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Alan Keyes is Making Sense
Alan KeyesJune 6, 2002
ALAN KEYES, HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE, I'm Alan Keyes.
Up front tonight, a busy day in Washington on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. On the Hill, we have the testimony of FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley, you remember the one who wrote that scathing memo to her boss, Robert Mueller, criticizing the management of his bureau.
At the White House, President Bush proposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, a cabinet-level agency designed to consolidate and coordinate the responsibilities of several existing agencies.
But since the president's proposal was very much, I think, in response to the perception of failure before 9/11, we're going to begin tonight with the Rowley testimony and this report from MSNBC's chief justice correspondent Pete Williams.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE WILLIAMS, MSNBC CHIEF JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just two weeks after writing that now famous letter to her boss, with copies to Congress, Agent Coleen Rowley today appeared in public to explain her scathing critique of FBI management. Headquarters she said is a rigid bureaucracy that discourages bold initiatives.
COLEEN ROWLEY, FBI AGENT: We have a culture in the FBI that there's a certain pecking order and it's pretty strong, and it's very rare that someone picks up the phone, calls a rank or two above themselves.
WILLIAMS: Her concern is that for nearly a month after the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, whose actions aroused suspicion at a Minnesota flight school, FBI Headquarters blocked a request from local agents to search his possessions.
Faced with that rejection, she says, agents at the field office were reluctant to fight back. But, she says, she felt she had to put her thoughts down on paper.
ROWLEY: I anguished over this a week. It wasn't even quite a week that I - it was more like a three-day period and it was a fairly sleepless three-day period.
WILLIAMS: Both she and the FBI director agreed today that one problem is the agency's hopelessly outmoded computer system. Agents in Minneapolis couldn't simply do a computer search by typing in aviation schools to turn up something like the memo from a Phoenix agent who suggested canvassing the nation's pilot training schools for signs of suspicious behavior.
Earlier today, FBI Director Mueller said even if Moussaoui's possessions had been searched, it probably wouldn't have disrupted the September 11th attacks.
ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: I do not believe it is likely that it would have.
WILLIAMS: And a sign today of the tightrope the FBI is walking, while Congress is faulting agents for not recognizing potential warning signs, one Senator said the FBI may now be going too far in trying to monitor suspected terrorists in the U.S.
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: It's troublesome to have surveillance unless there's really a good reason for doing so.
WILLIAMS (on camera): As for Agent Rowley, she's received hundreds of e-mails commending her, but some former agents say if she felt so strongly about the Moussaoui search, she could have phoned headquarters or even flown there herself to push for it.
Pete Williams, NBC News, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Now obviously things like the flap over the Rowley memo, other reports about the Phoenix memo, reports of various things that went on where some of the folks got into the country and were continuing about their preparations for this act of terrorism, despite knowledge in the CIA and so forth, all these things have fed a growing perception that contrary to what we were told in the weeks right after 9/11, it was not in fact the case that this was some unimaginable, out of the blue, unexpected thing. Nobody could have thought of it. Nobody knew, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, in response to the perception that failures did, in fact, contribute to our vulnerability on 9/11, the president has now come forward with the proposal probably aimed at helping Americans to feel that something is, in fact, being done to improve the performance of the government that seems possibly to have failed.
So he's come forward with a comprehensive proposal to establish a Department of Homeland Security. He described it tonight and here's more about this new Department of Homeland Security, the largest restructuring of the Federal Government in decades, taken from President Bush's own words in what he said in his address to the nation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tonight, I propose a permanent cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to unite essential agencies that must work more closely together. Among them, the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol, the Customs Service, Immigration officials, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Employees of this new agency will come to work every morning knowing their most important job is to protect their fellow citizens. The Department of Homeland Security will be charged with four primary tasks. This new agency will control our borders and prevent terrorists and explosives from entering our country.
It will work with state and local authorities to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies. It will bring together our best scientists to development technologies that detect biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and to discover the drugs and treatments to best protect our citizens.
And this new department will review intelligence and law enforcement information from all agencies of government and produce a single daily picture of threats against our homeland. Analysts will be responsible for imagining the worst and planning to counter it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, when he spoke at West Point and again in tonight's speech, President Bush put these ideas in the context of an understanding of our goal and task in the war on terror that emphasizes the truth that the best defense in this war is a good offense. Here's what he said in tonight's speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: The first and best way to secure America's homeland is to attack the enemy where he hides and plans and we're doing just that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now that appears to be a reiteration, in a shorter form obviously, of what he said to the cadets at West Point on Saturday. Here are those words.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action and this nation will act.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, the natural question that arises is in light of that necessary strategic principle, what is there about the reorganization that he has proposed tonight that reflects that assertive, that offensive approach that takes the war to the enemy? Here's what the president had to say about the principle of the reorganization and its likely effect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: This reorganization will give the good people of our government their best opportunity to succeed by organizing our resources in a way that is thorough and unified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Well, of course, the natural question is unified to what end and purpose? And here's where I, at least, begin to perceive a difficulty. In the speech tonight, there was an assumption that the organization of the Department of Homeland Security will focus on defending America at home, a defensive posture. But if the best defense is a good offense, then how does one come up with the best defense in a way that's separate from the offensive nature of the war?
And obviously, the president still understands that that war and its offensive side must continue. In this context, he referred to the reorganization of government that took place during Truman's era. Here's a reference to Truman from tonight's speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: During his presidency, Harry Truman recognized that our nation's fragmented defenses had to be reorganized to win the Cold War. He proposed uniting our military forces under a single Department of Defense and creating the National Security Council to bring together defense, intelligence, and diplomacy. Truman's reforms are still helping us to fight terror abroad and now we need similar dramatic reforms to secure our people at home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: See I guess one of the problems that I see here is that mentality reflected in the president's speech, the National Security Council approach helps us to deal with problems abroad. The Department of Homeland Security will deal with them at home. It's quite obvious, isn't it, that the terrorist threat and actually the theater of war with respect to terrorism transcends the distinction between at home and abroad.
The principle of unity that's needed is not a principle of unity among departments and agencies only. No, it's a principle of unity that reflects the transcendent challenge that the war, in fact, takes place at home and abroad on a theater that involves both and that, therefore, must coordinate the steps that are being taken in light of the offensive goal, which is to defend the country by destroying the enemy.
How does the president's reorganization tonight take account of that, the FBI and the CIA still left out there on their own, the military arm that will carry the war to the enemy still left out there on its own?
The organizing principle which reflects the nature of the enemy and the war itself does not appear to be clear from what the president said tonight. In fact, I think it's rather less clear than the principle was in Truman's day because in a sense, contrary to what the president implied, in Truman's day the National Security Council system did not only reflect intelligence and defense as he puts it and so forth.
No, it reflected also, in addition to diplomacy, intelligence and defense, counterintelligence; that is to say, the work of the FBI. That's why the attorney general was included in the National Security Council system.
That is again the kind of thinking that we're probably going to need today, but is that unifying principle, is that strategic understanding reflected in the president's approach with the Department of Homeland Security? That, I think, is unclear. We have the good principle. We have the good words. We have yet in, I think, a certain and clear form a proposal that reflects the kind of unity that will bring together the resources of the government to carry the war to the enemy.
Well, we're going to be talking about that as we get to the heart of the matter on these events in Washington today and discuss whether this new Department of Homeland Security is, in fact, effective strategy or perhaps a little gimmickry aimed at distracting people from a concentrated effort to understand the nature of the failures that led up to 9/11.
I'm a little cynical. I'm not saying that's the way it is but it's something we have to think about. So, we will get into that next, here on America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLEY: I think careerism, when I looked up the definition, I really said unbelievable how appropriate that is. I think that the FBI does have a problem with that, and if I remember right, it means promoting one's career over integrity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: That was more of Special Agent Coleen Rowley's testimony today on Capitol Hill. A reminder to you that the chat room is busy tonight and you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com.
In light of Coleen Rowley's remarks, I think we really have to ask ourselves whether the reorganization we're looking at today relates to the kind of things we've been learning about the problems that led up to 9/11.
A lot of those problems seem to focus on the inadequate response of the people to the facts, the information, the opportunities they were presented with, and yet the reorganization implies that it was the system that failed.
It's sort of like the question at the end of a race when you've lost. Was it the car or the driver? We are being asked to believe, I think, that it was basically the car and we're going to reorganize and retool the machine and that will make it better. And yet, a lot of the evidence is mounting up to suggest that it was the drivers, and that we might just get the same performance if we're going to leave the same kind of mentality and personnel in place.
