of the war going on. Strobe Talbott listened and he 
said, I do not think it is a good idea. He said we cannot guarantee 
your safety and we do not think Milosevic will do what the Russians say 
he will do, and we think he will just use you. So my advice is not to 
go, but as citizens in America you can do what you want.
  I said that we would not violate the request of our State Department 
and would not go. But the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) suggested 
that perhaps we should meet the Russians in a neutral city and he 
suggested Vienna. Strobe Talbott said that was fine. So I came back to 
Capitol Hill and I sent a letter to all 435 members of the House 
outlining for them what the Russians had asked, what the administration 
response was, and invited every Member of this body to attend a meeting 
if they were interested in going with us to Vienna. From the meeting 
that we held 1- Members of Congress, 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans, 
volunteered to go with me to Vienna to meet with our Russian 
counterparts and Mr. Kric.
  Now, before we left on that trip I wanted to know something about 
Kric so I called the CIA director, George Tennant. I said I do not know 
who this guy is. The Russians are convinced that he can give us 
information that will allow us to get Milosevic to agree to our terms. 
Can you tell me something about him as the director of the CIA?
  He called me back the next day and gave me 2 or 3 sentences about 
Dragomir Kric and said that they thought he was tied in with the 
corruption in Russia but did not know much else about him.
  Without telling anyone, Mr. Speaker, I went back to my friends at the 
Army Information Dominence Center, and I said can you run me a profile 
of a Dragomir Kric and tell me something about him. They ran a profile 
and they came back to me with 8 pages of information about this man, 
the profile of someone who was very close to Milosevic personally.
  With that information, we left on a military plane on a Thursday 
afternoon after votes and flew all night to Vienna, arrived on Friday 
morning, and began our discussions in the hotel in Vienna with the 11 
members of Congress, a State Department representative, the 5 Russians 
and Dragomir Kric.

  We worked all through Friday into the night and into Saturday. And by 
Saturday midday something historic had happened. The Russians had 
agreed to the terms that we wanted to end the conflict. The Russians 
had agreed to things they had never agreed to. During the time when we 
were meeting, Kric was calling back to Belgrade talking to Milosevic on 
the phone personally. He would come back in the room and he would tell 
us what Milosevic was happy with and what he was not, but we were not 
there to negotiate with Milosevic. We were there to get the Russians to 
agree with us on an end to the conflict.
  By 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon we reached agreement. It was word 
for word read by the Russian and American side and we all signed off on 
an end to the war. It was an historic time for us because we thought we 
could stop the bombing and stop killing innocent people and get 
Milosevic out of power.
  Kric immediately left the room and made a phone call. He came back in 
the room and said I just talked to Milosevic personally, and he has 
assured me that if we go down as a group right now to Belgrade, and I 
will hire the bus, and we all go down together, Milosevic will meet 
with us, he will agree to this framework which ends his reign. He will 
agree to accept international peacekeeping force to disarm the Serbs, 
and he will agree to allowing a U.N. or NATO force to bring stability 
to this country. And he will also release the 3 POWs that have not been 
heard from since they were captured by Milosevic.
  Well, that was pretty historic, Mr. Speaker. So my colleagues on the 
other side called the White House from Vienna. They get on the White 
House operation center phone line and talked to John Podesta, the chief 
of staff for the President. And they said we have something that you 
have to get to President Clinton immediately. We have negotiated what 
we think is the end of the Kosovo war with the Russians, with a 
representative of Milosevic agreeing to the terms.
  Another representative with us of the State Department called the 
State Department operations center and he told them what had 
transpired. So he notified both the White House and the State 
Department. The State Department said let me talk to Congressman 
Weldon. So I got on the phone. On the other end of the line was Steven 
Sestanovich who was at that time in charge of the Russia desk at the 
State Department.
  I outlined for him what had occurred. He said, Curt, this is amazing 
but it is above my pay grade. I cannot tell you what to do. Hold on and 
I will have someone else call you back. Thirty minutes later, Mr. 
Speaker, I got a call from Tom Pickering. Tom Pickering was at that 
time number three in the State Department and had been the ambassador 
for us to Russia. I had known him in that capacity. He said, Curt, what 
is going on? And I explained to him that we had met with the Russians 
and Kric. We had reached agreement, and that Milosovic through Kric was 
saying that he was prepared to end the war if we went down to Belgrade. 
So I said to Tom Pickering, what do you think we should do?
  He said, Curt, first of all, we do not trust Milosevic. We do not 
think that he will live up to what he is telling you through this guy 
Kric; and, furthermore, Curt, I do not even know who Kric is. I never 
heard of this guy and how could you believe that somehow he speaks for 
Milosevic?
  I said, Tom, I did not know Kric either before I came here, but I 
know the Russians. They are my friends, and they have convinced me that 
he is the

[[Page H2822]]

person that can get Milosevic to do what we want. He said, I do not 
think it is a good idea. In fact, let me tell you, the Reverend Jesse 
Jackson has been in Belgrade for a week. We have been in constant 
communication with him. In fact, he is coming home today. His 
delegation has been unsuccessful. They were trying to get the three 
POWs released, he said, but their mission has failed.

