Gilmore Commission - Minutes
Panel to Assess the Capabilities for Domestic Response
to Terrorist Acts Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction
Arlington, Virginia
13 September 2002
Present
James Gilmore, Chairman
George Foresman
Patrick Ralston
Dallas Jones
William Reno
Jack Marsh
Ellen Gordon
Paul Maniscalco
James Greenleaf
Patty Quinlisk
A.D. Vickery
William Jenaway
William Garrison
Hubert Williams
Jerry Bremer
Absent
Kathleen O'Brien
Joseph Samuels
Michael Freeman
Other Attendees
Michael Wermuth
Jennifer Brower
John Lombardi
I. Opening Remarks
Chairman. We went over on our discussion of the use of the military yesterday and so we will need to pull in the agricultural piece today. For now, we'll just start with the strategy and structure discussion.
Bremer. Let me just state a few general points. Intelligence is the heart of good counterterrorism policy. And intelligence has three components: collection, analysis, and dissemination. I think that the national strategy is on the right track for dissemination. They are on the way to solving this problem. This leaves us with collection and analysis. In the area of collection, again, the government is making strides. But the national strategy does not deal with the fact that the terrorists are living among us. And uniquely, we do not have the capacity to deal with the collection of information on terrorists among us. The Administration has attempted to address this by reorganizing the FBI. But the FBI cannot be re-tooled to take on this task. It is not an intelligence-collecting organization.
How are we then going to deal with this new reality? We propose that the Administration create a counterterrorism service. It would be like MI5 and would not have arrest authority. So that is the first recommendation. Related to that, we felt that there is a proliferation of too many coordinators coordinating coordinators. We felt that there should be a freestanding fusion center for intelligence. We propose that that center have two reporting channels – Assistant to the Present for Security and Assistant to the President for HLS. So, I think that there are other recommendations, but we might want to discuss those two recommendations first. These are the first two pagers of the paper.
Chairman. Any comments?
Garrison. I think he is 100% correct.
Greenleaf. Would the fusion center sit by itself?
Wermuth. Yes. If you read the document, we recommend creating it around the CTC.
Bremer. It's a dramatic recommendation so we should think it through.
Foresman. This would focus exclusively on the terrorist threats within the United States. If we get too focused on the terrorist threat, will we miss something else? What about emerging threat from other countries around the world? Is it too narrow?
Bremer. Let's be careful here. It has to be restricted to terrorism. Other pieces are done by other parts of the intelligence community. The analysis is just for the terrorist threat.
Greenleaf. Will there be arrest powers?
Bremer. No.
Chairman. We need to have a vigorous discussion on this issue. This recommendation runs contrary to U.S. philosophy since the Vietnam War. It is intelligence gathering on U.S. citizens.
Ralston. The rules have changed, I think, with terrorists living among us.
Foresman. The question we asked ourselves, "if we managed our existing resources better, would the status quo work?"
Bremer. We do not have the capacity to collect the information we need now. How you manage it is a different problem – a standalone fusion center. But you cannot blink away the fact that we do not have the capacity to collect this information.
Wermuth. We can make it clear that we are not suggesting any bending of the Constitution or expansion of current legal authorities. This entity does not have any extraordinary powers; it simply puts it all in one place.
Quinlisk. If we are talking about not changing laws or ability, then I do not understand why that cannot be done within the present structure.
Bremer. In many ways, what we are doing is trying to get a focus on collecting intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks. The FBI's focus is on how I make a good case and the approach is very different.
Williams. I see it as a problem because anytime you are engaged in any types of terrorist activities; these are crimes in and of themselves. I think that the core threat is from foreign nationals.
When we start to bring these things under this intense scrutiny, it diminishes the quality of life in this country.
Chairman. I like the fusion piece. I must tell you that a criminal investigation is the gathering of intelligence.
Vickery. What I am seeing here is not a failure to gather intelligence but to share it. Each organization is very parochial. I do not look at it as a standalone, because it has a fusion component. I do not see this as an infringement on personal rights if it uses existing structures. And there are Congressional committees looking at if there has been an intelligence failure, but we do know that there are gaps in sharing and this would be an asset to ourselves.