Joining us to examine these matters in light of the testimony, the proposal made today and so forth, Cliff May, President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; Jed Babbin, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense and now a syndicated columnist; and Mark Levin with the Landmark Legal Foundation. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Thank you.
JED BABBIN, FORMER DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Good to be with you.
KEYES: I think I want to put my first question tonight, Cliff, to you because in looking at all of this, I know one could make the easy assumption, we're getting on with business and so forth.
People in government love to look like they're doing stuff. That doesn't mean they're doing anything effective and my questions always have to be how does what they're doing relate to the real problem we're looking at?
Step Number One, how can we be sure that what's being proposed to us effectively addresses the problem when we haven't even yet come to any comprehensive conclusion about what failures did contribute to the 9/11 disastrous result and how they contributed to it? How do we reorganize before we know those answers?
MAY: It's an excellent question, but I think we have a few things that we do know. We know the systems are broken and we know we need to begin to fix it and I think this should be seen as the start of the process, not necessarily the end but really the first phase.
We've got over 100 government agencies responsible for what we're calling homeland security. We have over 30 congressional committees that have oversight over that. Do we have any coordination between Border Patrol, Customs, and the Coast Guard? Probably not.
We know there's a breakdown in communication between the FBI and the CIA. We know that at the FBI, as Coleen Rowley showed, you can arrest somebody like Zacarias Moussaoui and then you can't even open his computer or examine his personal effects to see if you can find the phone numbers of other terrorists.
We know that the FBI is out there tracking down drug sellers, even though we have the DEA that's supposed to do it. The FBI is also looking at bordellos in New Orleans. We know at least some of the problems we have and we're beginning to fix it.
One of the things we should be doing, and I hope we are, is looking around the world where else it's done and how it's done. As you well know, Alan, in the U.K. you have MI-5, which is domestic counterintelligence, MI-6, which is foreign intelligence, and then Scotland Yard takes care of criminal things.
So if you have that kind of model or the model they have in Israel, which is pretty similar to that, you wouldn't have the FBI worrying about bank robbers and people crossing state lines. So, I think this is a very useful first step. I think it shows seriousness of purpose.
MARK LEVIN, LANDMARK LEGAL FOUNDATION: Alan, can I get in here a second?
MAY: Go ahead, sorry.
KEYES: Yes. Go ahead.
LEVIN: That's all well and good, but this whole program, Cliff, doesn't really affect one person at the FBI or the CIA. For all the talk about lack of communication between the FBI and the CIA, I challenge anybody here tonight to tell me exactly what communication lapse would have prevented September 11th. I loved the Phoenix FBI Agent's comments in the paper. He says he could never have imagined it and not a single one of the suspects he was looking at -
KEYES: How about this, Mark?
MAY: Hold on. Alan?
LEVIN: Not a single one. Let's get the facts straight though.
MAY: No, but the point was -
LEVIN: Not a single one of the suspects he was talking about was one of the hijackers. They did get to Moussaoui's computer. Moussaoui's computer doesn't name any place, time, people that would have been useful. Now you can not be serious. We're going to move the Coast Guard. We're going to move the Secret Service. Where are we going to put the Patent and Trademark Office?
KEYES: Guys, what this reminds me - this whole thing.
MAY: Jed, come on in.
BABBIN: This thing is as big a sham as federalizing the airport security people. What you're doing is changing the name on the door and you're not changing the people inside.
What we're going to do is scramble things around. Nothing is going to change. What this does not do is do the practical things that the president alluded to in his speech.
He is asking every American to go and lend our eyes and ears to trying to spot people who are committing acts of terror. Well, wouldn't it be useful if we were going to do something, to try to teach people how to do that?
None of the practical steps that we can do right now, that we don't need a big legislative program for, are being done. This is nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs.
KEYES: Can I raise one question, though, because the reason I played that clip where the president talks about unifying and so forth. Unity is a nice word but simply putting a bunch of stuff together in one department doesn't achieve unity.
Unity can only be achieved if there's a unity of understanding, principle, purpose, goal, a strategic sense of how all of it fits together and each part contributes to the result, and the unifying concept of this new department isn't clear in the president's speech or thinking.
Take, for instance, the key fact that was presented at West Point and again in this speech. The best defense is a good offense. Can one of you explain to me where what is being done brings together the work and intelligence needed to find the enemy and identify the enemy and the arms that can then go out and get the enemy? Where is that unity in this plan? Jed.
BABBIN: The fact of the matter is, one good thing that is there is intelligence fusion, trying to get all of the different intelligence agencies to talk in the same language to the same people and have the analysis coordinated amongst them is a good thing, but nothing else connects to it.
There is nothing connected to enforcement. There's nothing that really will make any practical change in what's going on right now. The things that we need to do, we could do with the laws that are already on the books.
MAY: Let me just suggest, since I'm the only one, I think, who's defending the president here, a couple of quick things. One is by establishing this agency when it will have cabinet powers, you hopefully will give the cabinet secretary the authority, the budgetary authority, the power to actually get things done in a way that Governor Ridge really doesn't have at present. So, that's one thing it will do.
You'll be able to get him, I would hope, to be able to knock heads together in a different way. I see this a little bit like the creation of the NSC, the National Security Council, after World War II. It may not have been immediately clear what that was going to do, but it was important to bring defense and intelligence and diplomacy together under one roof, not that the national security adviser would necessarily be running all those different shows, but rather would be able to assemble them and say look, here's the priority. You have to do A. You do B. You do C.
KEYES: Well, let me ask a follow-up question to that though, Mark, because one of the assumptions when you fix something is that it was broken, right?
MAY: Right.
KEYES: And yet the thing I have a terrible time with, because it seems like I'm the only person in America who has looked at this situation and said, wait a minute. What was wrong with the National Security Council system?
LEVIN: I agree with you.
KEYES: Which was supposed to address all of these aspects of the threats we face in the world. Acting like this is the first time we faced a transcendent threat that spans both home and abroad and so forth is a big lie.
The communist threat was precisely perceived as such a threat when Truman put the National Security Council structure together. So, Mark, since they haven't acknowledged that that system failed, why are they replacing it now?
LEVIN: I'm going to tell you what's really gone on here, I think.
KEYES: Yes, go ahead.
LEVIN: It's all happened in the last four weeks. You remember prior to that last four weeks, there wasn't all this finger pointing and shooting in the foot business going on.
The left just loves this. They've got the FBI fighting with the CIA. The media hypes it. If you peel it all back, there's not a whole lot there, and guess who's really happy today, Cliff, with you? Bob Byrd, Tom Daschle, all the libs out there who get what they want to do in response to everything is to build a bigger bureaucracy and to trash the FBI and the CIA.
I'm going to tell you something, the reason the FBI and the CIA have two cultures is because since 1947, Congress has created two cultures. The reason why the FBI and the CIA don't collaborate is because Congress doesn't allow them to collaborate. Meanwhile, these guys are sitting up there with Coleen Rowley.
What does Coleen Rowley bring to the table? She brings one thing, possible scandal. She writes a memo on May 21st. Well that pang of concern that she had would have be useful prior to September 11th, right after September 11th, and the first big hearing the Senate Judiciary Committee has, in the hands of Pat Leahy, is Coleen Rowley, to what end?
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Quickly, go ahead.
BABBIN: The point really is that this is going to be just another big bureaucracy with a lot of pork. Bob Byrd is going to ask that the bill be amended to put the headquarters of the Homeland Security Administration in Morgantown, West Virginia. This is going to be more pork. We don't need pork. We need practical action.
KEYES: Jed, can I stop you there because you said something very interesting a minute ago. You said that even given what we have existing, one could reorganize things in such a way as to effectively pursue the strategy that carries this war to the enemy, which obviously as the president himself says, is the real strategic goal. What did you mean by that and how would it be done?
BABBIN: Well, there are a lot of things we can do in terms of bringing knowledge to the American people right now, that the president doesn't need any additional authority to do, to help people arm themselves and protect themselves against particular acts of terror.
What do Israeli citizens do everyday that we are not taught to do? There's a whole boatload of things to do that. There are ways, and granted Mark is right, we have to get some legislation to make the CIA and the FBI able to cooperate with each other. That is one distinct finite thing the government needs to do through Congress.
But there are a variety of other things in law enforcement, in sharing intelligence. Maybe we need to modify the Posse Comitatus Act a little bit. In some instances, the military may need to be used to enforce civil law, but beyond that, everything else that we need to do is doable right now. For God's sake, we don't need to federalize the airport security people all over again and just do another bait and switch. That's all this is, is more pork.
