For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 2, 2004
National Intelligence Director Press Briefing
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Scott Mcclellan, Chief of Staff Andrew Card and National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice
The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
1:02 P.M. EDT
MR. McCLELLAN: All right, good afternoon. You heard the
President's announcement earlier today. And I've asked a few officials
to join me so that they could talk to you more about the process that
was involved behind this announcement. Obviously, we spent hours and
hours working on looking at these recommendations that build upon the
reforms we're already taking since September 11th to improve our
intelligence capabilities.
We have made significant strides, and I think that the way to look
at today's announcement is that this is really the third phase of
reform. The first phase was the immediate response to the attacks of
September 11th, when we took action at the FBI, we took action through
the CIA, and we acted militarily. The second phase really involved the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the creation of the
Terrorist Threat Integration Center, so that the FBI and CIA
intelligence agencies would be better able to share and gather
intelligence information. And today is really the third phase, where
we're building upon the many reforms we've already put in place since
September 11th.
And with that, I'm going to ask Secretary Card to come up here and
talk about the process and the task force that was involved in looking
at these recommendations.
SECRETARY CARD: Thank you very much, Scott.
The President, after he received the 9/11 Commission report, and he
received that report on the morning of the 22nd -- he did task me to
put together a group we call the Intelligence Reform Task Force. And
we started our work on the 23rd, and we held meetings over the course
of the last 10 days that have taken an awful lot of time. The
President was involved personally in hours of meetings, two hours of
meetings with the task force, two separate meetings. He also spent an
awful lot of time on the phone with me and Dr. Rice and Fran Townsend
in going over the briefing papers that were written for him so that he
could participate in the decision-making process.
The principals of the National Security Council and the Homeland
Security Council gave hours and hours of time to this effort, as well.
In fact, we had one three-hour meeting and we had two one-hour meetings
beyond that, that included the principals without the President,
talking through these issues. And then there was a working group of
staff. And John Bellinger and David Shedd spearheaded that effort for
the White House. They did a phenomenal job in putting multiple hours
of work during the daylight hours and during the nighttime hours to get
this report ready for the President's consideration. And he embraced
the recommendations that were put forward.
This does build on the many reforms that the President put in place
after September 11th, 2001. Let's not forget how difficult it was to
be able to respond to September 11th and find that we had a bureaucracy
that was diverse, not well-coordinated, and required the President to
take full action under his authority to create the Homeland Security
Advisor and the Homeland Security Council.
He went to the limits of his constitutional authority to create
that White House body that would force coordination among the agencies,
and there are over 100 agencies involved in securing the homeland. And
when the Homeland Security Council was created and a homeland security
advisor was appointed, that was a meaningful step in reform. We also
moved to create the Department of Homeland Security. And once that was
done, we also brought in greater coordination for our intelligence
analysis, through the TTIC, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center.
The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission are quite significant.
There were some 41 recommendations. We looked at all of them. Many of
the recommendations deal with Congress, so they are beyond the domain
of the executive branch of government, and we encourage Congress to pay
attention to those recommendations and take meaningful steps towards
reform, as well. They have to be partners in this process. The
President did direct that we be as forward-leaning as possible in
working with the 9/11 Commission.
I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with both Tom Kean and Lee
Hamilton. I've also consulted with Judge Lawrence Silberman and former
Senator Chuck Robb, who are running a commission to take a look at the
CIA and intelligent community -- intelligence community as it considers
the weapons of mass destruction and proliferation issues. So this was
not a review that just centered around the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission; it also included some input from others who were involved
in paying attention to the work of the CIA and our intelligence
community.
We had tremendous cooperation from all sectors of the executive
branch of government. Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General
Ashcroft, the Vice President were all involved in almost all of our
meetings. We also had tremendous support from Bob Mueller, the FBI
Director, and John McLaughlin, the acting CIA Director. Tom Ridge was,
obviously, very involved, as was the other members of the Homeland
Security Council and the National Security Council.