                              {time}  2320

  What makes you think that you can do something that the Reverend 
Jesse Jackson could do? I do not know, Tom. All I am telling you is 
what the Russians are saying based upon Kric's taught discussions with 
Milosevic. He said I do not think you should go, and I said okay, then 
we will not, because we are a Nation of laws and not of people.
  I came back to the room where the Members of Congress were seated 
with our Russian counterparts. I told them the story, and they 
immediately became incensed at me. Kric called me a coward for not 
taking a delegation to Belgrade. He said, You just lost a chance to end 
the war and bring home your POWs.
  I had Members of Congress from both parties telling me they were 
going to go on their own, and I said, Oh no, you are not; we came in a 
military plane that I acquired; you are going back to America with me.
  So the 11 Members of Congress and the Russians and our State 
Department official sat down and discussed how we would implement our 
plan instead of going to see Milosevic in Belgrade. Kric went out of 
the room and came back in after making a phone call, and said, You just 
blew it; Milosevic had said you had a chance to end the war, to get him 
to publicly accept this agreement and he would release the POWs.
  We continued to meet. Two hours later, our Navy escort came into the 
room, and he said to the 11 Members of Congress that CNN has just 
announced that Milosevic is releasing the POWs to Jesse Jackson's 
delegation. Kric told us that Milosevic did not want to keep them 
because he was fearful they would be harmed and we would blame him for 
their injuries. Even though he did not want to release them to Jesse 
Jackson, he did.
  To continue the story and make my point, Mr. Speaker, we all came 
back home to America. We briefed our colleagues. We briefed the 
administration. We presented the framework that we negotiated, and 8 
days later, or 2 weeks later, that became the basis of the G-8 
agreement to end the war. So our work was fruitful, but something 
interesting happened that applies to September 11.
  I got a call from the FBI in my office asking my staff to allow two 
agents to come over for me to brief them, for me to brief them, on a 
fellow named Dragomir Kric. I said, Fine, set it up for Monday 
afternoon in my office in the Rayburn Building. I went back to 
Pennsylvania, and on the Friday before that Monday, my office paged me 
with a 911 page. I called them and they said, You must call CIA 
congressional affairs immediately. I did.
  The CIA said, Congressman, we are going to fly two agents to 
Philadelphia right now. They will meet you at the airport, they will 
come to your home, they will come to a hotel, wherever you want to meet 
them, but they have to talk to you immediately. I said, What is the 
urgency? They said, We have been tasked by the State Department to 
brief them on Dragomir Kric and we want you to tell us what you know 
about him. I said, Well, the FBI already asked for that information, 
why can't we do it together on Monday afternoon?
  So that Monday afternoon I had four agents in my office: two CIA 
agents, one CI person and two FBI agents. For two hours they grilled me 
with four pages of questions about Kric.
  I answered all their questions. I told them that there were four Kric 
brothers, that they were the owners of the largest banking system in 
the former Yugoslavia; that they employed some 60,000 people; that 
their bank had tried to finance the sale of an SA-10 from Russia to 
Milosevic; that their bank had been involved in a $4 billion German 
bond scam; that one of the brothers had financed Milosevic's election; 
that the house Milosevic lived in was really their house; that, in 
fact, Krics' wives were best of friends with Milosevic's wife; and that 
they were the closest people to this leader.
  I told them all the information. When I got done, Mr. Speaker, I 
said, Now, do you want to know where I got my data from? They said, 
Yeah, you got it from the Russians. I said, No. They said, Well, then 
you got it from Kric. I said, No. I said, Before I went over there I 
had the Army's information dominant center run a profile for me of 
Dragomir Kric.
  The FBI and the CIA in 1997 said to me, what is the Army's 
information dominant center? The FBI and the CIA had no knowledge that 
our military was developing a capability that would be able to do 
massive data mining of information to allow us to do a profile of a 
person or an event that was about to happen.
  We took that model, based on that lesson which infuriated me as a 
Member of Congress to be asked to brief the CIA and the FBI, and 
working with people in the intelligence agencies, I developed a plan. 
This plan was to create a national collaborative center.
  Back in 1997, Mr. Speaker, the national collaborative center where 
there were articles written, published in the media, technical media 
here was called the NOAH, N-O-A-H. It stands for National Operations 
and Analysis Hub. The function of the NOAH would be to have all 32 
Federal agencies that have classified systems have a node of each of 
those systems in one central location managed by one of their 
employees, and when tasked by the national command authority, the 
President or the National Security Council, their data would be entered 
into a massive computer using new software tools like STARLITE and 
SPIRES and six others that are used by the private sector to do data 
mining.

