DCI STATEMENT ON THE BELGRADE CHINESE EMBASSY BOMBING

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0001081870
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 59
• Document Creation Date: June 22, 2015
• Document Release Date: September 17, 2009
• Case Number: F-2000-00007
• Publication Date: July 22, 1999

PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
GEORGE TENET
DIRECTOR CENTRAL INTELLEGENCE AGENCY
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
SUBJECT - DCI STATEMENT ON THE BELGRADE
CHINESE EMBASSY BOMBING
THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1999
Mr. Chairman, Dr. Hamre and I are here today to explain how a series o
errors led to the unintended bombing of the Chinese Embassy in
Belgrade on May 7th.
We will try to describe to the best of our ability - in this open,
public session the causes of what can only be described as a tragic
mistake. It was a major error. I cannot minimize the significance of
this. The ultimate responsibility for the role of intelligence in this
tragedy is mine. I've told my own people that we will not hide behind
excuses such as stretched resources or time pressures. It is precisely
when the pressure is intense-life or death decisions are being made-
that the President and the American public expect us to provide the
best intelligence in the world. Clearly, in this case we failed to do
that.
But before we tell how this happened, I think it is important to
provide some perspective. Dr. Harare will tell you that the United
States and our allies flew thousands of sorties and struck many
hundreds of targets over 78 days with very few errors.
America's success, in this as in previous conflicts, owes much to the
extraordinary work of our intelligence services. The specifics of our
contributions cannot be made public Mr. Chairman, but as this
committee knows, we provided our forces detailed knowledge of the
enemy, his intentions, his dispositions, and his weapons.
Mr. Chairman, the nature of warfare has changed. When cities were
struck in past wars, none doubted that civilians, embassies,
hospitals, and schools would be in harm's way. Today, our ability to
strike precisely has created the impression that sensitive sites can
be safe in the middle of a war zone. Our desire to protect innocents
in the line of fire has added an enormous burden on all of us that we
APPROVED FOR
RELEASE^DATE:
15-Jul-2009
 accept. It is our job to do our best to ensure that only appropriate
targets be struck.
I think it is useful to note that this episode is unusual because the
CIA does not normally assemble, on its own, target nomination packages
containing the coordinates of specific installations or buildings. The
targeting support typically provided by CIA is usually at the
strategic and planning level, such as analytical judgments on the
kinds of targets that are the most important, commentary or specific
information concerning targets selected by the military or others, and
information that assists the military in identifying future targets.
In addition to describing how this mistake happened, I will also
outline the corrective actions that we are taking within the
government to ensure that- as far as humanly possible - that there is
no repeat of this type of incident.
The attack was a mistake. Let me emphasize, our investigation has
determined that no one -- I repeat no one -- knowingly targeted the
Chinese Embassy. Speculation to the contrary is simply unfounded. No
one, at any stage in the process, realized that our bombs were aimed
at the Chinese Embassy.There were three basic failures. First, the
technique used to locate the intended target- the headquarters of the
Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement (FDSP) - was
severely flawed, Second, none of the military or intelligence
databases used to validate targets contained the correct location of
the Chinese Embassy. Third, nowhere in the target review process was
either of the first two mistakes detected.
The unintended attack happened because a number of systems and
procedures that are used to identify and verify potential targets did
not work.
Chronology of Events
To help understand the circumstances which led to the mistaken
bombing, let me offer a brief chronology of events.
In March of this year, U.S. intelligence officers began considering
the FDSP headquarters as a potential target for NATO ALLIED FORCE
strike operations. The FDSP was a legitimate target given its role in
support of the Yugoslav military effort.
We had the street address of the FDSP headquarters as "Bulevar
Umetnosti 2" in New Belgrade. But military forces require precise
 geographic coordinates to conduct an attack. During a mid-April work-
up of the target, three maps were used in an attempt to physically
locate the address of the FDSP headquarters: two local commercial maps
from 1989 and 1996, and one U.S. government map produced in 1997. None
of these maps used had any reference to the FDSP building. None
accurately identified the current location of the Chinese Embassy.
Please keep in mind that the location of the Chinese Embassy was not a
question that anyone reasonably would have asked when assembling this
particular target package. This package was intended to strike the
FDSP headquarters and nowhere else.In an effort to pinpoint the
location of the FDSP building at Bulevar Umetnosti 2, an intelligence
officer used land navigation techniques taught by the U.S. military to
locate distant or inaccessible points or objects. These techniques are
known as "intersection" and "resection." They can be used for general
geolocation, but should not be used for aerial targeting because they
provide only an approximate location. Using this process, the
individual mistakenly determined that the building which we now know
to be the Chinese Embassy was the FDSP headquarters. The true location
of the FDSP headquarters was some 300 meters away from the Chinese
Embassy. This flaw in the address location process went undetected by
all the others who evaluated the FDSP headquarters as a military
target.
A critical lesson that emerges from this event is that particularly
when providing targeting nominations in urban areas, it is important
to provide an accurate appreciation of our confidence in the location
of a target, and the evidentiary basis for how that location was
determined.
The incorrect location of the FDSP building was then fed into several
U.S. databases to determine whether any diplomatic or other facilities
off-limits to targeting were nearby. We try to avoid damage to
sensitive facilities like embassies, hospitals, schools and places of
worship and look to see what risk to them a nearby strike might pose.
Moreover, satellite imagery of the target provided no indication that the building was an
embassy--no flags, no seals, no
clear markings.
Location of Chinese Embassy
Multiple databases within the Intelligence Community and the
Department of Defense all reflected the Embassy in its pre-1996
location in Belgrade. Despite the fact that U.S. officials had visited
the Embassy on a number of occasions in recent years, the new location
 was never entered into intelligence or military targeting databases.
If the databases had accurately located the Chinese Embassy, the
misidentification of the FDSP building would have been recognized and
corrected.
Why wasn't the Chinese embassy correctly located? It is important to
understand that our ability to locate fixed-targets is no better than
the data bases, and the data bases in this case were wrong. Further,
it is difficult---actually it is impossible-to keep current. databases
for cities around the globe. The data bases are constructed to catalog
targets not non- targets. In general, diplomatic facilities-our own
being an exception because of the need to plan for evacuation-are
given relatively little attention in our data bases because such
facilities are not targets. Military targets are the top priority
because of the danger they pose to our own forces.
In this context I would add my belief that too much public emphasis
has been given to the fact that the 1997 US Government map did not
reflect that the Chinese Embassy had moved. This criticism overstates
the importance of the map itself in the analytic process. Maps of
urban areas will be out of date the day after they are published. What
is critical is having accurate data bases.
We have subsequently found maps which show the correct current
location of the Chinese Embassy although there are others, including
some produced after 1996 by the Yugoslav government, which do not.
Some of our employees knew the location of the Chinese embassy. But
keep in mind that we were not looking for it. None of these
individuals was consulted as the target was selected and reviewed and,
as a result, we lost the opportunity to learn that the building
targeted was not the FDSP headquarters. We have also found one report
from 1997 that gave the correct address of the Chinese Embassy but
that information was ancillary to the focus of the report and
unfortunately the address was not entered into the data base.
Late Concerns About the Target Very late in the process, questions
were raised by an intelligence officer as to whether the building
targeted was in fact the FDSP headquarters or might be some other
unidentified building. At no time was there any suspicion that the
building might be an Embassy. This officer had become aware of the
nomination by chance, and remembered having seen information a few
years earlier that the FDSP building was located a block away from the
location identified. Although the matter had nothing to do with his
usual responsibilities, this officer registered his concern and sought
 to clarify the facts by contacting, or attempting to contact, other
working level officials who were involved in the preparation of the
nomination package.
On Tuesday, 4 May--three days before the bombing occurred--this
officer telephoned an officer responsible for the target at the Joint
Task Force NOBLE ANVIL in Naples. He told him that he believed the
FDSP headquarters building was a block away from the identified
location and said that he was trying to resolve this discrepancy. That
evening, he obtained information that tended to confirm his belief
that the building had been mislocated. Due to a variety of
circumstances, this officer was unable to relay this.
information before departing for training 6-7 May. At that time this
officer was unaware that the FDSP headquarters was on the target list.
On his return to his office on Friday afternoon, 7 May, the officer
learned to his surprise that the FDSP building was on the target list
for bombing that night. He attempted without success to re-contact the
officer in Naples with whom he had spoken earlier in the week
concerning the "discrepancy." He raised his concerns with another
officer at Naples and learned that the aircraft was already en route
to the target. He tried to convey his concern that the building
targeted may not have been the FDSP headquarters. Those in Europe
state that they believed that he was trying to convey that while it
might not be the FDSP headquarters, it was still a legitimate FDSP
target. While recollections differ of exactly what was said and what
was heard, there is no doubt that no one knew that the facility in
question was an Embassy. The strike took place shortly thereafter.
Throughout this series of missed opportunities, the problem of
identification was not brought to the attention of the senior managers
who may have been able to intervene in time to prevent the strike.
What Went Wrong?
At this point, I would like to identify the principal shortcomings
that caused this accident to take place.
First, the approach used to determine the location of the FDSP
headquarters was inappropriate for targeting. There were three
meetings at CIA that reviewed the target nomination. The method of
identification was not briefed, questioned, or reviewed. Therefore,
the initial misidentification took on the mantle of fact. The absence
of discussions on this matter resulted in a target package that
contained no cautionary language on the location of the FDSP
headquarters. Absent cautionary language, reviewers at EUCOM and the
Joint Staff mistakenly assumed the location was accurate. This made it
 unlikely that they would focus on the need to re-validate the target's
identification.
Second, within CIA there were no procedural guidelines for the
officers involved in targeting to follow, and there was little senior
management involvement in guiding the targeting process. Although our
military support organization had been involved in targeting matters,
they had not previously been involved in the approval of target
nomination packages unilaterally proposed and wholly assembled at CIA.
This occasion was. precedent-setting.
No institutional process existed within CIA for ensuring that all
resources were brought to bear on the FDSP nomination.
Third, reviewing elements at EUCOM and in the Joint Staff did not
uncover either the inaccurate location of the FDSP headquarters or
the correct location of the Chinese Embassy was the result of both
data base shortcomings-and procedural errors..The data base reviews
were limited to validating the target data sheet geographic
coordinates with the information put into the data base by the NIMA
analyst. Such a circular process did not uncover the original error
and made us susceptible to a single point of data base failure. While
collateral damage assessments were performed and indicated there were
no sensitive facilities in the area, these assessments were based on
incomplete data on the location of those sensitive facilities.
Individuals in both CIA and the DoD who knew the correct location of
the Chinese Embassy should have been consulted.
Fourth, the critical linchpin for both the error in identification of
the building and the failure of the review mechanisms is the
inadequacy of the supporting data bases and the mistaken assumption
the information they contained would be necessarily accurate. The
misidentification of the targeted building as the FDSP headquarters
would not have occurred had the data bases had the correct location of
the Chinese Embassy. All the data bases that contained information on
the Chinese Embassy placed it at its original, pre- 1996 location some
four miles away. Thus, the question of possible damage to the Embassy
was never a consideration.
US officials who had served in Belgrade were aware that the Chinese
Embassy had moved sometime in 1996. The information, however, was not
entered into the data bases we rely on for our targeting and mapping.
In this context I would add my belief that too much public emphasis has been given to the
fact that the 1997 NIMA map did not reflect that the Chinese Embassy had moved.
 This criticism overstates the importance of the map itself in our analytic process.
Maps of urban areas will be out of date the day after they are published. What is
critical is having accurate data bases. Data base maintenance
is one of the basic elements of our intelligence effort, but it is
also one that has suffered in recent years as our workforce has been
spread thin. Some have suggested that this failure is the consequence
of resource shortfalls. A more fundamental problem is not the absolute
level of resources, but the application of resources at our disposal.
We have diverted resources and attention away from basic intelligence
and data base maintenance to support current operations for too long.-
Data base production and maintenance has been routinely accorded a low
priority and often overlooked in production planning and scheduling.
- Data base production is often the first activity curtailed when
resources are tight.
- Data base production is widely viewed as low visibility,
unrewarding, and unappreciated.
- Leadership attention and emphasis on data base production is
infrequent, episodic, and essentially reactive.
We are continuing our in-depth review of this tragic incident. Based
on-our initial findings, it is clear that this mistake occurred not
because of just one organization, or because of one individual.
Nevertheless, I am evaluating our performance in this instance to
assign individual responsibility and identify procedural reforms.
Our goal is to ensure that such a mistake does not happen again. To
this end, we are implementing corrections to prevent such mistakes in
the future.
In addition, the following near-term corrective actions are already
being implemented: - DIA and NIMA have established rapid response
procedures for critical database updates.
- We are strengthening our internal mechanisms and procedures for
selecting and validating targets and we are increasing the priority
placed on keeping databases current.
- The Community and other government agencies will explicitly report
whenever foreign embassies move or are built. This information will
then be forwarded and incorporated into our intelligence and military
 databases.
