White House press briefing and WMD intelligence report

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan
The White House

Mr McCLELLAN - Let me introduce our guest here today. The President's Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend is with us today. As you will recall, we have been undergoing a 90-day interagency review process on the recommendations from the Silberman-Robb commission, and Fran is here to brief you all on the response to the recommendations in that report, and then take whatever questions you have. And I'll be around if there are any remaining questions at the end of her presentation.

Thank you all very much.

MS. TOWNSEND: Scott, thank you. Before I begin, let me just say, we managed to get through in 90 days the commission's entire report, which was a substantial one, largely because of the President and Vice President's leadership and commitment. The President was very personally committed to the process and involved. As you know, he and the Vice President have repeatedly told the American people that our greatest terrorism threat is a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist in an American city. And so the leadership that they provided and the commitment of each and every one of the Cabinet Secretaries in their departments to get through this review and to find solutions that would, in fact, strengthen America's intelligence capability was substantial and appreciated.

I'd call for particular attention the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Ambassador Negroponte's office. As you know, Ambassador Negroponte was confirmed in the midst of this review. He's standing up a new office that is of critical importance. And we -- really, the staff work and staff support that Ambassador Negroponte's office provided was of enormous help.

I'm going to start -- I have a couple of boards here to give you a sense -- there were 74 recommendations, some of which were classified. As we went through them, the principals in the Cabinet recommended to the President that we endorse for implementation the objectives and the principles contained in 70 of them. There was one not endorsed. That is a classified recommendation, but I think people, as they've gotten briefed, those who have access to the classified material, would say to you that although we did not endorse the one classified recommendation, the spirit of that has actually picked up in those that we have adopted. There are three that require further study.

Let me talk for a moment about what I think you will find, in terms of the major recommendations that have public and congressional interest. Under the DNI's leadership, we will establish a National Counterproliferation Center, consistent with the WMD Commission's recommendation. The Attorney General will lead the reorganization of the Department of Justice, including a new Assistant Attorney General for a national security division. Likewise at the FBI, the Attorney General, working with the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the FBI, will lead a reorganization of the FBI -- the establishment, if you will, of a service within a service, that is, a national security service that pulls together the FBI's intelligence capabilities, including counterintelligence and counterterrorism.

You saw this morning, the President signed an executive order relating to weapons of mass destruction and counterproliferation sanctions. This really is intended to take what we found to be a very effective tool against terrorism targets, in terms of blocking and freezing of assets, and expand that to counterproliferation targets.

We have also -- the DNI, working with the Director of CIA, will reorganize the management of the human intelligence at the CIA. You'll recall, the commission's recommendation was to establish a new directorate at the CIA, separate and apart from the directorate of operations. You will find the DCIA and the DNI will work on an implementation plan over the next 30 days. But the discussions related to that involve not a separate directorate, rather a senior official who would coordinate inside the intelligence community, human intelligence -- national intelligence, excuse me -- but keep the directorate of operations as focused as they need to be in this time of war in terms of operations, clandestine HUMINT operations.

Okay. There were three recommendations I mentioned that require further study. First, there was -- in chapter one, the commission recommended that the Director of National Intelligence hold the organizations accountable for failures, in terms of the WMD analysis. The three organizations called out specifically in the commission's report were NGIC, the National Ground Intelligence Center; the DHS, the Defence Human Service; and WINPAC, which is a CIA counterproliferation office.

Much work has been done in terms of accountability. The DNI, as you can imagine, having just stood up an office, has not completed that review, and so that will require additional time for the DNI. Second, there is a DOD component at the Pentagon, called the Counterintelligence Field Activity. The Secretary of Defence has undertaken a review of CFA, and that has not yet been completed. One of the questions -- one of the recommendations of the commission was, what are the extent of its authorities and what should they be within the Pentagon. And that is still under review.

Third, and lastly, in terms of the NCPC, there is discussion in the commission's report about the extent of its jurisdiction in terms of interdiction issues, and that will need additional study while the stand-up and implementation of the NCPC is underway.

Okay. The President committed to Congress that he would, at the end of the 90 days, identify those recommendations that we believed would require legislation. We don't expect this is the end-all, be-all of the list, but the major ones that we find would note for you -- you'll recall the 9/11 Commission report, as well as the Silberman-Robb report talked about the need for oversight reform in Congress. And we believe that that requires additional action on the part of the Congress.