MAY: But, Jed, we had reorganization before World War II and after World War II to fight the Cold War, and now as we're going into this war against terrorism and the ideologies that drive terrorism, mainly militant Islam, it makes sense to start to rethink how we're going to fight it.
Look, in answer to Mark's question, there were those two terrorists who met and went to a meeting in Malaysia. Obviously that meeting was not bugged. I don't know why. They wanted to come to the U.S. People say, why were they stopped? Why weren't they stopped? Why weren't they allowed to come and when they got out at the airport, why wasn't an FBI agent waiting in the cab to take them to the hotel that would be bugged to find out within the first week everybody they knew here.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Wait a minute. Can I answer that question because I think I know why and it's also a problem that's not being addressed right now. Again, I ask the question, is it the car or the driver?
We're assuming with reorganization, it's the car, but if you put the same passive, defensive mentality into this new structure, you'll get the same result. What we need is...
MAY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
KEYES: Let me finish. What we needed before 9/11 was a hunter/killer mentality with respect to the enemies of this country.
LEVIN: Exactly.
KEYES: What we had was a defensive, passive, wait for them to strike law enforcement mentality. I don't see anything that is being done in this reorganization that actually addresses the necessary shift in mentality that would actually help us to achieve the goal that the president himself has articulated of getting this war to the enemy and taking them out before they get us.
BABBIN: Alan, that's exactly right.
MAY: I think you are right, Alan, but isn't the easiest way to change the culture by creating a new organization with somebody on top who is exactly the kind of person you described? Look, put you...
BABBIN: And is that Tom Ridge?
MAY: ... and it will be - well, that's a different argument who it should be, but imagine if Alan Keyes were the head of this, would this not be a hunt and kill mentality for this organization?
BABBIN: No.
LEVIN: No, it wouldn't matter, because you know...
KEYES: The whole point - go ahead. I'm sorry.
BABBIN: The whole point of this reorganization is to focus a bunch of domestic agencies on trying to do their jobs better, the ones they're supposed to be doing right now. There is nothing in this bill that takes the war to the enemy. The enemy is not here. The enemy, aside from the Wahabis (ph) schools, the Saudis are spending $50 million a year on right here in the states, other than that, the enemy is not here. You're not going to fight the enemy. You take the war to the enemy by reorganizing a bunch of domestic chairs...
LEVIN: Alan.
BABBIN: ... and spending more on pork.
LEVIN: Alan.
KEYES: Yes.
LEVIN: What we're all saying, I think, I think Cliff to some extent, but I'll let Cliff speak for himself, I think the problem is a lack, and I'm going to be specific leadership especially in Congress, I'm not talking about the president, Congress, you have members who have been there 36 years, 24 years. They participated in the process that undermined the CIA, that undermined the FBI, that slashed their budgets, that slashed the defense budget.
The reason why we're not capturing and killing more terrorists, as opposed to pointing fingers at one bureaucracy at the other, we have Coleen Rowley up there, the reason why we're doing this paper shuffle and the reason why we're doing this organizational shuffle is because there doesn't seem to be the heart to capture and kill the bad guys and it's going to take one more disaster.
KEYES: Mark, I agree with that. I can't accept the heartbreaking notion, because Frank Gaffney said the same thing the other night on my show, that we have to have some new disaster before...
LEVIN: I'm not for it. It's reality.
KEYES: I know you're not for it, but I just think it would be the most tragic thing in the world if this is required. The disaster we suffered on 9/11 galvanized the will of the American public.
LEVIN: The people, not their leaders.
KEYES: And all one has to do is stand before them and clearly articulate what needed to be done.
LEVIN: Right.
KEYES: Frankly, I don't know why that wasn't done in the wake of September 11th, why we're waiting here to a day when it could be interpreted as a move to cover somebody's political behind, instead of actually a move to carry the war where it needs to be carried.
But the point is the same though. I don't think Congress could stand in the way of an executive that put together his vision and said to the American people, this is specifically what we need to do to go and kill these bad guys, and that's still what I don't see on the table right now.
BABBIN: Alan, they don't want...
LEVIN: Unfortunately. Unfortunately, I think Congress can do it. I think we're witnessing it. We've had the four weeks of intentional leaks. We've had four weeks of finger pointing. What do we come up with? One white elephant replacing another white elephant. Is Saddam Hussein - let me ask Cliff, is Saddam Hussein more nervous today now that the Coast Guard's going to report to somebody else?
MAY: Let me respond. No, two things I got to say. One is you're absolutely right on congressional culpability, going right back to the Church Committee, going back to the political correctness that has just infused the government and the Transportation Department. It's still there right now.
Secondly, this must not be seen as a substitute for offensive capabilities, including clandestine capabilities. We are not going to solve the problem of the terrorists who were out there to get us with metal detectors, with speed bumps.
LEVIN: That's right.
MAY: Or any of that. This is the defense. We also need a much more aggressive, as I think all of us agree, offense, and anybody who sees this as...
LEVIN: No.
MAY: This is what we're doing against terrorism is making a big mistake.
KEYES: Now, Jed, last word, Jed.
BABBIN: I just don't think that this is going to solve anything. We need to be carrying the war to the bad guys in ways we have not even talked about. Congress is not going to be able to deal with it, because Congress has not been told what we need to do.
KEYES: OK. Thank you. Next, two congressmen with different takes on the president's announcement up next. You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Now we get back to our discussion about the president's proposal in response to the perceived failure of the government before 9/11. Joining us, Republican Congressman Nick Smith of Michigan, a member of the House International Relations Committee. Also with us, Democratic Congressman Rob Andrews of New Jersey, a member of the House Armed Service Committee. Congressmen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
REP. ROB ANDREWS (D), NEW JERSEY: Good evening.
REP. NICK SMITH (R), MICHIGAN: Alan, you're a hero of Battle Creek, Michigan. Glad to be with you.
KEYES: Well, thank you. I think I would like to start with a question for you, Nick, because — and it came out of the discussion that we just had. It seems to me that a lot of what we've been hearing in bits and pieces the last several weeks points to a problem less with the structure than with the mentality of the people who were dealing with our national security prior to 9-11, that there really wasn't a hunter-killer, strategic sense that you are dealing with people who are your enemies and when you get an opportunity, you go after them. So that a lot of things that might have led in that direction were neglected.
How do you think the reorganization the president has proposed is going to help shift that mentality into the more offensive, war-like approach that the president himself has said we need?
SMITH: Alan, I think you've got to do both. If you're a policeman, you put on a bulletproof vest while you go after the bad guys that are shooting at you. It seems to me that you've got to have a defense. But look, we've put 40 billion plus in the offense of beefing up our military, trying to get the right equipment in the right services. Now we've put 38 million for the next year's budget in homeland security. So we're doing both at the same time. We've got to protect America while we aggressively go after the bad guys.
KEYES: Well, see, the one question I would raise, though, — and I raised it in the context a minute ago while I was talking about the unity that the president would hope to achieve through the establishment of this department. But one of the elements of unity is that we must regard the battlefield we are on as unified in a strategic see. There isn't homeland and foreign. There is, in fact, one battlefield, which the terrorist regards as an open field to be played on in every possible way, to carry the war to us, to our civilian buildings, as well as to whatever may be our military threats in different places.
Don't we have to have a similar sense of a transcendent response that actually deals with the terrorist threat in its true terms? Because it's not really something that is a military problem or a diplomatic problem or a homeland problem — it includes elements of all these things?
SMITH: Alan, absolutely. I agree with you. Day before yesterday, I and Ben Gilman (ph) had a personal sit-down meeting with the ambassador for India, for example, and we talked, and he said that India's information was that there were 3,000 or more plus terrorists that have come down from Afghanistan into Pakistan and up into the Kashmir area, and now they're trying to cause part of the scuffle.
He indicated that there's something like 20 different terrorist camps. But also, we know that there's terrorists in the United States, and so we've got to go after all ends at the same time, but it seems to me you've got to agree that we've got to protect ourselves as we do this. This is going to take some disorganization, and I think with one head it's going to add a little bit of, if you will, consistency. And the problem with the information technology has been analyzing it, and that's hopefully what this department is going to do.
Look, we're going to massage this, we're going to talk about it. Hopefully we're going to pass this bill by the next...
KEYES: Representative Andrews...
SMITH: By the end of this year...
ANDREWS: Yes, Al.
SMITH: .. and that's going to — that's going to mean that there's going to be some consolidation, and a central location where we can solve the problems and keep track of what's going on. That's our goal.
