Intelligence

HEARING OF THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
ON THE NOMINATION OF
GENERAL MICHAEL V. HAYDEN
TO BE THE
DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY


THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2006
216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.


MORNING SESSION

SEN. ROBERTS (R-KS): The committee will come to order. The committee meets today to receive testimony of the president's nomination for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Our witness today is the president's nominee, General Michael V. Hayden. Obviously, given his more than 35 years of service to our country, his tenure as director of the National Security Agency and his current position as the principal deputy director of National Intelligence, why General Hayden is no stranger to this committee and he needs no introduction to our members. In other words, we know him well.

So General, the committee welcomes you and your guests and your family. Your nomination comes before the Senate at a crucial and important time, because the Central Intelligence Agency continues to need strong leadership in order to protect our national security.

Now, the public debate in regards to your nomination has been dominated not by your record as a manager or your qualifications, the needs of the CIA, its strengths and its weaknesses and its future, but rather the debate has focused almost entirely on the presidentially authorized activities of another agency. The National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program became public last December as a result of a grave breach of national security. A leak allowed our enemy to know that the president had authorized the NSA to intercept the international communications of people reasonably believed to be linked to al Qaeda, people who have and who are still trying to kill Americans.

At that time, largely uninformed critics rushed to judgment, decrying the program as illegal and unconstitutional. I think in the interim that cooler heads have prevailed and there is now a consensus that we should not only be listening to al Qaeda communications, but we must be listening to them.

Last week, in the wake of another story, those same critics reprised their winter performance, again making the denouncements and condemnations on subjects about which they know little or nothing.

Inevitably, all of the media -- all of America, for that matter -- looks to us for comment. More often than not, although very frustrating, we are not -- or we are literally unable to say anything.

Anyone who has ever served on a congressional intelligence committee has struggled with the issue of secrecy. How do we, as the elected representatives of the people, assure the public that we are fully informed and conducting vigorous oversight of our nation's intelligence activities when we can say virtually nothing about what we know, even though we would like to set the record straight?

The result of this conundrum is that we quite often get accused of simply not doing our job. Such accusations by their very nature are uninformed and therefore are not accurate. Unfortunately, I have found that ignorance is no impediment for some critics. I fully understand the desire to know. I'm a former newspaperman, but I also appreciate the absolute necessity of keeping some things secret in the interest of national security.

In this regard, I am truly concerned. This business of continued leaks, making it possible for terrorists to understand classified information about how we are preventing their attacks, is endangering our country and intelligence sources and methods and lives. I believe the great majority of American people understand this; I think they get it.

Al Qaeda is at war with the United States. Terrorists are planning attacks as we hold this hearing. Through very effective and highly classified intelligence efforts, we have stopped attacks. The fact we have not had another tragedy like 9/11 is no accident. But today in Congress and throughout Washington, leaks and misinformation are endangering our efforts. Bin Laden, Zarqawi and their followers must be rejoicing. We cannot get to the point where we are unilaterally disarming ourselves in the war against terror.

If we do, it will game, set, match, al Qaeda.

Remember Khobar Towers, Beirut, the USS Cole, embassy attacks, the two attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 9/11 and attacks worldwide and more to come, if our efforts are compromised. I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties, but you have no civil liberties if you are dead.

I have been to the NSA and seen how the terrorist surveillance program works. I have never seen a program more tightly run and closely scrutinized. When people asked on September 12th whether we were doing everything in our power to prevent another attack, the answer was no; now we are, and we need to keep doing it. I have often said and I will say again: I trust the American people. They do have a right to know. I do not trust our enemies. Unfortunately, there is no way to inform the public without informing our adversaries.

So how can we ensure that our government is not acting outside the law if we cannot publicly scrutinize its actions? This institution's answer to that question was the creation of this committee. We are the people's representatives, we have been entrusted with this solemn responsibility, and each member of this committee takes it very seriously. We may have differences, but we take our obligations and responsibilities very seriously. Because intelligence activities are necessarily secret, the conduct of our oversight is also secret. In my humble opinion, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to telegraph to our adversaries how we intend to learn about their capabilities and their intentions.

Oversight of the terrorist surveillance program is necessarily conducted behind closed doors. The Senate Intelligence Committee has been and will continue to exercise its oversight and responsibilities related to the NSA. Yesterday, the entire committee joined our continuing oversight of the program. Each member will have the opportunity to reach their own conclusions. I have no doubt that they will. I encourage that.

As we continue our work, I want to assure the American people and all of my Senate colleagues, we will do our duty.

Now with that said, I want to applaud the brave men and women of the intelligence community who are implementing this program. Their single focus and one and only motivation is preventing the next attack. They are not interested in the private affairs of their fellow Americans. They are interested in one thing: finding and stopping terrorists. America can be proud of them. They deserve our support and our thanks, not our suspicion.

Since I became chairman of this committee, I have been privy to the details of this effective capability that has stopped and, if allowed to continue, will again stop terrorist attacks.

Now, while I cannot discuss the program's details, I can say without hesitation I believe that the NSA terrorist surveillance program is legal, it is necessary, and without it, the American people would be less safe. Of this I have no doubt.

Finally, I want to remind the public that this open hearing is only part of the confirmation process. When this hearing ends, this open hearing, and the cameras are turned off, the members of this committee will continue to meet with General Hayden. It would be inaccurate to state, as one national news editorial did today, that due to the classified constraints, members will be limited in how much they can say at this confirmation proceeding. In the following closed-door and secure session, the elected representatives on this committee will have the ability to pursue additional lines of questioning and will be able to fully explore any topic that they wish.

It is my hope that during this open hearing, we can at least focus to some degree on General Hayden's record as a manager, his qualifications as a leader, and the future of the Central Intelligence Agency -- issues that should be equally as important to the public.

With that said, again, I welcome you to the committee. I look forward to your testimony and your answers to our members' questions.

I note that Vice Chairman Rockefeller sends his deep regrets, as he is necessarily absent today. In his absence, I now recognize the distinguished senator from Michigan for the purpose of an opening statement. Senator Levin.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for finding a way also to involve all the members of this committee in the briefings about the surveillance program, which there is so much concern and discussion about.

A few of us had been briefed, at least to some extent, partly into the program. But now, because of your efforts, Mr. Chairman, and your decision, every member of this committee can now have that capability, and for that, I think we should all be grateful and are grateful.

The nomination of a new director for the Central Intelligence Agency comes at a time when the agency is in disarray. Its current director has apparently been forced out, and the previous director, George Tenet, left under a cloud, after having compromised his own objectivity and independence and that of his agency by misusing Iraq intelligence to support the administration's policy agenda.

The next director must right this ship and restore the CIA to its critically important position. To do so, the highest priority of the new director must be to ensure that intelligence which is provided to the president and to the Congress is, in the words of the new reform law, quote, "Timely, objective and independent of political considerations."

That language described the role of the Director of National Intelligence. But as General Hayden himself has stated: "That responsibility applies not only to the DNI and to the director of the CIA personally, but to all intelligence produced by the intelligence community."

The need for objective, independent intelligence and analysis is surely as great now as it has ever been. The war on terrorism and the nuclear intentions and capabilities of Iran and North Korea could be life-and-death issues. Heaven help us if we have more intelligence fiascoes similar to those before the Iraq war, when, in the words of the head of the British intelligence, the U.S. intelligence was being, quote, "Fixed around the policy," closed quote.

General Hayden has the background and credentials for the position of CIA Director, but this job requires more than an impressive resume. One major question for me is whether General Hayden will restore analytical independence and objectivity at the CIA and speak truth to power, or whether he will shape intelligence to support administration policy and mislead Congress and the American people, as Director Tenet did.

Another major question is General Hayden's views on a program of electronic surveillance of American citizens, a program which General Hayden administered for a long time. That is the program which has taken up a great deal of the public attention and concern in recent weeks.