Second, amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that is, amending it to extend the duration of orders related to agents of foreign powers who are non-US persons. The creation, as I mentioned, of an additional assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, for national security. And then the renewal of the Export Administration Act. I just call to your attention in the box what we talk about is, as the DNI implements his responsibilities in terms of looking at what's required in the community to strengthen the community, personnel authorities, it may require additional changes and we've not -- we've left that to him to identify as he implements the report and, frankly, his responsibilities.

This has been -- as I started out, this has been an extraordinary process. In terms of what the DNI receives -- and I tell you, it has been a privilege and an opportunity to lead the review, but now this really becomes the DNI's -- part of his responsibility in terms of overseeing the implementation of it. They have been very, very helpful. And what we've tried to provide them is, in addition to just the matrix, which you see in the unclassified form -- as I mentioned, there is a classified annex, and for each of those recommendations the interagency working groups have provided the Office of the DNI with a draft implementation plan. So there is a more detailed plan behind each of these that the DNI can use as is appropriate.

I guess -- Scott, if it's okay, we'll start with questions. I'm literally going to go row by row. Here we go.

Q Some people are saying that your response to the recommendations is a big win for the CIA because you're leaving the human spying operations under their control, and a big loss for the FBI, which now has to go through a much bigger internal reorganization as a result of these recommendations. How do you respond to that?

MS. TOWNSEND: I would tell you I view the recommendations and the implementation of them as a win for the American people. This was not -- and the agencies did not approach this as a zero-sum game where some won and some lost. The Intelligence Reform Act made clear the CIA's responsibility for coordinating national intelligence operations overseas. I know that the Directors of CIA and FBI have discussed that, and I think they're perfectly comfortable with the arrangement as it is.

Q Is there an overall time frame that you have for implementing this entire package of recommendations? How long would it be before this new structure is in place?

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, I think there are different time -- we've actually been -- I think, we've set some -- for some of the most important ones, we have set specific time frames; others, we've left within the responsibility of the DNI. For example, on the HUMINT restructuring, I think the time frame for that is a report back, initially, in 30 days. On the FBI and DOJ restructuring, there's an initial report back in 60 days. But we wanted to be careful not to overburden the system. We're going to implement them all and the DNI will oversee it, but some of them we asked for implementation plans and set time frames. And I'm pretty sure that's in your matrix.

Q This extends the FBI and Justice Department jurisdiction very far, doesn't it? Much further than what it has been?

MS. TOWNSEND: No, I don't think -- I don't think that's right. I don't think it extend its jurisdiction.

Q Does it go beyond domestic and far -- abroad and so forth?

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, the FBI performs overseas liaison through its legats, and the National Security Service, which focuses the FBI's intelligence collection capability and enforcement capability here in the U.S., but it gives them no new authorities.

Q Could you talk a little bit more about how you envision the National Counterproliferation Center? The commission recommended that it would be a small office, not like the NCTC, which grew. In fact, the commission said less than 100 people. Does the administration see it that way? And what other details can you provide about the center?

MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, I think we do see it that way. We don't envision it as large. But I will tell you, some discretion in that regard has got to be left to Ambassador Negroponte. This will be a center under his office, and he's going to need some time to set it up. But I think that, by and large, you'll find -- and I know there will be a briefing later today from the DNI's Office -- but I'd suggest in terms of the details in their vision that you address that to them.

Q Can less than 100 work, something that small?

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, I don't -- I would -- that's why I said I don't want to be held to less than 100, but it will be -- I think we have all subscribed to the idea that it will be a smaller operation than the NCTC.

Q At the end of the day, how does this really make the country safer?

MS. TOWNSEND: Look, I think absolutely. We've taken a lot of steps to strengthen the intelligence community, the establishment of the DNI being first and foremost among them. The fact is, we believe that there are additional steps we need to take to further strengthen the intelligence community. But a stronger, more vibrant intelligence community produces between intelligence products upon which good decisions can be made. And so, I think the steps that we're taking to strengthen the intelligence community help us to prevent terror attacks, and thereby do keep the country safer.

Q Does this just rearrange the deck chairs, though?