KEYES: Representative Andrews, from your point of view, one of the things that I have to confess worries me a little bit in the way we've gone about this, not just this proposal but overall, is that I'm not sure we have satisfactorily analyzed the real problems, the failures that contributed to the situation that we faced on 9-11. If we haven't really examined the car and determined the mechanical problems and failures, how can we be sure, first of all, that the problem is the car, not the driver? And if the problem turns out to be the driver, how does reorganization affect it? I don't mean the president; I mean driver in the sense of the personnel and people who were involved in dealing with our national security overall. How does this address those two questions?
ANDREWS: Well, I think we are continuing — we collectively are continuing to make a big mistake, and that is, we are confusing crime with war.
I applaud the president's objectives. I do not doubt his sincerity. I'm a big believer in Tom Ridge's ability. But I think the problem with this proposal is it's organized around the paradigm of crime. It's about prevention, about passivity, about response. We're dealing here with people, as you just said a minute ago, who view the entire planet as the battlefield who view no space as sacrosanct or removed.
I happen to think that we're trying to deal with a military problem, a sovereign defense problem, with a civilian agency. And although there's many aspects to this proposal I'm sure I will support, I think the basic problem remains is that we're at war, but we're reshuffling civilian agencies.
KEYES: You know, I have to say that the fundamental analysis is one that's bothered me for some time, in the sense that we are engaged in a war-like effort, we have been, in fact, all along, because that's what terrorism represented even before 9-11, and yet we're approaching it with a mentality that does not seem comprehensively war-like in our response.
ANDREWS: Alan, let me frame it to you this way. If, God forbid, we got a news report tonight that there was a tanker truck rumbling down a major American highway that was loaded with chlorine gas, and there was C-4 on the tanker truck and we knew that the hijackers of the truck were determined to drive it into a populated area, blow a hole in the truck and kill as many people as they could with the chlorine gas, tonight, who is in charge of stopping that? And the answer is, a lot of people are. When everyone is in charge, no one is in charge.
KEYES: Well, see, one of the first proposals I made, and I'd like to put this in front of both of you, really, but starting with Representative Smith, one of the first ideas I had after 9-11 was that we actually need what amounts to a counterterrorist strike force that brings together the elements of the intelligence, the military, the covert action that are necessary both at home and abroad, so that when you have identified either terrorist assets or terrorist threats, you can bring everything together to support the work you need to do to wipe them out.
And it seems to me we haven't yet come up with that kind of a comprehensive, offensively oriented structure, and that Congressman Andrews is right, we in a sense are fighting a war without a clear idea of how to bring together all the elements that will allow us to strike effectively at whatever threat emerges.
SMITH: Look, Alan, this is new to us. We haven't been threatened on our homeland for probably 50 years. In World War II, maybe not even then really. Our intelligence has been overseas. We have been looking for what happens to possible hijackers overseas, terrorism overseas. So now we're trying to get our act together and say, look, this is real, it can threaten our homeland, how do we bring this together, how do we organize in such a way that it's going to bring the intelligence community together.
I was an intelligence officer in the Air Force in the early 1960s, and the protectionism then was carried on for the last 40 years. And so the CIA and the FBI don't have the communication. The intelligence of the Army, Air Force and Navy then, if we had something, we sort of were reluctant to give it to another service branch unless we got something to them. Part of this effort has got to be a better communication in terms of our effort to fight terrorism on the offensive, but it's also got to be a better communication if we're going to help protect ourselves and come up with the information and analyze it in who's doing what, where and when in our country.
KEYES: Now, Representative Andrews, in the last discussion we had, I think a very good point was made about congressional response over the years to these challenges. And I have to tell you, I have to lay the blame in good part for this at the doorstep, in my opinion, of a lot of liberal Democrats who didn't know their head from a hole in the wall when it came to dealing with national security, who belittled our military requirements, who belittled our security requirements, and who helped to set the stage for this disaster.
And one of the questions that's on my mind is whether or not we're going to see overall in the Congress, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, the kind of sea change in mentality that will allow us to address the very problem that you have raised tonight, because it seems to me we're still not quite there in terms of how we establish a unified command in the war against terror.
Do you think there's going to be a willingness to look at this and meet this challenge, to overcome some of these hesitancies that were there in the past?
ANDREWS: I think there has been a failure of Congress generally to measure up to these standards. I would not agree with your partisan characterization. I think it's a mischaracterization. Let me say what I think. I think a lot people who call themselves conservatives have wasted an awful lot of money on weapons systems and defense expenditures that are irrelevant to protect us against this threat. I do think that some civil libertarians who have good hearts made some unwise decisions to limit the activities of the CIA, and I think that that's a fair criticism.
I think what's more important, Alan, is what we do from this point on, and I come back to the point that I made a minute ago. I don't think we're...
KEYES: Well, can I interrupt one second, because we're right down to the wire. We're going to come back, though, and you'll have a chance to finish your thought.
ANDREWS: OK.
KEYES: More with our guests after this. Later, we'll get to my outrage of the day.
But first, does this make sense? On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency put out a report blaming global warming on human behavior. On Tuesday, the president said he read the report of the so-called bureaucracy and he appeared to distance himself from that report. This was applauded by some conservatives. But yesterday, the president's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, had this to say about the president's stance on global warming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: When the president cites the National Academy of Science as saying that National Academy of Science indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity, I don't know how the president could say it more specifically than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: So does he or doesn't he? If he accepts the premise of the view that it's human activity, then why does he continue to oppose the Kyoto Treaty? Is it just to serve some greedy special interests? If you reject the rationale that the science is questionable, you undermine the position of opposition to Kyoto. Does that make sense?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Americans should continue to do what you're doing. Go about your lives. But pay attention to your surroundings. Add your eyes and ears to the protection of our homeland.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: We're back with Representatives Nick Smith and Rob Andrews, talking about the proposal for a new Department of Homeland Security. We only have a little time left, gentlemen, but looking forward at the process that has begun here tonight, obviously it's only a beginning. What is the prognosis? Are we in fact going to see the creation of this cabinet level department, bringing these various agencies and functions together and what sort of modifications will we foresee? Final question too, are we going to a lot of partisan bickering tearing this question apart? Representative Rob Andrews, you first.
ANDREWS: I don't think you'll see any real partisan disagreement. Here is the way I'll measure the outcome, Alan. If a year from now the answer to the question I raised a few minutes ago about the tanker truck, if it's clear who's in charge of responding to that, if that person has gotten great timely intelligence and can pull the trigger and stop the threat, then we will have succeeded. That's what we've got to try to do.
KEYES: Representative Smith?
SMITH: We'll pass (UNINTELLIGIBLE) legislation by the end of the year is my prediction. I think it's important that we do that. Look, we're winning the war on terror on the offensive. Now we've got to beef up and organize and make sure that we protect Americans as we win the war overseas. We know there's terrorists in the United States.
KEYES: In terms of the department, we also have an investigation going on of 9-11. What do you all see as the relationship between the investigation and Congress' consideration of this department and other changes to meet the counterterror threat? Representative Andrews.
ANDREWS: I think we should take the facts that come out of the investigations as opposed to the hearsay and the allegations, and learn from those facts so we coordinate intelligence better.
KEYES: Representative Smith.
SMITH: Rob and I have worked together on a lot of issues. I agree with Rob on that. Let's keep looking. And the intelligence, combined intelligence committees of the House and the Senate are meeting twice a day, morning and afternoon, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. That's going to move ahead. We're going to see where our shortcomings were, but in the meantime we're going to move ahead with the good defensive on what the president has suggested on this reorganization.
KEYES: Gentlemen, thank you for joining us tonight. Appreciate it. I hope that the constructive tone is in fact going to characterize the work that Congress does, because it's so vitally important to the safety of our people. I think all Americans want to see this done in that spirit. Thank you both.
Next, my “Outrage of the Day,” involving a new system for air traffic control and what the FAA is doing with it. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now for my “Outrage of the Day.” The Federal Aviation Administration is continuing to install a new air traffic control system nationwide, even though the Transportation Department inspector general and some agency employees say it has a lot of problems. When the technicians refused to certify the system in Syracuse, New York, the FAA invoked a never-before-used clause in its contract to force them to do so, and to work with the improved equipment.
Now, I fly on a lot of airplanes in the work that I do, and I've got to tell you, I'd rather they got the bugs out before they put it in place, because I sure wouldn't want to be one of the victims of the glitches that can sometimes result. You know when a computer program goes wrong?