  In addition to classified information systems, they would also run 
through massive amounts of unclassified data, newspaper stories, 
magazine story, TV broadcasts, radio broadcasts. A person cannot do 
that manually, but they can do it through high-speed computers, as the 
Army did for me in developing the profile of Kric.
  We took this plan and we said to the intelligence community, this is 
what we need to have to be prepared for threats in the 21st century, 
because the threats we are going to see over the next several decades 
will not come only from one nation state, they will come from terrorist 
organizations. We need to be able to pool all this data together and be 
able to profile it, analyze it and then come back with a true picture 
of what may be about to occur.
  Mr. Speaker, this was in 1997. I briefed John Hamre. Dr. John Hamre 
was then the Deputy Secretary of Defense. I said, John, you have got to 
go down to Fort Belvoir and see this facility; it is amazing. He went 
down twice. He called me back and he said, Curt, it is amazing what 
they are doing there. This profiling worked, and they could do it 
because unofficially some other secret lines were running through Fort 
Belvoir that the Army could unofficially access. So it really was an 
official process.
  He said, But you know, Curt, I cannot get to where you want to go 
because the CIA and the FBI will not cooperate and neither will the 
other agencies. He said, So I have a suggestion for you. Why do you not 
host a meeting in your office? I will come and you invite my 
counterparts at the FBI and the CIA.
  So, Mr. Speaker, in my office, in 1998, I had the Deputy Secretary of 
Defense, the Deputy Director of the CIA and the Deputy Director of the 
FBI, four of us met for 1 hour. We briefed them on the NOAH. We talked 
about the need for a national collaborative center, national data 
fusion center; and the response was, We do not need to do that right 
now, we are doing our own systems in our own agencies; so thank you for 
your recommendations, and we are trying to share but not the way you 
want because that is too bold. That is too aggressive. This was 1998, 
Mr. Speaker.
  Not satisfied with that, we held hearings. We did briefings for our 
colleagues; and in two consecutive defense bills, I put language in the 
bill that basically said the Defense Department and our intelligence 
agencies had to create a national collaborative center. So it became a 
part of the law; but Mr. Speaker, the agencies refused. They

[[Page H2823]]

said we do not need to do that, we do our job very well.
  Each of them does their job very well, but the problem is the threats 
in the 21st century will be seen from a number of different sources. It 
may be information coming from the Customs Department or from the 
Defense Intelligence Agency or from the NSA or from the CIA or the FBI 
or Commerce, State and Justice, all of which have classified systems; 
or it may come from some public statements in articles in other 
countries. We can only have the capability to understand all of that if 
we have a national fusion center.