The war on terrorism not only requires objective, independent intelligence analysis, it also requires us to strike a thoughtful balance between our liberty and our security. Over the past six months, we have been engaged in a national debate about NSA's electronic surveillance program and the telephone records of American citizens. That debate has been hobbled because so much about the program remains classified. Public accounts about it are mainly references by the administration, which are selective and incomplete or the result of unverifiable leaks.

For example, the administration has repeatedly characterized the electronic surveillance program as applying only to international phone calls and not involving any domestic surveillance. In January, the president said, quote, "The program focuses on calls coming from outside of the United States, but not domestic calls."

In February, the vice president said: "Some of our critics call this a, 'domestic surveillance program.' It is not domestic surveillance." Ambassador Negroponte said, quote, "This is a program that was ordered by the president of the United States with respect to international telephone calls to or from suspected Al Qaeda operatives and their affiliates. This was not about domestic surveillance." Earlier this year General Hayden appeared before the Press Club where he said of the program, quote, "The intrusion into privacy is also limited: only international calls."

Now, after listening to the administration's characterizations for many months, America woke up last Thursday to the USA Today headline, quote, "NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls," closed quote. The report said, quote, "The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans -- most of whom aren't suspected of any crime," closed quote.

The president says we need to know who al Qaeda is calling in America, and we surely do. But the USA Today article describes a government program where the government keeps a data base, a record, of the phone numbers that tens of millions of Americans with no ties to al Qaeda are calling. In the May 12 New York Times article quotes, quote, "one senior government official" who, quote, "confirmed that the N.S.A. had access to records of most telephone calls in the United States," closed quote.

We are not permitted, of course, to publicly assess the accuracy of these reports. But listen for a moment to what people who have been briefed on the program have been able to say publicly. Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, after talking about what the USA Today article did not claim, he said the following, quote, "It's really about calling records, if you read the story: who was called when, and how long did they talk? And these are business records that have been held by the courts not to be protected by a right of privacy.

And there are a variety of ways in which these records lawfully can provided to the government. It's hard to find the privacy issue here," Mr. Hadley said.

Majority Leader Frist has publicly stated that the "program is voluntary." And a member of this committee has said, quote: "The president's program uses information collected from phone companies. The phone companies keep their records. They have a record. And it shows what telephone number called what other telephone number."

So the leaks are producing piecemeal disclosures, although the program remains highly classified. Disclosing parts of the program that might be the most palatable and acceptable to the American people while maintaining secrecy, until they're leaked, about parts that may be troubling to the public is not acceptable.

Moreover, when Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, says that it's hard to find a privacy issue here, I can't buy that. It's not hard to see how Americans could feel that their privacy has been intruded upon if the government has, as USA Today reports, a database of phone numbers calling and being called by tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.

It is hard to see, however, if the leaks about this program are accurate, how the only intrusions into Americans' privacy are related to international phone calls, as General Hayden said at the National Press Club. And it's certainly not hard to see the potential for abuse and the need for an effective check in law on the government's use of that information.

I welcome General Hayden to this committee. I thank you, General, for your decades of service to our nation. I look forward to hearing your views.

I also ask that a letter from Senator Rockefeller, sent to General Hayden yesterday, be made part of the record at this point.

And I just am delighted to report to each of us and to all of his colleagues and so many friends that Senator Rockefeller's recovery from his surgery is proceeding well, on schedule, and he is not only following these proceedings, but he is participating to the extent that he can without actually being here.

And I thank you again, General, for your service, and I thank you also, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. ROBERTS: And without objection, your request is approved. And we are delighted to hear of Senator Rockefeller's progress. And I know that in talking with him, when he talks about the Atlanta Braves, that he's getting a lot better. (Laughter.)

Now, General Hayden, would you please rise and raise your right hand?

(The chairman administers the oath to the witness.)

General Hayden, you may proceed.

GEN. HAYDEN: Thank you, Chairman Roberts, Senator Levin, members of the committee.

Let me first of all thank the members of my family who are here with me today -- my wife, Jeanine, and our daughter Margaret, my brother Harry and our nephew Tony. I want to thank them and the other members of the family yet again for agreeing to continue their sacrifices. And they know I can never repay them enough.

SEN. ROBERTS: General, if you would have them stand, why the committee would appreciate it.

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. Go, guys.

SEN. ROBERTS: Thank you for being here.

GEN. HAYDEN: And Mr. Chairman, if it's not too much, can I also thank the people of the last agency I headed, the National Security Agency. NSA support while I was there and in the years since has been very much appreciated by me. And I also deeply appreciate the care and the patriotism and the rule of law that continues to govern the actions of the people at the National Security Agency.

Mr. Chairman, it's a privilege to be nominated by the president to serve as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It's a great responsibility. There's probably no agency more important in preserving our security and our values as a nation than the CIA. I'm honored and, frankly, more than a little bit humbled to be nominated for this office, especially in light of the many distinguished Americans who have served there before me.

Before I talk about my vision for CIA, I would like to say a few words about the agency's most recent director, Porter Goss. Over the span of more than 40 years, Porter Goss has had a distinguished career serving the American people, most recently as director of the CIA, the organization where he started as a young case officer. As director, Porter fostered a transformation that the agency must continue in the coming years. He started a significant expansion of the ranks of case officers and analysts, in accord with the president's direction. He consistently pushed for a more aggressive and risk-taking attitude towards collection. And he spoke from experience as a case officer and as a long-time member and then chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

It was Porter who, as chairman of the HPSCI, supported and mentored me when I arrived back in Washington as director of NSA in 1999.

More importantly, we developed a friendship that continues to this day.

So I just want to thank Porter for both his service and his friendship.

The CIA is unique among our nation's intelligence agencies. It's the organization that collects our top intelligence from human sources, where high quality, all-source analysis is developed, where cutting-edge research and development for the nation's security is carried out. And as this committee well knows, these functions are absolutely critical to keeping America safe and strong. The Central Intelligence Agency remains, as Porter Goss has said, the "gold standard" for many key functions of American intelligence. And that's why I believe the success or failure of this agency will largely define the success or failure of the entire American intelligence community.

The act you passed last year, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act gives CIA the opportunity and the responsibility to lead in ensuring the success of the director of National Intelligence. Let me elaborate on that last sentence. The reforms of the last two years have, in many ways, made CIA's role even more important. Now it's true the Director of Central Intelligence, the DCI, no longer sits on the 7th floor of the old headquarters building at Langley, both the head of the intelligence community and CIA. But it's also true that no other agency has the "connective tissue" to the other parts of the intelligence community that CIA has.

CIA's role as the community leader in human intelligence, as an enabler for technical access, in all-source analysis, in elements of research and development -- not to mention its worldwide infrastructure -- underscore the interdependence between CIA and the rest of the community. And although the head of the CIA no longer manages the entire intelligence community, the director continues to lead the community in many key respects.

Most notably, the director of CIA is the National HUMINT Manager, responsible for leading human intelligence efforts by coordinating and setting standards across the entire community. In addition, the agency is and will remain the principal provider of analysis to the president and his senior advisers. It also leads the community's open source activities through its Open Source Center, which is an invaluable effort to informs community analysis and help guide the activities of the rest of the IC. In a word, CIA remains -- even after the Intelligence Reform Act -- "central" to American intelligence.

But this very centrality makes reforming CIA, in light of new challenges and new structures, an especially delicate and important task. The agency must be transformed without slowing the high tempo under which it already operates to counter today's threats.

CIA must continue to adapt to new intelligence targets, a process under way in large part to the leadership of George Tenet and, John McLaughlin and Porter Goss; and CIA must carefully adjust its operations, analysis, and overall focus in relation to the rest of the community because of the new structure, while still keeping its eye on the ball -- intelligence targets like proliferation, and Iran, and North Korea, not to mention the primary focus of disrupting al Qaeda and other terrorists.