Well, that's my sense of it. Thanks. “NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. I'll see you on Monday.
Up front tonight, a busy day in Washington on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. On the Hill, we have the testimony of FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley, you remember the one who wrote that scathing memo to her boss, Robert Mueller, criticizing the management of his bureau.
At the White House, President Bush proposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, a cabinet-level agency designed to consolidate and coordinate the responsibilities of several existing agencies.
But since the president's proposal was very much, I think, in response to the perception of failure before 9/11, we're going to begin tonight with the Rowley testimony and this report from MSNBC's chief justice correspondent Pete Williams.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE WILLIAMS, MSNBC CHIEF JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just two weeks after writing that now famous letter to her boss, with copies to Congress, Agent Coleen Rowley today appeared in public to explain her scathing critique of FBI management. Headquarters she said is a rigid bureaucracy that discourages bold initiatives.
COLEEN ROWLEY, FBI AGENT: We have a culture in the FBI that there's a certain pecking order and it's pretty strong, and it's very rare that someone picks up the phone, calls a rank or two above themselves.
WILLIAMS: Her concern is that for nearly a month after the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, whose actions aroused suspicion at a Minnesota flight school, FBI Headquarters blocked a request from local agents to search his possessions.
Faced with that rejection, she says, agents at the field office were reluctant to fight back. But, she says, she felt she had to put her thoughts down on paper.
ROWLEY: I anguished over this a week. It wasn't even quite a week that I - it was more like a three-day period and it was a fairly sleepless three-day period.
WILLIAMS: Both she and the FBI director agreed today that one problem is the agency's hopelessly outmoded computer system. Agents in Minneapolis couldn't simply do a computer search by typing in aviation schools to turn up something like the memo from a Phoenix agent who suggested canvassing the nation's pilot training schools for signs of suspicious behavior.
Earlier today, FBI Director Mueller said even if Moussaoui's possessions had been searched, it probably wouldn't have disrupted the September 11th attacks.
ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: I do not believe it is likely that it would have.
WILLIAMS: And a sign today of the tightrope the FBI is walking, while Congress is faulting agents for not recognizing potential warning signs, one Senator said the FBI may now be going too far in trying to monitor suspected terrorists in the U.S.
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: It's troublesome to have surveillance unless there's really a good reason for doing so.
WILLIAMS (on camera): As for Agent Rowley, she's received hundreds of e-mails commending her, but some former agents say if she felt so strongly about the Moussaoui search, she could have phoned headquarters or even flown there herself to push for it.
Pete Williams, NBC News, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Now obviously things like the flap over the Rowley memo, other reports about the Phoenix memo, reports of various things that went on where some of the folks got into the country and were continuing about their preparations for this act of terrorism, despite knowledge in the CIA and so forth, all these things have fed a growing perception that contrary to what we were told in the weeks right after 9/11, it was not in fact the case that this was some unimaginable, out of the blue, unexpected thing. Nobody could have thought of it. Nobody knew, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, in response to the perception that failures did, in fact, contribute to our vulnerability on 9/11, the president has now come forward with the proposal probably aimed at helping Americans to feel that something is, in fact, being done to improve the performance of the government that seems possibly to have failed.
So he's come forward with a comprehensive proposal to establish a Department of Homeland Security. He described it tonight and here's more about this new Department of Homeland Security, the largest restructuring of the Federal Government in decades, taken from President Bush's own words in what he said in his address to the nation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tonight, I propose a permanent cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to unite essential agencies that must work more closely together. Among them, the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol, the Customs Service, Immigration officials, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Employees of this new agency will come to work every morning knowing their most important job is to protect their fellow citizens. The Department of Homeland Security will be charged with four primary tasks. This new agency will control our borders and prevent terrorists and explosives from entering our country.
It will work with state and local authorities to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies. It will bring together our best scientists to development technologies that detect biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and to discover the drugs and treatments to best protect our citizens.
And this new department will review intelligence and law enforcement information from all agencies of government and produce a single daily picture of threats against our homeland. Analysts will be responsible for imagining the worst and planning to counter it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, when he spoke at West Point and again in tonight's speech, President Bush put these ideas in the context of an understanding of our goal and task in the war on terror that emphasizes the truth that the best defense in this war is a good offense. Here's what he said in tonight's speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: The first and best way to secure America's homeland is to attack the enemy where he hides and plans and we're doing just that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now that appears to be a reiteration, in a shorter form obviously, of what he said to the cadets at West Point on Saturday. Here are those words.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action and this nation will act.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, the natural question that arises is in light of that necessary strategic principle, what is there about the reorganization that he has proposed tonight that reflects that assertive, that offensive approach that takes the war to the enemy? Here's what the president had to say about the principle of the reorganization and its likely effect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: This reorganization will give the good people of our government their best opportunity to succeed by organizing our resources in a way that is thorough and unified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Well, of course, the natural question is unified to what end and purpose? And here's where I, at least, begin to perceive a difficulty. In the speech tonight, there was an assumption that the organization of the Department of Homeland Security will focus on defending America at home, a defensive posture. But if the best defense is a good offense, then how does one come up with the best defense in a way that's separate from the offensive nature of the war?
And obviously, the president still understands that that war and its offensive side must continue. In this context, he referred to the reorganization of government that took place during Truman's era. Here's a reference to Truman from tonight's speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: During his presidency, Harry Truman recognized that our nation's fragmented defenses had to be reorganized to win the Cold War. He proposed uniting our military forces under a single Department of Defense and creating the National Security Council to bring together defense, intelligence, and diplomacy. Truman's reforms are still helping us to fight terror abroad and now we need similar dramatic reforms to secure our people at home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: See I guess one of the problems that I see here is that mentality reflected in the president's speech, the National Security Council approach helps us to deal with problems abroad. The Department of Homeland Security will deal with them at home. It's quite obvious, isn't it, that the terrorist threat and actually the theater of war with respect to terrorism transcends the distinction between at home and abroad.
The principle of unity that's needed is not a principle of unity among departments and agencies only. No, it's a principle of unity that reflects the transcendent challenge that the war, in fact, takes place at home and abroad on a theater that involves both and that, therefore, must coordinate the steps that are being taken in light of the offensive goal, which is to defend the country by destroying the enemy.
How does the president's reorganization tonight take account of that, the FBI and the CIA still left out there on their own, the military arm that will carry the war to the enemy still left out there on its own?
The organizing principle which reflects the nature of the enemy and the war itself does not appear to be clear from what the president said tonight. In fact, I think it's rather less clear than the principle was in Truman's day because in a sense, contrary to what the president implied, in Truman's day the National Security Council system did not only reflect intelligence and defense as he puts it and so forth.
No, it reflected also, in addition to diplomacy, intelligence and defense, counterintelligence; that is to say, the work of the FBI. That's why the attorney general was included in the National Security Council system.
That is again the kind of thinking that we're probably going to need today, but is that unifying principle, is that strategic understanding reflected in the president's approach with the Department of Homeland Security? That, I think, is unclear. We have the good principle. We have the good words. We have yet in, I think, a certain and clear form a proposal that reflects the kind of unity that will bring together the resources of the government to carry the war to the enemy.
Well, we're going to be talking about that as we get to the heart of the matter on these events in Washington today and discuss whether this new Department of Homeland Security is, in fact, effective strategy or perhaps a little gimmickry aimed at distracting people from a concentrated effort to understand the nature of the failures that led up to 9/11.
I'm a little cynical. I'm not saying that's the way it is but it's something we have to think about. So, we will get into that next, here on America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLEY: I think careerism, when I looked up the definition, I really said unbelievable how appropriate that is. I think that the FBI does have a problem with that, and if I remember right, it means promoting one's career over integrity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: That was more of Special Agent Coleen Rowley's testimony today on Capitol Hill. A reminder to you that the chat room is busy tonight and you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com.
In light of Coleen Rowley's remarks, I think we really have to ask ourselves whether the reorganization we're looking at today relates to the kind of things we've been learning about the problems that led up to 9/11.
A lot of those problems seem to focus on the inadequate response of the people to the facts, the information, the opportunities they were presented with, and yet the reorganization implies that it was the system that failed.
It's sort of like the question at the end of a race when you've lost. Was it the car or the driver? We are being asked to believe, I think, that it was basically the car and we're going to reorganize and retool the machine and that will make it better. And yet, a lot of the evidence is mounting up to suggest that it was the drivers, and that we might just get the same performance if we're going to leave the same kind of mentality and personnel in place.