- In future conflicts, we will contact other governments to help
identify and locate their facilities.
Experience tells us that humans err. Knowing that, we constructed
elaborate procedures to check and double-check our work. In this
specific case, the checks and balances failed. The President of the
United States has expressed our sincere regret at the loss of life in
this tragic incident and has offered our condolences to the Chinese
people and especially to the families of those who lost their lives in
this mistaken attack.
 HEARING OF THE HOUSE SELECT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: NATO BOMBING OF THE CHINESE EMBASSY IN BELGRADE
CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE PORTER GOSS (F-FL)
WITNESSES:
CIA DIRECTOR GEORGE TENET AND
DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JOHN HAMRE
2118 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, DC
10:02 A.M. (EDT)
THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1999
REP. GOSS: (Bangs gavel.) Ladies and gentlemen, the committee
will come to order. (Off mike) -- before us today. We welcome you
here. On behalf of the committee, I'd like to welcome Mr. George
Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Dr. John
Harare, deputy secretary of defense, to this hearing on the
circumstances that led to the mistaken bombing of the Chinese embassy
in Belgrade during Operation Allied Force.
The investigation into the destruction of the Chinese embassy and
the resulting loss of life is a matter that this committee has taken
very seriously and continues to take very seriously. This is actually
the third full committee meeting devoted to the issue. Both Director
Tenet and Dr. Harare have appeared before the committee in closed
session, and we appreciate their cooperation.
In addition, committee staff has conducted interviews, sorted
through the results of the various agency investigations, and reviewed
the original documents used in the targeting. The intent in holding
this open hearing is to provide, to the very greatest extent possible,
a chance to put the facts on public record. As we say in Florida, "To
let the sun shine in to our oversight process." We believe in
government in the sunshine, we think it's in the people's interest.
And despite the fact that some details -- names of people, for
instance, some places -- must remain classified, the real substantive
issues, the mistakes and the flawed processes that contributed to the
 destruction of the embassy, can and will be discussed here today.
From my perspective, there are three key issues to be addressed:
the intelligence failure that led to the mistaken labeling of the
building that turned out to be the Chinese embassy in Belgrade as the
headquarters for the Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and
Procurement; The flaws in the targeting process that allowed this
initial intelligence failure to escape detection; and third, the
broader question of whether or not the United States intelligence
community is prepared for the kind of wars and other conflicts that
our armed forces are likely to fight in the future.
It seems clear that this process began with a critical
intelligence failure. In essence, while developing a legitimate
target during Operation Allied Force, an intelligence officer at the
CIA translated the address of the target, the FDSP headquarters, onto
the wrong coordinates. I hope that the witnesses will address how
this mistake was made and why it was able to escape detection within
the CIA.
However, the Department of Defense also shares responsibility,
since the target package that came from CIA was reviewed by elements
of the DOD and approved. The processes that are supposed to ensure
that proposed targets are valid, did not pick up on the mistaken
identification of the FDSP building.
In addition, what has been referred to as the "no-strike process"
that is in place to guard against unintended consequences, such as
civilian casualties or damage to diplomatic facilities, failed us. No
alarms went off, signaling that this proposed target was in fact the
Chinese embassy.
At this point, I would like to address a topic that is I believe
well understood by our members. That is the issue of the phone calls
between an intelligence officer at CIA and military personnel at the
European Command concerning the location of the FDSP target. These
calls took place three days prior to and the day of the strike.
This has proved to be a compelling issue for the speculation in
the press and elsewhere, because these phone calls might have proved a
serendipitous opportunity to avert disaster almost at the last minute.
I say "serendipitous" because the CIA officer involved was not
involved in the targeting of the FDSP building, only learned about it
by chance, and was in contact with the military personnel in the
European theater for unrelated purposes.
 Because there is some inconsistency in stories about what exactly
was said in these phone calls, the committee has independently
interviewed the CIA officer who made the calls, as well as the EuCom
officers who received them. At this point in the committee's review,
it appears we are dealing with simple miscommunication. That said, at
no time did anyone involved believe the target was the Chinese
embassy. That is a critical point.
And for this committee, the bottom line is that this episode is
not related to those mistakes and deficiencies that are the direct
cause of this terrible error, although they do deserve further looking
into, which indeed we are.
Finally, I think it is most important that we look to the future.
In the short term, this means correcting the flaws in the intelligence
and targeting processes that have been highlighted by this unfortunate
incident. Looking out a little further, this means asking ourselves
some very tough questions. Have we adopted a philosophy of warfare
that is dominated by the use of position- guided weapons? If so, what
additional intelligence requirements does this reliance on such
weapons generate for us?
Is it true that smart bombs, without good intelligence to guide
them, are actually nothing but "dumb bombs"? What kinds of future
missions are the U.S. armed forces likely to become involved in? How
many more Kosovo situations will we encounter? And does the United
States government, especially the intelligence community, have the
necessary resources, processed and management structure to meet these
needs?
Director Tenet has said that he will not hide behind excuses,
such as stretched resources or time pressures. But given the
incredible amount of intelligence it takes to conduct a precision
stand-off bombing campaign, it is reasonable to ask ourselves if we
have the requisite resources for the jobs we're being asked to do in
the intelligence community.
For instance, do we have enough resources devoted to creating and
maintaining our databases? The evidence in this case would suggest
not.
Of course, just possessing the right intelligence resources is
not good enough. The management structure must be in place to ensure
those resources are used to their best purpose. In the intelligence
 world, resources are often moved en masse from crisis point to crisis
point, with almost everything else accorded a lower priority. Add to
this the fact that once you allocate current resources between the
most difficult long-term intelligence targets and the most emergent
tactical requirements, there is virtually nothing left for predictive
strategic intelligence network, which is arguably the intelligence
community's most important role.
This includes the critical but mundane task of keeping databases
up to date in areas that are not necessarily on the scope right now,
but could be in a matter of hours. As the committee has been arguing
for the past several years, if you look at many of the places that
have become crisis areas in this time period -- Somalia, Haiti,
Rwanda, Bosnia, now Kosovo -- it is clear that this current strategy
of resources roulette will not sustain our national security in the
future.
Before giving the floor over to our two distinguished witnesses,
I yield to my friend, the ranking member, Mr. Dixon of California for
any opening comments he would choose to make.
REP. JULIAN DIXON (D-CA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
I certainly join you in welcoming Mr. Tenet and Dr. Harare, and thank
them also for their cooperation.
As you've indicated, Mr. Chairman, we are here today to make good
on a promise the committee made some weeks ago: to present a public
explanation of the mistakes that resulted in the bombing of the
embassy of the People's Republic of China in Belgrade. The United
States dispatched a senior diplomat to Beijing to explain the cause of
this event to the Chinese government, and I believe it is appropriate
that a similar explanation be provided to the American people by
senior officials of the organizations involved.
The time and attention we focus properly on the Chinese embassy
bombing issue should not be mistaken as a lessening of the. pride
Americans should feel about the way our armed forces and intelligence
community personnel performed their missions in the Kosovo conflict.
That we acknowledge mistakes so that we can correct their causes is a
strength, I believe, in our system.
Despite the care that our military forces apply to preventing
innocent casualties, some unintended damage is probably inescapable.
There were a few such tragedies in the Kosovo conflict. However, I
think it is important to distinguish between mistakes made under the
 stress of executing a tactical mission on a mobile battlefield, and
mistakes made in the much more deliberate process of planning a
strategic bombing mission.
A mistake which causes a harried pilot who has to make life or
death decisions in the split second, while maybe being shot at, to
drop ordinances on what turns out to be a civilian target, is
fundamentally different from a mistake made in identifying a target
over the course of weeks of planning. The first instance obviously
arouses our compassion, the later demands that we do better.
It is therefore extremely important that this matter be
thoroughly understood. It seems clear that the most fundamental error
-- misidentification of the embassy building -- was made within the
intelligence process. But that certainly does not mean that the
exclusive responsibility to investigate and explain the error falls to
the director of Central Intelligence. Management of most
intelligence matters is a shared responsibility between the DCI and
the Secretary of Defense. But direct intelligence support to military
operations ultimately must be under the control of the military chain
of command.
Based on the information provided to the committee in other
sessions, it seems clear that this process utilized to coordinate
target selection did not work in this case. We need to be assured
that shortcomings in that process have been made or will be made to
identify and corrections made.
The president and the Secretary of Defense have to be confident
that target selection has a solid procedural foundation. My focus
during this hearing is on the institution and procedural problems that
led to the bombing mistake. Let me stress a point that you made, Mr.
Chairman, in your opening comments.
I believe it is essential to keep in context an aspect of this
affair that has already generated considerable interest and attention:
an intelligence officer, as you've indicated, assigned to duties in
the CIA, had information that led him to question whether the building
that was being bombed was in fact the headquarters of the Yugoslavian
Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement.
Over a number of days prior to the bombing, this officer and
those he contacted came tantalizingly close to discovering that this
building had been misidentified. However, this officer's involvement
with this target came almost by chance. His duties did not include
 targeting. His actions and the reactions of those he contacted have
nothing to do with the underlying mistake that led to the
misidentification of the embassy in the first place, and are
irrelevant to findings and correcting problems in the targeting
process.
Even if the intelligence officer had succeeded in stopping the
bombing, it would not have served as a validation of the system that
was not functioning properly.
Finally, it is quite important to note that there are significant
factual disputes about what this intelligence officers and other said
and did. It is a completely open question at this point whether there
was individual failings for which it is appropriate to assign
individual responsibility. Precisely to attempt to answer this
question, Mr. Tenet, the DCI, has initiated a personal accountability
process, which I hope he will describe carefully.
The Department of Defense has yet to produce its standard after-
action reports on the Kosovar operation, either. For these reasons, I
believe our interest today is in conveying to the Congress and the
American people a sense of why the embassy was mistakenly targeted,
and what can be done to prevent a tragedy of this in the future.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to take this opportunity to
convey to our audience that the committee, in agreement with the
administration, intends to avoid using the names of individuals and
the names of specific organizations within the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Department of Defense, both in the Pentagon and in
Europe. I'm confident that these restrictions will not impede our
effort to provide the American people and our colleagues with a full
and understanding account of this unfortunate accident.
REP. GOSS: Thank you very much, Mr. Dixon. At this time, we
welcome the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Tenet.
The floor is yours, sir.
MR. TENET: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Dixon. Dr. Harare and
I are here today to explain how a series of errors led to the
unintended bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May the 7th.
We will try to describe, to the best of our ability in this open
public session, the causes of what can only be described as a tragic
mistake. It was a major error.
I cannot minimize the significance of this. The ultimate
 responsibility for the role of intelligence in this tragedy is mine.
I've told my own people that we will not hide behind excuses, such as
stretched resources or time pressures. It is precisely when the
,pressure is intense, life or death decisions are being made, that the
president and the American people expect us to provide the best
intelligence in the world.
Clearly in this case, we failed to do that. But before we will
tell how this happened, I think it is important to provide some
perspective. Dr. Harare will tell you that the United States and our
allies flew thousands of sorties and struck many hundreds of targets
over the 78 days with very few errors. America's success in this, as
in previous conflicts, owes much to the extraordinary work of our
intelligence services.
The specifics of our contributions cannot be made public, Mr.
Chairman, but as this committee knows, we provided our forces detailed
knowledge of the enemy, his intentions, his dispositions, and his
weapons.
Mr. Chairman, the nature of warfare has also changed. When
cities were struck in past wars, none doubted that civilians,
embassies, hospitals and schools would be in harm's way. Today, our
ability to strike precisely has created the impression that sensitive
sights can be safe in the middle of a war zone. Our desire to protect
innocents in the line of fire has added an enormous burden on all of
us that we accept. It is our job to do our best to ensure that only
appropriate targets are struck.
I think it is useful to note that this episode is unusual,
because the CIA does not normally assemble, on its own, target
nomination packages containing the coordinates of specific
installations or buildings. The targeting support typically provided
by CIA is usually at the strategic and planning level, such as
analytical judgments on the kind of targets that are most important,
commentary or specific information concerning targets selected by the
military or others, and information that assists the military in
identifying future targets.
In addition to describing how this mistake occurred, I will also
outline the corrective actions that we are taking within the
government to ensure that as far as is humanly possible, that there is
no repeat of this type of incident. The attack was a mistake. Let me
emphasize our investigation has determined that no one -- and I
 repeat, no one -- knowingly targeted the Chinese embassy. Speculation
to the contrary is simply unfounded. No one at any stage in the
process realized that our bombs were aimed at the Chinese embassy.
There were three basic failures, Mr. Chairman. First, the
techniques used to locate the intended target, the headquarters of the
Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement, the FDSP,
were severely flawed. Second, none of the military or intelligence
databases used to validate targets contained the correct location of
the Chinese embassy. Third, nowhere in the target review process was
either of the first two mistakes detected. The unintended attack
happened because a number of systems and procedures that are used to
identify and verify potential targets did not work.