MS. TOWNSEND: No, I don't think it does. I mean, I think there are very practical, substantive consequences to this. I mean, if you pull together, for example, with the FBI -- the changes both at the FBI and Justice, one, you bring together the natural pieces between the law enforcement and the lawyers in terms of working together, and you strengthen the ability for even with the FBI the operators and the intelligence folks to work more cohesively together on common targeting, common analysis, and you get better product. The whole idea here is, what we want is better results, better products upon which really good decisions can be made.

Q I know yesterday, I think Mr. Sam Nunn, the former Senator, and also Mr. Roemer, a member of the 9/11 Commission, they testified that Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda may have hands on a nuclear bomb. Pakistani scientists, including Mr. A.Q. Khan met with Osama bin Laden. Where do we stand as nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists, including Osama bin Laden --

MS. TOWNSEND: We enjoyed enormous success in bringing down the A.Q. Khan network and getting Libya to renounce its WMD program. And we've enjoyed a lot of success there. We continue to mine that information and that intelligence for additional leads, and we work against it every day. The question really, from Silberman-Robb was, how can you strengthen that capability and make it more effective, and that's really what this was focused on.

Q Can you also talk a little bit about the existing process towards ending the turf wars and the friction between these agencies and how you expect to deal with what has been described as sort of ongoing resistance to the reform effort for the last four years?

MS. TOWNSEND: I'll tell you what. I mean, this is a little bit of urban legend. Bureaucracies never sort of feel great about changing the rules of the road, I will grant you. But I will tell you, I expected -- I thought it was going to be a very difficult chore to get through 74 recommendations and hundreds of pages of a report, and didn't know how far we would get in the 90 days. I found people really committed to -- they wanted -- they want the community to settle down, know what their responsibilities are, and be empowered, then, to act on those responsibilities. They want the authorities commensurate with their responsibilities.

These people -- I will tell you, the commission was very interesting to me. The commission acknowledged, we've enjoyed a great deal of success. The FBI has disrupted plots at home, and CIA has disrupted plots away. And while there have been mistakes and places where we're weak and we need to strengthen it, people are very committed. And I have not seen the sorts of bureaucratic struggles that you might expect.

Q Some people in the FBI have said that the new National Security Division chief should come from within the agency to have more credibility with the rank and file there. But others have said it needs to be someone brought in from outside, to bring a fresh eye. Does the White House have a view on that?

MS. TOWNSEND: You know, I have no view. And I will tell you that that's not really where I think the White House's most value read. You've got to really rely -- the Director of the FBI has been enormously committed to the transformation. He's undertaken a lot of steps and been very successful, and I really leave that -- that will be a joint decision between Director Mueller, the Attorney General and the DNI.

Q On the classified recommendation that was not implemented -- without giving away any kind of sensitive information or going into anything like that, can you just help the American people in a general sense sort of understand why that implementation -- that recommendation might not have been implemented or was not endorsed?

MS. TOWNSEND: Sure. The recommendation was suggesting that we should move covert action planning from the CIA, and move that into the National Counterproliferation Center and the National Counterterrorism Center. There were persuasive and strong arguments made against doing that, and we believe that the reorganization of the CIA and the strengthening and placing a senior official at the top of the HUMINT organization will meet the same objectives. There will be strategic planning and additional resources devoted to that, in that context.

Q Could you explain why it took this study to put on the table the issue possibly of holding an organization accountable for errors? And, two, along that same line, why does it need further study to see if an organization needs to be held accountable?

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure I think that it required -- I mean, there were a number of steps in terms of understanding where accountability should be. The commission spent a lot of time and had the benefit of thousands of pages and hundreds of hours of interviews to come to their recommendation. To be fair, I think it's important -- the DNI comes to this after that report, and the commission's recommendation is that he should look at this and assign organizational accountability, and I think he just deserves a fair amount of time to be able to do that.

Q But it would seem that once all of this WMD issue began, that there was accountability and that would have been not even a question to put into this study.

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, look, in terms of -- one of the things we have found is there were institutional and bureaucratic weaknesses that needed to be closed; that we needed to put resources, we needed to put capability into these organizations. And so part of it -- the first and foremost priority was close any gaps and strengthen our capability. That's what we've moved to do first. I don't dispute the commission's recommendation. I think we do need to look at accountability, and that's where we are now. But the first goal was to really strengthen our capability and understand how to do that.