Joining us to examine these matters in light of the testimony, the proposal made today and so forth, Cliff May, President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; Jed Babbin, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense and now a syndicated columnist; and Mark Levin with the Landmark Legal Foundation. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Thank you.
JED BABBIN, FORMER DEFENSE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Good to be with you.
KEYES: I think I want to put my first question tonight, Cliff, to you because in looking at all of this, I know one could make the easy assumption, we're getting on with business and so forth.
People in government love to look like they're doing stuff. That doesn't mean they're doing anything effective and my questions always have to be how does what they're doing relate to the real problem we're looking at?
Step Number One, how can we be sure that what's being proposed to us effectively addresses the problem when we haven't even yet come to any comprehensive conclusion about what failures did contribute to the 9/11 disastrous result and how they contributed to it? How do we reorganize before we know those answers?
MAY: It's an excellent question, but I think we have a few things that we do know. We know the systems are broken and we know we need to begin to fix it and I think this should be seen as the start of the process, not necessarily the end but really the first phase.
We've got over 100 government agencies responsible for what we're calling homeland security. We have over 30 congressional committees that have oversight over that. Do we have any coordination between Border Patrol, Customs, and the Coast Guard? Probably not.
We know there's a breakdown in communication between the FBI and the CIA. We know that at the FBI, as Coleen Rowley showed, you can arrest somebody like Zacarias Moussaoui and then you can't even open his computer or examine his personal effects to see if you can find the phone numbers of other terrorists.
We know that the FBI is out there tracking down drug sellers, even though we have the DEA that's supposed to do it. The FBI is also looking at bordellos in New Orleans. We know at least some of the problems we have and we're beginning to fix it.
One of the things we should be doing, and I hope we are, is looking around the world where else it's done and how it's done. As you well know, Alan, in the U.K. you have MI-5, which is domestic counterintelligence, MI-6, which is foreign intelligence, and then Scotland Yard takes care of criminal things.
So if you have that kind of model or the model they have in Israel, which is pretty similar to that, you wouldn't have the FBI worrying about bank robbers and people crossing state lines. So, I think this is a very useful first step. I think it shows seriousness of purpose.
MARK LEVIN, LANDMARK LEGAL FOUNDATION: Alan, can I get in here a second?
MAY: Go ahead, sorry.
KEYES: Yes. Go ahead.
LEVIN: That's all well and good, but this whole program, Cliff, doesn't really affect one person at the FBI or the CIA. For all the talk about lack of communication between the FBI and the CIA, I challenge anybody here tonight to tell me exactly what communication lapse would have prevented September 11th. I loved the Phoenix FBI Agent's comments in the paper. He says he could never have imagined it and not a single one of the suspects he was looking at -
KEYES: How about this, Mark?
MAY: Hold on. Alan?
LEVIN: Not a single one. Let's get the facts straight though.
MAY: No, but the point was -
LEVIN: Not a single one of the suspects he was talking about was one of the hijackers. They did get to Moussaoui's computer. Moussaoui's computer doesn't name any place, time, people that would have been useful. Now you can not be serious. We're going to move the Coast Guard. We're going to move the Secret Service. Where are we going to put the Patent and Trademark Office?
KEYES: Guys, what this reminds me - this whole thing.
MAY: Jed, come on in.
BABBIN: This thing is as big a sham as federalizing the airport security people. What you're doing is changing the name on the door and you're not changing the people inside.
What we're going to do is scramble things around. Nothing is going to change. What this does not do is do the practical things that the president alluded to in his speech.
He is asking every American to go and lend our eyes and ears to trying to spot people who are committing acts of terror. Well, wouldn't it be useful if we were going to do something, to try to teach people how to do that?
None of the practical steps that we can do right now, that we don't need a big legislative program for, are being done. This is nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs.
KEYES: Can I raise one question, though, because the reason I played that clip where the president talks about unifying and so forth. Unity is a nice word but simply putting a bunch of stuff together in one department doesn't achieve unity.
Unity can only be achieved if there's a unity of understanding, principle, purpose, goal, a strategic sense of how all of it fits together and each part contributes to the result, and the unifying concept of this new department isn't clear in the president's speech or thinking.
Take, for instance, the key fact that was presented at West Point and again in this speech. The best defense is a good offense. Can one of you explain to me where what is being done brings together the work and intelligence needed to find the enemy and identify the enemy and the arms that can then go out and get the enemy? Where is that unity in this plan? Jed.
BABBIN: The fact of the matter is, one good thing that is there is intelligence fusion, trying to get all of the different intelligence agencies to talk in the same language to the same people and have the analysis coordinated amongst them is a good thing, but nothing else connects to it.
There is nothing connected to enforcement. There's nothing that really will make any practical change in what's going on right now. The things that we need to do, we could do with the laws that are already on the books.
MAY: Let me just suggest, since I'm the only one, I think, who's defending the president here, a couple of quick things. One is by establishing this agency when it will have cabinet powers, you hopefully will give the cabinet secretary the authority, the budgetary authority, the power to actually get things done in a way that Governor Ridge really doesn't have at present. So, that's one thing it will do.
You'll be able to get him, I would hope, to be able to knock heads together in a different way. I see this a little bit like the creation of the NSC, the National Security Council, after World War II. It may not have been immediately clear what that was going to do, but it was important to bring defense and intelligence and diplomacy together under one roof, not that the national security adviser would necessarily be running all those different shows, but rather would be able to assemble them and say look, here's the priority. You have to do A. You do B. You do C.
KEYES: Well, let me ask a follow-up question to that though, Mark, because one of the assumptions when you fix something is that it was broken, right?
MAY: Right.
KEYES: And yet the thing I have a terrible time with, because it seems like I'm the only person in America who has looked at this situation and said, wait a minute. What was wrong with the National Security Council system?
LEVIN: I agree with you.
KEYES: Which was supposed to address all of these aspects of the threats we face in the world. Acting like this is the first time we faced a transcendent threat that spans both home and abroad and so forth is a big lie.
The communist threat was precisely perceived as such a threat when Truman put the National Security Council structure together. So, Mark, since they haven't acknowledged that that system failed, why are they replacing it now?
LEVIN: I'm going to tell you what's really gone on here, I think.
KEYES: Yes, go ahead.
LEVIN: It's all happened in the last four weeks. You remember prior to that last four weeks, there wasn't all this finger pointing and shooting in the foot business going on.
The left just loves this. They've got the FBI fighting with the CIA. The media hypes it. If you peel it all back, there's not a whole lot there, and guess who's really happy today, Cliff, with you? Bob Byrd, Tom Daschle, all the libs out there who get what they want to do in response to everything is to build a bigger bureaucracy and to trash the FBI and the CIA.
I'm going to tell you something, the reason the FBI and the CIA have two cultures is because since 1947, Congress has created two cultures. The reason why the FBI and the CIA don't collaborate is because Congress doesn't allow them to collaborate. Meanwhile, these guys are sitting up there with Coleen Rowley.
What does Coleen Rowley bring to the table? She brings one thing, possible scandal. She writes a memo on May 21st. Well that pang of concern that she had would have be useful prior to September 11th, right after September 11th, and the first big hearing the Senate Judiciary Committee has, in the hands of Pat Leahy, is Coleen Rowley, to what end?
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Quickly, go ahead.
BABBIN: The point really is that this is going to be just another big bureaucracy with a lot of pork. Bob Byrd is going to ask that the bill be amended to put the headquarters of the Homeland Security Administration in Morgantown, West Virginia. This is going to be more pork. We don't need pork. We need practical action.
KEYES: Jed, can I stop you there because you said something very interesting a minute ago. You said that even given what we have existing, one could reorganize things in such a way as to effectively pursue the strategy that carries this war to the enemy, which obviously as the president himself says, is the real strategic goal. What did you mean by that and how would it be done?
BABBIN: Well, there are a lot of things we can do in terms of bringing knowledge to the American people right now, that the president doesn't need any additional authority to do, to help people arm themselves and protect themselves against particular acts of terror.
What do Israeli citizens do everyday that we are not taught to do? There's a whole boatload of things to do that. There are ways, and granted Mark is right, we have to get some legislation to make the CIA and the FBI able to cooperate with each other. That is one distinct finite thing the government needs to do through Congress.
But there are a variety of other things in law enforcement, in sharing intelligence. Maybe we need to modify the Posse Comitatus Act a little bit. In some instances, the military may need to be used to enforce civil law, but beyond that, everything else that we need to do is doable right now. For God's sake, we don't need to federalize the airport security people all over again and just do another bait and switch. That's all this is, is more pork.