The key to success for both the community -- the intelligence community -- and for CIA is an agency that is capable of executing its assigned tasks and cooperative with the rest of the intelligence community. CIA must pursue its objectives relentlessly and effectively while also fitting in seamlessly with an integrated American intelligence community. Picture CIA's role in the community like a top player on a football team -- critical, but part of an integrated whole that must function together if the team is going to win. And as I've said elsewhere, even top players need to focus on the scoreboard, not on their individual achievements.

Now, Mr. Chairman, let me be more specific about the vision I would have for CIA, if I am confirmed.

First, I will begin with the collection of human intelligence. If confirmed as director, I'd reaffirm CIA's proud culture of risk-taking and excellence, particularly through the increased use of non- traditional operational platforms, a greater focus on the development of language skills, and the inculcation of what I'll call for shorthand an expeditionary mentality. We need our weight on our front foot, not on our back foot. We need to be field-centric, not headquarters-centric.

Now, I strongly believe that the men and women of CIA already want to take risks to collect the intelligence we need to keep America safe. I view it as the director's job to ensure that those operators have the right incentives, the right support, the right top cover, and the right leadership to take those risks. My job, frankly, is to set the conditions for success. Now, if confirmed, I'd also focus significant attention on my responsibilities as national HUMINT manager. Now, I've got some experience in this type of role. As director of NSA I was the national SIGINT manager, the national manager for signals intelligence.

And in that role, I often partnered with CIA to enable sensitive collection.

Now, as I did with SIGINT, signals intelligence, as director of NSA, I would use this important new authority, the national HUMINT manager, to enhance the standards of tradecraft in human intelligence collection across the community. The CIA's skills in human intelligence collection makes it especially well-suited to lead. As director and as national HUMINT manager, I'd expect more from our human intelligence partners, those in the Department of Defense and at the FBI and other agencies -- more both in terms of their cooperation with one another and also in terms of the quality of their tradecraft. Here again, we welcome additional players on the field, but they must work together as a team.

Now second, and on par with human intelligence collection, the CIA must remain the U.S. government's "center of excellence" for independent all-source analysis. If confirmed as director, I would set as a top priority working to reinforce the DI's -- the director of Intelligence's -- tradition of autonomy and objectivity, with a particular focus on developing hard-edged assessments. I would emphasize simply getting it right more often, but with a tolerance for ambiguity and dissent manifested in a real clarity about our judgments, especially clarity in our confidence in our judgments. We must be transparent in what we know, what we assess to be true and, frankly, what we just don't know.

"Red cell" alternative analysis, "red cell" alternative evaluations are a rich source of thought-provoking estimates, and they should be a part, an integral part, of our analysis.

And -- and I believe this to be very important -- we must also set aside talent and energy to look at the long view and not just be chasing our version of the current news cycle.

Now, in this regard, about analysis, I take very seriously the lessons from your joint inquiry with the House Intel Committee, your inquiry into the prewar intelligence on Iraq WMD, the 9/11 commission, the Silberman-Robb commission, as well as a whole bunch of internal intelligence community studies on what's worked and what's not worked in the past.

Ultimately, we have to get analysis right, for, in the end, it's the analytic product that appears before the president, his senior advisers, military commanders and you.

Let me be very clear. Intelligence works at that nexus of policy-making, that nexus between the world as it is and the world we are working to create. Now, many things can legitimately shape a policymaker's work, his views and his actions.

Intelligence, however, must create the left- and right-hand boundaries that form the reality within which decisions must be made.

Let me make one final, critical point about analysis. When it comes to that phrase we've become very familiar with, "Speaking truth to power," I will indeed lead CIA analysts by example. I will -- as I expect every analyst will -- always give our nation's leaders our best analytic judgment.

Now third, beyond CIA's HUMINT and analytic activities, CIA's science and technology efforts already provide focused, flexible and high-quality R&D across the intel spectrum. If I'm confirmed, I'd focus the Directorate of Science and Technology on research and development programs aimed at enhancing CIA core functions -- collection and analysis. I'd also work to more tightly integrate CIA's S&T into broader community efforts to increase payoffs from cooperative and integrated research and development.

Support also matters. As director of NSA, I experienced firsthand the operational costs of outdated and crumbling infrastructure. Most specifically, I would dramatically upgrade the entire CIA information technology infrastructure to bring it into line with the expectations we should have in the first decade of the 21st century.

Now, in addition to those four areas, which I think the committee knows, Mr. Chairman, form the four major directorates out at the agency, there are two "cross cutting" functions on which I would also focus, if confirmed.

To begin, I'd focus significant attention, under the direction of Ambassador Negroponte, the DNI, on the handling of intelligence relationships with foreign partners. As this committee well knows, these relationships are of the utmost importance for our security, especially in the context of the fight against those terrorists who seek to do us harm. These sensitive relationships have to be handled with great care and attention, and I would, if confirmed, regard this responsibility as a top priority. International terrorism cannot be defeated without international cooperation. And let me repeat that prevailing in the war on terror is and will remain CIA's primary objective.

For the same reason, I'd push for greater information sharing within the United States, among the intelligence community and with other federal, state, local and tribal entities. There are a lot of players out there on this one: the DNI, the program manager for the information sharing environment, the intel community's chief information officer, other agencies like FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

CIA has an important role to play in ensuring that intelligence information is shared with those who need it. When I was at NSA, I focused my efforts to make sure that all of our customers had the information they needed to make good decisions. In fact, my mantra, when I was at Fort Meade, was that users should have access to information at the earliest possible moment and in the rawest possible form where value from its sharing could actually be obtained.

That's exactly the approach I would use, if confirmed, at the CIA.

In my view, both of these initiatives working with foreign partners and information-sharing within the U.S. require that we change our paradigm from one that operates on what I've called a transactional basis of exchange -- they ask, we provide -- in favor of a premise of common knowledge, commonly shared or information accessed. That would entail opening up more data and more databases to other intel community agencies as well as trusted foreign partners, restricting the use of what I think's an overused originator-controlled caveat, and fundamentally embracing more of a risk management approach to the sharing of information.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, everything I've said today matters little without the people, the great men and women of the CIA whom, if confirmed, I would happily join, but also the people of this great nation. Respectfully, senators, I believe that the American intelligence business has too much become the football in American political discourse. Over the past few years, the intelligence community and the CIA have taken an inordinate number of hits, some of them fair, many of them not. There have been failures, but there have also been many great successes. Now I promise you, we'll do our lessons learned studies, and I will keep you, I will keep this committee and your counterpart in the House fully informed on what we learn. But I also believe it's time to move past what seems to me to be an endless picking apart of the archaeology of every past intelligence success or failure.

CIA officers dedicated their all to serving their country honorably and well deserve recognition of their efforts, and they also deserve not to have every action analyzed, secondguessed and criticized on the front pages of the morning paper. Accountability is one thing and a very valuable thing, and we will have it. But true accountability is not served by inaccurate, harmful or illegal public disclosures. I will draw a clear line between what we owe the American public by way of openness and what must remain secret in order for us to continue to do our job.

CIA needs to get out of the news as source or subject and focus on protecting the American people by acquiring secrets and providing high-quality all-source analysis. Internally, I would regard it as a leading part of my job to affirm and strengthen the excellence and pride and the commitment of CIA's workforce. And in return, I vow that, if confirmed, we at CIA will dedicate ourselves to strengthening the American public's confidence and trust in the CIA and re- establishing the agency's "social contract" with the American people, to whom we are ultimately accountable. The best way to strengthen the trust of the American people is to earn it by obeying the law and by showing what is best about this country.