To help understand the circumstances which led to the mistaken
bombing, let me offer a brief chronology of events.
In March of this year, U.S. intelligence officers began
considering the FDSP headquarters as a potential target for NATO
Allied Force strike operations. The FDSP was a legitimate target,
given its role in support of the Yugoslav military efforts. We had
the street address of the FDSP headquarters as (Boulevard Umatnosti 2
?) in New Belgrade, but military forces require precise geographic
coordinates to conduct an attack. During a mid-April work-up of the
target, three maps were used in an attempt to physically locate the
address of the FDSP headquarters: two local commercial maps from 1989
and 1996, and one U.S. government map produced in 1997. None of these
maps used had any reference to the FDSP building. None accurately
identified the current location of the Chinese embassy.
Please keep in mind that the embassy of the -- the location of
the Chinese embassy was not a question that anybody reasonably would
have asked when assembling this particular target package. This
package was intended to strike the FDSP headquarters, and nowhere
else.
In an effort to pinpoint the location of the FDSP building at
(Boulevard Umatnosti 2 ?), an intelligence officer used land
navigation techniques taught by the U.S. military to locate distant or
inaccessible points or objects.
These techniques are known as "intersection and resection." They
can be used for general geolocation, but should not be used for aerial
targeting because they provide only an approximate location. Using
this process, the individual mistakenly determined that the building
 which we now know to be the Chinese embassy was the FDSP headquarters.
The true location of the FDSP headquarters was some 300 meters away
from the Chinese embassy. This flaw in the address location process
went undetected by all others who evaluate the FDSP headquarters as a
military target.
The critical lesson that emerges from this event is that,
particularly when providing targeting nominations in urban areas, it
is important to provide an accurate appreciation of our confidence in
the location of a target and the evidentiary basis for how that
location was determined.
The incorrect location of the FDSP building was then fed into
several U.S. databases to determine whether any diplomatic or other
facilities off-limits to targeting were nearby. We try to avoid
damage to sensitive facilities like embassies, hospitals, schools and
places of worship and look to see what risks to them a nearby strike
might pose. Moreover, satellite imagery of the target provided no
indication that the building was an embassy -- no flags, no seals and
no clear markings.
Multiple databases within the intelligence community and the
Department of Defense all reflected the embassy in its pre-1996
location in Belgrade. Despite the fact that U.S. officials had
visited the embassy on a number of occasions in recent years, the new
location was never entered into intelligence or military targeting
databases. If the databases had accurately located the Chinese
embassy, the misidentification of the FDSP building would have been
recognized and corrected.
Why wasn't the Chinese embassy correctly located? It is
important to understand that our ability to locate fixed targets is no
better than databases and the databases, in this case, were wrong.
Further, it is difficult -- actually, it is impossible -- to keep
current databases for cities around the globe. The databases are
constructed to catalogue targets, not non-targets. In general,
diplomatic facilities, our own being an exception because of the need
to plan for an evacuation, are given relatively little attention in
our databases because such facilities are not targets.
Military targets are the top priority because of the danger they pose
to our own forces.
In this context, I would add my belief that too much public
emphasis has been given to the fact that the 1997 U.S. government map
 did not reflect that the Chinese embassy had been moved. This
criticism overstates the importance of the map itself in the
analytical process.
Maps of urban areas will be out of date the day after they are
published. What is critical is having accurate databases.
We have subsequently found maps, which show the correct and
current location of the Chinese embassy, although there are others,
including some produced after 1996 by the Yugoslav government, which
do not.
Some of our employees knew the location of the Chinese embassy.
But keep in mind that we were not looking for it. None of these
individuals was consulted as the target was selected and reviewed.
And as a result, we lost the opportunity to learn that the building
targeted was not the FDSP Headquarters.
We have also found one report from 1997 that gave the correct
address of the Chinese embassy, but that information was ancillary to
the focus of the report, and unfortunately the address was not entered
in the database.
Very late in the process, Mr. Chairman, questions were raised by
an intelligence officer as to whether the building targeted was, in
fact, the FDSP headquarters or might be some other unidentified
building. At no time was there any suspicion that the building might
be an embassy. This officer had become aware of the nomination by
chance and remembered having seen information a few years earlier that
the FDSP building was located a block away from the location
identified.
Although the matter had nothing to do with his usual
responsibilities, this officer registered his concern and sought to
clarify the facts by contacting or attempting to contact other
working-level officials who were involved in the preparation of the
nomination package. On Tuesday, the 4th of May, three days before the
bombing occurred, this officer telephoned an officer responsible for
the target in Naples. He told him that he had believed the FDSP
headquarters building was a block away from the identified location
and said that he was trying to resolve this discrepancy. That
evening, he obtained information that tended to confirm his belief
that the building had been mislocated.
Due to a variety of circumstances, this officer was unable to
 relay this information before departing for training on the 6th and
7th of May. But it is important to note that at no time -- that at
the time, this officer was unaware that the FDSP headquarters was on a
target list. On his return to his office on Friday afternoon, the 7th
of May, the officer learned to his surprise that the FDSP building was
on the target list for bombing that night.
He attempted without success to recontact the officer in Naples
with whom he had spoken earlier in the week concerning the
discrepancy. He raised his concern with another officer at Naples and
learned that the aircraft was already enroute to the target. He tried
to convey his concern that the building targeted may not have been the
FDSP headquarters. Those in Europe state that they believe that he
was trying to convey that while it might not be the FDSP headquarters,
it was still a legitimate FDSP target.
While recollections differ of exactly what was said and what was
heard, there is no doubt that no one knew that the facility in
question was an embassy. The strike took place shortly thereafter.
Throughout this series of missed opportunities, the problem of
identification was not brought to the attention of the senior managers
who may have been able to intervene in time to prevent the strike.
What went wrong, Mr. Chairman? After listing this chronology, I
want to identify the principal shortcomings that caused this accident
to take place. Some of it is redundant but important. First, the
approach used to determine the location of the FDSP headquarters was
inappropriate for targeting. There were three meetings at CIA that
reviewed the target nomination. The method of identification was not
briefed, questioned or reviewed. Therefore, the initial
misidentification took on the mantel of fact.
The absence of discussions in the matter resulted in a target
package that contained no cautionary language on the location of the
FDSP headquarters. Absent cautionary language, reviewers at (UCOM?)
and the joint staff mistakenly assumed the location was accurate.
This made it unlikely, in my view, that they would focus on the need
to revalidate the target's identification.
Second, within CIA there were no procedural guidelines for the
officers involved in targeting to follow, and there was little senior
management involvement in guiding the targeting process. Although our
military support organization has been involved in targeting matters,
they had not previously been involved in the approval of target
nomination packages unilaterally proposed and wholly assembled at CIA.
 This occasion was precedent-setting. No institutional processes
existed within the agency for ensuring that all resources were brought
to bear on the FDSP nomination.
Third, reviewing elements at UCOM and in the joint staff did not
uncover either the inaccurate location of the FDSP headquarters or the
correct location of the Chinese embassy was the result of both data
base shortcomings and procedural errors. The data base reviews were
limited to validating the target data sheet, geographic coordinates
with the information put into the data base by the (NEMA?) analysts.
Such a circular process did not uncover the original error and
made us susceptible to a single point of data base failure. While
collateral damage assessments were performed and indicated there were
no sensitive facilities in the area, these assessments were based on
incomplete data on the location of those sensitive facilities.
Individuals in both CIA and the Department of Defense who knew the
correct location of the Chinese embassy should have been consulted and
were not.
Fourth, the critical linchpin for both the area and
identification of the building and the failure of the review
mechanisms is the inadequacy of the supporting data bases and the
mistaken assumption that the information it contained would be
necessarily accurate. The misidentification of the targeted buildings
as the FDSP headquarters would not have occurred had the data bases
had the correct location of the Chinese embassy. All the data bases
that contained information on the Chinese embassy placed it at its
original pre-1996 location, some four miles away. But the question of
possible damage to the embassy was never a consideration.
U.S. officials who have served in Belgrade were aware that the
Chinese embassy had moved sometime in 1996. The information, however,
was not entered into the data bases we rely on for our targeting and
our mapping. In this context, I would add my belief, as I stated
previously, that too much public emphasis has been given to the fact
that the 1997 NEMA map did not reflect the Chinese embassy had been
moved. This criticism overstates the importance of the map itself in
our analytical process.
Data base management, Mr. Chairman, is one of those basic
elements of our intelligence efforts, but it is also one that has
suffered in recent years as our workforce has been spread thin. Some
have suggested this failure is the consequence of resource shortfalls.
A more fundamental problem is not the absolute level of resources but
 the application of resources at our disposal. We have diverted
resources and attention away from basic intelligence and data base
maintenance to support current operations for too long.
Data base production and maintenance has been routinely accorded
a low priority and often overlooked in production, planning and
scheduling. Data base production is often the first activity
curtailed when resources are tight. Data base production is widely
viewed as low visibility, unrewarding and underappreciated. The
leadership attention and emphasis on data base production is
infrequent, episodic, and essentially reactive.
We are continuing our in-depth review of this tragic incident.
Based on our initial findings, it is clear that this mistake occurred
not just because of one organization or because of just one
individual. Nevertheless, I am evaluating our performance at CIA in
this instance to assign individual responsibility and identify
procedural reforms as they may be warranted.
Our goal is to ensure that such a mistake does not happen again.
To this end, we are implementing corrections to prevent such mistakes
in the future. In addition, the following near-term corrective
actions are already being implemented. DIA and the National Imagery &
Mapping Agency have established rapid response procedures for critical
data base updates.
We are strengthening our internal mechanisms and procedures for
selecting and validating targets, and we are increasing the priority
placed on keeping data bases current. The community and other
government agencies will explicitly report whenever foreign embassies
move or are built. This information will then be forwarded and
incorporated into our intelligence and military data bases. In future
conflicts, we will contact other governments to help identify and
locate their facilities.
Experience tells us, Mr. Chairman, that human beings make
mistakes. They err. Knowing that, we constructed elaborate
procedures to check and double-check our work. In this specific case,
the checks and balances failed. The president of the United States
has expressed our sincere regret at the loss of life in this tragic
incident and has offered our condolences to the Chinese people, and
especially to the families of those who lost their lives in this
mistaken attack.
Mr. Chairman, that completes my prepared statement.
 REP. GOSS: Thank you very much, Mr. Tenet. We will now have the
statement of Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. John Hamre. And then we
will proceed for members' questioning. And I will be recognizing
members this morning on the basis of seniority.
Dr. Hamre, the floor is yours, sir.
MR. HAMRE: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Dixon. Thank you for
inviting me to participate along with Director Tenet this morning for
this very important hearing. I intend to significantly summarize the
statement, so I might ask that it might be included in its full script
in your official record, sir.
REP. GOSS: Without objection, the full statement will be
included in the record, Dr. Hamre.
MR. HAMRE: Thank you. We're here today to discuss a very
painful subject, and that was the accidental bombing of the embassy of
the People's Republic of China in Belgrade, Yugoslavia on the 7th of
May. Frankly, all war is a painful subject. War involves the
intentional destruction of things in order to change the policies and
the actions of an opponent.
We absolutely did intend to destroy the infrastructure of
violence and coercion in Yugoslavia that was being used for the
repression of the people of Kosovo. We never intended to destroy
anything that was not directly related to that war effort.
Unfortunately, we made mistakes. This is not uncommon in warfare.
And I would like to discuss with you what that meant for us.
Now, Director Tenet said that he feels that this accidental
bombing was the product of failures inside the intelligence system.
We in the Defense Department don't look at it quite that way. We're
in the business of dropping bombs and winning wars. And if there is a
failure, it is our failure. We greatly appreciate the tremendous
support that we got from the intelligence community throughout
Operation -- (inaudible). We could not have done our job without it.
And I think it was and history will judge it to have been an
enormously successful operation. We flew over 9300 strike sorties.
We attacked over 900 targets. We lost only two aircraft.
Fortunately, not a single NATO combatant was killed in the operation.
And we went to extraordinary pains to minimize collateral damage, the
damage that we didn't intend to inflict. And I think history will
 judge that this was a very careful effort on our part.
Unfortunately, we did make mistakes. And Mr. Dixon cautioned me
in his opening statement. He sees this as separate and different from
the normal collateral damage that occurs in warfare, that in many
instances -- and we have approximately 30 of them where we created
unintended damage, things that we did not want to do. Out of the
9,300 strikes, we had 30 where we killed people where we didn't intend
to do that.
This was unique, as Mr. Dixon properly points out. It wasn't the
product of human error, of a tense pilot who is under fire, who
misidentifies a target. And it wasn't the error of hardware, that it
just simply went to the wrong place. In this case, the hardware
worked just as we wanted it to work. The pilots were cool and they
did exactly what we asked them to do. And unfortunately, we destroyed
the wrong thing.
And so I think this gets to a deeper question that we have to
answer, and that is, why did this happen? Could it happen again?