                              {time}  2230

  We did not have that capability before September 11. That is why I 
stood up on September 11, at 12 p.m. in the afternoon and said, ``Today 
our government failed the American people.'' Because, Mr. Speaker, we 
knew what we should have done. We knew what we could have done. And we 
did not do it.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe that if we would have 
implemented the NOAH, which John Hamre offered to pay for with DOD 
dollars, back when we first recommended it, I am convinced we could 
have stopped or known about and prevented September 11 from ever 
happening.
  Let me give an example. CIA information on terrorism, combined with 
what the FBI knew about training pilots and open-source information on 
remarks by al Qaeda, would have helped the intelligence community and 
enforcement agencies focus better on the threat. For example, in August 
of 2000, an al Qaeda member had been interviewed by an Italian 
newspaper and reported that al Qaeda was training kamikaze pilots. The 
intelligence community and enforcement agencies, however, do not read 
open-source information. Yes, they read all the classified stuff, but 
this interview in 2000 was in an open-source newspaper account in 
Italy.
  If we would have had a fusion center, all of that data would have 
been processed, and in very real quick time, through massive high-speed 
computers, and we would have seen the linkages between what was 
occurring. But with each agency doing its own thing, it is impossible 
to see the linkages. And that is why when President Bush before 
September 11 got a bit of information from the CIA and a bit from the 
FBI, and something else, and nothing from open sources, there is no way 
he could have foretold what was about to occur.
  If we would have had the NOAH in place, an idea that was developed 
with the intelligence community, an idea that was briefed to the FBI, 
briefed to the CIA and briefed to the Defense Department, I think we 
could have done something to prevent al Qaeda.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, there is another interesting development that 
occurred. After the Army showed the capability of the LIWAC model at 
Ft. Belvoir, other services began to take interest. Special forces 
command down in Florida contacted the Army and said, hey, we hear you 
are doing some neat things. We want to build a mini version of what you 
are doing down at our headquarters.
  I did not find out about this until October of 2001, after the attack 
on the trade center. A year before, special forces command developed 
their own mini version of a data processing or collaborative center 
with very limited capabilities. But what they did, Mr. Speaker, they 
did a profile of al Qaeda 1 year before 9-11.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Issa). The gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Weldon) is recognized to continue until midnight.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, here is the chart, the 
unclassified chart of what special forces command had 1 year before 9-
11. Interesting. The entire al Qaeda network is identified in a graphic 
chart with all the linkages to all the terrorist groups around the 
world.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, I was told by the folks who developed the 
capability for special forces command that this chart and the briefing 
that was supposed to be given to General Shelton, Chairman of our Joint 
Chiefs, had a recommendation to take out 5 cells of bin Laden's 
network. Mr. Speaker, this was 1 year before 9-11. This was not during 
President Bush's administration. This occurred in the fall of the 
remaining term of President Bill Clinton.
  The key question I have been trying to get at is why was this 3-hour 
briefing, which I also got, I got General Holland to bring his briefers 
up from Florida with special forces, I went in the Pentagon, went in 
the tank, and they gave me the briefing, as much as they could give me, 
because part of it is being used for our operational plan, why was that 
3-hour briefing with the recommendations to take out 5 cells of bin 
Laden's network condensed down to a 1-hour brief when it was given to 
General Hugh Shelton in January of 2001? And why were the 
recommendations to take out 5 cells not followed up on? That is the 
question we should get answered, Mr. Speaker.
  Because 1 year before 9-11, the capability that special forces built 
actually identified to us the network of al Qaeda. And they went beyond 
that and gave us recommendations where we could take out cells to 
eliminate their capability. So for those pundits out there sitting in 
their armchairs criticizing President Bush, they have it all wrong.
  Facts are a tough thing to refute, and the fact is that back in 1997, 
we told the administration at that time what to do. In 1998, we briefed 
the agencies. In 1999, we put language in a defense bill. In 2000, we 
put language in a defense bill. In 2000, special forces command built 
another mini version of that capability. And in 2000 they briefed 
General Shelton telling him to take out 5 cells of bin Laden's network. 
All of that activity could have prevented or helped to prevent 9-11 
from ever occurring. I challenge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to review 
the facts. I challenge the media to report the truth.
  We still do not have a national collaborative center. That capability 
still does not exist. We are getting there, but it has been a long 
road. I briefed our Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, with the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), chairman of the Committee on 
Government Reform, about 4 months ago. He agreed with us, but he has 
not yet been able to achieve this new interagency collaborative center, 
and that is an indictment of our government that the American people 
deserve to be outraged over.
  We need this kind of capability in the 21st century, because these 
bits of pieces of information have to be pieced together, both 
classified and unclassified, so that our analysts can get the clear 
picture of what may be about to occur against our people and our 
friends.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I seek to clarify the charges against the President 
and to answer them, and I encourage my colleagues to learn more about 
the need for a national collaborative center, a national data fusion 
center or, as I call it, a national operations and analysis hub.
  Mr. Speaker, I will enter into the Record the documentation from as 
far back as 1998, 1999, and 2000 with our recommendations to implement 
this kind of capability:

     of an Office of Transformation within the Office of the 
     Secretary of Defense to advise the Secretary on--
       (1) development of force transformation strategies to 
     ensure that the military of the future is prepared to 
     dissuade potential military competitors and, if that fails, 
     to fight and win decisively across the spectrum of future 
     conflict;
       (2) ensuring a continuous and broadly focused 
     transformation process;
       (3) service and joint acquisition and experimentation 
     efforts, funding for experimentation efforts, promising 
     operational concepts and technologies and other 
     transformation activities, as appropriate; and
       (4) development of service and joint operational concepts, 
     transformation implementation strategies, and risk management 
     strategies.
       (c) Sense of Congress of Funding.--It is the sense of 
     Congress that the Secretary of Defense should consider 
     providing funding adequate for sponsoring selective 
     prototyping efforts, wargames, and studies and analyses and 
     for appropriate staffing, as recommended by the director of 
     an Office of Transformation as described in subsection (b).

     SEC. 903. REVISED JOINT REPORT ON ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIONAL 
                   COLLABORATIVE INFORMATION ANALYSIS CAPABILITY.

       (A) Revised Report.--At the same time as the submission of 
     the budget for fiscal year 2003 under section 1105 of title 
     31, United States Code, the Secretary of Defense and the 
     Director of Central Intelligence shall submit to the 
     congressional defense committees and the congressional 
     intelligence committees a revised report assessing 
     alternatives for the establishment of a national

[[Page H2824]]

     collaborative information analysis capability.
       (b) Matters Included.--The revised report shall cover the 
     same matters required to be included in the DOD/CIA report, 
     except that the alternative architectures assessed in the 
     revised report shall be limited to architectures that include 
     the participation of All Federal agencies involved in the 
     collection of intelligence. The revised report shall also 
     include a draft of legislation sufficient to carry out the 
     preferred architecture identified in the revised report.
       (c) Officials To Be Consulted.--The revised report shall be 
     prepared after consultation with all appropriate Federal 
     officials, including the following:
       (1) The Secretary of the Treasury.
       (2) The Secretary of Commerce.
       (3) The Secretary of State.
       (4) The Attorney General.
                                  ____