Now, as we do our work, we're going to have difficult choices to make, and I expect that not everyone will agree 100 percent of the time, but I would redouble our efforts to act consistent with both the law and a broader sense of American ideals. And while the bulk of the agency's work must, in order to be effective, remain secret, fighting this "long war" on the terrorists who seek to do us harm requires that the American people and you, their elected representatives, know that the CIA is protecting them effective, and in a way consistent with the core values of our nation.

I did that at NSA, and if confirmed, will do that at the Central Intelligence Agency.

In that regard, I view it as particularly important that the director of CIA have an open and honest relationship with congressional committees such as yours, so that the American people will know that their elected representatives are conducting oversight effectively. I would also look to the members of the committee who have been briefed and who have acknowledged the appropriateness of activities to say so when selected leaks, accusations, and inaccuracies distort the public's picture of legitimate intelligence activities. We owe this to the American people and we owe it to the men and women of CIA.

Mr. Chairman, I hope that I've given the members of the committee a sense of where I would lead the agency, if I am confirmed. I thank you for your time, and dare I say, I look forward to answering the questions I know the members have.

SEN. ROBERTS: I wish to inform the members that we have about two or three minutes left on a vote. We will have intermittent votes throughout the day. We are going to have a very short recess. I urge members to return as soon as possible, and we will then proceed to questions.

The committee stands in recess subject to call of the chair.
(Sounds gavel.)

(Recess.)

SEN. ROBERTS: (Sounds gavel.) The committee will come to order. The committee will now proceed to questions. Each member will be recognized in the order of their arrival. For the first round, each member will be granted 20 minutes. We will continue in open session as long as necessary.

Additionally, for the information of members and the nominee, we will endeavor to take a short lunch break at the appropriate time. In addition, we are not going to have any further recesses. We will endeavor to keep the committee running. And I know all members have questions to ask and time is of the essence.

General, do you agree to appear before the committee here or in other venues, when invited?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. ROBERTS: Do you agree to send Central Intelligence Agency officials to appear before the committee and designated staff, when invited?

GEN. HAYDEN: Absolutely, yes, sir.

SEN. ROBERTS: Do you agree to provide documents or any material requested by the committee in order for it to carry out its oversight and its legislative responsibilities?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. ROBERTS: Will you ensure that the Central Intelligence Agency provides such material to the committee, when requested?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. ROBERTS: General, there's an interesting commentary in your opening statement about the endless picking apart of the archaeology of past intelligence failures, and that CIA officers deserve not to have every action analyzed, second-guessed and criticized in the newspapers.

And I agree that it is time to look forward, not in the rearview mirror. And I agree that the press it not the place to air these kind of grievances, whether those grievances originate from outside or inside the agency.

But it is important to be clear: not having your actions secondguessed is something that is earned, not deserved.

After the Iraq WMD failure, the inquiry that was conducted by this committee and approved with a 17-to-nothing vote, that proved without question we had an egregious intelligence failure, this committee simply cannot accept intelligence assessments at face value.

We have learned -- and when I say "we," I'm talking about every member of this committee -- when we have hearings and when we have briefings, we ask the analyst or we ask whoever is testifying, "What do you know? What don't you know? What is the difference?" And then the extra kicker is, "What do you think?" And we scrub it.

Now, I believe it is necessary for the committee to rigorously examine the CIA's judgments about Iran, about North Korea, about China, about terrorism and proliferation as we work together, to ensure that there is not another failure like the Iraq WMD failure.

General, the Iraq WMD failure wasn't a failure only because the ultimate assessments were wrong. We both know that you can have a good analytical tradecraft and still get it wrong. Nobody bats a thousand in the intelligence world, but the Iraq WMD failure was due in large part to a terribly flawed tradecraft.

General, as CIA director, what steps will you take to improve the agency's analytical tradecraft?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, that's -- as I said in my opening statement, that's up there on the top rung. I mean, ultimately, we're -- everything that CIA or any part of the intel community meets the rest of the world is in its analytic judgments. Collection and science and technology support are behind the screen with that analytic judgment. And so it is the pass-fail grade for CIA, for the DI, for the intelligence community.

We've already begun to do some things, and here, I think, my role would be to make sure these changes are under way and then to reinforce success.

Two or three quickly come to mind. One is something that you've already suggested, and that's almost -- that's vigorous transparency in what we know, what we assess and what we know we don't know, and to say that very, very clearly, so as not to give a policymaker or a military commander, any decision-maker false confidence.

The second, I think, is a higher tolerance for ambiguity between ourselves and between ourselves and our customers. Now, this is going to require the customer to have a little higher tolerance for ambiguity as well. He or she is just going to have to be a little less -- in a little less comfortable place when an analysis comes out that is truly transparent in terms of our confidence in -- different layers of confidence, levels of confidence in different parts of our judgment.

There's got to be a little more running room, too, for "he said, she said" inside the analysis; that dissenting views aren't, I guess, abstracted out of the piece, you know, where you just kind of move it to the next level of abstraction and underlying disagreements are hidden, and that dissenting views aren't hidden by a footnote or other kind of obfuscations.

We really have begun to do that. In my current job I get to see the briefing that goes forward every day, and there is a difference in its texture and a difference in its tenor. As I said before, Senator, that's a pass-fail grade. Everything else is designed to support that final analytic judgment.

SEN. ROBERTS: Well, the CIA is clearly working, as you've indicated, to regain the trust of the policymakers and its customers. And I'm not trying to perjure the dedication and the hard work that our men and women of the CIA do, risking their lives on behalf of our country. The men and women in the field, I think, are doing an excellent job, the rank and file. The agency has made improvements, particularly in analysis. But the best way for the CIA to earn trust is to give analysts across the community the information they need to perform sound analysis and to encourage collectors to take any and all necessary risks so they can collect the needed information. And I believe these actions are also the best way to restore the CIA's sense of pride, a goal that both you and I and, obviously, the folks down at the CIA share.

General, in your assessment, is the CIA taking the risk necessary to get the analysts the intelligence they need to provide policymakers with sound analysis?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, that's one of the areas, as I suggested in my opening statement, that I really want to take a very close look at. And I don't know how to answer your question, is it doing enough. That's going to be some level of discovery learning for me. But let me tell you what it is I think I do know about this.

We had the same dilemma at NSA. There was always the risk that the more transparent you are, the more you may reveal and thereby compromise sources and methods. The same dynamic at Langley. At NSA it's a little easier, maybe, to start pushing against the shoulders of the envelope here and get a little more risk-embracing, because if NSA oversteps and got a little too bold in sharing, at the end of the day what they lose is a frequency. If CIA gets a little too bold in sharing, at the end of the day there could be real personal tragedy involved.

And so although the approaches will be similar, I do understand that the protection of human sources might be a bit different than the protection of signal intelligence sources.

All that said, Senator -- I mean, I think the agency itself would admit that it is among the more conservative elements of the community in terms of sharing information. There are good reasons for that, as I've just suggested. But just as we did at NSA, when we held our premises up to the light, when we looked at things carefully, we found that we actually had a lot more freedom of action than perhaps our rogue procedures would suggest. That's the approach I'd take at the agency. It'll be careful, but we'll be moving forward.

SEN. ROBERTS: The comment I would make in response to the first question that I asked you is that it appeared to most of us on the committee, certainly to the chairman, that the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate became more or less of an assumption train, in part based on what was known after the first Gulf War. I believe that it was David Kay who indicated after the first Gulf War that Saddam Hussein was 18 months away of having a missile delivery capability that was nuclear, obviously within range of Israel. And everybody thought at that particular time and scratched their head because that estimate was not 18 months. It was much longer than that, and said, "Well, we're certainly not going to let that happen again." And so the assumption was, of course, we have to err on the side of national security and security of that region.