This was a herculean effort, and the President has considered the
recommendations. He thinks that he has embraced the most important
recommendations to go forward with. Dr. Rice and Ms. Townsend will be
glad to respond to some of the specific suggestions that were made in
the recommendations and how the President embraced them, and why they
are so important. But the process was one where I was kind of a cattle
prod, keeping people to the task at hand, knowing that there could have
been an opportunity for a long, long debate over these issues.
The President instructed me to have a consensus develop early in
the process, and where no consensus could be developed, he would be
glad to make tough decisions. And he made some tough decisions. He's
made decisions that are right for the country. He calls on Congress to
consider the recommendations that will require their participation.
Some of the changes in law would be necessary to update the 1947 law,
for example, that created the CIA Director and the Central Intelligence
Agency. So we have an awful lot of work to do.
The President is taking bold steps through his own action to build
on the great work that has been done, and the many reforms that have
been implemented. I would remind you that the 9/11 Commission looked
at a window of opportunity and responsibility from September 11th,
2001, up to a date well before the date where the President was
presented with recommendations. So many recommendations that are
included in the 9/11 Commission are recommendations that the President
has been implementing through common sense and good work on the part of
the administration. So the work of the 9/11 Commission builds on a lot
of the changes that the President put in place, and he will codify many
of those changes over the course of the next several weeks.
We do expect to have a meaningful creation of this national
counter-terrorism center, and where we can build on the great work that
has been done by the CIA and the FBI, coordinating under the new
authorities granted by the Patriot Act, and within the Terrorist Threat
Integration Center, and that is a very, very important reform and it's
already produced tremendous results.
With that, I'd be glad to turn it over to Dr. Rice.
Go ahead.
Q -- just one question. I just wonder, if you all move with
such alacrity on this, at the direction of the President, and he's laid
out these recommendations, then why not call Congress back into session
this summer, as Senator Kerry suggested today, and get moving on all of
this before September?
SECRETARY CARD: Congress is working. Their committee started
hearings last Friday in the Senate, and I know there are many hearings
scheduled for this week and next week, as well. So I do think that
Congress is working to consider the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission and the President's recommendations, as well.
We look forward to working with members of the Senate and the House
as they consider these proposals. But I do think the committee process
is working. They probably even -- if they were to come back into
session as full bodies next week, I doubt that the committee process
would have produced product for them to consider on the floor of the
House or the floor of the Senate. The committees are working. They're
holding the hearings. I've spent quite a bit of time with Chairman Pat
Roberts of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and also with Porter
Goss, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and other
members of Congress, both involved with the Defense Department and FBI
and the Justice Department, so I know that they are working hard to
understand the recommendations and to consider them in the normal
legislative process. And I also know that when Congress comes back
after the recess, that they'll probably be ready to consider some
recommendations from the various committees.
There are huge jurisdictional challenges that must be addressed by
Congress and that is cited by the 9/11 Commission. And since we do not
play a role in that, that's part of the legislative branch
responsibility, we'll work closely with them and encourage them to
consider recommendations, but we can't mandate that they do so.
Q One follow-up from the other perspective, which is, why is it
wise to take all of this on in the heat of an election campaign?
SECRETARY CARD: Well, this has nothing to do with politics. This
has to do with better protecting the homeland and making sure that the
resources of our intelligence community are well-coordinated, so that
the President can have the best information available to defeat
terrorism. And the President took bold action when he created the
Homeland Security Advisor and the Homeland Security Council. He took
bold action when he created the Department of Homeland Security. He
took bold action when he created the Terrorist Threat Integration
Center, and he called for the passage of the Patriot Act, and this
builds on that success. And that's why the President is putting
forward now. We think that it's the right thing to do and it's the
better to move quickly, rather than move too slowly.
Q If the National Intelligence Director is not in the White
House, where is it? And what kind of clout does it have? The
President said that the National Intelligence Director would coordinate
the budgets of the intelligence agencies. The commission talked about
controlling.
SECRETARY CARD: Well, first of all, I think it is entirely
appropriate that the National Intelligence Director and the operation
that would be run by the National Intelligence Director not be included
in the executive office of the President of the White House. I think
that allows for that to be a free-standing entity that would be similar
to a Cabinet agency or an agency that could best do its work and not
have the undue pressure of a White House staff, or a White House
activity. I think that it is appropriate for that to be a stand-alone
entity that would be part of the executive branch of government, where
the President would have the ability to appoint that individual subject
to Senate confirmation, and that person would serve at the pleasure of
the President -- because the President has to be comfortable with
whomever would serve in that position.