What can we do about it so that we don't have another incident like
this? Are there steps that we can take to prevent it in the future?...
Those are the questions you're asking of us. Those are the questions
that Secretary Cohen asked of me and of General Ralston when he put us
in charge of the after-action review process in the department.
We will look at all of the instances where we had unintended
damage. In addition, we will look at a much wider range of issues
that came about because of the war, things that we need to understand
ourselves. But he did tell us to be responsive to you and try to
answer this question early, because it is so important and it does
raise so many questions.
I believe that there are three key questions that I will have to
answer to the secretary when we produce our after-action report, and
I'd like to report on them today. First, as Director Tenet said,
human beings will make mistakes. Where those mistakes appear to be
intentional, where someone is intentionally doing wrong, then we have
absolute obligation to punish those individuals.
I have reviewed the record very carefully. I've read thousands
of pages of material. I've interviewed dozens of people to make sure
I understand this. And I believe there's absolutely no evidence in
the record or in human recollection that anyone knew that this was the
Chinese embassy. No one had any inclination at all that we were
 striking an embassy. No one, I feel, willfully made a mistake or
willfully took an action that caused this outcome.
So we have a very different problem on our hands. We have a
situation where it appears -- and I'll describe it shortly -- where
the system that we put in place, which is designed to try to catch
human error, didn't in this instance. We have an absolute obligation
to correct that so that we don't have this kind of a phenomenon in the
future.
Now, as I said, I think there are three questions that I'm
obligated to answer to the secretary and feel obligated to answer to
you. First, is it too easy in our system to put something on a
targeting list and then to attack it? The second question is, can the
secretary of Defense, since he has to get permission from the
president for many sensitive targets, can the secretary of Defense
with confidence trust the system that locates a target on the ground?
And the third question is, is our no-strike process valid? Can we
trust the no-strike process that in this instance failed, and failed
very seriously?
In order to answer those three questions, I need to take a minute
to describe the process of targeting. Obviously, I can't go into all
of the details on how we do the precise process, but I can describe
them in general terms, well enough that explains where it failed here.
There are four basic subprocesses to the targeting process. The
first is the guidance process. This is where the president, as the
commander-in-chief, gives specific instructions to us in the Defense
Department how to fight the war. He and his senior advisers sit down
and they lay out the ground rules for us -- what to strike, what not
to strike, what authority a field commander has to act on his own,
what things must he come back and get follow-up permission before he
can act on it. Those are laid out very carefully in advance.
I've reviewed the record here very carefully, and I'm absolutely
convinced that there is nothing in the guidance part of the process
that contributed to this accident. There was no question that no one
was authorized to strike at an embassy. Everybody knew it, and no one
thought they had the authority to do it. So it wasn't a failing in
that part of the targeting process that contributed to this accident.
The second part of the process is the target development part of
the process. Here it begins with a concept, and it begins with the
concept, how are we trying to fight this war? How does this target
 that we want to hit relate to our opponent's war-fighting activities?
If we were to destroy it, what would it do to those activities? That
sort of thing. So it starts with the concept, and then analysts
gradually build up what we call a target folder.
Now, target folders are developed along two different lines.
One, they're developed in the field by our field headquarters; in this
case, at the European Command. The other is that they're developed
here in Washington in the national security establishment. In this
instance, this target was developed here in Washington in the national
security establishment. Our process for both is to have them reviewed
by the joint staff when it is in a target class that requires
permission from the president or by the secretary of Defense.
In this instance this is where the primary failing occurred. The
target development process did not bring forward in the target folder
the methodology that was used by the analyst to locate the target, its
geo-location -- where on the earth it is located. Had we known that
the method was used was not one that is reliable for targeting,
precise targeting in urban areas, we would not have executed the
target with that target folder; we would have gone back and tried to
look at it in another way and to get a better idea of its precise
location. But because that data was not in the target folder we did
not catch it during the target approval process.
Now, the third process is, as I said, the target approval
process. And this is the part of the process where all of the
important questions get asked. Is this a legitimate target? How does
this target, how does this organization fit in with our opponent's
war-fighting activities? If we were to knock it out, how would it
affect the war? Can we limit the damage when we try to destroy this
target, and minimize the damage to things around it? Are there ways
that we could adapt the target -- time of day that we strike it or the
direction of the attack -- in order to minimize that collateral
damage. All of those important questions get asked in the approval
process, and they were asked in this specific instance.
This approval process does not normally ask the question, Do you
have the precise coordinates on the ground? Now, we have learned that
that's a mistake. That's something we now need to do. Now, it isn't
uniform that we have to do it on every target. If we are trying to
strike an oil refinery -- there are very few things in the world that
look like oil refineries, so we don't have the inherent uncertainty
that you have when you look at an oil refinery that you have when you
are looking at an office building in a city. We now know we are going
 to have to ask for greater detail on the targeting methodology, the
siting methodology, when we build target folders and then when we
approve targets.
The final stage in the targeting process is actually the
execution phase, and this is the instance where you give the precise
coordinates to the crew and they bomb the target. In this instance
the crew did exactly what they were told to do; they had absolutely no
knowledge that this was anything other than a legitimate target, and
they did their job. Nothing in the execution phase contributed to
this error.
So the error occurred in the target development process and in
the target approval process, and the interrelationship of those two
sub-phases.
Now, with that background let me very briefly go to the three
questions that I think we have to answer. First, is it too easy to
put a target on a targeting list? Here I think we have to remember
that what we were trying to hit we should have hit. We were trying to
knock out an office working for the Yugoslav government that was
directly tied to the repressive actions in Kosovo. We should have
destroyed that target. Unfortunately we had it located in the Chinese
Embassy. It was a terrible mistake. I don't think this mistake means
that the way we go about developing and approving a target was wrong;
indeed, all of the right questions were asked: Can we limit the
collateral damage? We did extensive collateral damage limitation for
this target. We looked at it, we saw that there was a nearby athletic
facility, so that's one of the reasons why we attacked at midnight, to
make sure no one was in that nearby athletic facility. So we did that
part right.
But it leads you to the second question: Can you trust the
system we have for locating targets for targeting purposes? Here I
think we have to say the answer to that is no. Right now this system
failed us. Now, it worked correctly for 99.9 percent of the targets
that we hit. So I think it's very important to say that. But it
failed spectacularly in this case.
That means we have got to change things. And I think that while
we will bring forward the formal recommendations when we submit our
after-action review, and that will be sometime later this summer or
early fall, I think it's very clear now we know what we are going to
recommend to the secretary. We have to have a process when we submit
a target folder. That folder has to indicate the method that was used
 for geo-locating a target, and the confidence that the analysts have
in the location of that target when it deals with inherently uncertain
targets. As I say, I don't think this is a problem for railroad-
switching line yards, I don't think it's a problem foitranshipment
points on a river. It is clearly going to be something we look at
when we are doing precise targeting in an urban setting. We are going
to have to do that.
Now we get I think to the third question, and to me that is --
this is a very hard one -- is our no-strike system adequate? Well
again I think we have to say no. It isn't adequate, because right now
the no-strike process rests largely on databases that, as Direct Tenet said, are not as
accurate as they need to be. May I say that we need
to explain the no-strike process is not just a static list that you
hang on the board in the command center and everybody looks at it once
a day, and say, Okay, (we're doing that work ?). The no-strike list
changes every single day. It changes as the direction of the campaign
changes. It changes as the next phase of operations proceed. There
are very clear guidelines that go into the no-strike process. You
know, we never strike religious sites. We never go after cemeteries
or historical sites of great cultural significance to the population.
We stay away from hospitals. And you can see we did have an instance
where we hit a hospital -- it was totally an accident. In this case
that was human error that led in this instance where we hit a
hospital. But the no-strike list is very clear on broad principles on
what we should do. And then every day we bounce that up against the
plans, the next day's plans and the day after that plans for the
airstrikes.
We are very dependent, as Director Tenet said, on databases and
the accuracy of those databases, and clearly we didn't have accurate
databases here. I find it embarrassing that we didn't have in our
databases the precise location of the Chinese Embassy, and that did
contribute to this failure where we didn't catch the mistake and
possibly could have. We know that now, and we are going to have to
prevent that in the future. We are going to have to spend a fair
amount of attention I think coming to grips with the requirement -- we
have to have significantly more attention to the quality and the
accuracy of the underlying data.
Now, may I say one last thing -- and Director Tenet mentioned
this in his testimony. I would like to speak just for a second about
the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. There has been an awful lot
of criticism of NIMA in newspaper articles and editorials about NIMA,
that NIMA was the cause of this failure. That's not the case. I
 think people who say that either don't know the facts here or they
have a different agenda, frankly. The people at NIMA produced over 12
million maps for our operation. They did a splendid job helping us
fight this air operation in Kosovo. In this instance a map was used
-- it wasn't designed for the purpose that it was used, when it was
used to develop the target, and an inappropriate technique was used on
that map. And the checks and balances in the system that hopefully
could have caught this error were not NIMA's responsibility. We have
to make changes, and NIMA admits they've got things they've got to do.
But they were not the cause of this accident. It was a much deeper
cause in this interaction between a development and an approval
process we had in the department.
And I would like to let you know that we have great confidence in
Lieutenant General Jim King and all of the folks out at NIMA, who have
done a terrific job helping us in this operation and in every other
operation the department had since it was formed.
Sir, let me conclude -- and I apologize for going on so long, but
I would -- if I may conclude to say we are very regretful that this
happened. We are very proud that America can now fight a way with
such precision and such care that we can have so little unintended
damage when you undertake such an. extensive operation as this. As I
said, we attacked over 900 targets, and we had 30 where we had damage
we hadn't intended. That isn't to excuse this error. And where we
know we make a mistake we will have to correct that. There were
systems failures here. We will correct those mistakes; it is our
obligation to do that, and we have to assure you we will do that. We
will never have this mistake happen again under these circumstances.
I cannot promise you that we won't have mistakes again. War frankly
is a tragic thing, and it does have mistakes that occur -- innocent
mistakes that occur in warfare. We will do our absolute best to
improve on this record so that we minimize any collateral damage in
the future.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Dixon, for inviting me to
be here.
REP. GOSS: Thank you very much, Dr. Harare. And, Director Tenet,
I very much appreciate the candor and cooperation that you gentlemen
have given us through our oversight responsibilities on this matter,
which of course are not entirely concluded with this public hearing.
I think some very fine questions have been raised, and I think
that we have heard some conversation about what went wrong, the
 explanations of why that happened, which seems to be somewhat
rational, and steps we can take to preclude that.
I will say that if my scheduler came to me and said, "Porter, you
are going to be taking 50 flights this coming year, and 49 of them are
going to land safely," it would raise my apprehension level. So I
suspect we want to be very sure that we are doing the 100 percent
goal, not the 99.9 percent goal that we are talking about here. But
that takes nothing away from the extraordinary record of our armed
service personnel, who really did conduct this campaign with
extraordinary professionalism. And please understand that this
hearing is not in the area of criticism; it is in the area of
attempting to create solutions to those few problems that turned out
to have dramatically negative consequences for the United States of
America.
Having said that, I wanted to address the question of degree of
certainty of targets. You both addressed it in your testimony. And I
take it there is some receptivity in the process now to include some
questions about degree of certainty about the target. And again I
want to specify in this narrow type of warfare we are talking about
here; I am not expecting in a tank battle or an air-to-air combat that
we are going to stop and clear the targets with Washington; we all
understand that. But we are talking about this type of a campaign.
Is that a fair conclusion I've drawn?
MR. HAMRE: Absolutely.
REP. GOSS: Director Tenet, do you agree with that? Having said
that then, there was some talk that this was innovative, or a first-
time precedent for CIA to participate in the target nomination
package. And I want to ask the question, because it goes to another
of our responsibilities, which is trying to provide the wherewithal to
the intelligence community through the normal authorization and
appropriations process. The question is simply this: How does the
intelligence community measure and report its readiness for
operational support? How do you know that you have got what you need
to develop what you are being asked under your target guidance
conclusions as you go into your target development and target
approval? That is an area of some concern.
MR. TENET: Well, I would say, Mr. Chairman, we are constantly
engaged. We change your priorities, you move your capabilities, you
move from one particular crisis to the support of war. So there is no
easy way to tell you how ready we are at any given moment in time.
 All I can tell you is that in this instance -- for example, if you
look at Kosovo on the Balkans and the priority we have attached to
support here, it has been very, very high throughout, going back to
the Bosnian situation. So our analytical support, collection effort,
focus of our clandestine efforts has been very, very high, and I would
say in this instance when you surge to crisis in war, we have
anticipated and been fully involved in this process.
Now, it's -- I don't assign some rating to myself in terms of how
ready I am; I make decisions about how to allocate my resources and
make collection decisions every single day given the priorities we
face. So I don't have a very easy answer to you for that.