Now, having said that, most of the other intelligence agencies, if not all around the world, were on the same assumption train. The inspectors came in, and the inspectors were asked or forced to leave. Virtually everybody -- members of Congress, people in the administration, other intelligence agencies all throughout the world -- assumed that Saddam Hussein would reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction. I think he probably thought he had the weapons of mass destruction. Anybody that would go in to see him and tell him he didn't probably wouldn't go out. I think many in the military thought -- different generals -- this particular unit of the Republican Guard had the WMD, and thus did not.

But, as we saw upon closer inspection, as the committee worked through very diligently, interviewing over 250 analysts, we found out exactly what you said, that there were dissenting views, that there were caveats, and added together, it did provide a picture that was most troubling, and that's about the nicest way I can put it.

So what I'm asking you again -- and you've already answered this -- will you put those dissenting views, those caveats, that frank discussion of wait a minute, let's take a closer look, so that they are at least on the assumption train?

I don't know where they would be -- in the middle of the train, front of the train. You might want to put them at the front of the train, not the caboose. Don't let the caboose go. So we don't get into this kind of failure which we just simply could not afford.

Would you have any comment?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. I couldn't agree with you more. And you're right about the analysis. We just took too much for granted. We didn't challenge our basic assumptions. Now, as you point out, there's historical reasons for that. In a sense, it's understandable. I'm not trying to excuse it, but there is an historical background to it. That should teach us an awful lot about taking assumptions for granted and letting them stand without challenge and without -- well, just simply looking and seeing, can I put these pieces together in a different way.

I think we're doing that. If we're not doing it enough, we'll certainly do more of it. That's precisely what it is we have to give to the nation's policymakers.

Senator, one more thought, though. You know, all of this is shrouded in ambiguity. If these were known facts, you wouldn't be coming to us for them. And so we'll do our best to tell you what we know and why we think it, and where we're doubtful and where we don't know. But I think everyone has to understand the limits of the art here, the limits of the science. Again, if this were all known, we wouldn't be having the discussion.

SEN. ROBERTS: I'm going to add one more question before I turn to Senator Bond. You made the comment in regards to information sharing -- Senator Rockefeller and I have been pushing a concept called information access; i.e., if you're into "information sharing," somebody owns it, then they make a decision as to whether to share it or not. Now, I'm not going back to the not so thrilling days of yesteryear where we looked at the intelligence community as basically a whole series of stovepipes with information, with one agency very difficult to share information with another. And we just afford that.

And I think we've made great steps, more especially with the National Counterterrorism Threat Center. But you've indicated some concern in regards to sources, methods, lives. Could you amplify a little bit on that, because we have been pushing information access, full access to the entire intelligence community as we work together jointly now to protect America, as opposed to information sharing.?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. That's what I was trying to suggest in my opening statement, that we really have -- and I mean this -- on a transaction level, they ask, we respond. Within the American intelligence community, we're world class. I mean, we really are good at that. And so when you go out and talk to someone about sharing, they can pull out these statistics about the number of requests and the speed of the response, and so on. And in a different world, that would probably be very satisfying news. But no matter how well you do that, that transactional basis, you're not going to get to the agility we need to fight the current war.

It can't be in an ask-respond mode. That simply will not work. So we have to move to a world in which there is common information commonly shared. Now that's a challenge because -- there are no foreign trade craft and sources and methods concerns, but I think the line we've got now is -- well, my premise is the line's too conservative, and that'll be my attitude if confirmed and if I got to the agency.

SEN. ROBERTS: I appreciate that very much. In the second round, I may touch upon that need for agility, i.e. hot pursuit, given the threats that we face today.

Senator Bond.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER BOND (R-MO): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, General Hayden. There are many questions that should be asked of you about your views on where the CIA goes and your qualifications, but I think there's been enough discussion that perhaps we should clarify a few points based on your previously role with the president's terrorist surveillance program. So let's just get this on the record so everybody will understand.

Are you a lawyer?

GEN. HAYDEN: No, sir. (Laughs.)

SEN. BOND: Congratulations. Did your lawyers at the NSA tell you the program was legal? Do they still maintain it's legal?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir, they did, and they still do.

SEN. BOND: How about the Department of Justice lawyers, the White House, legal guidance? The program was legal?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. All of that was consistent.

SEN. BOND: Did you ever personally believe the program was illegal?

GEN. HAYDEN: No, sir.

SEN. BOND: Did you believe that your primary responsibility as director of NSA was to execute a program that your NSA lawyers, the Justice Department lawyers and White House officials all told you it was legal and that you were ordered to carry it out by the president of the United States?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sir, when I had to make this personal decision in early October, 2001 -- and it was a personal decision -- the math was pretty straight forward. I could not not do this.

SEN. BOND: It seems to me that if there are questions that people wish to raise about the legality of the program or its structure, those would most appropriately be addressed to the attorney general or other representative of the legal staff of the executive branch.

The next question I think is very troubling because of so many aspersions, assertions, characterizations and mischaracterizations. You addressed at the National Press Club the fact that the president has said this is designed to listen in on terrorist programs coming from overseas; this is to intercept al Qaeda communications into or out of the United States.

Could you explain for us the controls that you have to make sure that somebody doesn't listen in on a domestic political opponent or listen in on a neighbor or listen in on a business rival or listen in on the media?

You've explained that. Could -- I think, for the record, could you tell how this program is controlled to make sure it stays with the boundaries that the president outlined, the Constitution and the statutes require?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. And in fact the way you've framed it is the way I think about it. There are kind of three pillars that need to be in place for this to be appropriate.

One it is, it has to be inherently lawful. And as you suggested, others are far more expert than I.

The second is that it's done in a way that it's effective, and the third, that it's done just the way it's been authorized. And I think your question deals with that last pillar.

SEN. BOND: Right.

GEN. HAYDEN: What we did was have a very strict oversight regime. The phrase we use for the phenomenon you were describing is called "targeting." The targeting decisions are made by the people in the U.S. government most knowledgeable about al Qaeda, al Qaeda communications, al Qaeda's tactics, techniques, procedures. It's gotten close oversight. It has senior-level review. But it comes out of the expertise of the best folks in the National Security Agency. I don't make those decisions. The director of SIGINT out there doesn't make those decisions. Those decisions are made at the program level and at the level of our counterterrorism officer.

They're targeted on al Qaeda. There is a probable cause standard. Every targeting is documented. There is a literal target folder that explains the rationale and the answers to the questions on a very lengthy checklist as to why this particular number we believe to be associated with the enemy.

SEN. BOND: And these are reviewed by -- who reviews these? What's the review process?

GEN. HAYDEN: There have been several layers of review. There's obviously a management review just internal to the system.

SEN. BOND: Right.

GEN. HAYDEN: The NSA inspector general is well read into the program and does routine inspections -- I mean, literally pulling folders, examining the logic train, talking to the analyst to see if the decisions were correct, are warranted by the evidence in the folder.

That's also been conducted by the Department of Justice. They've done the same thing. They've looked at the folders. And to the best of my knowledge, the folks out there are batting a thousand. No one has said that there has been a targeting decision made that wasn't well- founded in a probable cause standard.

SEN. BOND: Is there a possibility that somebody could sneak in a request for something that isn't an al Qaeda communication?

GEN. HAYDEN: I don't know how that could survive in the culture of the National Security Agency, Senator. It's a very disciplined workforce.

SEN. BOND: What if an analyst or somebody who is engaged in -- directly engaged at the lowest level decided to pick up some information on somebody who was out of favor or didn't like. How would that be caught?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, actually -- I mean, I recognize the sensitivity of the program, what we're talking about here, but actually that would be a problem in any activity of the National Security Agency --

SEN. BOND: So this is --

GEN. HAYDEN: -- (inaudible) -- targeting.

SEN. BOND: This is not a program -- a problem that is specific to the president's program. Any time you have an NSA --

GEN. HAYDEN: Right. Any time you have the agency working --

SEN. BOND: -- you have the ability.