I do think that that position is very important in that it would be
the primary intelligence officer for the President of the United
States. And in that context, he should have -- he or she should have
an awful lot of input into the development of any budgets in the
intelligence community. And that is a reform that we feel is important
for the executive branch, but more significantly it's a reform that's
important for the legislative branch to consider, because even if the
executive branch were to say, this is how the budget should be
developed, we know that budgets are developed in the executive branch,
but they're passed by the legislative branch. And so that is a reform
that we call for Congress to consider, as the 9/11 Commission has
recommended.
Q So are you saying that the National Intelligence Director
then should -- he doesn't have absolute power to determine the budgets,
that he would be the one who recommended to the President how much
those budgets were?
SECRETARY CARD: We expect that the National Intelligence Director
would have significant input into the development of a budget, and that
it would have to be a developed budget consistent with other agencies.
We know that the Defense Department and Homeland Security Department
all have budgets. They have to go through a budget process that
includes the review of the Office of Management and Budget, and that
should be the same for the National Intelligence Director. But we do
feel that the National Intelligence Director should have significant
input, clout and responsibility for the development of a budget.
Q As you may know, the Kerry campaign is saying, look, you
guys, you're throwing this out, you're adopting this notion, but you're
not really giving the person the power that was envisioned by the
commission, and certainly not the power that the Kerry campaign --
SECRETARY CARD: I think the President has clearly made a decision
that would allow for the National Intelligence Director to have an
awful lot of clout, an awful lot of power, but it would require
Congress to consider the President's proposal and the 9/11 Commission's
proposal in order for that position to live up to the expectations that
they might have or we might have.
This cannot be done solely by executive authority. It requires
Congress to change the 1947 act that created the CIA, and it also
requires Congress to consider the budget process under which the
National Intelligence Director and the Counter-terrorism Center to
consider in terms of approving budgets.
DR. RICE: Could I just add one thing on this issue, because the
President clearly expects an integrated intelligence budget that takes
account of all of the needs of the various agencies that are involved
and need intelligence support. Obviously, it's going to be important
that the war fighter in the field continue to get the kind of
intelligence support that the war fighter needs. It's going to be
important that the Homeland Security Department gets the kind of
support that it needs. And what this person will have is an overall
picture of that in a way that we don't currently have someone with an
overall picture of that.
And I would think that the recommendation of this person on the
budget would be strongly -- it would strongly influence any final
budget. But as Andy said, right now budgetary authority is chopped up
among many different jurisdictions, and so that has to be dealt with,
too. The exact mechanism I think you have to work on, because you have
to also work with the Congress to see what's going to be done on
jurisdictional boundaries in the Congress.
Q Some members of the administration had argued against this
position. How difficult was the internal debate over this?
SECRETARY CARD: There was a healthy debate. The reforms that were
recommended in the 9/11 Commission report are not new suggestions, for
the most part. We have had the benefit of work that was done by the
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and other entities
throughout the last 15 or 20 years, as they took a look at
intelligence. This is the first time we had the ability to take a look
at recommendations in the context of such a horrible event of September
11th, where we also had learned the benefit of the Patriot Act, that
broke the wall down between international intelligence and domestic
intelligence. And we think that the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission are fruitful, and we've embraced many of them, most of
them.
The context of a National Intelligence Director is something we
feel the time has come to have that. The President has recognized the
need to have greater sharing of intelligence data. That's why he
created the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. And this builds on
the success of TTIC. And we're learning everyday, through TTIC, how to
make it stronger and better. And the National Counter-terrorism Center
is something that will also build on the lessons learned through TTIC.
So it's a big step.
Q Will he continue to see the CIA and the FBI directors every
day under a new circumstance?
SECRETARY CARD: The President certainly expects to be well-briefed
on international intelligence, domestic intelligence and intelligence
that overlaps, with regard to terrorist threats.