MR. HAMRE: Mr. Chairman, the Defense Department has a very
extensive readiness rating system, and our intelligence units have to
rate their readiness, and are evaluated on their readiness inside DOD
systems. So every quarter each commanding officer for an intelligence
unit has to identify their war-fighting readiness, and this means do
they have their personnel on hand, do they have the equipment on hand?
Is it -- their training, are the people that are on hand trained in
their MOS? That sort of thing. So this is a very explicit readiness
rating system for all military intelligence units.
And, as Director Tenet said, we try to size ourselves to be able
to fight two nearly simultaneous wars, while the intelligence
community is at war all the time. I mean, so we are -- the readiness
is happening every day. And then when something like Kosovo comes
along, you are adding the second MRC for our intelligence community.
REP. GOSS: That really leads me to my basic question -- and I
thank you for your answers on that. The purpose of that intelligence
community is that we not have any surprises. We can't always deal
with an issue, but we certainly don't want to be surprised by it. So
that -- accepting that, I want to ask the question about when you are
in the target guidance part of the process does intelligence get a
fair shake in consideration of the process? And the way I would put
it was if this was what we wish to do to further the national security
interests of the United States of America, when we are reviewing our
capabilities, our tanks and our ships and our aircraft, are we also
reviewing appropriately our intelligence capabilities to provide the
answers to the type of information we are going to need to
successfully achieve that guidance?
MR. TENET: Well, I believe that we do, and we do so consciously,
Mr. Chairman. I think the secretary in reviewing our budget
 submissions has in mind the level of support that we are going to
provide to meet his needs and objectives. So this is a conscious look
at how well couldn't we support not just war, but crises around the
world. In fact, we plan -- attempt to plan for the worst-case
constituency in meeting the objectives that the Department of Defense
may have.
Now, they're are just one customer. We have a lot of customers.
But certainly when -- certainly when you get the crisis or the war,
the highest priority you have is to support the men and women in
uniform. And that's the way we try and gear our budget allocations
and our collection strategies is to ensure that when the secretary and
the chairman deploy troops, we have maximally utilized all of our
resources to ensure there is no loss of life, there is no surprise.
Indeed, I would say if you look at the record in Bosnia for example,
where force protection has been our number one priority for a number
of years, we haven't lost an American man or woman in uniform because
of a failure in intelligence to anticipate threats against those men
and women. It's been a very robust collection effort. Now, you and I
have talked in the past about what are the implications for the rest
of the world and what you have to cover. And we know that we have to
consciously make priorities and allocate resources every day to meet
changing circumstances and conflicts, because there is no certainty in
providing constant coverage of the entire world on a continuing basis.
We are not resourced that way -- we will never be resourced that way
-- and we have to make those judgments each and every day.
REP. GOSS: Dr. Harare, did you want a piece of that answer?
MR. HAMRE: I have been involved in a number of episodes in the
last two years while in this job, where one of the key questions is do
we know enough, is do we have adequate intelligence to undertake the
operation. And every time we have had to go to war we have had to go
to war we have said, Yes, we do know. So I really do think that's a
very explicit part of the national guidance part of the process when
they give us instructions.
They're never going to tell us to go off and do things, not knowing
exactly what we're trying to do when we start.
REP. GOSS: I conclude, then, that that part of it works, but we
also have to understand that there is a price, because there may be a
diversion of assets from some other targets.
 Thank you. Mr. Dixon.
REP. DIXON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tenet, did I
understand you to say that you do not have a readiness status or
report similar to the DOD?
MR. TENET: I don't have a readiness rating for CIA each and
every day. I am -- my assessment of where we are is you're engaged
and ready each and every day in the community. John's got different
needs. But in terms of my ability to search and meet resources, I'm
moving things every single day. So I don't have a readiness stand.
REP. DIXON: I would assume that in the future, your agency will
be involved in targeting. And my question is twofold. One, if you
are, would it be wise to have a readiness rating? And in your
testimony and on other occasions, you've indicated this was a unique
event. And if you could tell us how far up that your chain of command
the approval was given for this unique package.
MR. TENET: I don't know that I want to be in the business of
providing myself a readiness rating. It's something I haven't thought
about and I'd like to think about some. In fact, you know, we have
previous -- as I said, this was precedent-setting in the following
context.
When we supported the effort in Iraq, or supported the effort
against the Osama bin Laden targets in Afghanistan, largely what we do
is provide our knowledge and experience about these targets and
strategic-level planning. In this instance, we actually developed a
package and put a coordinate number on it, and moved it forward.
So, I think that it was precedent-setting in that regard. I
think in the future, one, I think that we would -- I think that the
secretary would say that our previous relationship here over the last
few years has been very close and very responsive to the needs of the
military.
And I would say that we have to stay in the targeting business,
and I would say that we need to ensure that if we're going to be in
that business, we talk to the Department of Defense about what the
precise needs that they have as the package goes forward to ensure
they are reflected in our process and our procedures, and that the
validation process at the other end evaluates what we've provided
them.
 In this instance, this target package came up to the associate
deputy director of Central Intelligence for Military Support. He was
brought forward a package. And as I said, you could have brought the
package to me, Mr. Dixon, and I would have assumed that all the
questions that I indicated in my statement had been asked at the
working level, and had sort of worked through all these problems, and
I would have approved this same package.
So, in hindsight, I would have taken no different action in this
regard.
REP. DIXON: No, perhaps you misunderstood me, Mr. Tenet. I'm
saying before embarking on the development of the package, how far up
the chain of command was the approval given to start this endeavor?
MR. TENET: In this instance, as I said, the ADCI for Military
Support was witting of the fact that a process had begun. Indeed, our
inspector-general report indicated that indeed there was discussion
about formalizing a process to deal with this unique situation that
unfortunately never occurred. That is a shortcoming we have to
redress.
REP. DIXON: Let me ask if either one of you can put to rest
comments that have been made in the press concerning that there was a
flurry to obtain more targets, and therefore, you engaged in this
endeavor.
MR. HAMRE: Mr. Dixon, the air operation was unfolding as
throughout this entire period. Yes, of course we were trying to find
additional targets, because we were trying to find additional leverage
places where we could try to bring the Yugoslav government to a point
where it couldn't continue to prosecute this violence against the
people of Kosovo. So yes, we were looking for additional targets in
our effort to try to find a way to stop it.
REP. DIXON: Mr. Tenet, let me kind of rephrase my question. How
early on did you start to engage in the process of putting the target
together?
MR. TENET: What do you mean by "how early on," Mr. Dixon?
REP. DIXON: I mean when did the discussion start, how did it
start, that you were going to put together the entire package?
 MR. TENET: I think sometime in the March time period, the
command indicated that it was looking for targets.
REP. DIXON: Right.
MR. TENET: We have an ongoing relationship with the command, and
our people started to engage with the command in an effort to identify
additional targets that would be relevant given the guidance that had
been provided in terms of the kinds of targets we were interested in.
And as a consequence, the fax indicated it started sometime in March.
And through the April time period, this FDSP target was identified as
a potential source of interest.
REP. DIXON: And at that point in time, were you aware that in
fact you were going to put together -- your agency was going to put
together -- the entire package?
MR. TENET: No, I was not.
REP. DIXON: And at what level was there an awareness below you
that this was going to occur? That's the thrust of my question.
MR. TENET: It is difficult at this point and in terms of my
process in looking at all this, to determine at what point in time,
for example, the ADCI for Military Support was aware. I don't know
the answer to that question at this point.
REP. DIXON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. GOSS; Thank you, Mr. Dixon. Mr. Gibbons.
REP. JIM GIBBONS (R-NV): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Dr.
Harare and Director Tenet, welcome. I think the American people
appreciate the opportunity to have a little sunlight cast upon this
very serious question. No doubt about it, America feels very
regretful as a whole that this mistake occurred.
And I think, from reading both of your testimony, there's. enough
blame to be cast around to both sides of the issue throughout the
mistakes that were made, throughout the chain of command in deciding
this target, and putting this target on the list.
I guess my question is, and maybe it's one which I would like to
address to you gentlemen both. It seems to be no surprise that our
database is flawed. And that information is one which we've carried
 with us for a great deal of time. It has been a concept that we've
had for a number of years, and presumably through a number of
conflicts.
Yet, we continually rely on the database. And I'm wondering just
exactly -- Dr. Hamre, when you look at current targeting today, many
of those targets that are in that database, have the same source of
location -- in other words, a map location that we're talking about
today.
Is there a process by which we can go back and make sure that we
update those databases to ensure that the accuracy that we need to
really on when it comes to using those databases can be improved?
MR. HAMRE: Mr. Gibbons, I think there probably are a number of
things that we could do. And because we're in the realm of
intelligence programs, I think it would probably be better for a more
explicit discussion to be in a different forum to talk about that.
I think, in general -- first, if I might say, there's really an
inherent problem associated with this. We have expectations of our
intelligence community to be really omniscient in a very complicated
world. I don't know -- we might, two days from now, have a hostage
incident in a country we don't -- I couldn't even find on the map
right now, if you asked me where it was, and we had to get Special
Operations Forces there within 18 hours. And to say, to anticipate
that our databases are going to have to be exactly accurate, where
some hotel is, is really a very high challenge.
So, I think what we need is both routine, steady quality database
development, something that the department -- or something that the
intelligence community has done in the past, it's hard to do that now,
when the intelligence community is responding so much operationally on
a day-in and day-out basis -- and then the ability to very quickly
adapt to evolving circumstances.
There's lots of information in the world. Internet is giving us
tremendous tools. You know, half the time you can find things by
calling up people's home pages, you know. So there are clearly lots
of ways we could get at that. But I'd ask you to also recognize there
are very serious challenges you've put to our community, which is to
try to be able to anticipate anything anywhere where it could happen.
And I'm shocked at how many different things come up almost every day
that the director has to put resources on to get a fast response.
 To your specific question, yes, I think there are some things we
could do where we could be more cost-effective in providing quality
input on a more steady basis into the databases. And I think we
should probably follow up in a different setting to talk about some of
those methods.
REP. GIBBONS: Well, I'm certain that had it not been for the
Chinese embassy incident that the highlighting of our defective
database and the concerns we have now with it would probably not be
the focus of this committee hearing, as we see. But I think maybe if
I could turn to Director Tenet for a question, I know that up to this
point in time, your internal investigation revealed that you didn't
have a true process of targeting, and how the process worked within
your group.
And I would like you maybe to explain just to the committee and
maybe to the people as a whole, the nominating process of this target
went two directions. It went to the European command in one arm, and
it went to the Pentagon in the other arm. And it seems that the
Pentagon arm -- and that would be Dr. Hamre's responsibility as well
as EuCom.
But the Pentagon responsibility didn't go anywhere. It was the
EuCom people that picked up this target and carried it to its
actuality. Dr, -- Mr. Tenet, how is it that the CIA managed to send
it to two agencies?
MR. TENET: Well, I think that what happened here, in reviewing
this, is essentially we sent it to the Pentagon, and also sent it to
the DCI representative at the command as a matter of information. No
one intended to circumvent a process, everybody understood the
targeting process. And what you had is they were both shipped out,
because there was an interest in the command and there were
discussions with the command about this target.
So in essence, this went out simultaneously to inform both places
about this target and its nomination. And there was nothing nefarious
about it, no one intended to circumvent the rules. And certainly
everybody understood how the targeting process worked.
REP. GIBBONS : And that's a normal procedure?
MR. TENET: Well,.I don't know that it's normal that you send it
out simultaneously. But in this instance, it may have added to the
confusion. But I believe, that in terms of the target development
 process, this process was fully known and understood in terms of how a
target should evolve.
MR. HAMRE: Mr. Gibbons, this was really an unintended outcome
for a system we wanted to have happen. We would like to have both the
headquarters as developing targets be aware of what's going in
Washington, and vice-versa. I mean, sharing a common understanding of
the objective and the battle space is a goal we've been after for
years.
And so, we wanted that to happen. Where it broke down in this
instance, is that the review process that should have occurred here in
Washington, did not occur. At the same time that what looked like a
complete target package came forward from the field, and people took
it at face value, and as I said in the approval process, did not go
back and review the siting methodology. And they should have.
So, this is clearly one of the things we're going to have to fix.
We have given very explicit instructions. There is no target folder
that goes forward to the approval process that has been nominated in
the Washington area that hasn't been carefully reviewed -- every
single one -- carefully reviewed by the joint staff.
REP. GIBBONS: So this was simply a breakdown in that overarching
connectivity between Pentagon and EuCom with the determination of
whether or not that target --
MR. HAMRE: I think it was -- it was not such much a breakdown in
connectivity as they assumed things when it came forward that we
should have second-guessed.
REP. GIBBONS: Okay. Let me ask you each in the few seconds that
I have remaining here, to look into your crystal ball. And as the
nature of war has changed, as you've indicated earlier today, and that
we require ourselves to have more accuracy, less collateral damage.