               Defense Information and Electronics Report


 weldon: dod needs massive intelligence network for shared threat info

       Senior Pentagon officials are mulling over an idea proposed 
     by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) that would link classified and 
     unclassified documents in a massive intelligence 
     clearinghouse that could be accessed by 33 federal agencies--
     a concept similar in some ways to one floated by DOD 
     intelligence officials but with significantly fewer players 
     involved.
       ``Our problem with intelligence is that we're stove-
     pipped,'' said Weldon, chairman of the House Armed Services 
     military research and development subcommittee, during a Nov. 
     8 interview. ``Each agency has its own way of collecting data 
     and analyzing it, but they don't share that information with 
     other agencies. The need is to have a better system of 
     analyzing and fusing data sets across agencies and services--
     certainly within the Pentagon and the military, but my 
     opinion is that we have to go further than that.''
       Weldon first proposed the concept of a ``National 
     Operations Analysis Hub'' to Deputy Defense Secretary John 
     Hamre last June, although the congressman said he kept his 
     initiative quiet until a stronger plan could be developed.
       The Pentagon-funded network of agencies would be operated 
     by DOD. According to Weldon, it would pull together large 
     amounts of information to produce intelligence profiles of 
     people, regions and national security threats, such as 
     information warfare and cyber-terrorism.
       ``The NOAH concept of a national collaborative environment 
     supporting policy and decision-makers mirrors the ideas you 
     have expressed to me in recent discussions, and it is a 
     tangible way to confront the growing asymmetrical threats to 
     our nation,'' Weldon wrote in his July 30 letter to Hamre.
       The NOAH concept, however, was not wholeheartedly embraced 
     by Hamre, who met with Weldon last summer and told the 
     congressman his suggested use of the Army's Land Information 
     Warfare Activity at Ft. Belvoir, VA, as a model for NOAH, 
     would never stick.
       Because LIWA is already short of resources, the Army is 
     apprehensive about taking on any new tasks, Hamre told 
     Weldon.
       Weldon, in a July 21 letter to Hamre, also urged the 
     Pentagon to support additional future funding for LIWA, 
     citing critical budget shortfalls that he said have kept the 
     agency from fulfilling a barrage of requests for intelligence 
     files from Army commanders (Defense Information and 
     Electronics Report, July 30, p1).
       ``There's massive amounts of data out there, and you have 
     to be able to analyze it and create ways to focus on that 
     data so its relevant to whatever you're interested in,'' he 
     said this week about his support for LIWA. ``Well, the Army 
     has already done that.''
       While Weldon continues to push for NOAH to be patterned 
     after LIWA, he sees it operating on a much larger scale. 
     Impressed by its ability to pull together huge amounts of 
     both unclassified and classified data, Weldon noted LIWA's 
     Information Dominance Center can create in-depth profiles 
     that could be useful to the CIA, FBI and the White House. Yet 
     most federal agencies don't even know LIWA exists, he added.
       ``Right now the military is limited to [its] own sources of 
     information,'' Weldon said. ``And in the 21st century, a 
     terrorist group is more than likely going to be involved with 
     terrorist nations. So the boundaries are crossed all the 
     time. We don't have any way to share that and get beyond the 
     stove-pipping.''
       Meanwhile, officials within the Defense Department's 
     intelligence community have been considering another way to 
     amass intelligence information through a concept called the 
     Joint Counter-intelligence Assessment Group. A DOD 
     spokeswoman said proponents of the idea, for now, are 
     unwilling to disclose details about it. She was also unable 
     to say whether a formal proposal to Hamre had been made yet.
       In Weldon's July 30 letter to Hamre, however, Weldon 
     alludes to an ongoing, ``initiative to link 
     counterintelligence groups throughout the community.''
       ``I have heard of an attempts to connect the Office of Drug 
     Control Policy (ONDCP) and [Office of the Secretary of 
     Defense] assets with federal, state and local law enforcement 
     agencies,'' Weldon wrote.
       However, Weldon said in the interview he believes JCAG is 
     simply more ``stove-pipping.''
       `I also have seen what the Army has done at LIWA, which has 
     created a foundation for creating a higher-level architecture 
     collaborating all of these efforts,'' his July letter states.
       NOAH would link together almost every federal agency with 
     intelligence capabilities, including the National Security 
     Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the Energy 
     Department, the CIA and the FBI. Both Congress and the White 
     House would be offered a ``node'' for briefing capabilities, 
     meaning intelligence agencies could detail situations on 
     terrorist attacks or wartime scenarios.
       ``It's mainly for policymakers, the White House 
     decisionmakers, the State Department, military, and military 
     leaders,'' he said.
       Although information-sharing among the intelligence 
     community has yet to be formalized through NOAH or JCAG or a 
     similar system, military officials have said they need some 
     kind of linked access capability.
       Intelligence systems need to be included within the Global 
     Information Grid--the military's vision of a future global 
     network that could be accessed from anywhere in the world, 
     said Brig. Gen. Marilyn Quagliotti, vice director of the 
     Joint Staff's command, control, communications and computers 
     directorate, during a Nov. 5 speech on information assurance 
     at a conference in Arlington, VA.
       ``We need a more integrated strategy, including help from 
     [the Joint Staff's intelligence directorate] with 
     intelligence reports or warnings of an attack,'' she said.
       Quagliotti said the toughest challenge for achieving 
     ``information superiority'' is the need to unite networks and 
     network managers under one command structure with stronger 
     situational awareness capabilities.
       ``Part of [the challenge] is the overwhelming amount of 
     information, the ability to access that Information, and the 
     ability to reach back and get that information, which means 
     that networks become more crucial to the warfight,'' she 
     said.
                                  ____