Q But from one director?
SECRETARY CARD: Well, right now the President has the benefit of
being briefed by representatives from the CIA, the FBI, and the Justice
Department and the Homeland Security Department. And I would expect
that that would --
Q In one meeting, or are they separate?
SECRETARY CARD: No, he usually has a meeting with all of them
there.
Q Andy, you said this has nothing to do with politics; just a
couple of things tied to that. First of all, when you said that this
director, intelligence director, should not be under the pressure of a
White House staff, you're trying to keep this position as apolitical as
you can, by keeping them away from the White House? Is that one thing
you're saying there?
SECRETARY CARD: No, I think that -- first of all, the new director
would have a relatively large staff, that would include analysts and
support staff. It is not realistic that a large staff could fit into
the White House complex. So I think there is some practicality to
recognizing that the National Intelligence Director would be obligated
to have, first of all, the analysts necessary to understand threats and
connect the dots -- dots that were provided by the FBI, the Department
of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and the CIA, and other
entities, and that that analysis should be complementary to the
analysis that will be done in each one of those agencies, because we're
not suggesting that the CIA or the Defense Department or the Department
of Homeland Security or the FBI would eliminate all ability to analyze,
because we do want analysts to be able to work with operators.
The NID would not be operational, in terms of sending people out to
collect information, nor to send people to respond to information that
might have been analyzed. Instead, this would be a collection center
that would break down the barriers between domestic and international
terrorism, allow for a good view of the work of the analysis, and make
sure that the President is not presented just one version of an
interpretation of a potential threat, but have the benefit of
understanding what different people think within our government. And
the NID would provide that. He would be the intelligence director for
the country and provide counsel to the President. But it's the
President who would make the ultimate decisions. The other operators
would have to carry out the recommendations that might be developed in
the process.
Q Well, the reason I ask about this political influence --
maybe I misunderstood you, Scott. I don't want to get you in trouble,
but I thought you talked about not wanting to have undue political
influence this morning.
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, that's something -- that's something we've
talked about in the past. If you look back at the President's remarks
today, he talked about how he wanted to continue to see the best
unvarnished advice possible. And that's why he thought this structure
was the best way to set it up, where you would have the National
Intelligence Director separate from the White House itself. So I'd
refer you back to those remarks.
Q I thought you were specifically saying the political pressure
had nothing to do with -- that you wanted to keep this person --
SECRETARY CARD: His context of politics is not the same politics
that you're using. You're talking partisan politics, and he was
talking a different kind of politics, from my interpretation.
Q No, no, I'm just talking about -- and I realize you're making
decisions not just for this presidency, but for future presidents. And
given that, it seems to me, he's putting this person outside the White
House to make this person as independent as somebody who is nominated
by a President can be. Is that fair?
SECRETARY CARD: This would be -- he would have the same
relationship to the White House and the President that the Secretary of
Defense would have, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security, the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury. This is
a person that would be nominated by the President, confirmed by the
Senate and serve at the pleasure of the President. So it is not an
obligation or not an expectation that if you are co-located in the
White House, you have disproportionate access to the White House. I
know that that is not the way a President likes to function.
In fact, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the
Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security all have
appropriate and important access to the President. And the National
Intelligence Director should have important, regular, consistent and
important access to the President.
Q Back on the budget issue. I think a question a lot of people
are going to ask is, if this person does not have absolute veto power
over the budget requests of the other intelligence agencies, who is
going to listen to him?
SECRETARY CARD: I can tell you that a lot of people listen to Josh
Bolten, but they don't always take Josh Bolten's counsel. And there is
still an OMB Director. And the OMB Director has the responsibility for
the United States government and the executive branch of government to
put together the budget and recommend it to the President for
consideration. As Cabinet members and agency heads debate their
budget, they sometimes appeal decisions recommended by the Director of
the Office of Management and Budget. And the President has to make a
determination which way he wants to go.
I think that the National Intelligence Director will have
tremendous clout in developing a budget. And for the first time, a
position -- a person in that position will have an overview of all of
the intelligence needs of the country and how they can best be
addressed across agency, and be able to make recommendations in the
budget process. But I do not think that this person should replace the
Budget Director for the United States.