MAY: But, Jed, we had reorganization before World War II and after World War II to fight the Cold War, and now as we're going into this war against terrorism and the ideologies that drive terrorism, mainly militant Islam, it makes sense to start to rethink how we're going to fight it.
Look, in answer to Mark's question, there were those two terrorists who met and went to a meeting in Malaysia. Obviously that meeting was not bugged. I don't know why. They wanted to come to the U.S. People say, why were they stopped? Why weren't they stopped? Why weren't they allowed to come and when they got out at the airport, why wasn't an FBI agent waiting in the cab to take them to the hotel that would be bugged to find out within the first week everybody they knew here.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Wait a minute. Can I answer that question because I think I know why and it's also a problem that's not being addressed right now. Again, I ask the question, is it the car or the driver?
We're assuming with reorganization, it's the car, but if you put the same passive, defensive mentality into this new structure, you'll get the same result. What we need is...
MAY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
KEYES: Let me finish. What we needed before 9/11 was a hunter/killer mentality with respect to the enemies of this country.
LEVIN: Exactly.
KEYES: What we had was a defensive, passive, wait for them to strike law enforcement mentality. I don't see anything that is being done in this reorganization that actually addresses the necessary shift in mentality that would actually help us to achieve the goal that the president himself has articulated of getting this war to the enemy and taking them out before they get us.
BABBIN: Alan, that's exactly right.
MAY: I think you are right, Alan, but isn't the easiest way to change the culture by creating a new organization with somebody on top who is exactly the kind of person you described? Look, put you...
BABBIN: And is that Tom Ridge?
MAY: ... and it will be - well, that's a different argument who it should be, but imagine if Alan Keyes were the head of this, would this not be a hunt and kill mentality for this organization?
BABBIN: No.
LEVIN: No, it wouldn't matter, because you know...
KEYES: The whole point - go ahead. I'm sorry.
BABBIN: The whole point of this reorganization is to focus a bunch of domestic agencies on trying to do their jobs better, the ones they're supposed to be doing right now. There is nothing in this bill that takes the war to the enemy. The enemy is not here. The enemy, aside from the Wahabis (ph) schools, the Saudis are spending $50 million a year on right here in the states, other than that, the enemy is not here. You're not going to fight the enemy. You take the war to the enemy by reorganizing a bunch of domestic chairs...
LEVIN: Alan.
BABBIN: ... and spending more on pork.
LEVIN: Alan.
KEYES: Yes.
LEVIN: What we're all saying, I think, I think Cliff to some extent, but I'll let Cliff speak for himself, I think the problem is a lack, and I'm going to be specific leadership especially in Congress, I'm not talking about the president, Congress, you have members who have been there 36 years, 24 years. They participated in the process that undermined the CIA, that undermined the FBI, that slashed their budgets, that slashed the defense budget.
The reason why we're not capturing and killing more terrorists, as opposed to pointing fingers at one bureaucracy at the other, we have Coleen Rowley up there, the reason why we're doing this paper shuffle and the reason why we're doing this organizational shuffle is because there doesn't seem to be the heart to capture and kill the bad guys and it's going to take one more disaster.
KEYES: Mark, I agree with that. I can't accept the heartbreaking notion, because Frank Gaffney said the same thing the other night on my show, that we have to have some new disaster before...
LEVIN: I'm not for it. It's reality.
KEYES: I know you're not for it, but I just think it would be the most tragic thing in the world if this is required. The disaster we suffered on 9/11 galvanized the will of the American public.
LEVIN: The people, not their leaders.
KEYES: And all one has to do is stand before them and clearly articulate what needed to be done.
LEVIN: Right.
KEYES: Frankly, I don't know why that wasn't done in the wake of September 11th, why we're waiting here to a day when it could be interpreted as a move to cover somebody's political behind, instead of actually a move to carry the war where it needs to be carried.
But the point is the same though. I don't think Congress could stand in the way of an executive that put together his vision and said to the American people, this is specifically what we need to do to go and kill these bad guys, and that's still what I don't see on the table right now.
BABBIN: Alan, they don't want...
LEVIN: Unfortunately. Unfortunately, I think Congress can do it. I think we're witnessing it. We've had the four weeks of intentional leaks. We've had four weeks of finger pointing. What do we come up with? One white elephant replacing another white elephant. Is Saddam Hussein - let me ask Cliff, is Saddam Hussein more nervous today now that the Coast Guard's going to report to somebody else?
MAY: Let me respond. No, two things I got to say. One is you're absolutely right on congressional culpability, going right back to the Church Committee, going back to the political correctness that has just infused the government and the Transportation Department. It's still there right now.
Secondly, this must not be seen as a substitute for offensive capabilities, including clandestine capabilities. We are not going to solve the problem of the terrorists who were out there to get us with metal detectors, with speed bumps.
LEVIN: That's right.
MAY: Or any of that. This is the defense. We also need a much more aggressive, as I think all of us agree, offense, and anybody who sees this as...
LEVIN: No.
MAY: This is what we're doing against terrorism is making a big mistake.
KEYES: Now, Jed, last word, Jed.
BABBIN: I just don't think that this is going to solve anything. We need to be carrying the war to the bad guys in ways we have not even talked about. Congress is not going to be able to deal with it, because Congress has not been told what we need to do.
KEYES: OK. Thank you. Next, two congressmen with different takes on the president's announcement up next. You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Now we get back to our discussion about the president's proposal in response to the perceived failure of the government before 9/11. Joining us, Republican Congressman Nick Smith of Michigan, a member of the House International Relations Committee. Also with us, Democratic Congressman Rob Andrews of New Jersey, a member of the House Armed Service Committee. Congressmen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
REP. ROB ANDREWS (D), NEW JERSEY: Good evening.
REP. NICK SMITH (R), MICHIGAN: Alan, you're a hero of Battle Creek, Michigan. Glad to be with you.
KEYES: Well, thank you. I think I would like to start with a question for you, Nick, because — and it came out of the discussion that we just had. It seems to me that a lot of what we've been hearing in bits and pieces the last several weeks points to a problem less with the structure than with the mentality of the people who were dealing with our national security prior to 9-11, that there really wasn't a hunter-killer, strategic sense that you are dealing with people who are your enemies and when you get an opportunity, you go after them. So that a lot of things that might have led in that direction were neglected.
How do you think the reorganization the president has proposed is going to help shift that mentality into the more offensive, war-like approach that the president himself has said we need?
SMITH: Alan, I think you've got to do both. If you're a policeman, you put on a bulletproof vest while you go after the bad guys that are shooting at you. It seems to me that you've got to have a defense. But look, we've put 40 billion plus in the offense of beefing up our military, trying to get the right equipment in the right services. Now we've put 38 million for the next year's budget in homeland security. So we're doing both at the same time. We've got to protect America while we aggressively go after the bad guys.
KEYES: Well, see, the one question I would raise, though, — and I raised it in the context a minute ago while I was talking about the unity that the president would hope to achieve through the establishment of this department. But one of the elements of unity is that we must regard the battlefield we are on as unified in a strategic see. There isn't homeland and foreign. There is, in fact, one battlefield, which the terrorist regards as an open field to be played on in every possible way, to carry the war to us, to our civilian buildings, as well as to whatever may be our military threats in different places.
Don't we have to have a similar sense of a transcendent response that actually deals with the terrorist threat in its true terms? Because it's not really something that is a military problem or a diplomatic problem or a homeland problem — it includes elements of all these things?
SMITH: Alan, absolutely. I agree with you. Day before yesterday, I and Ben Gilman (ph) had a personal sit-down meeting with the ambassador for India, for example, and we talked, and he said that India's information was that there were 3,000 or more plus terrorists that have come down from Afghanistan into Pakistan and up into the Kashmir area, and now they're trying to cause part of the scuffle.
He indicated that there's something like 20 different terrorist camps. But also, we know that there's terrorists in the United States, and so we've got to go after all ends at the same time, but it seems to me you've got to agree that we've got to protect ourselves as we do this. This is going to take some disorganization, and I think with one head it's going to add a little bit of, if you will, consistency. And the problem with the information technology has been analyzing it, and that's hopefully what this department is going to do.
Look, we're going to massage this, we're going to talk about it. Hopefully we're going to pass this bill by the next...
KEYES: Representative Andrews...
SMITH: By the end of this year...
ANDREWS: Yes, Al.
SMITH: .. and that's going to — that's going to mean that there's going to be some consolidation, and a central location where we can solve the problems and keep track of what's going on. That's our goal.