                        [From Signal, Apr. 2000]

    Fusion Center Concept Takes Root As Congressional Interest Waxes

       Creation of a national operations and analysis hub is 
     finding grudging acceptance among senior officials in the 
     U.S. national security community. This fresh intelligence 
     mechanism would link federal agencies to provide instant 
     collaborative threat profiling and analytical assessments for 
     use against asymmetrical threats. National policy makers, 
     military commanders and law enforcement agencies would be 
     beneficiaries of the hub's information.
       Prodded by a resolute seven-term Pennsylvania congressman 
     and reminded by recent terrorist and cyberthreat activities, 
     the U.S. Defense Department is rethinking its earlier 
     aversion to the idea, and resistance is beginning to crumble. 
     Funding to establish the national operations and analysis hub 
     (NOAH), which would link 28 federal agencies, is anticipated 
     as a congressional add-on in the Defense Department's new 
     budget. An initial $10 million in funding is likely in fiscal 
     year 2001 from identified research and development accounts.
       Spearheading the formation of NOAH is Rep. Curt Weldon (R-
     PA), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives National 
     Security Committee's military research and development 
     subcommittee. He emphasizes that challenges facing U.S. 
     leaders are beginning to overlap, blurring distinction and 
     jurisdiction. ``The increasing danger is both domestic and 
     international.''
       Conceptually, NOAH would become a national-level operations 
     and control center with a mission to integrate various 
     imagery, data and analytical viewpoints. The intelligence 
     products would support U.S. actions. ``I see NOAH as going 
     beyond the capability of the National Military Command Center 
     and the National Joint Military Intelligence Command. NOAH 
     would provide recommended courses of action that allow the 
     U.S. to effectively meet emerging challenges in near real 
     time,'' the congressman illustrates.
       ``This central national-level hub would be composed of a 
     system of agency-specified mini centers, or `pods,' of 
     participating agencies and services associated with growing 
     national security concerns,'' Weldon reports. ``NOAH would 
     link the policy maker with action recommendations derived 
     from fused information provided by the individual pod.'' 
     Automation and connectivity would allow the pods to talk to 
     each other in a computer-based environment to share data and 
     perspectives on a given situation.
       The congressman believes that NOAH should reside within the 
     Defense Department and is modeling the hub's concept on a 
     U.S. Army organization he closely follows. He says the idea 
     for NOAH comes from officials in several federal agencies. 
     However, it is also based on his own experiences with the 
     U.S. Army's Intelligence and Security Command's (INSCOM's) 
     Land Warfare Information Activity (LIWA) and Information 
     Dominance Center, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
       Patterned after LIWA, (SIGNAL, March, page 31), NOAH would 
     display collaborative threat profiling and analysis. With the 
     aid of a variety of electronic tools, the hub would support 
     national actions, Weldon discloses.
       The congressman is conscious of other initiatives such as 
     linking counterintelligence groups throughout the community. 
     He also

[[Page H2825]]