Q Why not? I'm sure this was considered -- why not give him
this power, then he would have even more power to set the agenda,
wouldn't he?
SECRETARY CARD: I think that this person will have tremendous
influence over setting the agenda. The agenda will be set by the
President, and the budget will be set by the President. And that's
where it should rest appropriately. And we will send a budget to
Congress for them to consider. It would be great if Congress took our
budgets and always passed them as we submitted them, but we know that
they have a process, as well, and that's why we'd like to see them
reform as we make reforms.
Q Who would be responsible -- I mean, how would he be held
accountable for intelligence failures if his position is outside of the
executive office?
SECRETARY CARD: Well, right now the Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency is outside the executive office of the President,
and he is the primary advisor to the President on intelligence matters,
under the 1947 act. And we think the National Intelligence Director
should have primary responsibility for advising the President on
intelligence. And that's why we'd like to see Congress change the law
to allow that to happen. This could not be done by executive action.
The CIA Director, right now, has the legal authority and responsibility
to be the principal intelligence advisor to the President of the United
States. We think that that law should be changed so that the National
Intelligence Director would have that responsibility.
Q To go back to the question of the power and authority that
this post would have, the 9/11 Commission recommendation includes a
line that says, the National Intelligence Director should approve and
submit nominations to the President of the individuals who would lead
the CIA, DIA, FBI, and a whole host of other agencies. Would you call
on Congress to include that kind of power in this job? And do you also
want statutory authority in the law to translate your intention, if he
has significant power over the budget, expressly written into the law?
SECRETARY CARD: We would certainly want Congress to change the law
to permit the National Intelligence Director to have formal -- a formal
role in the budget process. And, yes, he should have the dominate role
outside of the President's ability to recognize what is the best budget
for the United States of America as an entity.
With regard to personnel, we feel very strongly that the National
Intelligence Director should play a role -- a coordinating role in the
selection of people who are going to serve in our intelligence
community. But we do not want to do anything that would undermine the
chain of command and the responsibilities that go with the Department
of Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Secretary of the Homeland Security Department, and the other
intelligence agencies, the Attorney General, for example. So we do not
feel that people should be "appointed by and working for the National
Intelligence Director" if they also take command from the Secretary of
Defense, for example, or the Attorney General." So that's why we'd
like to see them have a coordinating role in the selection. And these
are not selections, by the way. They would be recommendations to the
President or recommendations to a hiring authority.
DR. RICE: -- concurrent --
SECRETARY CARD: Condi says it's concurrent. So they would have --
DR. RICE: Not just coordinating, but concurrent.
SECRETARY CARD: Concurrence.
Q Yes, if the Congress decides that they want to go with the
commission's recommendation and create a Cabinet-level position, would
the White House go along with that?
SECRETARY CARD: Well, the 9/11 Commission recommended that there
be a -- that this position be Cabinet-level in pay, but not necessarily
a member of the Cabinet. In fact, when I asked both Lee Hamilton and
Tom Kean about this, they said, we never recommended that it be made a
member of the Cabinet. They recommended that it be Cabinet-level pay.
And that's level one pay, for people who understand how the federal
government pays people. People who work at the White House are not
paid level one. We're paid at the highest level, level two. And so
they --
Q How much? (Laughter.)
DR. RICE: Public record.
SECRETARY CARD: -- $150,000 or something like that. (Laughter.)
But it's my understanding that their recommendation says it should be
Cabinet-level, but not necessarily a member of the Cabinet. And Lee
Hamilton, in particular, was saying, no, they were not making a
recommendation that this individual had to serve on the Cabinet. It
was more about the level of pay, and that would -- and, by the way,
there are many other examples of that in the federal government where
people have Cabinet-level pay and are not automatically members of the
President's Cabinet.
Q Mr. Card, and Dr. Rice, somewhere in the world, terrorists
are watching and listening what we do every day, and especially they
must have their hands on the 9/11 report and all these
recommendations. And right after Senator Kerry's speech and 9/11
report, now we have raised the level, threat level to orange. What
Americans should get from this message from the President? Where do we
-- what are your future living under the threat of terrorism?