GEN. HAYDEN: Of course.

SEN. BOND: And the question is, what do you do to make sure that everybody stays within the guidelines?

GEN. HAYDEN: The entire agency, its general counsel, its IG, I mean, that's what it's built to do, to do that kind of oversight.

SEN. BOND: And what if they get out of line?

GEN. HAYDEN: Well, number one, no evidence whatsoever they've gotten out of line in this program. In the history of the agency there have been, you know, I'll say small number of examples like that. Those are detected through the normal processes -- IG inspections and so on -- and action is taken.

SEN. BOND: I was at the agency and I saw the extensive oversight. I also heard on early morning radio somebody who'd been employed at NSA for 20 or 25 years call in and he was asked good questions by the morning show host. And I believe his reply was, when they asked him why he couldn't do that, he said because he didn't want to spend 10 to 15 years in prison.

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure.

SEN. BOND: Is this the kind of penalty that would ensue if somebody did that?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sir, I can remember the training I got there and continued throughout my six years at the agency. And this training is recurring. It must happen on a recurring basis for everyone there, and during the training, everyone is reminded these are criminal, not civil statutes.

SEN. BOND: So what would your response be to the general accusations that tens of millions of Americans are at risk from having -- from having their privacy exposed in these communications?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, the folks at NSA didn't need me to prod them on. But let me tell you what I told them when we launched the program. This is the morning of 6 October in our big conference room -- about 80, 90 folks in there -- and I was explaining what the president had authorized, and I end up by saying, "And we're going to do exactly what he said, and not one photon or one electron more." And I think that's what we've done.

SEN. BOND: You've mentioned briefly about the impact of leaks on this program and other classified programs. What has happened, in your view, to our intelligence capability as a result of the leaks and disclosure of our activities?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, it's difficult to quantify. I mean, there are so many variables that affect our ability to move against the enemy, but I can't give you a statistic. But I can't help but think that revelations like this have an effect on the enemy.

Now, this program will continue to be successful, all right? But there'll be an effect here. I mean, you can actually see this -- and now I'm speaking globally about disclosures of our tactics, techniques, procedures, sources and methods. It's almost Darwinian. The more we put out there, the more we're going to kill and capture dumb terrorists.

SEN. BOND: (Chuckles.) Because the smart ones will know how to avoid it?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. BOND: I think Porter Goss in this room in February said the damage to our intelligence capability has been very severe.

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. BOND: And is that a fact?

GEN. HAYDEN: Oh, yes, sir. I mean, you're talking beyond NSA, beyond signals intelligence, the whole panoply. There is easily documented evidence as to that --

SEN. BOND: Going back to the NSA, I gather that there are some folks who really would like to see this program shut down. They may be phrasing it in various terms, but I suspect that there are some who say it ought to be shut down. What would happen to our ability to identify and disrupt a planned al Qaeda attack in the United States, were that to happen?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sir, we've -- my personal view and the reason I accepted this in October 2001 is my responsibility to help defend the nation. The folks who run this program, I think, believe and correctly believe -- they make a substantial contribution to the safety of the Republic. I went out to see them at the height of the first furball about this, and, you know, they're doing their jobs, but it was a difficult time. But the only emotion they expressed to me was they wanted to be able to continue to do their work. You know, their fear was not for themselves or that they had done anything wrong, but that they wanted to be able to continue to do what it is they had been doing.

Now, that's a better judgment than mine, all right? These are the folks who feel it, with that tactile sense for what they do and what they affect.

SEN. BOND: All right. Let me move on to the things that really should be the focus of this.

HUMINT is obviously the chief responsibility of CIA.

You have been a SIGINT man for most of your career. What will be your priorities, how will you adjust to HUMINT, and what areas are the greatest need in our human intelligence-gathering capacities?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sir, just one clarification for the record. I've actually been a HUMINTer. I was an attache behind the Iron Curtain for a couple of years during the Cold War, and that's kind of in the center of the lane for human intelligence.

SEN. BOND: All right.

GEN. HAYDEN: I actually have more HUMINT experience going to CIA than I had SIGINT experience before I arrived at -- before I arrived at NSA.

Now, with regard to looking forward, two games going on simultaneously, and both equally important. One is inside the agency, you know, dealing with CIA HUMINT, helping it become all that the nation needs it to be and, as I suggested earlier, more non- traditional cover, more non-traditional platforms, more risk-taking. And, Senator, I need to be honest, this would be reinforcing efforts already under way.

The other game is over here in the broader community. And I think it's singularly significant that Ambassador Negroponte made the director of CIA the national HUMINT manager. There are other folks out there on the field playing this game -- DOD, the FBI, other agencies -- and both of them are bulking up in terms of their capabilities. This is a real opportunity to do this really well on a scale we've not been able to do before. And so I think there's got to be an equal amount of effort in that community role as well.

SEN. BOND: Yesterday at the Defense appropriations hearing, Secretary Rumsfeld assured us that there's total complete working interoperability and cooperation between the Department of Defense and the CIA and other agencies in human intelligence. Has that been achieved, or is that a work in process, a goal towards which we are working? And what do you think really about the relationships between the FBI, NSA, Department of Defense in the clandestine service?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. I think -- I think it's best described as a process that needs to be continually managed. You've got folks out there, quite legitimately, but for slightly different purposes, they should be using common tradecraft, they should be using common standards, they should be using the same standards to validate a source, they should be using the same language in the same format when they make reports. Those are the things that the national HUMINT manager should ensure.

I know there's been a great deal of comment and concern about recent DOD activity and how it might bump into traditional CIA activity. I can tell you, in preparation for this, I've asked that question for the folks who were trying to get me ready for the hearing. Frankly, I got a better news story than I had anticipated.

SEN. BOND: We're most -- this committee is most interested in that, so please tell us, what's the story?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. They talked about the MOU that had been signed between DOD and the CIA in terms of how to coordinate and deconflict HUMINT activity is actually working. When there have been frictions, it's come about more out of inexperience than malice. And that we need to continue to move along those lines. I know it's an important question for the committee, important question for --

SEN. BOND: We'll pursue that later on this afternoon.

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. BOND: But can you, in unclassified discussion, what's the - - the military's desire to expand human intelligence and get into areas of covert action, what -- to the extent you can discuss it here, what is the proper responsibility between the Department of Defense human intelligence operations and Central Intelligence Agency human intelligence operations?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. BOND: Is there -- is there a bright line or --

GEN. HAYDEN: Actually, I think that's what it is we're trying to do, is to create a bright line.

And I think maybe the reality is that what DOD is doing under Title 10 authorities and what CIA does under Title 50 -- actually, where that line should be drawn, they get kind of merged, so that the actions are actually on the ground, in reality, indistinguishable, even though their sources of tasking and sources of authority come from different places. All right. That's where we need to manage this. That's where this needs to be done well.

Let me explain this in -- more in terms of opportunity than of danger, even though, you know, clearly we've got to do this right. I think it's -- a fair case can be made that in several theaters of war right now -- Iraq, Afghanistan -- that the CIA has picked up a large burden and done it very well -- a burden that is many times in direct support of U.S. military forces. To have DOD step up to those kinds of responsibilities doesn't seem to me to be a bad thing. And if that frees up CIA activity to go back towards the more traditional CIA realm of strategic intelligence, there's a happy marriage to be made here, Senator.

SEN. BOND: I recently read a book on the CIA's role -- a novel or a book on the CIA's role in Afghanistan. And according to the former CIA man who wrote it, the CIA was the one who did it and did all the important things, and the Department of Defense did not step up at the appropriate time. Have you had an opportunity to review the general operations of the CIA in Afghanistan and the interaction with the Department of Defense there?

GEN. HAYDEN: No, sir, I've not looked at it in detail.