     is aware of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) 
     counterterrorism center, the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation's (FBI's) National Infrastructure Protection 
     Center and a new human intelligence (HUMNIT) special 
     operations center. ``We don't need another analytical center. 
     Instead, we need a national-level fusion center that can take 
     already analyzed data and offer courses of action for 
     decision making,'' he insists.
       Weldon's wide experience in dealing with officials from the 
     FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) convince him 
     that policy makers are continuing to work in a vacuum. 
     ``Briefings and testimonies are the primary vehicles for 
     transmitting information to leaders. The volume of 
     information germane to national security issues is expanding 
     so rapidly that policy makers are overwhelmed with data,'' he 
     claims.
       Robust situational awareness of asymmetric threats to 
     national security is a key in assisting leaders, Weldon 
     observes. ``Policy makers need an overarching information and 
     intelligence architecture that will quickly assimilate, 
     analyze and display assessments and recommend courses of 
     action for many simultaneous national emergencies,'' he 
     declares. The concept of NOAH also calls for virtual 
     communications among policy makers.
       Weldon's plan is for White House, Congress, Pentagon and 
     agency-level leaders each to have a center where they 
     receive, send, share and collaborate on assessments before 
     they act. He calls NOAH the policy maker's tool. In the 
     collaborative environment, the hub would provide a 
     multiissue, multiagency hybrid picture to the White House 
     situation room and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
       NOAH's concept also includes support for HUMINT and 
     peacekeeping missions along with battle damage assessment. 
     The same system could later help brace congressional 
     committees and hearings. The new capability would allow 
     application of foreign threat analyses to policy, while 
     providing a hybrid situational awareness picture of the 
     threat, Weldon relates. Industrial efforts of interest to the 
     policy maker could be incorporated, and academia also could 
     be directly linked.
       In meetings with high-level FBI, CIA and defense officials, 
     Weldon stressed the need to ``acquire, fuse and analyze 
     disparate data from many agencies in order to support the 
     policy maker's actions against threats from terrorism, 
     [ballistic missile] proliferation, illegal technology 
     diversions, espionage, narcotics [trafficking], information 
     warfare and cyberterrorism.'' He is convinced that current 
     collection and analysis capabilities in various intelligence 
     agencies are stovepiped. ``To some extent, this involves turf 
     protection, but it clearly hinders policy making.''
       Weldon, who was a Russian studies major, offers some of his 
     own recent experiences as examples of why there is a strong 
     need for NOAH. He maintains close contact with a number of 
     Russians and understands their programs and technologies. The 
     congressman is quick to recall vignettes about Russian 
     officials and trips to facilities in the region.
       During the recent U.S. combat action involvement in Kosovo, 
     Weldon was contacted by senior Russian officials. Clamoring 
     for Russia to be involved in the peace process they claimed 
     that otherwise upcoming elections could go to the communists. 
     The Russians proposed a Belgrade meeting with Weldon, 
     congressional colleagues, key Serbian officials and possibly 
     Yugoslave President Slobodan Milosevic.
       After the first meeting with key officials from the 
     departments of State and Defense and the CIA, Weldon and 
     other members of Congress went to Vienna, Austria. The State 
     Department objected to a meeting in Belgrade, suggesting 
     instead a neutral site. Before the departure, the Russians 
     informed Weldon that Dragomir Karic, a member of a powerful 
     and wealthy Kosovo family, would attend the meeting. Karic's 
     brother was a member of the Milosevic regime.
       At the end of the Vienna meeting, the Russians and Karic 
     told Weldon that if he would accompany them to Belgrade, 
     Milosevic was prepared to meet with them and publicly embrace 
     a peace agreement concept reached during the Vienna meeting. 
     The agreement would have directly involved Russia in the 
     peace process. A diplomatic official with the U.S. delegation 
     telephoned Washington, D.C., and the State Department 
     objected to the Belgrade trip. The congressman and his 
     colleagues returned home.
       As soon as he arrived in Washington, D.C., the FBI 
     telephoned to request a meeting with Weldon to gather details 
     on Karic. It was clear, Weldon reports, they had very little 
     information on him or his family. The following day, the CIA 
     telephoned the congressman and asked for a meeting ``about 
     Karic.'' Instead, the congressman proposed a joint meeting 
     with CIA and FBI agents in his office. Two officials from 
     each agency attended with a list of questions.
       Weldon learned from the agents that they were seeking 
     information on Karic to brief the State Department. When he 
     explained that the information came from the Army and LIWA, 
     the CIA and FBI agents had no knowledge of that organization, 
     he confirms. Before his departure for Vienna, the congressman 
     received a six-page LIWA profile of Karic and his family's 
     links to Milosevic.
       ``This is an example of why an organization like NOAH is so 
     critically necessary,'' Weldon contends. ``LIWA's Information 
     Dominance Center provides the best capability we have today 
     in the federal government to assess massive amounts of data 
     and develop profiles. LIWA uses it contacts with other 
     agencies to obtain database information from those systems,'' 
     he explains. ``Some is unclassified and some classified.''
       Weldon cites an ``extraordinary capability by a former CIA 
     and Defense Intelligence Agency official, who is a LIWA 
     profiler, as one of the keys in LIWA's success. She does the 
     profiling and knows where to look and which systems to pull 
     information from in a data mining and extrapolation 
     process,'' he proclaims. ``She makes the system work,''
       Weldon intends to use LIWA's profiling capability as a 
     model for building NOAH. ``My goal is to go beyond service 
     intelligence agencies and integrate all intelligence 
     collection. This must be beyond military intelligence, which 
     is too narrow in scope, to provide a governmentwide 
     capability. Each agency with a pod linked to NOAH would 
     provide two staff members assigned at the hub, which would 
     operate continuously. Data brought together in ``this cluster 
     would be used for fusion and profiling, Which any agency 
     could then request,'' he maintains.
       NOAH would not belong to the Army, which would continue 
     with its own intelligence capabilities as would the other 
     services. There would only be one fusion center, which would 
     handle input from all federal agencies and from open sources. 
     Weldon explains. ``NOAH would handle threats like information 
     operations and examine stability in various regions of the 
     world. We need this ability to respond immediately.'' The 
     congressman adds that he recently was briefed by LIWA on very 
     sensitive, very limited and scary profile information, which 
     he describes as ``potentially explosive.'' In turn, Weldon 
     arranged briefings for the chairman of the House National 
     Security Committee, the Speaker of the House and other key 
     congressional leaders.
       ``But this kind of profiling capability is very limited 
     now. The goal is to have it on a regular basis. The profiling 
     could be used for sensitive technology transfer issues and 
     information about security breaches,'' the congressman 
     allows. LIWA has what he terms the fusion and profiling 
     state-of-the-art capability in the military, ``even beyond 
     the military.'' Weldon is pressing the case for NOAH among 
     the leaders in both houses of Congress, ``It is essential 
     that we create a govenmentwide capability under very strict 
     controls.''
       Weldon adds that establishing NOAH is not a funding issue; 
     it is a jurisdictional issue. ``Some agencies don't want to 
     tear down their stovepipes. Yet, information on a drug lord, 
     as an example, could be vitally important to help combat 
     terrorism.'' He makes a point that too often, federal 
     agencies overlap each other in their efforts to collect 
     intelligence against these threats, or they fail to pool 
     their resources and share vital information. ``This 
     redundancy of effort and confusion of jurisdiction only 
     inhibits our nation's capabilities,'' he offers.
       NOAH would provide high-bandwidth, virtual connectivity to 
     experts to agency pod sites. Protocols for interagency data 
     sharing would be established and refined in links to all pod 
     sites. The ability to retrieve, collate, analyze and display 
     data would be exercised to provide possible courses of 
     action. A backup site would be established for redundancy, 
     and training would begin on collaborative tools as soon as it 
     is activated.
       This hub system would become part of the national policy 
     creation and execution system. The tools available at LIWA 
     would be shared so that every agency would have the same 
     tools. Weldon explains that all agencies would post data on 
     the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) highway in a 
     replicated format sensitive to classification. NOAH's global 
     network would use the NRO system as a backbone.
       NOAH optimizes groups of expertise within each 
     organization--experts who are always on hand regardless of 
     the issue. This approach ties strategic analysis and tactical 
     assessment to a course of action.``Before the U.S. can take 
     action against emerging threats, we must first understand 
     their relationship to one another, their patterns, the people 
     and countries involved and the level of danger posed to our 
     nation,'' Weldon says, ``That is where NOAH begins.''
                                  ____