SECRETARY CARD: Well, I think America is much safer today than it
was on September 11th, but we're not as safe as we'd like to be. And
the reforms that are recommended by the 9/11 Commission should help us
get even safer. But that will not deter the President and the
President is not going to wait for all of those reforms to be
implemented. Every day he is working to make this country safer. But
we know that the enemy wants to do us harm. And we have to be right
100 percent of the time; they only have to accomplish their mission of
evil once.
And so we have to be ever vigilant, and American citizens are the
most vigilant, and we appreciate their help. We also have
unprecedented cooperation between the federal government and state and
local governments. And that's manifesting itself in the outstanding
work that was done first in Boston during the Democratic National
Convention, and we see now taking place in New York City and in Newark
and in Washington, D.C.
So we'll be working cooperatively, and Secretary Ridge and Fran
Townsend have done a great job coordinating with state and local
officials about understanding the current threats, which we take very
seriously, and the need for us to harden targets and to be ready to
respond. But the ultimate goal is to defeat the terrorists before they
have a chance to attack us. And if we can defeat them someplace else
rather than on the shores or in the United States, so much the better.
Q So what role the international community plays to stop
terrorism in the U.S.?
SECRETARY CARD: The international community is very important, and
we are working very closely with our allies around the world to
identify terrorist cells and have better intelligence and respond to
that intelligence, working in partnership. And I think we've got a
great track record of doing that.
The efforts centered around our understanding of the current threat
have been assisted by many of our allies. The Italians and the
British, for example, have been very cooperative, as well as the
Pakistanis. So we've got a good international effort to help better
understand the nature of the threat and how best to prevent it from
manifesting itself.
Q In the context of the current threat and the urgency
mentioned by the commission, more than mentioned by the commission, it
would seem that a timetable or timetables are very important here, and
that is, when it comes down to the name of a National Intelligence
Director and development of the center, and you can go back and mention
homeland security, the development there -- Mr. Ridge was appointed
very, very quickly. How quickly is the administration going to act?
SECRETARY CARD: Well, the President has said today that he will
implement many of the recommendations that he can unilaterally, before
Congress has a chance to consider them, with regard to the report that
came forward on September 11th. He has also said that he will take a
look at increasing the expectations for the CIA Director to be able to
work with an
enhanced Terrorist Threat Integration Center and the coordination
of the Counter-terrorism Strategy Group, so that -- and he'll do that
very quickly, in a matter of weeks. He'll also be --
Q Are you suggesting beyond an Acting Central Intelligence
Director? And who perhaps might be named as a National?
SECRETARY CARD: The President today said that he would be
enhancing some of the authorities that currently rest with the Central
Intelligence Director, and especially in the context of the NCTC, the
National Counter-terrorism Center. And he would like to see that
happen very quickly. So we're taking the actions within the executive
branch of government to be able to do that. It will probably take us a
couple of weeks, but we're going to move very, very quickly to
implement many of the recommendations that the President embraced this
morning, and we'll call on Congress to consider the other
recommendations that they must be part of in an expeditious but
important, deliberate way, because these are big decisions.
As you know, this is a model that will be there for many
Presidents. And so we'd like to get it right. It's important that we
get it right. And we think that the President has put forward the
right kind of solution to meet the terrorist threats as we know them.
And we look forward to working with Congress to have it happen
quickly.
Q This is probably more directed towards Ms. Townsend.
Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, who was the key figure in the intelligence
gathering that led to the orange alert, was arrested on July 13th, and
yet on August -- it wasn't until yesterday, August 1st, that he was
revealed to the public. Why was there the delay between his arrest and
the public revelations? And did this have anything to do with the
Democratic Convention?
MS. TOWNSEND: Let me start with your last point, and that is, it
had absolutely nothing to do with the Democratic National Convention.
Working backwards, your question, with all due respect, presumes that
you are correct, that it is that one individual whose intelligence led
to the raising of the threat level.
Q I should say, one of the individuals.