As the nature of weapons change, as we get smaller warheads with
more defined results, how is that going to impact on the demand as we
look at future operations on both the military and the intelligence
capability in providing the resources, so that we not only avoid this,
but we narrow the collateral damage issue as well, and narrow the
focus of what we want to do in an intended strike?
Would you address both the need for resources on the --
 MR. TENET: I think from my perspective, Mr. Gibbons, it's going
to mean that what we have to do is anticipate where future crises and
wars are likely to occur, and assume that's going to be an analytical
judgment that we make, could be wrong.
And then where we have issues like databases, where you have to
allocate scarce resources to specific places, we're going to have to
sit down and think through the precise locations that we want to
ensure that databases in Washington and in commands -- their integrity
is absolutely at the highest level, recognizing that that data's going
to change constantly.
Then we have to look very carefully at how the input of that data
has to occur in a modern technological environment in a way that
there's anautomaticity about which data is provided so that you're
not relying on the physical human entry. It seems to me we have to
move forward, not backwards, in terms of how we think bout these
things.
At the end of the day, you will not have a world map of every
city in the world whose integrity is at 100 percent. That won't be
possible. Neither the intelligence community or the Department of
Defense will be a perfect information almanac, but we're going to have
to make choices, we're going to have to ensure that critical places --
their integrity is absolutely assured. We're going to have to make
sure that people are devoted to these tasks, and that it is not
episodic, and that leadership attention is focused on ensuring that
the mission is accomplished.
I think we would all agree that we've known about these
shortcomings and now have to understand that we have to ensure that
the attention that they deserve is accorded at all levels.
MR. HAMRE: Mr. Gibbons, I'd also say this is a problem that is
most unique when you're talking about trying to strike things in urban
settings.
REP. GIBBONS: Right.
MR. HAMRE: Again, this isn't a problem when we're looking at oil
refineries, and it's not a problem for shipyards or rail switching
lines, that sort of thing.
Where it's very clear, it's unambiguous, and we know exactly what it
is when we're looking at it. But when you're having to ask yourself
 can I locate an organization that's operating inside a building, and
I'm not exactly sure where that building is, in an urban setting,
there's an inherent uncertainty with that that's going to require a
higher standard for us. That's going to be a challenge, and we're
going to become more cautious in the process. But we will probably
have some mistakes in the future. We'll do everything we can to avoid
tragedies like this.
MR. TENET: I also think that with regard to this urban targeting
environment that John talks about, I think it's absolutely essential
that people who had eyes on this target must be involved in
validating, when someone shows you a piece of imagery, that this is
what someone who put a coordinate on a building says it is. And, I
think in this instance we know that there are people in my
establishment and at the Department of Defense who had an intimate
understanding of the Belgrade environment, and they were not consulted
in this process. And we have to ensure that that part of the business
is actively involved in putting their eyes on and validating the
target, particularly in urban environments. Otherwise, all this
sophisticated technology and best work possible will continue to fail,
I believe, periodically.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
thank you and Mr. Dixon for having this open hearing. I think it's
very important for the American people to have an explanation of what
happened, and I appreciate the testimony of our two witnesses here
this morning, Mr. Hamre and Mr. Tenet.
Mr. Harare, you said war is a tragic thing. I think that is
absolutely right. And I think it should be an obsolete thing,
especially urban warfare because the collateral damage is a reality,
and as you said, there is absolutely no way you can guarantee that
such mistakes cannot happen in the future. We're responsible for what
is predictable. What is possible is just too much to cover.
But I have a little problem, as sympathetic as I am to the
process that you describe -- and my colleagues have asked questions
about improving the database and the approval process, and the review
process, and I know that that will all happen. I see, anyway, the
plan for it. But I am concerned when I hear you say things like "We
can't anticipate everything happening anywhere in the world, and some
hostage taken in some remote country someplace," because this is a
place where we had made a decision to go in. In our investigation of
 our committee, one agency reported that the database on Yugoslavia was
deficient, because Yugoslavia was treated at the lowest intelligence
priority. And I'd like your response there. And Mr.Milosevic has
certainly been creating problems for at least ten years. And we have
troops in part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, and again, we
were going in to engage in war. Would you agree or disagree with the
assessment that Yugoslavia is a low intelligence priority?
MR. TENET: I vehemently disagree. The Balkans and Kosovo has
been at the top tier of our activity for the last few years. And in
closed session I'd like to go through the collection priority, the
human priority, the analytical priority, the existence of a task
force. I don't agree. We did have a shortcoming in this database.
But, to say that this is accorded a low priority is simply not
factually.
REP. PELOSI: So that you would obviously refute that
characterization?
MR. TENET: Yes, I would.
REP. PELOSI: I appreciate that. I don't.know whether that's
good news or bad news, now knowing that it's a top tier priority and
this database was sufficient gives me other cause for alarm.
The other question -- as I said earlier, and as our chairman and
ranking member have said, that the American people should know in open
hearings what happened. I think the American people should also know
what Secretary Pickering told the Chinese, to the extent that you can
discuss that in open hearing. I think this is a terrible tragedy.
When I heard that the Chinese Embassy had been bombed, I couldn't even
believe that that could possibly be so. And so I'm sympathetic to the
concerns of the Chinese government that they wanted an explanation,
but I think it's important for the American people to know what
happened from our perspective and what we told the Chinese Government.
MR. TENET: Ms. Pelosi, what Secretary Pickering told the Chinese
is largely mirrored with some great precision what I told you in my
opening statement. The State Department has put what he told the
Chinese on their website. He's briefed the chairman and ranking
member of this committee of his meetings with the Chinese. I believe
he's provided the script of what he's told the Chinese. I would say
to you that there is nothing in what Dr. Hamre and I have said that in
any way, shape or form diverges with what they were told when
Secretary Pickering was in Beijing.
 REP. PELOSI: I appreciate that. And I have read Secretary
Pickering's report. But I wondered if you could just be a little more
specific, because -- in other words, everything you've said here today
he --
REP. PELOSI: -- everything you've said here today is in the
public domain, so that information is available --
MR. TENET: Well, I think, if I can summarize it -- he told them
that the target was misidentified, and how it was misidentified, and
walked them through the methodology by which it is was misidentified.
He told them about our database shortcomings. He told them about the
fact that people with human eyes on the ground were not consulted in
this process. He talked about all of the procedural shortcomings in
the evaluation of the target that Dr. Harare and I have talked about.
He walked through each area where mistakes were made and how this
occurred, and those were the major areas.
REP. PELOSI: Well, is there anything that he told them that you
cannot tell us at this open hearing? I mean, I know that you're not
going to tell us what it is, but --
MR. TENET: No, not really. Not to my -- I don't think there's
anything that he told them that I -- that he may have had sidebar
discussions that I'm not aware of, but with regard to the facts
presented here today, there is nothing that he told them that I
wouldn't tell the American people.
REP. PELOSI: I appreciate that answer. Dr. Harare, do you have
anything to add to that?
MR. HAMRE: No, I agree completely. I mean, I'm working off of
the same evidentiary base that Tom Pickering had when he developed the
talking points that he used to discuss it with him. I know of no
additional facts that were not available to him, and I know of no
difference in any detail between what we've said. We've probably
indicated a little more in the closed session with you about
methodology where the mistakes occurred. I think that Tom Pickering
talked about faulty checks or something -- it was a term of art he
used -- and of course, we indicated more precisely which offices and
individuals and that sort of thing. But it doesn't change any of the
quality of the facts. You know more, obviously because we were able
 to talk in a classified venue for that. But, the conclusions are
identical.
REP. PELOSI: The -- forgive me if this was contained in the
opening comments that I missed; I tried to read the statements, but I
may have missed it -- given that -- Dr. Hamre, this will be directed
to you. I under stand that Secretary Cohen has asked you to co-chair
the After Action Review with the deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. Has this process started? And when do you expect it to be
complete.
MR. HAMRE: It has started. There are three things that we need
to do with this process -- and I say this because the answer may be a
bit confusing. The first thing is we need to know what we have to do
improve our operations. And that's the immediate task. We are
supposed to report back to the secretary late summer/early fall. I'm
shooting for around the first of September to be able to give him a
briefing.
Second, I need to get as much data from this as possible to help
inform how we build this next budget. We will be putting a budget
together this fall. The program review will conclude in October, and
the budget review starts in October for the budget we submit in
January, so I need as much of it as possible to know how I need to
change the budget that we're going to submit to you in January.
And then, third, we are laying the foundation for what will be
the next quadrennial defense review -- longer term changes that we
need to contemplate in light of this operation. Is our force
structure right? Do we have enough reconnaissance assets compared to
strike assets? How good is our communications security? Things of
this nature. They're very long-term in nature.
So, the process has started. The initial report will be in
September. We will have an on-going process that will probably take
us a year and a half before it's finally concluded.
REP. PELOSI: I appreciate that, because I think that's very
important. This is not -- this open hearing is not about
recriminations and finger-pointing, but about how we go from here into
the future. And I know it will have budget consequences, so I
appreciate your response.
Thank you, Mr. Tenet. Thank you, Dr. Hamre. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
 REP. RAY LaHOOD (R-IL): I don't have any questions, Mr.
Chairman. But I just want to say that I think it should be refreshing
to the American people who will watch this or read about this that
there are high government officials who are willing to go public and
say that they made -- that mistakes were made, and admit mistakes,
and, hopefully, to say that we're going to learn from those mistakes.
I can't think of any question that has not been asked either in the
private hearing or private briefing, or in this hearing. And if the
purpose of this is to give the American people the notion that we're
trying to bring this out into the full light of day, so be it. But, I
do applaud these two officials that are, high government officials
that are here today for their testimony, their statements, their
admissions, and the fact that they want to find a way to correct
whatever mistakes were made.
REP. GOSS: Thank you very much, Mr. LaHood. Mr. Sisisky.
REP. NORM SISISKY (D-VA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome
to both of you gentlemen. I just applaud what Mr. LaHood said -- most
of my questions have been answered. But, there was something that
bothered me in your testimony. Both of you said it, and I don't know
why you -- don't hold NEMA, don't blame them wrongfully, I think, was
the statement. But that's where the accident happened, isn't it?
MR. TENET: No, sir. I --
REP. SISISKY: I mean, the database, but they're the ones that
prepare the maps.
MR. TENET: In any moment in time now, Mr. Sisisky, I think the
point that we would both make to you -- the map is a reflection of the
database. The map is a reflection of all of the information you've
been able to put together and then map. If the underlying information
is not there, then I think you're imposing a burden on the map maker
that is unfair. So, in that sense, there's been a lot made of the
maps, and there has been a lot of reporting that indicates that the
map is the proximate cause of what happened here. And I think the
Secretary and I would say that's not true.
REP. SISISKY: Well, I believe you do agree on that from your
statements. And I appreciate the fact that, you know, we look to the
future of how we can not have something like this cannot happen again.
 But the true matter is that so much of this was just based on faulty
assumptions, and that's what happened from time to time, I guess. I
don't know how you prevent that, because certainly the CIA thought
that DoD, you thought that one -- you know, and I just don't think
that that will be preventable. But we've learned something and you
should use what we learned. And maybe a more often review of the maps
would be a reasonable --
MR. HAMRE: Sir, I think you're exactly right. It was in the
assumptions we made of each other where this problem occurred. And I
think what we now need are processes that challenge us to look at our
assumptions over and over again, to make sure that doesn't happen
again. And I think you're right.
REP. SISISKY: Thank you very much.
REP. GOSS: Thank you. Ms. Wilson.
REP. HEATHER WILSON (R-NM): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director
Tenet, I understand that there were some questions that were asked of
Ambassador Pickering by the Chinese government. And I want to ask
them of you to the extent you may know the answers.
Why was this, or was this the only target selected by the U.S.
that used this questionable parallel street numbering method?
MR. TENET: Well, it was the only, it was the only target we
nominated. And as a consequence, it was the only target that this
individual, you know, the individual who applied this methodology to.
And when we came forward in the review process, what happened was is
no one ever questioned what the methodology was. So, we asked
questions about collateral damage, and we asked questions about the
appropriateness of the target and the legality of the target. So,
what happened is that essentially no one asked the question any place
in the process: How did we divine the location of this particular
target? And it was, this initial misidentification took on the mantle
of fact, took on the mantle of fact throughout the target review
process. There was no cautionary language associated with it. There
was no confidence level associated with our knowledge of what the
target may look like as the package went forward. And I think, quite
frankly, everybody assumed someone else would validate it. Everybody
assumed that there would be another check someplace else. And that's
how it happened. It was unique in the case of this individual target
because of the process that didn't work inside my own building.
 REP. WILSON: So, it's my understanding then that this method of
targeting, the method itself, was not approved within you agency, or
known --
MR. TENET: It would not have been a method with the proper
checks and balances that anybody in the targeting process would have
used to precisely geo-locate a target in an urban environment. That's
correct.
REP. WILSON: Thank you. I understand that another question that
they raised that I would like to ask you to answer for the record if
you can is, and I am just repeating this question -- the NEMA director
has said publicly that it's maps were not wrong. Is that correct?