Greenleaf. I am concerned about the creation of a single-mission agency that would be tied directly to the White House. I have watched MI5 and what it did when the IRA started to go away. Now they are into organized crime and drugs because they needed to, if they did not, their mission would go away. The Bureau and the Agency would argue that there was not a failure in the collection of intelligence, but in recognizing what it already had collected.
Garrison. This has gone around and around and around and the bottom line is that if you wipe the existing structure with a new racing stripe on it, well you are not fixing the problem.
Quinlisk. Just standing on the outside, I am concerned that it seems to be that we are talking about making even more bureaucracy.
Bremer. Let me answer some of these points. First standalone means it is not attached to the DOJ or the CIA. And the recommendation makes very clear that one of its jobs is that it should provide information to all policymakers at all levels. Turning to Jim with MI5, look I would be delighted if it could go out of business.
On the question of Britain, we can look at it as at least preserving civil liberties. There was a rally in Britain in which the leaders proclaimed 9/11 as being a victory. Civil liberties CAN be protected in places like Britain. We are suggesting that it is not enough that the information gets collected in law enforcement, because it would not have caught the flight training. We will not have anybody saying, "yes, but what is going on here?"
Chairman. I think it is a legitimate question. Would it have agents?
Bremer. Yes, of course.
Chairman. I guess you would have to have thousands of people.
Bremer. A lot of the information is going to come from state and locals, so it is not just the federal government, but there is a question of pulling it together.
Wermuth. Here is the conundrum, Moussaui and Mohammad Atta had been admitted to this country legally and they were present legally. Let's put aside the fact that some had overstayed their visas. But they were, "US persons," and provided with all the rights of the U.S. Constitution.
We now have terrorists living among us on student visas and work permits and they are now U.S. persons and enjoy the protections of everyone sitting around this table. How can we say, this is what we want to do against foreign nationals, but we do not want it to affect U.S. citizens? We cannot because there is a merger of the two.
Greenleaf. Is the ultimate goal to prevent an attack or to prosecute the individuals?
Bremer. That is precisely the point. We are not interested in making a court case, but in throwing them out of the country.
Marsh. The point that Mike raised, the distinction between U.S. citizens and U.S. persons and foreign nationals: this issue can be raised by the Panel. Court opinions can be changed and mechanisms inside the DOJ can raise the issue before the Courts. The Minnesota case is a classic case.
Chairman. I gather then that we will re-write and circulate the revised proposal?
Bremer. I would suggest, also, that you take a look at the other recommendations and let Mike know what you think about them, so we do not have to go through this in November.
II. Presentation by Linda S. Millis – Business Executives for National Security
[Presentation Submitted for the Website]
Millis. Thank you for the invitation to be here today. Basically BENS has been around for 20 years and we have approximately 450 business leaders from across the country. What differentiate BENS is that we only have one special interest – U.S. national security.
One role is "self-help" – we have the responsibility to protect our own people and our own things. But what we hear from the business community is that they are lacking the type of information they need to protect the facilities appropriately. So information sharing is a major theme. Specifically, what we are doing there is focusing on financial tracking, especially in response to the Patriot Act. Financial institutions are supposed to report back on "suspicious activity" but we have not received guidelines on what exactly is suspicious activity.
The second role is to provide a create genius to the government on new and upcoming technologies. I think that there are a couple of problems. First, the government does not have a way of articulating their requirements and getting information to the private sector in a timely way. It took 3.5 months for a recent contract and that was lightning speed.
Finally, the public-private partnerships are the third role. I do not like to use that term, because we are thinking about something more. When there is a task that needs to be done the government and business need to work together. The government does not reach out to the business community.
In sum, if you ask the question are we better prepared now that a year ago, the answer is "maybe?" I am concerned that we are going to lose the momentum. I am also concerned that there is a role for individuals and businesses and the government needs to tap into that. If they do not, they are leaving equity on the table. The last bullet should not be "include the private sector." Include the private sector in the planning.
