patrick.net

Patrick says

please just begin a new post and start typing it all in.

The recently declassified 28 pages are already transcribed online.

I've copied and pasted the text of the cover letter below, cleaning up formatting errors from Google's automatically cached version of the PDF. (Thanks Google, the information is helpful even though the 'total information awareness' feels creepy.)

Congress of the United States
Washington, DC

January 29, 2003

The Honorable George J. Tenet
Director of Central Intelligence
Washington, DC 20505

Dear Director Tenet:

As you know, the final report of the Joint inquiry into the events of September 11
has been submitted to the intelligence Community for declassification review. We look
forward to early release of the public report so that efforts at reforms can be
accelerated.

Having been privileged to lead this bipartisan, bicameral investigation fast year,
we are committed to working in the current Congress to help secure implementation of
its recommendations. In furtherance of that goal, we are writing to the President and
heads of departments and agencies about portions of the Joint inquiry's
recommendations that may be of particular concern to them.

Our first recommendation calls for establishment of a Director of National
Intelligence, or DNI, who in addition to being the President's principal intelligence
adviser “shall have the full range of management, budgetary and personnel
responsibilities needed to make the U.S. Intelligence Community operate as a coherent
whole." To help promote both strong leadership of the entire Intelligence Community
leadership and an effective CiA, the Joint inquiry also recommended that Congress
provide that the DNI not simultaneously serve as director of the CIA or any other
agency. In considering this recommendation, the Congress will certainly, we believe,
benefit from learning of your views about the strengthening of the role of head of the
Intelligence Community,

A number of the recommendations that follow address proposed tasks of the
Director of National intelligence, but as that reform will require study and deliberation,
for the Immediate future those further recommendations are directed to the Director of
Central Intelligence as the present statutory head of the intelligence Community.

The Joint Inquiry found that prior to September 11 neither the U.S. Government
as a whole nor the Intelligence Community had a comprehensive counterterrorist
strategy. One of our recommendations calls on the National Security Council, in
conjunction with key agency and department heads, to prepare such a strategy for the
Presidents approval. The recommendation states that the strategy should be

The Honorable George J. Tenet
January 29, 2003
Page 2

"government wide," apply both "home and abroad," and include "the growing terrorism
threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and associated
technologies." The recommendation asks that this strategy identify and fully engage the
intelligence as well as Å¿oreign policy, economic, military and law enforcement elements
that are “critical to a comprehensive blueprint for success in the war against terrorism.”
The Director of Central intelligence's full participation in this overall process will be
essential, as will the DCI's development of the Intelligence Community component of
the full strategy. The Joint inquiry recommended that the Intelligence Community's
component of the overall strategy include a number of important items, among them
development of human sources to penetrate terrorist organizations and networks.

To provide to the Congress and Executive Branch policymakers intelligence
estimates on terrorism, the Joint inquiry has recommended establishment on the
National Intelligence Council of the position of National Intelligence Officer for
Terrorism. The recommendation suggests that the person holding this position also
assist the intelligence Community in developing a program for strategic analysis.

Another recommendation addresses the need for Congress and the
Administration to ensure development within the Department of Homeland Security of
an effective all-source terrorism information fusion center, as mandated by the
Homeland Security Act of 2002. The success of that fusion center will depend, as the
recommendation states, on the center's “full and timely access to all counterterrorism-
related intelligence information, including 'raw supporting data as needed." Your action
to ensure full cooperation between the entire intelligence Community (including, of
course, the CIA) and the Department of Homeland Security will be fundamental to the
success of this vital reform. We applaud the President's announcement of the
establishment of a new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which we understand will be
located under the Director of Central Intelligence. The important challenge, we believe,
is to assure the full and harmonious implementation of both the information fusion
requirement of the Homeland Security Act and the center that the President announced.

The recommendations include a list of significant reforms that the Intelligence
Committees believe are essential for strengthening the FBI's domestic intelligence
capability. In regard to these critically needed reforms, the Joint Inquiry has
recommended that Congress should direct that the head of the intelligence Community,
together with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, should
report to Congress on the FBI's progress. The report should include "the specific
manner in which a new domestic intelligence service could be established in the United

The Honorable George J. Tenet
January 29, 2003
Page 3

States, recognizing the need to enhance national security while fully protecting civil
liberties."