Q In addressing these institutional bureaucratic weaknesses, would you say that this overall extends the authority of the DNI? And in particular, the commission suggested the DNI's authority over the FBI was too vague. How do these restructurings give the DNI more authority to direct and coordinate FBI national security operations?

MS. TOWNSEND: I think you want to look at the directive that the President signed, and it's part of the public record now. The President makes perfectly clear that the DNI needs to have both visibility and the ability to reach down all the way from the headquarters element down to the field element. That has to be done consistent with the Attorney General's authority over the FBI. But if there was any doubt in anybody's mind about what the DNI's authority is and whether or not the President was going to empower the DNI, that question shouldn't remain today.

Q This whole commission came about because the administration and the intelligence community made judgments about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which have not materialized. Is there anything in this restructuring that you can point to now which, if it had existed then, would have made it less likely for such a colossal misjudgment to occur?

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, I have to tell you, the -- one, I characterized this -- I think it's an unfair characterization to say it's simply a restructuring. That's why you've heard me say in response to a number of questions it's a fundamental strengthening of our intelligence capabilities. It's not simply a moving the boxes; it's not simply a restructuring. And I think that goes to the heart of what is the direct answer to your question.

The fact is if you got a strengthened, more integrated centrally controlled under the DNI intelligence capability, you are less likely to suffer from gaps in reporting. But that doesn't -- I mean, you've got to understand, when you're arraying your intelligence capability against hard targets -- that is, enemies who by their nature not only want to hide information from you, but they're trying to deceive you -- you always are going to have that risk to contend with. It is more likely that you will be able to get good, solid intelligence on which to make decisions by a strengthened community, and that's what we seek to do today.

Q If I could just, then, follow on that. When you say "strengthening," is there anything concrete, besides reorganization, that you can point to? Are there going to be more -- substantially more people in the field, for example, gathering? Is there a number that you can cite -- collectors, field officers, whatever -- that would underscore your point about it being strengthened, rather than just reorganized?

MS. TOWNSEND: Yes. The President has said before -- I forget the number, I think it's 50 per cent of additional agents -- I have to go back, I'm sorry, I don't have the number off the top of my head -- but we have been pretty clear both with the CIA and FBI about strengthening the capability, and particularly with the CIA, increasing the number of case officers and analysts that we have to put against the problem. And that is a huge priority for the President. That's got to be arrayed against -- inside the budget. And one of the things we walked away from is all of these recommendations, if you look at them as a whole, will have serious budgetary consequences that have to be considered. But that, again, goes to the heart of the DNI's authority to make those judgments and make those tradeoffs inside the intelligence community.

Q It was 50 per cent. And how far along toward that 50 per cent goal are you, do you know that?

MS. TOWNSEND: I don't know it off the top of my head, but I have to tell you I'm pretty sure that that's a classified answer that I couldn't give you anyway.

Q Could you give us the details of some of these companies whose assets were frozen, where the nationality is not obvious? And also, explain why this wasn't done sooner?

MS. TOWNSEND: One, I am not the best person to ask for the details behind the companies. To the extent we can get that for you, I'd refer you to the National Security Council. Two, we've been working within the interagency community on this project, and it required a good deal of coordination. This is no doubt a high priority, but it required a good deal of coordination within the interagency process.

Q Could you give us a little bit more detail on the changes you envision happening to human intelligence? It sounds like you're not backing the creation of a new directorate. What exactly would change under these recommendations, and what's the thinking behind it?

MS. TOWNSEND: I don't want to preclude the discussions that will naturally take place between the DNI and the Director of CIA. And I encourage you to ask the Director of CIA. I will tell you what we've said is, what you need is a senior person, senior to the DDO, that will coordinate across the community. I will tell you, in a time of war, the DO is fully employed in clandestine operations, many of which have been very successful in the war on terror. And what you don't want to do is distract him with having to try and coordinate within the community. And so what we're suggesting is, you want a senior person to that who then will be responsible for not only supporting the DO, but also deconflicting and coordinating across the community. And that person will naturally have to rely on colleagues from DOD and FBI.

Q And this would be a separate person from the new position that's already been created in the DNI's Office?