III. Presentation by Steve Jordan – U.S. Chamber of Commerce
[Slides Submitted to the Panel]
Jordan. The Chamber is the largest business association in the world. Every time that there is a disaster, the Chamber will regularly receive appeals. For a long time the Chamber handles these on an ad hoc basis, but since Hurricane Mitch we decided to have pre-existing network and system. So the joke is that my part of the Chamber is for natural and unnatural disasters.
In terms of issues, given the nature of the Chamber, I cannot tell you that there is a monolithic business approach. So take these issues with a huge caveat. But the issues that come up are: awareness and adoption of secure practices, reconciliation of economic and security issues, information sharing, technology change and human behaviors, as well as government and private sector cultures.
Awareness and adoption of secure practices needs the most work. There is a natural bias to focus on the Fortune 500 companies and the rest of businesses. Saying that, they employ 20% of the workforce. Information liquidity is not very good. For example, health information is not penetrating the elite. So, I would say that one of the big problems is market-penetration. I do not see that being addressed very widely. In a survey that we haven't released, 30-35% of businesses have not changed their security practices since 9/11. We support the risk assessment guidelines of the PCIS and the effective business practices guidelines. We also need to continue to use the bully pulpit. The fact that the businesses are plummeted with so much information, we need to focus on what is important.
In areas where natural disasters are prevalent, the public-private partnership is probably pretty good. So San Francisco, New Orleans, Miami and Florida partnerships are really pretty good. Just to be really quick, I think that there needs to be an ombudsman or a traffic cop. It would be good to have a really high-level cop so that the private sector can go to them and say, I realize that border security is good but it messes up my supply chain. So that understanding of interdependences is something that the Chamber has been very supportive of, and that is why we supported the Watts Amendment for creating a private sector office in the DHS.
In the issue of Technology Change and Human Behavior, the mentality needs to change from mandates and regulatory to human behavior, because mandates are not going to be able to keep up with technology. The barriers to access for IT security is too low, as long as those barriers are not in place it needs to be a human problem.
Finally, we have had government agency mangers come to us and say, "Yes, private sector is important." Yet everything is so ad hoc. The cultures are difficult to match up with each other. We do not know the turf wars between government agency X and government agency Y, why don't they just share information?
We also need to learn how to manage failure: we have been creating some expectation gaps. We need to get out in front of the public now about potential failures. Of course terrorism insurance reform as well as "people management." Border security and Customs are people management. If we had a "flee, hide, stay" plans that we could provide to the public. We have to think about the hazard life cycle as before the actual crisis. The private sector is willing and eager, but I think that what we see in 3 years should be better than what we have now.
Chairman. We proposed that there be a partnership between a lead federal agency and the emergency operation centers with the state and locals. I think my first question is, "how do you engage the private sector in homeland security?" Is your model more like the Peace Corp? Or is your model more of marketing?
Millis. Both. The private sector is not one single place or entity. They are always going to be selling things, but they are also willing to volunteer and help out.
Vickery. I think that you are right that places with natural disasters have good public-private relationships. I would recommend that you start at the local level, because that is where ties are the tightest. Also, we need reliable information: how many people, how much space.
Another suggestion would be that there are locally planning commissions that deal with HAZMAT that could be expanded. Also, there are ethical issues are significant: I also tell the businesses if they have fire hazards. We have also asked businesses to hold a higher-than-necessary inventory of things. In a disaster-prone community there are far closer ties that could be expanded.
Jordan. I have been getting calls about how the ISACs have not been penetrating very far and should be go to another model. Yet I called the utilities council and asked them if they were having the same problem? They said, "no." And I could not determine why that happened. The thing is that they had developed trust with the industry and the NIPC.
Millis. What the government folks need to realize is that it is worth their time to work with the private sector.
Jordan. One of the first drafts of the bills on the DHS that I saw was to try to prevent – with a very negative functionality. While promoting economic recovery was buried deep.
IV. Agricultural Subpanel Briefing
Quinlisk. Why don't I just go through the recommendations and see what discussion there might be. First, I think we need to do some looking at what the risk really is.