                    Steps To Achieve NOAH Capability

       Establish baseline capability by building initial Hub 
     Center and congressional virtual hearing room. Equip White 
     House Situation Room to Collaborate with these sites.
       Staff the Hub Center with two reps from each of the 28 key 
     participating agencies.
       Link up NOAH internal and external collaborative 
     environment.
       Hook in Back up Site for redundancy and begin training on 
     collaborative tools.
       Build the 28 Key Agency Pod Sites along model of the 
     Information Dominance Center at Fort Belvoir, VA.
       Link all Pod Sites to NOAH hub center.
       Establish Protocols for Inter-agency data sharing.
       Exercise live ability to retrieve, collate, analyze, 
     display disparate data and provide policy makers course of 
     action analysis at the NOAH Hub Center.
       Refine procedures and Protocols.
                                  ____


       Agencies Represented in the National Collaborative Center

     Central Intelligence Agency
     Defense Intelligence Agency
     National Imagery and Mapping Agency
     National Security Agency

[[Page H2826]]

     National Reconnaissance Office
     Defense Threat Reduction Agency
     Joint Chiefs of Staff
     Army/LIWA
     Air Force
     Navy
     Marine Corps
     Joint Counter-Intelligence Assessment Group
     ONDCP
     FBI
     Drug Enforcement Agency
     U.S. Customs
     National Criminal Investigative Service
     National Infrastructure Protection Center
     Defense Information Systems Agency
     State Department
     Five CINCs
     Department of Energy
     Department of Commerce
     Department of the Treasury
     Justice Department
     Office of the Secretary of Defense
     National Military Command Center
     National Joint Military Intelligence Command

       Elements to be connected to the national collaborative 
     center would include the White House Situation Room, a 
     Congressional Virtual Hearing Room and a possible redundant, 
     or back-up site.

[...]