The Committees expressed their strong conviction that "the Intelligence
Community's employees remain its greatest resource." They recommend that the head
of the Intelligence Community “should require that measures be implemented to greatly
enhance the recruitment and development of a workforce with the intelligence skills and
expertise needed for success in counterterrorist efforts." Several particular actions are
set forth in the recommendation. One is that Intelligence Community agencies should
expand and improve counterterrorism training, including about information sharing
among law enforcement and intelligence personnel, the use of the Foreign intelligence
Surveillance Act, and watchlisting. The recommendation includes steps to improve
Intelligence Community language capabilities and the utilization of the skills and
experience of retired personnel. It calls on the intelligence Community to "enhance
recruitment of a more ethnically and culturally diverse workforce.”

A further personnel recommendation proposes, in part, that Congress enact
legislation, modeled on the landmark Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act of 1986, to help instill the concept of "jointness" throughout the
Intelligence Community and ensura that its components will work more closely together
than has been the case. The mechanisms identified in the recommendation include
such things as joint tours for intelligence and law enforcement personnel as well as
incentives for joint service throughout the Intelligence Community. In developing these
ideas, Congress would benefit from the Administration's detailed proposals.

The Joint Inquiry identified several important objectives concerning classified
information, including expanding access by federal agencies outside the Intelligence
Community, by state and local authorities, and by the American public. To this end, we
recommended that the Director of Central Intelligence, in consultation with the heads of
key components of the Intelligence Community, including the Attorney General, should
report to the Intelligence Committees on "proposals for a new and more realistic
approach to the processes and structures that have governed the designation of
sensitive and classified information." The report should also address "proposals to
protect against the use of the classification process as a shield to protect agency self-
interest.”

The Congress and the Nation as a whole will be grateful for your attention and
response to these and other matters identified in the course of the Joint Inquiry,
Further, we are conſident that the Congress will benefit from other recommendations

The Honorable George J. Tenet
January 29, 2003
Page 4

that you might have for legislative or administrative action to improve the Nation's
counterterrorist capabilities.

*
Sincerely,

Bob Graham
Chairman, Senate intelligence Committee, 107* Congress

Porter Goss
Chairman, House Intelligence Committee, 107* and 108” Congresses

Richard Shelby
Vice Chairman, Senate Intelligence Committee, 107* Congress

Nancy Pelosi
Ranking Minority Member, House Intelligence Committee, 107* Congress
and Member ex officio (as Minority Leader), 108" Congress

Enclosure: As stated

Thanks!

Yet there is nary a peep on this?

97% of Americans are dumb, fat, lazy (intellectually & otherwise) people who only care about their present circumstances and immediate surroundings; hence we have a totally corrupt, completely captured government full of bought-off politicians, legislators and regulatory agencies.

indigenous says

Yet there is nary a peep on this?

10 trillion dollars in oil money has a gravitational field of its own, from with neither light nor truth can escape.

and Shrub/Cheney will go down as one of the worst executive administrations in the history of the U.S., squandering tens of trillions in tax dollars, breeding future conflict, ignoring urgent pressing issues (financial cancer and infrastructure cancer), encouraging a new "too-big-to-fail" financial fraudulent paradigms, and possibly accelerating the decline of U.S. hegemony by a factor of warp speed.

The legacy of the current prez will overshadow any prez. The volume in Dodd Frank alone is bigger than any other piece of legislation. And this is the gift that keeps on giving.

That being said there should be a grand jury on this. Unfortunately being elected prez comes with a get of jail free card. Not that that is any fucking excuse for HIGH TREASON.

But if you think Obozo is any better you are ignorant.

indigenous says

The legacy of the current prez will overshadow any prez. The volume in Dodd Frank alone is bigger than any other piece of legislation.

Dodd Frank overshadows destabilizing the entire mid east for the next 100 years and creating the worst economic disaster in almost a century? You truly live in an alternative reality.

No, the economic, legal, financial, size of other legislation including the ACA.

freespeechforever says

97% of Americans are dumb, fat, lazy (intellectually & otherwise) people who only care about their present circumstances and immediate surroundings; hence we have a totally corrupt, completely captured government full of bought-off politicians, legislators and regulatory agencies.

I think I have a rhyme.

Fuck Republican & Democratic voters.

I'm a poet at heart.