Second, the intelligence community needs to work with USDA and the FDA and improve information sharing.
The third recommendation is to increase funding for education and training for the whole industry. Basically, this area has not been given a lot of attention. People in this area need to know the risk and how to respond to the risk. Also, when we talk about public health, we often forget the veterinary aspect. There is a lack of education and training in this issue. There are some diseases – like foot and mouth – that would only affect the animals, but there are others that might go back and forth.
Vickery. You might call it education, awareness, and outreach, rather than a certification.
Maniscalco. So for those with pre-existing certification, we can include it.
Quinlisk. Next, the panel recommends that standards and tracking mechanisms be adopted for food-related animals.
Wermuth. Would this tie into the Health Alert Network?
Quinlisk. Right. We need to have a more efficient way of reporting things – most veterinarians in Iowa aren't even on the internet. By the way, this would not only be for deliberate acts, but naturally occurring acts as well.
Quinlisk. We also need to send inspectors overseas to monitor for diseases overseas.
Wermuth. This may require new treaties…
Foresman. Yes, it needs to be coordinated with Commerce and Customs.
Quinlisk. I think it appears right now that there needs to be a lead agency in charge.
Wermuth. Now, this conflicts with our bioterrorism… I would recommend a mirror-image recommendation for how we handled the lead federal agency with bioterrorism.
Quinlisk. Fine. For the next recommendation, this is the same problem that if something happens, we do not have any stockpiles.
Wermuth. Should this be a component of the national pharmaceutical stockpile?
Quinlisk. Well, with agricultural issue, note that the stockpile needed for one state may be different that the stockpile for another state.
Vickery. That is a modulization issue….
Quinlisk. Next, the panel endorses the recommendation of training and equipping diagnostic laboratories. Do we want to say that if we have a cow in Texas with foot and mouth, that we want it to go to a Texas lab, or a single lab that is self-contained?
Foresman. I think that, particularly when we moved contaminated articles out of Washington and into Virginia, I think the closer that you have it the better.
Gordon. You might want to see what is already being done. I think that USDA has set up 12 separate labs for surge capacity. You might want to do some research on that.
Quinlisk. In the same way that we have a public health laboratory, we need to do the same for the agricultural sector.
Quinlisk. Lastly, we think that there needs to be public affairs strategy to deal with the psychological impacts of agricultural terrorism. If you look at what happened in England, there was a tremendous psychological affect on local residents.
Gordon. I have one overarching comment on this issue. I think that there has been very little attention paid to this and we need to come out strongly that they pay attention to this issue. These recommendations are just the tip of the iceberg. We need a strong posture on this issue. Literally, no attention that is being paid to it.
Marsh. I would concur, I think that that sentence needs to be up at the very front. I think that in introducing the subject, point out that there are two sides – agriculture in the field and harming the food process.
Ralston. On a side issue, I remember speaking with the USDA about how people bring things into Miami. So we might mention more surveillance on the borders.
Foresman. It is relevant. But we do need to put it on the map.
Maniscalco. Is it your intention to look at food safety?
Quinlisk. Yes. We intended to do that and we need to make it clear in our recommendations.
V. Working Lunch & Survey Update
Maniscalco. We need more specificity on the next survey on the types of "training." Because the media and the officials are pressuring them to say that they have received training.
Gordon. We also need to split increasing staff for WMD versus shifting staff to deal with WMD.
Foresman. I think we have articulated that by the time the federal agencies get the dollars into the states by January, and then you still are talking about June or July [2003] before they get the money. So this is more practical.
Maniscalco. Traditionally, when a disaster occurs it is easy to get the money. I think that we will find that the increase in funds is on the shoulder of local initiative.
Maniscalco. Can we get more information on the activities on slide 17 and slide 18?
Davis. We did not break out the level of participation in exercise, though we do have information on the types of organizations.
Wermuth. So please give us your ideas for the fall survey. This was just a quick-look survey. We will be asking a lot of the same questions, but we will be asking different questions as well. So the next survey will allow us to look back and at new issues.