KEYES: Representative Andrews, from your point of view, one of the things that I have to confess worries me a little bit in the way we've gone about this, not just this proposal but overall, is that I'm not sure we have satisfactorily analyzed the real problems, the failures that contributed to the situation that we faced on 9-11. If we haven't really examined the car and determined the mechanical problems and failures, how can we be sure, first of all, that the problem is the car, not the driver? And if the problem turns out to be the driver, how does reorganization affect it? I don't mean the president; I mean driver in the sense of the personnel and people who were involved in dealing with our national security overall. How does this address those two questions?
ANDREWS: Well, I think we are continuing — we collectively are continuing to make a big mistake, and that is, we are confusing crime with war.
I applaud the president's objectives. I do not doubt his sincerity. I'm a big believer in Tom Ridge's ability. But I think the problem with this proposal is it's organized around the paradigm of crime. It's about prevention, about passivity, about response. We're dealing here with people, as you just said a minute ago, who view the entire planet as the battlefield who view no space as sacrosanct or removed.
I happen to think that we're trying to deal with a military problem, a sovereign defense problem, with a civilian agency. And although there's many aspects to this proposal I'm sure I will support, I think the basic problem remains is that we're at war, but we're reshuffling civilian agencies.
KEYES: You know, I have to say that the fundamental analysis is one that's bothered me for some time, in the sense that we are engaged in a war-like effort, we have been, in fact, all along, because that's what terrorism represented even before 9-11, and yet we're approaching it with a mentality that does not seem comprehensively war-like in our response.
ANDREWS: Alan, let me frame it to you this way. If, God forbid, we got a news report tonight that there was a tanker truck rumbling down a major American highway that was loaded with chlorine gas, and there was C-4 on the tanker truck and we knew that the hijackers of the truck were determined to drive it into a populated area, blow a hole in the truck and kill as many people as they could with the chlorine gas, tonight, who is in charge of stopping that? And the answer is, a lot of people are. When everyone is in charge, no one is in charge.
KEYES: Well, see, one of the first proposals I made, and I'd like to put this in front of both of you, really, but starting with Representative Smith, one of the first ideas I had after 9-11 was that we actually need what amounts to a counterterrorist strike force that brings together the elements of the intelligence, the military, the covert action that are necessary both at home and abroad, so that when you have identified either terrorist assets or terrorist threats, you can bring everything together to support the work you need to do to wipe them out.
And it seems to me we haven't yet come up with that kind of a comprehensive, offensively oriented structure, and that Congressman Andrews is right, we in a sense are fighting a war without a clear idea of how to bring together all the elements that will allow us to strike effectively at whatever threat emerges.
SMITH: Look, Alan, this is new to us. We haven't been threatened on our homeland for probably 50 years. In World War II, maybe not even then really. Our intelligence has been overseas. We have been looking for what happens to possible hijackers overseas, terrorism overseas. So now we're trying to get our act together and say, look, this is real, it can threaten our homeland, how do we bring this together, how do we organize in such a way that it's going to bring the intelligence community together.
I was an intelligence officer in the Air Force in the early 1960s, and the protectionism then was carried on for the last 40 years. And so the CIA and the FBI don't have the communication. The intelligence of the Army, Air Force and Navy then, if we had something, we sort of were reluctant to give it to another service branch unless we got something to them. Part of this effort has got to be a better communication in terms of our effort to fight terrorism on the offensive, but it's also got to be a better communication if we're going to help protect ourselves and come up with the information and analyze it in who's doing what, where and when in our country.
KEYES: Now, Representative Andrews, in the last discussion we had, I think a very good point was made about congressional response over the years to these challenges. And I have to tell you, I have to lay the blame in good part for this at the doorstep, in my opinion, of a lot of liberal Democrats who didn't know their head from a hole in the wall when it came to dealing with national security, who belittled our military requirements, who belittled our security requirements, and who helped to set the stage for this disaster.
And one of the questions that's on my mind is whether or not we're going to see overall in the Congress, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, the kind of sea change in mentality that will allow us to address the very problem that you have raised tonight, because it seems to me we're still not quite there in terms of how we establish a unified command in the war against terror.
Do you think there's going to be a willingness to look at this and meet this challenge, to overcome some of these hesitancies that were there in the past?
ANDREWS: I think there has been a failure of Congress generally to measure up to these standards. I would not agree with your partisan characterization. I think it's a mischaracterization. Let me say what I think. I think a lot people who call themselves conservatives have wasted an awful lot of money on weapons systems and defense expenditures that are irrelevant to protect us against this threat. I do think that some civil libertarians who have good hearts made some unwise decisions to limit the activities of the CIA, and I think that that's a fair criticism.
I think what's more important, Alan, is what we do from this point on, and I come back to the point that I made a minute ago. I don't think we're...
KEYES: Well, can I interrupt one second, because we're right down to the wire. We're going to come back, though, and you'll have a chance to finish your thought.
ANDREWS: OK.
KEYES: More with our guests after this. Later, we'll get to my outrage of the day.
But first, does this make sense? On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency put out a report blaming global warming on human behavior. On Tuesday, the president said he read the report of the so-called bureaucracy and he appeared to distance himself from that report. This was applauded by some conservatives. But yesterday, the president's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, had this to say about the president's stance on global warming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: When the president cites the National Academy of Science as saying that National Academy of Science indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity, I don't know how the president could say it more specifically than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: So does he or doesn't he? If he accepts the premise of the view that it's human activity, then why does he continue to oppose the Kyoto Treaty? Is it just to serve some greedy special interests? If you reject the rationale that the science is questionable, you undermine the position of opposition to Kyoto. Does that make sense?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Americans should continue to do what you're doing. Go about your lives. But pay attention to your surroundings. Add your eyes and ears to the protection of our homeland.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: We're back with Representatives Nick Smith and Rob Andrews, talking about the proposal for a new Department of Homeland Security. We only have a little time left, gentlemen, but looking forward at the process that has begun here tonight, obviously it's only a beginning. What is the prognosis? Are we in fact going to see the creation of this cabinet level department, bringing these various agencies and functions together and what sort of modifications will we foresee? Final question too, are we going to a lot of partisan bickering tearing this question apart? Representative Rob Andrews, you first.
ANDREWS: I don't think you'll see any real partisan disagreement. Here is the way I'll measure the outcome, Alan. If a year from now the answer to the question I raised a few minutes ago about the tanker truck, if it's clear who's in charge of responding to that, if that person has gotten great timely intelligence and can pull the trigger and stop the threat, then we will have succeeded. That's what we've got to try to do.
KEYES: Representative Smith?
SMITH: We'll pass (UNINTELLIGIBLE) legislation by the end of the year is my prediction. I think it's important that we do that. Look, we're winning the war on terror on the offensive. Now we've got to beef up and organize and make sure that we protect Americans as we win the war overseas. We know there's terrorists in the United States.
KEYES: In terms of the department, we also have an investigation going on of 9-11. What do you all see as the relationship between the investigation and Congress' consideration of this department and other changes to meet the counterterror threat? Representative Andrews.
ANDREWS: I think we should take the facts that come out of the investigations as opposed to the hearsay and the allegations, and learn from those facts so we coordinate intelligence better.
KEYES: Representative Smith.
SMITH: Rob and I have worked together on a lot of issues. I agree with Rob on that. Let's keep looking. And the intelligence, combined intelligence committees of the House and the Senate are meeting twice a day, morning and afternoon, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. That's going to move ahead. We're going to see where our shortcomings were, but in the meantime we're going to move ahead with the good defensive on what the president has suggested on this reorganization.
KEYES: Gentlemen, thank you for joining us tonight. Appreciate it. I hope that the constructive tone is in fact going to characterize the work that Congress does, because it's so vitally important to the safety of our people. I think all Americans want to see this done in that spirit. Thank you both.
Next, my “Outrage of the Day,” involving a new system for air traffic control and what the FAA is doing with it. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now for my “Outrage of the Day.” The Federal Aviation Administration is continuing to install a new air traffic control system nationwide, even though the Transportation Department inspector general and some agency employees say it has a lot of problems. When the technicians refused to certify the system in Syracuse, New York, the FAA invoked a never-before-used clause in its contract to force them to do so, and to work with the improved equipment.
Now, I fly on a lot of airplanes in the work that I do, and I've got to tell you, I'd rather they got the bugs out before they put it in place, because I sure wouldn't want to be one of the victims of the glitches that can sometimes result. You know when a computer program goes wrong?
Well, that's my sense of it. Thanks. “NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. I'll see you on Monday.