MR. TENET: Well, as I've just said, as I just said, the maps are
at any moment in time a reflection of the data that the maps are based
on. So in that sense, he was producing maps that were based on the
best available data in the database, and that means that the data was
wrong. And as a consequence, you did not have an accurate location of
an embassy on a map.
REP. WILSON: One final question, and I guess it may relate to
that, to the fact that this was the only target that was put forward
by the CIA. And it gets to the issue of time pressure, when people
often don't check their work because they're under the pressure of
time and the urgency of the situation. Was there pressure or a
demand, or a request, repeated request to come up with more targets
and to nominate targets?
MR. HAMRE: Yes. We were very much looking for additional
targets because had hoped that the air campaign would have brought the
Milosevic government to a realization that this was a losing cause
earlier. And it went longer than we thought. Yes, we were looking
for additional targets, because we wanted to try to stop the war
effort. This was a very important and legitimate for trying to stop
the war effort. This organization was buying the things that they
were putting into the field that was being used to, frankly, the
genocide that was undertaken against the Kosovars. And so, yeah, we
were looking for additional things. It would be going on right now,
and we'd be looking for more targets. Thank goodness it ended.
REP. WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield my time.
REP. GOSS: Thank you. Mr. Roemer.
 REP. TIM ROEMER (D-[N): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And first of
all, I just want to concur with your decision and the ranking member's
decision to having a public and open hearing. I believe it's
important to explain to the degree that we can what happened, why it
happened, explain it to the American public, and explain it to the
world. And the second step is for there to be some ownership of this,
and I have the highest respect for George Tenet and you, Mr. Harare,
for taking responsibility for this, and saying mistakes were made.
And this was a tragic accident, encompassing colossal failures, and
we're not going to let it happen again to the degree that we can
institutionally address the processes here and correct the mistakes.
Now, I think everybody agrees, there were individual mistakes
made. There were institutional mistakes made. There were deficient
databases. There were deficient no-strike lists. And, we had a
colossal accident. I think it's also clear that nobody targeted the
Chinese Embassy, that this was the result of this string and this
series of failures on our part.
Let me ask a question: Given that string of failures, are you
surprised at all that more mistakes were not made, that we were
somewhat fortunate?
MR. HAMRE: If I may, Mr. Roemer, I think -- we check very hard,
and in this instance it was -- and I'm very saddened by it because we
could have avoided this had we known now, known back then what we know now. But,
by and large, I mean, I think we did a very good job. I
mean, to my knowledge, we had a couple others -- as I said, we hit a
hospital. We didn't want to do that. That was a case of the pilot
got confused and he was off by about a mile in what he thought was his
coordinates. We had an instance, you will recall, where we hit that
train. And that was an instance where we wanted to destroy the
bridge, and we had no idea that train was going to race right into the
way of the bomb.
But, by and large, it's because we check and recheck and check
again. Here the failing was that the guys that are in the targeting
business didn't know the method that was used to physically locate it
on the ground. They kept asking all the right questions, but not that
one question. I wish we had known that. We will not let that happen
again.
REP. ROEMER: Dr. Harare, do you think that if a higher priority
had been assigned to Yugoslavia earlier, that this is part of the way
to address this? And I know Director Tenet, who I have the highest
 respect for and a personal friendship with, has said that the highest
priority was put on Yugoslavia.
And without getting into that here, I would like to follow up
with the director in closed session, because we do have some
conflicting data in our investigation with the main organizational
agency responsible for collection of this kind of data base who has
reported that that high priority was not, in fact, put on Yugoslavia
and it was a low priority until a few months before the bombing began.
And I think we just need to see if we make this kind of priority with
the warning signs that we had internally in Yugoslavia a higher
priority more quickly, then maybe that would help prevent this kind of
mistake or failure in the future.
MR. HAMRE: Sir, I'll let Director Tenet speak to the way in
which the priority process works and what was done for the Balkans.
In July of last year, our highest priority was frankly in the Balkans
itself because we were trying to implement some of the domestic
conversion. In the fall, our highest priority --
REP. ROEMER: Dr. Harare, whose highest priority?
MR. HAMRE: DOD. I'm speaking for DOD in this case.
REP. ROEMER: Okay. .
MR. HAMRE: And then our highest priority all of a sudden became
Osama bin Laden and his terror organization. In December, our highest
priority was being able to carry on the strikes, you know, to try to
get the U.N. back, UNSCOM back into Baghdad. And our priority shifts
all the time because of the operation we have to have. George's
challenge is every time we turn to him, we need help. And the
question is, how does he allocate those resources. I don't think that
was that we were accorded a low priority, and I don't think that's
what happened here. But I'll let Director Tenet speak to --
MR. TENET: I think one of the things -- and I would like to talk
about this -- I think one of the things we need to take a look at is,
as I have said fairly categorically, in terms of national requirements
for political and military issues, Yugoslavia and the Balkans had an
enormously high priority. Question: Did the data base production
have an equally high priority in the context of that very high
priority we accorded it? And that's what we need to go take a look at
it.
 And when we raise things to that level, the question is, what
management attention was devoted to ensuring that the data bases were
accorded the same level of priority? Now, that may be an important
distinction in what we've just talked about, but I think it's worthy
of our discussion and very worthy of the kind of fix we need to put in
place when we raise these priorities to ensure that the whole
continuum is matched up in terms of its priority.
REP. ROEMER: I think that there might be some confusion in
distinguishing there between the data base and the higher and lower
priorities there, and that might be part of the problem as well, too.
Finally, let me ask, while nobody suspected that this was ever going
to be the Chinese embassy, the bombing took place on May 7th. At what
point, Director Tenet, was there any kind of internal discussion
within CIA that it might not be the original target, that there might
be some confusion or discussion or debate upon whether or not this
was, in fact, the FDSP original target?
MR. TENET: Well, Mr. Roemer, I think you know from our inspector
general report -- and I don't have the time frame in mind -- but
before the strike, there was a fair amount of give-and-take as to the
accuracy of the location of the FDSP headquarters. And so there was
some back-and-forth. And remember, in some initial conversations that
was reflected.
So that -- but remember, the individual involved, and in
particular the individual who was contacting the military official
overseas, had those concerns. But he remained outside of this
targeting process, which became part of the problem at the end game.
And his translation of his concerns up the chain of command also never
occurred.
So we've got apples and oranges in terms of did these concerns
manifest themselves inside the process where the designation occurred?
Answer, no. Do we have an individual who, outside of the process, had
a different view of the location of this target? And then the
translations of these conversations, as we've talked about, are very
imprecise, and I think created a lot of ambiguity. And the final
punchline is, of course, no one came upstairs to say, "What does this
concern manifest itself into in terms of can you turn this off?" So I
think --
REP. ROEMER: I don't disagree with anything that you just said,
Director Tenet. My question was, at what point -- was it a week
before May 7th that there was this back-and-forth?
 MR. HAMRE: Sir, [ think it was on the 4th of May. I think it
was three days before. I don't think that there was a wide-ranging
debate going on in the agency. I think this was an exchange of
conversation between an analyst and a mid-grade officer in one of our
headquarters, and it was really about -- the first conversation was
about the label that was on the target folder, not about whether this
was a legitimate target. There's no evidence at all anybody even
thought it was the Chinese embassy. So it was a very mechanical
exchange on the 4th of May. And then, as we said, he then called on
the 7th of May, the very day --
MR. HAMRE: -- of the strike; talked with somebody else. And at
that stage, again, he indicated he didn't think we had the best
target. But the conversation on the receiving end was not that it was
an inappropriate target or that we should stop anything. So neither
of them, either on the military side, hearing the call, or the analyst
side, where he placed the call, neither of them went up the chain to
try to turn off the strike, because they didn't think they needed to.
MR. TENET: And you'll recall, Mr. Roemer, that on the 4th of
May, when he made the call, he had no idea that this building was on
the strike list. He did not know that. So that's also another issue.
REP. ROEMER: So the discussion within CIA was never whether it
was an appropriate target. I completely agree with that. It was
whether it was the original target, the FDSP facility that they first
targeted as a warehouse. Correct?
MR. TENET: Headquarters.
REP. ROEMER: Right. Thank you.
REP. GIBBONS: Thank you, Mr. Roemer. Mr. Hastings.
REP. ALCEE HASTINGS (D-FL): Thank you very much, Mr. Gibbons.
And I'd like to add my thanks to the chairman and ranking member, Mr.
Dixon, for allowing that we have this experience, and also associate
myself with the remarks of Mr. LaHood and Mr. Sisisky with reference
to the fact that we are bringing sunlight to an extremely painful
process, both for the functionaries and policymakers in this
particular matter.
 Critical to all of this is the fact that appropriate apologies
have been afforded. And 1, for one, have said that I think that we as
policymakers need to add our remarks in that regard. And I don't
hesitate to say that I feel that the Chinese government needs to know
that there are those of us that are policymakers that feel remorse for
the families and for their losses, and at the same time are mindful of
their responsibilities in mutually allowing that we come to some
understandings with reference to this matter.
I think it's more than commendable that you gentlemen, who I've
heard in closed hearings and now in public hearing, have been as
forthcoming as you have been. And the public needs to know that
basically the remarks that you have made here and the offering of
Ambassador Pickering parallel pretty much all of the information that
is out there that's accessible to those of us aspolicymakers
exercising our oversight responsibility.
Segueing off of Ambassador Pickering's visit to China, that took
place June 17th. And in the body of his report and assessment at that
time, he said the following: "We are continuing our internal reviews
of the causes of accidents. And when these reviews are completed, we
will determine whether any disciplinary action is called for."
To either of your knowledge, Dr. Hamre or Director Tenet, do you
know if there is a timetable for further reporting to the Chinese
government? And I don't hold that either of you have that as your
? portfolio or responsibility. But to your knowledge, is there any such
time frame set?
MR. TENET: Not to my knowledge, sir.
REP. HASTINGS: And let the word go forth that as we gather
information -- and I would, through you and this public hearing, offer
to the executive branch that they should be busy about their business
as you all collect information. Now, your direct responsibilities, as
I understand them, Dr. Hamre -- my belief is that Secretary Cohen has
asked you to co-chair the after-action review with the deputy chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Has that process started? And, if so,
when do you expect that it should be completed?
MR. HAMRE: Mr. Hastings, it has started. We have fairly
extensive panels that are underway right now. There are lots of
dimensions to the after-action review. Part of it is targeting and
part of it is collateral damage. But that's only one section of it.
We will get a briefing to the secretary, I think around the first of
4
 September. But that will not be the end of the process. We also need
to extend the after-action review, carry it into the way we build our
budget. We'll be submitting a budget to you in January, and we want
it to incorporate as many of the lessons as possible.
And then we'll also have a much longer-term focus,'because the
next quadrennial defense review will begin in a year and a half. We
need to make sure that we've learned things and we bring them into
that process as well. And that's all the big questions that many
people have been asking. Can we do two nearly simultaneous major
regional contingencies? Is our force structure properly structured?
Do we have enough reconnaissance assets, intelligence assets? Those
are all very large questions we'll have to undertake for that review.
I say to give you this report. We will have an initial report to
the secretary this fall. The ongoing after-action review process is
going to take at least a year and a half. And we will be glad to come
up at any time to give you a report on what we've learned.
REP. HASTINGS: All right. Director Tenet, we were told last
month that you had appointed an accountability board. And my question
to you is, when will that board report to you? And is there in their
portfolio the ability to recommend disciplinary action?
MR. TENET: I've not imposed a time frame on -- they have met.
As you know, we had an inspector general put together a comprehensive
assessment of what happened inside CIA. That is the factual basis
upon which the board will proceed. it's chaired by the executive
director of CIA. They've had a number of working sessions. I'm going
to let them work through this in a timely manner.
They will make recommendations to me as to whether or not there
should be disciplinary action, and I will undertake to make a
determination as to whether they've made sound recommendations or not.
I don't prejudice their work at this moment. I have no preconceived
notions about what should or should not happen. But it will come to
me in a matter of due time.
REP. HASTINGS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'd just like
to state the obvious. This is a work in progress, and there's more
information to come. Thank you.
REP. GOSS: Thank you, Mr. Hastings. Governor Castle.
REP. MICHAEL CASTLE (R-DE): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
 And I apologize; I had to leave for a while, and I hope I don't
duplicate too much in the questions, because I do have a lot of
interest in this subject in a variety of ways.
I know, Mr. Tenet -- I heard your whole statement, but I know in
your statement you mentioned that there was an individual who
apparently thought he had some knowledge within the system but not
directly in the line of chain of command, who thought that he had some
knowledge that perhaps the building that was identified was -- I don't
think he thought it was the Chinese embassy, but it was not the
building that was being targeted. And he apparently made some effort
to communicate that, and for whatever reason that did not succeed.