VI. Presentation by Sam Bozzette -- Medical Responses Briefing
[Slides provided to Panel for Website]
Bozzette. The conventional wisdom has been that the ring vaccination and isolation technique would be enough to stop and outbreak. Recently these conclusions have been brought into question. For this research project, we developed scenarios, performed literature review, and model responses. We determined that an attack is unlikely, but barriers could be overcome.
Break
Foresman. Could we re-draft that strategy and structure and try to do a conference call next week?
Bremer. We can certainly do that in a week, I do not think it would be a problem.
Chairman. Is an October meeting too late for a political debate?
Wermuth. I think that there is maybe a 50-50% chance that Congress will not finish the HLS bill before the recess.
Chairman. That is just speculation.
Reno. I do not have a judgment, but I think it is important. I also think that we could cover all subjects in one day. I also think it is important that the strategy and structure piece get into the debate.
Wermuth. How about moving it up before October 15th.
Chairman. How about September 30th?
Wermuth. We can look at the 30th as a primary date.
Chairman. I have done a lot of conference calls and you lose a lot. On something like this, I feel like the people-interaction is important. So what about the 30th?
Bremer. I think you can Mr. Chairman. The part that needs to get into the public is the overview of the strategy. If we said to ourselves that if we could get our comments out by October 10th. It does not have to be a full interim report. I do not see why our subcommittee could not get our piece of paper out – and we could meet in ½ a day. We could put it out relatively quickly.
Chairman. I agree with that. So we, pretty much settle on things and then in November, we have an once-over. We are not quite in a possible to do that. If you are going to offer anything on either the military or the new agency, we need to have further discussion.
Chairman. Do you want to take up the issue of resources?
Wermuth. When we spoke about having resources as a part of the discussion, we expected that the Congress would have been done with its deliberations. The Administration has said, very clearly, that the money flows to states first and then is further distributed.
Foresman. Yes, with the exception of the fire grant program.
Chairman. So, that is the policy. And we have seen people come in and say that they do not like that.
Wermuth. Kathy O'Brien laid a marker on the table during the last meeting. She had said we should approach it from a business-practices view. The question is, what is the model, do we talk about restricting states to a 5% overhead fee. Or is there some other model? We might expand on the model to see how the Panel would articulate the nuances between a state-level mechanism, and yet to alleviate the concerns of localities that the states will tax those moneys.
Foresman. The House has placed in the appropriations language that not less than 75% will go to communities and the Senate has said 80% should go to communities. And in the Senate they have also put a timeframe on it – 60 days before the money goes down to the communities. The context is that that money – excluding HHS money – that is the framework. So we need to get the FY03 proposal and the $3.5 billion that has been bifurcated between Justice and FEMA.
Foresman. The issue is, "should we agree that X% gets down to the local level?"
Ralston. The Feds are going to set a 7% of the whole as a management fee. And then all of the state money cannot be more than 25%.
Reno. My personal feeling is that states should develop a multi-year program and build a demand for whatever they decide. That is critical.
Foresman. Maybe we could at least say that there is a role for state and local managers for the fiscal responsibilities and that they cannot expect the federal government to foot the entire bill.
Maniscalco. I think that the states and the locals are going to have to step up.
Ralson. Well, the "haves" have already done it. But the "haves not" are waiting for help.
Foresman. We have a situation that communities were forced to redistribute their budget for increased security. The comment is that this unexpected cost is going to be pushed into the next budget cycle and they are just looking for a little breathing room before it actually kicks in.
Chairman. We do not have a consensus. So how do you resolve an issue like this?
Bremer. This is a federal system and we hear a lot about how state and locals do not want the feds to tell us what to do, but give us the money. I think a couple of paragraphs stating that this is a war, all citizens are going to have to make some sacrifices and the democracy is going to have to deal with it.
Ralston. I agree with Jerry and I think that they are aware of this issue and we do not need to say any more.
Chairman. I think that the "reasonable man" standard applies across the board. Let's put something out for review.
Bremer. I move that we approve the minutes.
No Public Comment
Adjournment