MS. TOWNSEND: Yes. It would -- we're talking an organization -- we're talking about the organization within the CIA.

Q The commission's report said that the intelligence agencies were "dead wrong" about WMD, to use their two words. So has anyone been fired, disciplined, transferred or similarly dealt with because of that flaw?

MS. TOWNSEND: The commission didn't talk about holding individuals accountable. The commission talked about, and when we looked at the report, talked about organizational accountability. I know that there have been internal reviews in each of those organizations. I'm pretty sure there's been an Inspector General review, at least one. And so I would refer you, in terms of individuals, I would refer you to the organizations.

Q Didn't the President want some changes in terms of the people who gave him this lousy information?

MS. TOWNSEND: The President wanted a stronger, more capable intelligence community, and that's, today, what we're doing.

Q Well, just to follow up on both Peter and April's question, it asked for further study, but it's really sort of administrative, sort of bureaucratic talk here, when it talks about the DNI's going to review the need for reforms, in terms of methodology, and you say a number of steps as to where accountability should be. Why didn't you just say in the recommendations that the DNI would look at the need for assigning responsibility, and, over a period of time, assign it?

MS. TOWNSEND: I think that is what I said. We weren't going to do it as part of the White House review. The commission called on the DNI to do it. The DNI -- all I'm saying to you is, the DNI wasn't prepared to do that today. The DNI needed additional time, seeing that he's been sworn in and standing up an office. But that is what you will find, and I encourage you, when the press availability is in the DNI's Office, to put that question to them.

Q How will the American people know if this effort is succeeding?

MS. TOWNSEND: What you will see -- more than not, because, unfortunately, the people in the intelligence community labor in the shadows, which means while we've talked a good deal about what the failures have been, you rarely hear about their successes. That is and is going to continue by necessity. The fact is, where we see it, where policymakers see it, is in the quality of the product, in the quality of the operations, in the successful disruptions of terrorist plots, both at home and away, and by the blocking and freezing of counterproliferation assets, the interdiction of counterproliferation targets. You see it in terms of the activity that the federal government is better positioned to take today as a result of the changes.

Q Could you confirm the report that this fellow Brill is going to be in charge of the National Counterproliferation Center? And also, could you say a little bit more about how this National Security Service works and how the DNI will exercise this authority over those elements? Because the concern has always been those operations on American soil against US persons should continue to be supervised by the Attorney General rather than the DNI. Could you say a little bit about that?

MS. TOWNSEND: Sure. On the first question, the head of the National Counterproliferation Center will report to Ambassador Negroponte, and so your question is better put to him than to me.

In terms of the National Security Service, you're quite right, the sort of tone and tenor of your question is a good one. The fact is that you'll notice in the directive signed by the President to the Attorney General and the DNI, setting guidelines, setting a time frame for implementation, he acknowledges that this has got to be done within US law and with protection for American privacy and civil liberties. Typically, the Attorney General issues guidelines. The directive calls for the Attorney General to work with the DNI to issue guidelines to safeguard just those things.

Q Can you tell us -- this is just a little bit off topic, but since we've got you here -- can you tell us something, a little bit about the December 2003 alerts and this analysis of the al Jazeera ticker?

MS. TOWNSEND: No one was more surprised than I was to see that in the press. That's a classified matter and I won't discuss it. Sorry.

Q Madam, may I follow now my own question, please? Today we don't have access to Mr. A.Q. Khan and we are still relying only what he really told the Pakistani authorities. And also, how can we make sure that al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden doesn't have any -- these or nuclear weapons which were part of the 9/11 report?

MS. TOWNSEND: You know, we work with our Pakistani partners every single day, and we work in a very integrated and comprehensive way with them. It's the sort of vibrant relationship that we -- four years ago, three-and-a-half years ago, we could not have imagined. It's a result of the personal investment of the President; it's a result -- I mean, President Musharraf has suffered two assassination attempts -- and so it's working together with them the we found to make us most effective.

That's true around the world. It's true in terms of our relationship with Saudi Arabia; it's true in terms of our relationship with Afghanistan. All those partnerships have made us stronger. And really, the best way is to fight counterproliferation, it's the executive order -- that's the way that you fight against -- you strengthen human intelligence and penetrate networks. That's the best way to ensure that you keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

Thank you, everybody.