Sen. Kyl (Oct. 3, 2002) More evidence on disputes about intelligence ???

There will be some alternatives before us. That debate needs to be based upon the very best information, the very best intelligence, the very best analysis we can bring to bear, and it also has to be based upon a good relationship between the legislative and the executive branches because in war we are all in it together. We have to cooperate. We have to support the Commander in Chief. :puke:

The last thing we would ever do is to authorize the Commander in
Chief to take action and then not support that action. Our foes abroad, as well as our allies abroad, need to know we will be united once a decision is made, and we will execute the operation to succeed, if it is called for.

I am very disturbed at the way that part of this debate is beginning, and that is what I wanted to speak to today. There has been an effort by some to broadly paint the administration as uncooperative in sharing intelligence information with the Senate, and more specifically the Senate Intelligence Committee.

I have been a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee now for
almost 8 years, and I have been involved in the middle of a lot of
disputes about information sharing. When we are sharing information
about intelligence, those issues are inevitable, just as they are
sometimes with law enforcement. In our democracy, these become very
difficult decisions because we are a wide open country. We tend to want to share everything, but we also recognize there have to be a few
things we cannot share with the enemy, and the lines are not always
brightly drawn. Sometimes the executive branch and the legislative
branch get into tiffs about what information should be shared, what
information cannot be shared. Again, reasonable minds can differ about the specifics of those issues, but what has arisen is a very unhealthy war of words about motives and intentions, and we need to nip that in the bud today.

I read a story in the New York Times reporting on a meeting of the
Intelligence Committee, which I attended yesterday in the secure area
where the Intelligence Committee meets, under strict rules of
classification. We were briefed by two of the top officials of the
intelligence community about matters of the utmost in terms of
importance and secrecy, and yet there is a three-page story in the New
York Times which discusses much of what was discussed in that meeting,
without ever

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attributing a single assertion or quotation. There is no name used of
anybody who was in that room, and so we do not know exactly who it was
who went to the New York Times and talked about what went on in our
meeting.

I am not suggesting classified information was leaked. I would have
to have an analysis done to determine whether anything in the article
was actually classified information. What was discussed was a purported dispute between our committee and the executive branch about the release of certain information and the preparation of certain reports. I will get into more detail about this in a minute.

Obviously, somebody from the committee, a Member or staff, went
complaining to the New York Times and spread, therefore, on the pages
of this paper a whole series of allegations about motives and
intentions of the Bush administration relating to the basis for seeking authority to use force against Iraq, if necessary. This is exactly what will undercut the authority of the President in trying to build a coalition abroad as well as in the United States, and it is the very people who demand the President achieve that international coalition before we take action who are the most exercised about what they perceive to be a slight from the administration and who, therefore, are being quoted in this story.

...

The article itself alludes to this when it talks about the ordinary
purpose of a national intelligence estimate. But intelligence officials say a national intelligence estimate is designed to assess the policies of foreign countries, not those of the United States. I quote:



That is correct. So there was a misunderstanding of what a national
intelligence estimate was, on the first part; second, the request for
the information went far beyond what the administration should have
been asked to provide and what it could provide. Yet Members of the
committee were indignant that the administration had stiffed the
committee, had stonewalled, had refused to provide this information.
...

We made the decision in 1998 that Saddam Hussein had to go. We voted
on a resolution here, and everybody was for it in 1998. If it was the
right thing to do then, why is it no longer necessarily the right thing to do? He has had 4 more years to develop these weapons and to get closer to a nuclear capability.

We now have a group of terrorists in the world who we know talk to
each other, help each other, and give each other safe passage and
access and places for training, and so on. We are developing
information on connections with these terrorists and the State of Iraq. All of this has happened in the meantime. But now, suddenly, it is not the time.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's (search) office insisted he still believes the disputed charge that Iraq sought uranium in Africa was true, saying Britain has reliable information it cannot share with Washington because it comes from foreign intelligence sources.