SEN. BOND: All right. We'll talk about that later.

Probably the final question -- there was some objection within the agency to the DNI sending two dozen CT analysts to the National Counterterrorism Center as part of the lanes in the road. Do you think that the objections from within the agency were justified? And to what extent should the NCTC be engaged in the all-source terrorism analysis? To what extent should the CIA do the same?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sir, it's a complicated question. But truth in lending -- obviously I agree with it, because that's what I was trying to do in my current job as Ambassador Negroponte's deputy.

This is actually what I was trying to refer to in my opening remarks when I talked about, you know, conforming the shape of the CIA to meet the new intelligence structure, which you have all legislated, while still sustaining high ops tempo current CIA operations. I mean, that's that dilemma right there.

Briefly -- and perhaps in a later round or this afternoon, Senator, we can get into more detail -- here's what I see the challenge is. All right. Right now, and in a really good, in a really powerful sense, a lot of the engines of American intelligence are attached to today's very successful operational activities; and that the fact that the Director Goss and the president and others can say that some significant percentage -- and it's a big number -- of that organization that attacked us in 2001 has been killed or captured is a product of all of that focus.

But this is a long war, and it's not just going to be won with heat, blast and fragmentation. It is fundamentally a war of ideas. And we have to skew our intelligence to support the other elements of national power as well. That's the tough decision -- how best to allocate our resources and then apportion it organizationally, so you keep up this high ops tempo that has al Qaeda on its back foot right now, while still underpinning all the other efforts of the U.S. government that over the long term -- over the long term -- cuts the production rate of those who want to kill us and those who hate us, rather than simply dealing with those who already have that view.

SEN. BOND: Thank you very much, General.

SEN. ROBERTS: Senator Levin.

SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, in an answer to one of the pre-hearing questions of the committee, you indicated that your role in developing the NSA's program that we've discussed here was to explain what was technically possible in a surveillance program. And my question is this: After you explain presumably to the administration what was technically possible, did you design the specific program or was the specific program designed elsewhere and delivered to you?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, it's going to take a minute to explain, but I think you'd want a complete answer on this. Let me give you the narrative as to what was happening at that time.

As I briefed the committee in closed session, I took certain actions right after the attack within my authority as director, and I informed Director Tenet, I informed this committee, and I informed the House committee as well. And after discussion with the administration, Director Tenet came back to me and said, is there anything more you can do? And I said, not within my current authorities, and he invited me to come down and talk to the administration about what more could be done and the three ovals of the Venn Diagram, as I described it, were what was technologically possible, what was operationally relevant, and what would be lawful. And what -- where we would work would be in that space where all three of those ovals intersected.

As I said to Senator Bond, my role is here's technologically possible, and if we can pull that off, here's where I think the operational relevance would be. And there was -- there then followed a discussion as to why or how we could make that possible. I was issued an order on the 4th of October that laid out the underpinnings for what I described --

SEN. LEVIN: So you participated in the design of the specific program?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, I think that's fair, Senator, yeah. I think that's right.

SEN. LEVIN: Now, if press reports are true, that phone calls of tens of millions of Americans, who are not suspected of anything, but nonetheless, those records are maintained in a government database, would you not agree that if that press report is accurate, that there's at least a privacy concern there, whether or not one concludes that security interests outweigh the privacy concerns.

GEN. HAYDEN: Well, Senator, I mean, from the very beginning, we knew that this was a serious issue, and that the steps we were taking, although convinced of their lawfulness, we were taking them in a regime that was different from the regime that existed on 10th September. I actually told the workforce not for the special program but the NSA workforce, on the 13th of September.

I gave an address to an empty room, but we beamed it throughout our entire enterprise, about free peoples always having to decide the balance of security and their liberties, and that we through our tradition have always planted our banner way down here on the end of the spectrum toward security. And then I told the workforce -- and this has actually been quoted elsewhere -- I told the workforce there are going to be a lot of pressures to push that banner down toward security, and our job at NSA was to keep America free by making Americans feel safe again. So this balance between security and liberty was foremost in our mind.

SEN. LEVIN: Does that mean your answer to my question is yes?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, I understand there are privacy concerns involved in all of this. There's privacy concerns involved in the routine activities of NSA.

SEN. LEVIN: But would you say there are privacy concerns involved in this program?

GEN. HAYDEN: I could certainly understand why someone would be concerned about this.

SEN. LEVIN: But that's not my question, General. It's a direct question.

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure.

SEN. LEVIN: In your judgment, are there privacy --

GEN. HAYDEN: You want me to say yes --

SEN. LEVIN: No, I want you to say whatever you believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir, and here's what I believe. Clearly, the privacy of American citizens is a concern constantly. And it's a concern in this program, it's a concern in everything we've done.

SEN. LEVIN: All right. That's a little different from the Press Club statement, where basically you said the only privacy concern is involved in international phone calls.

GEN. HAYDEN: No, sir, I don't think it's different. I was very clear in what I said there. I was very careful with my language. I mean --

SEN. LEVIN: Is that the only privacy concern in this program, international phone calls?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, I don't know how to answer your question. I've just answered that there are privacy concerns with everything that we do, of course. We always balance privacy and security, and we do it within the law.

SEN. LEVIN: The only privacy concern, though, in this program, relate to international phone calls?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, what I was talking about in January at the Press Club was what -- the program that the president had confirmed. It was the program --

SEN. LEVIN: That he had confirmed publicly?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir, that he'd confirmed publicly. And I said --

SEN. LEVIN: Is that the whole program?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, I'm not at liberty to talk about that in open session.

SEN. LEVIN: I'm not asking you what the program is. I'm just simply saying, is what the president described publicly the whole program?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, all I'm at liberty to say in this session is what I was talking about, and I literally explicitly said this at the Press Club, I'm talking about the program the president discussed in mid-December.

SEN. LEVIN: And you're not able to tell us whether what the president described is the whole program.

GEN. HAYDEN: No, sir, not in open session. I am delighted to go into great detail in closed session.

SEN. LEVIN: Thank you.

The NSA program that The New York Times in March -- on March 14th reported about, said that NSA lawyers, while you were the director of the agency, opposed the vice president's efforts to authorize the NSA to, quote, "intercept purely domestic telephone calls." Is that story accurate?

GEN. HAYDEN: I could recognize a thin vein of my experience inside the story, but I would not characterize how you described the Times' story as being accurate. And I can give you a few more notes on that, Senator.

SEN. LEVIN: But where there differences between the NSA --

GEN. HAYDEN: No.

SEN. LEVIN: -- and the Vice President's Office about what the desirable scope of this program was?

GEN. HAYDEN: No, sir. There were discussions about what we could do. Our intent all along in my discussions was to do what it is the program does as described -- one end of these calls always being foreign. And as we went forward, we attempted to make it very clear that that's all we were doing and that's all we were authorized to do.

SEN. LEVIN: All right. So there were no differences of opinion between your office and the -- between the NSA and the --

GEN. HAYDEN: There were -- there were no arguments, no push back, no "we want to"; no, "we won't.' None of that, no, sir.

SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, General.

What was the view of NSA lawyers on the argument that was made by the administration that the authorization for use of military force, which was passed by the Congress, authorized this program? Did your people agree with that?

GEN. HAYDEN: I'd ask you to ask them directly for their detail --

SEN. LEVIN: But you know whether they --

GEN. HAYDEN: No -- no, sir. I'll continue. There's more to be said. But when I talked to the NSA lawyers, most of my personal dialogue with them, they were very comfortable with the Article II arguments and the president's inherent authorities.

SEN. LEVIN: Does that mean that they were not comfortable with the argument that --

GEN. HAYDEN: I wouldn't say that. But when they came to me and we discussed its lawfulness, our discussion anchored itself on Article II.