MS. TOWNSEND: That's right. And as Secretary Ridge said
yesterday, the source of the intelligence was -- there were multiple
reporting streams that came together in such a way to give us real,
grave concern.
I'd like to step back for one second, though, and take this
opportunity to say to you, the reforms that the President has already
put in place prior to the commission's recommendations, since 9/11,
have led to a stronger intelligence community. The fact is, because
we're fighting this war overseas in places like Pakistan and
Afghanistan, and working to strengthen our relationships with those
allies, has led to this intelligence stream. The fact is, our
military, intelligence and diplomatic efforts in that part of the world
fed directly into the homeland security system. Tom Ridge and Bob
Mueller are the beneficiaries of that. They're able to then focus the
homeland security effort more directly, and work with state and locals,
so that as we move to defensive measures, they're more targeted.
Frankly, the stream went all the way from overseas to the hands of the
people that could really do something about it in this country to make
the country safer.
Q The administration is saying -- this is possibly directed to
Dr. Rice. The administration is saying that it's already acted on many
of the recommendations in the report. Can you talk about,
specifically, some of the recommendations about reaching out to the
Muslim world and how the President has acted on those specific
recommendations?
DR. RICE: Yes, of course, because there are a number of foreign
policy recommendations in the commission report, as well. And on
outreach to the Muslim world, the President actually has an outreach
initiative to the Muslim world, but it is probably best known to you as
part of what is called the Broader Middle East Initiative, which is
clearly aimed at changing the circumstances that have produced the
people who flew the airplanes into those buildings on September 11th.
That includes, of course, outreach on matters of economic development,
outreach on matters of trade, outreach on matters of educational
development, women's programs, programs with civil society. And I
should mention that this is a place where it's not just the United
States, but at the G8, then at the EU summit, and then at NATO, the
President asked for and received the very strong support of those
organizations for outreach initiatives to the Muslim world.
The G8, for instance, adopted a kind of charter and action plan for
outreach to the Muslim world that includes very strong work with civil
society, very strong work with women's groups, very strong work to try
to improve the economic opportunities for young people in the Middle
East. And this is a project that will only grow over time. And so
it's one thing to talk about the public diplomacy part of this. And I
think the President wants to look harder at what might be done on the
public diplomacy side to strengthen our efforts to get the message out
to the Muslim world. But there is no greater outreach to the Muslim
world than to say that the future is in greater freedom and liberty for
peoples of the Muslim world, that there is no conflict between Islam
and democratic values.
The President went to Turkey and talked about the importance of
bridging to the Muslim world. And so I think you would see that the
entire Broader Middle East Initiative, the entire strategy for the
President is to have an outreach to the Muslim world built on
democratic values, built on opportunity for people in the Muslim
world. And he has an action plan to achieve it, including one that has
the G8, the EU and NATO signed on to it.
Q Mr. Card, what is the background of a person that you would
suggest to fill this new position? Would it be an academic, a former
military man, somebody from Congress? What are the qualifications that
you would look for in a National Intelligence Director?
SECRETARY CARD: The most important thing would be to have the
confidence of the President of the United States, so that that person
would be able to come to the President and speak with great candor and
offer unvarnished advice and counsel, as the analysis was reviewed and
presented, for the President to make tough policy decisions. So,
number one, I would say, with the confidence of the President of the
United States.
Beyond that, I think that the President would look to have someone
who has an understanding of the intelligence community and the various
entities that make up the intelligence community and the executive
branch of government -- and there are many of them -- and also have an
understanding of the -- kind of the government process, the budget
process and how Congress would work and how the government has to
function as kind of one voice representing the President's direction
for the country, and his obligation -- and remember, the oath that he
took is the paramount responsibility that he has to preserve, protect
and defend the Constitution. That's meaning to preserve and protect
our opportunity to participate in this great land.
Q Do you have anyone in mind?
SECRETARY CARD: Helen. Helen, I didn't even think about you.
(Laughter.)
MR. McCLELLAN: Thank you very much.
Q No need to wait until after the election to get this done,
right?
SECRETARY CARD: Congress has to do its work and they'll be very
deliberative.
END 1:39 P.M. EDT
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