I'm not interested in developing a case against that person or
even all the details of that. But I am interested in -- maybe both of
you can answer this -- but I am interested in, as you set up a system
-- because you both have critiqued the system to some degree -- as to
whether or not you're allowing for some methodology for somebody who
might have some coincidental knowledge in being able to input.
And I'm not suggesting anybody should be able to stop a bombing
strike or anything of that nature, but this was a person who
apparently, you know, had some knowledge, and in this case obviously
probably should have been listened to. in the future, if we do all
this, is there some way that we can address that?
MR. TENET: I think that internally, as I established my --
REP. CASTLE: And I mean internally. I don't mean you put it on
the Internet or something like that.
MR. TENET: No, no. I think internally, as I put together a
series of procedures and thorough understandings about if you're in
the target nomination business, where does the focus of accountability
lie, who is in charge, what actions are being taken, who do you go
speak to, how do you input the process, and. make that clear to
everybody in the building, I think that we can minimize this. I think
people who have knowledge should be able to come forward. I also
think the process itself should be agile enough to know where those
pockets of knowledge are and draw it in. So I think there are
obviously things we can do to do a lot better than we did this time.
REP. CASTLE: Dr. Hamre.
MR. HAMRE: Mr. Castle, we have very explicit procedures where
 individuals can stop a strike. And we had a number of those during
the air operation where an anomalous data came forward at the end. It
caused a senior officer to say, "We'd better hold off on this." It
may be evidence that it may conflict with one of the guidelines that's
used to develop a no-strike list or something.
So we have a number of instances where we do pre-position the
authority down the line to stop something. We don't give anybody
authority down the line to start something, but we do give them the
authority down the line to stop something if it looks like it's in
conflict with guidance that everybody understands should guide the
military activity. In this case, they had the authority at the
headquarters to stop it if the evidence was there that we had
something that was genuinely amiss. Nobody felt that that was being
presented to them, and so we didn't stop it.
REP. CASTLE: Well, thank you for that. I'm going to sort of
change the questioning for a moment. I do not like warfare any more
than you all do, and you've expressed that; at least Dr.Hamre
expressed it in his statement. But at times it's necessary. And when
there's ethnic cleansing and other things going on, I understand that.
And I think I was as supportive as anybody in Congress of what we had
to do, not what we wanted to do. I'm also aware that when you have
warfare, you're going to have collateral damage. I mean, it is going
to happen. And quite frankly, it sort of keeps everybody on their
toes.
I think this all really started in the Persian Gulf War, and now
it's to the point where, if there's any collateral damage at all,
people scream that "How can you do this?" or whatever. I mean, you're
in harm's way sometimes when you're in the area where unfortunately a
form of warfare is taking place. I'm not excusing in any way what
happened in the Chinese embassy. I wish it had never happened, and we
should apologize forever to those people and their families and
whatever it may be. But I understand that that is something that
you're never going to get rid of entirely. It's never going to be a
perfected system.
And you've said this, Mr. Tenet, but I just want to make
absolutely sure. You both are totally confident; you've checked in
every way possible that there is no conspiracy, no disgruntled people,
no element, no suspicion whatsoever that anything other than a plain,
basic mistake was made here with respect to the bombing of this
embassy? Can you confirm that for me?
 MR. TENET: Absolutely.
MR. HAMRE: Absolutely, sir.
REP. CASTLE: Okay. Mr. Tenet, again, in your discussion -- and
I've heard you discuss this more than once now; several times, as a
matter of fact, and read about what you've said also -- it is clear
that the CIA has sort of taken on a different role than it has before.
I think you said in your statement -- I wrote it down -- CIA does not
normally determine sites. Usually you provide sort of more general
information, if you will.
And so I assume that you're in a little bit of -- while you're
not breaking totally new ground, you're sort of, in a sense, taking on
procedures that were a little more specific in terms of
recommendations of these things than you have before. First of all, I
assume that's correct. If it's not, then straighten me out on that.
But if it is correct, do you feel comfortable now that you have
refined these procedures so that if we were to have another event such
as this, that you would be more comfortable in the management aspects
of those decisions, and if Dr. Hamre is comfortable with what you all
are doing with respect to that, too?
MR. TENET: I think -- I am much more comfortable today. I think
John and I will be much more comfortable as we refine this process.
And I think the guidance that we're laying down internally in terms of
how, if we're in the target nomination business -- and I believe we
will stay in the business to support the military -- how it's going to
work, the precision with which we expect the management oversight that
must be there, the confidence with which we assess the package that
we're sending forward to the military, because when it comes down to
the Central Intelligence Agency, you and the American people should
assume that it doesn't just take on the mantel of fact; that it is
fact. And I have to ensure that when it goes forward that it is
factual and the best possible work has been provided, and I have a
high confidence that we'll get that done.
MR. HAMRE: I'm confident we won't make this mistake again.
But I also have every reason to believe we will probably make other
mistakes. We will absolutely do our best it will never happen -- and
this one won't happen again, because we know where it happened, we
know -- we have already taken steps to make sure that the forces, the
underlying factors are corrected and checked here.
 But, sir, war is about violence, it's about destruction, and
unfortunately it's also about accidents, and I can't tell you that we
won't have them again.
REP. CASTLE: No, I understand that. And I thank you gentlemen.
I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman.
REP. GOSS: I understand that Mr. Roemer had a brief follow-up
question, which we would be very happy to permit because of the time
situation. And, Mr. Dixon I understand had possibly a follow-up
remark, and I have a closing remark. And we promised we would try to
have this concluded as close to noon as possible, and I think we are
going to be close. Mr. Roemer?
REP. ROEMER: Director Tenet, you said in your testimony on page
8 -- which again I completely concur with and agree with -- at the
bottom, individuals in both the CIA and the DOD who knew the correct
location of the Chinese Embassy should have been consulted. How do we
bring our personnel who may have known about the more updated
locations of Belgrade facilities at that point, and they are obviously
kicked out, or we bring them out of our embassy when we go to war --
how do we then bring them into the process institutionally to bring in
their eminent knowledge of the latest details and relocations of these
facilities, so that they can contribute in a fundamentally important
way to a no-strike list so that these kind of things don't happen
again? How have you improved your processes to do that?
MR. TENET: I think it's actually fairly simple, that it is
absolutely a statement of policy that the chief of station, the
defense attache and all those with knowledge of a particular urban
environment that you are about to strike have to put their eyes on
this targeting package, and must -- must -- sign off on what a
satellite picture says a site is or isn't -- fairly straightforward.
And we have to then state that confidence to the targeting process to
say this is how we came to this conclusion, and here is our level of
confidence based on what we know and based on eyes on the ground
validating this target. There is nothing confusing about that.
REP. ROEMER: So in the future, as we all agree, that the CIA
should be involved in packaging these targets, and we will bring those
people in early in the process --
MR. HAMRE: Could I say -- oh, absolutely. And we have to have
 the CIA and the other partners in the national security establishment to have to help us.
That's no question. But -- and I
don't -- and I
don't mean to condition anything that Director Tenet just said, but
when we get into a war -- when we were doing the Operation Desert
Storm we were processing 2,000 strikes a night. Now, it's going to be
a lot harder in a big war to be able to have eyes on absolutely every
target. So I just have to say we are going to have to draw some
parameters around what we will do.
REP. ROEMER: Certainly you would agree that it should be -- the
participation should include the no-strike list?
MR. HAMRE:. Absolutely --
REP. ROEMER: Maybe not eyes on every single target is put
together, but initially compiling a no-strike list?
MR. HAMRE: Absolutely, sir.
MR. TENET: Yes, sir.
REP. ROEMER: Finally, Mr. Chairman, you and our ranking member I
believe sent a letter of deep concern that I believe the entire
committee concurred with about leaks that have been taking place where
we were reading about this story and other stories for weeks in the
press. And this is our first public hearing on this particularly
sensitive topic. And I just want to say to Director Tenet that we
want to do all we can to work with you and to encourage you to help us
address these leaks that take place, whether it be on this story or
other stories that may hurt the public safety and the national
security.
MR. TENET: Well, Mr. Roemer, I just want to tell you, and I am
sure I speak for Dr. Hamre here, and everybody who works in the
intelligence business and the defense business, that the nature of the
leaking that is going on in this town is unprecedented. It is
compromising sources and methods. It is jeopardizing American
security. And there are people in our government who think they have
some free pass to do this for their own pleasure.
I want to catch somebody more than anybody else in this
government, because what it does to the men and women of our
intelligence community and how it abuses the security of Americans.
And sooner or later we will catch somebody, and we will fire them or
 prosecute them. But what they are doing is devastating to the
security of this country. It's shameful, and we are doing everything
we can to catch them. And your -- the devotion that this community
has to maintaining security practices, to ensuring the confidentiality
of our discussions, has been very, very high.
I would say to all of my colleagues in the executive branch that
95 percent of what leaks comes out of the executive branch of
government, because people believe they have some free right to
disseminate this information, and we have to get our house in order
and get -- and we are all working hard -- the secretary of State, the
secretary of Defense, the chairman and I -- with the attorney general,
recognize that this is a very difficult problem that we have to solve.
REP. ROEMER: Dr. Tenet, I just want to conclude by saying thank
you again for the great job you are doing at the CIA. And again,
going back to my initial remarks, my opening remarks, thank you for
practicing Harry Truman's "the buck stops here," in you saying the
responsibility is with you, with us as the oversight committee, and
trying to prevent processes and an institutional way of not repeating
this mistake in the future. Thank you again.
REP. GOSS: Thank you very much. I want to thank the staff and
the members of this committee for helping us prepare what is somewhat
unusual for this committee, which is a public hearing.
I conclude that this has been useful, after listening. Obviously
members were given the prepared statements of Dr. Ham-re and Director
Tenet before and had a chance to review them because of security
aspects. And I believe there has been an extraordinary amount of
cooperation and candor, and I am grateful for that. I think it does
speak to the trust that exists.
I am well aware that this committee has responsibilities of
oversight in the intelligence community, and I think the American
people need to be reassured on that point. This is a bipartisan
committee, as everybody can see. Mr. Dixon and I have an extremely
close working relationship. We do our very best to treat national
security for what it is: a very important part of our responsibility
here in Washington for the well-being of all Americans. And we are
very grateful for the work that Americans in the intelligence
community do, as well of course as the armed service piece of that to
be sure.
And it is also true that we have an advocacy role for
 intelligence -- because of the nature of intelligence we don't talk
about all of the aspects of it. I hope people are reassured that we
are able to make the distinction between advocacy and oversight on
this oversight committee. Indeed I think we do a fair job of that.
The last conclusion I would make, in addition to expressing my
gratitude for your time -- I know the extensive amount of preparation
and the work that is ongoing to get to the bottom of what actually
happened to make sure we don't have this problem again. My conclusion
is that there is a dilemma, and it is a legitimate dilemma. We are in
fact the world's dominant power. I think the director has said that
the idea that anywhere, anything, anytime is beyond our means is the
world's dominant power. We just can't do all that. We have a problem
of understanding what it is we can't do as well as what it is we can
And I think that the question of the connection between the
policymakers on our national security side and the people who have to
execute needs to be reexamined in some depth. This is not a new
statement for me; I've said that many ways before. I think it is
extremely important that that happen. I am well aware that the
intelligence community had provided our national security policymakers
good information about what was going on in the Balkans, about the
possibility of ethnic cleansing getting out of control. I also know
that the intelligence community was providing additional information
about other very egregious sore spots -- troubles.that were going on
in the world simultaneously. I could mention terrorist opportunities
and activities; I could mention proliferation of nuclear weapons and
dissemination capabilities, or chemical or biological warfare; I could
mention the regrettable problem in the trend of drug use, particularly
heroin in this country. These transnational (types ?) as well as the
rogue state problems. These affect the quality of life and the
security of Americans home and abroad. All of these things warrant
attention by our national security policymakers.
The dilemma that we have today is what triggers action: Which
will get the priority today, and do we have the capability to do the
maximum possible good for the American national security interests
when that trigger is pulled, because we are. so in fact engaged on
every subject? That is an area that deserves further attention, and I
think we have heard testimony today that if we can't do it all then we
darn well better decide what it is we can't do and what we can do, and
get the processes in place to accomplish that. I want to thank you
for helping us achieve what I think is a step forward on that, and I
would welcome your comment on that.
 MR. HAMRE: Thank you for that. I had a very different comment I
wanted to make, which was the last time I appeared before this
committee it was on the matter of encryption. As I said at that time,
we had 1.4 million men and women in our armed forces that are around
the globe protecting this country every day. The director has agents
all around that are protecting this country everyday. There are
policemen and firemen, everybody else trying to protect this country.
And when it got tough and when the shooting was heavy, and when
somebody had to step into the breach, this committee stepped into the
breach, and I want to thank you.
REP. GOSS: Thank you. And I am glad you were able to find a
segue into encryption. (Laughter.) We will be talking more about
that. I thank you all. The committee hearing is adjourned. (Sounds
gavel.)
END