SEN. LEVIN: And they made no comment about the authority which was argued by some coming from the authorization of military force?

GEN. HAYDEN: Not strongly one way or the other. It was Article II.

SEN. LEVIN: During the confirmation hearings of Porter Goss, I asked him whether or not he would correct the public statement of a policymaker if that public statement went beyond the intelligence. And here's what Mr. Goss said: "If I were confronted with that kind of a hypothetical, where I felt that a policymaker was getting beyond what the intelligence said, I think I would advise the person involved. I do believe that would be a case that would put me into action, if I were confirmed, yes, sir."

Do you agree with Porter Goss?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir, I think that's a pretty good statement.

SEN. LEVIN: Now, an independent review for the CIA, conducted by a panel led by Richard Kerr, former deputy director of the CIA, said the following -- this relates to the intelligence prior to the Iraq war -- "Requests for reporting and analysis of Iraq's links to al Qaeda were steady and heavy in the period leading up to the war, creating significant pressure on the intelligence community to find evidence that supported a connection."

Did you agree with Mr. Kerr?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sir, I -- as director, we did have a -- NSA, as director of NSA, we did have a series of inquiries about this potential connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, yes, sir.

SEN. LEVIN: Now, prior to the war, the undersecretary of Defense for policy, Mr. Feith, established an intelligence analysis cell within his policy office at the Defense Department. While the intelligence community was consistently dubious about links between Iraq and al Qaeda, Mr. Feith produced an alternative analysis asserting that there was a strong connection.

Were you comfortable with Mr. Feith's office approach to intelligence analysis?

GEN. HAYDEN: No, sir, I wasn't. And I wasn't aware of a lot of the activity going on, you know, when it was contemporaneous with running up to the war. No, sir, I wasn't comfortable.

SEN. LEVIN: In our meeting in our SSCI office, you indicated -- well, what were you uncomfortable about? Let me --

GEN. HAYDEN: Well, there are a couple of things. And thank you for the opportunity to elaborate, because these aren't simple issues. As I tried to say in my statement, there are a lot of things that animate and inform a policymaker's judgment, and intelligence is one of them, and, you know, world view and -- there are a whole bunch of other things that are very legitimate. The role of intelligence -- I'd try to say it here by metaphor because it's the best way I can describe it -- though is you've got to draw the left- and the right- hand boundaries. It's -- the tether to your analysis can't be so long, so stretched that it gets out of those left- and righthand boundaries.

Now, with regard to this particular case, it is possible, Senator, if you want to drill down on an issue and just get laser beam focus and exhaust every possible, every possible ounce of evidence, you can build up a pretty strong body of data, all right? But you have to know what you're doing. All right? I got three great kids, but if you tell me, "Go out and find all the bad things they've done, Hayden," I could build you a pretty good dossier and you'd think they were pretty bad people because that's what I was looking for and that's what I built up. That'd be very wrong, okay? That would be inaccurate. That would be misleading.

It's one thing to drill down -- and it's legitimate to drill down -- and that was a real big and real important question.

But at the end of the day when you draw your analysis, you have to recognize that you've really laser-beam focused on one particular data set, and you have to put that factor into the equation before you start drawing macro judgments.

SEN. LEVIN: You, in my office, discussed, I think, a very interesting approach, which is the difference between starting with a conclusion and trying to prove it and instead starting with digging into all the facts and seeing where they take you.

Would you just describe for us that difference, and why you feel, I think, that that related to the difference between what intelligence should be and what some people were doing, including at the FISA office.

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. And I actually think I prefaced that with both of these are legitimate forms are reasoning, that you've got -- and the product of, you know, 18 years of Catholic education -- I know a lot about deductive reasoning here.

There's an approach to the world in which you begin with first principles, and then you work your way down to specifics. And then there's an inductive approach to the world in which you start out there with all the data and work yourself up to general principles. They are both legitimate. But the only one I'm allowed to do is induction.

SEN. LEVIN: Allowed to do as an intelligence --

GEN. HAYDEN: As an intelligence officer is induction.

And so -- now, what happens when induction meets deduction, Senator? Well, that's my left- and right-hand boundaries metaphor.

SEN. LEVIN: Now, I believe that you actually placed a disclaimer on NSA reporting relative to any links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. And it was apparently following the repeated inquiries from the FISA office. Would you just tell us what that disclaimer was?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SIGINT neither confirms nor denies -- and let me stop at that point in the sentence so we can say safely on the side of unclassified. SIGINT neither confirms nor denies -- and then we finish the sentence based upon the question that was asked, and then we provided the data, sir.

SEN. LEVIN: Now, I think that you've commented on this before, and I may have missed it. And if so, you can just rely on your previous comment.

But there's been press reports that you had some disagreements with Secretary Rumsfeld and Undersecretary Cambone with respect to the reform legislation that we were looking at relating to DNI and other intelligence-related matters.

Can you tell us whether or not that is accurate, there were disagreements between you and the Defense secretary? Because some people say you're just going to be the instrument of the Defense secretary.

And if those reports are right, this would be an example where you disagreed with the Defense secretary, who -- after all, you wear a uniform and he is the secretary of Defense. Are those reports accurate?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sir, let me recharacterize them. The secretary and I did discuss this. I think it's what diplomats would call that frank and wide-ranging exchange of views. He treated me with respect.

A couple of footnotes just to put some texture to this. I then testified in closed session to the HPSCI on different aspects of the pending legislation. It was unclassified testimony even though the session was closed. DOD put my testimony on their website, NSA didn't. And so, you know, that to me was a pretty telling -- pretty telling step, that, you know, this was an open exchange of views.

It's been a little bit mischaracterized, too. I did not say move those big three-letter muscular agencies outside of DOD. My solution was something like the Founding Fathers', you know? Enumerated powers. You know, don't get bollixed around writing a theory of federalism, just write down what you want the federal government to do. My view was you needed to write down what authorities that DNI had over NSA, NGA and NRO. The fact that they stayed inside the Department of Defense was actually pretty uninteresting, as long as you had these enumerated powers that Ambassador Negroponte now has -- money, tasking, policy, personnel, classification.

SEN. LEVIN: Is it fair to say that on some of those issues there were differences between you and Secretary Rumsfeld?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. LEVIN: General, there's been a great deal of debate over the treatment of detainees. Do we have one set of rules now that governs the interrogation of detainees regardless of who is doing the interrogating and regardless of where the interrogations take place?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, I'll go into more detail on this this afternoon, but I do have some things I'd like to say in open session. Obviously, we're going to follow the law. We're going to respect all of America's international responsibilities.

In the Detainee Treatment Act, the language is quite clear. It talks about all prisoners of war under the control of the Department of Defense being handled in a way consistent with the Army Field Manual, and then a separate section of the law that requires all agencies of the U.S. government to handle detainees, wherever they may be located, in a way that is not cruel, inhumane or degrading. And that's the formula that we will follow.

SEN. LEVIN: And the CIA is bound by that formula?

GEN. HAYDEN: All agencies of the U.S. government are bound by that formula, yes, sir.

SEN. LEVIN: And by definition --

GEN. HAYDEN: By definition --

SEN. LEVIN: -- the CIA is included in that.

GEN. HAYDEN: -- any agency. Yes, sir.

SEN. LEVIN: And so that means -- or let me ask you, rather than putting words in your mouth. Does that mean that the CIA and its personnel and contractors are required to comply at all times in all locations in the same manner as military personnel with the following laws -- or treaties: A, the Geneva Conventions?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, again let me refer you to the language in the Detainee Treatment Act, which actually does make a distinction between prisoners of war under the effective control of the Department of Defense and a second broader description that applies throughout the rest of the government about cruel, inhuman and degrading.

SEN. LEVIN: Are you unable, then, to answer that question?

GEN. HAYDEN: No, I'm not -- no, sir, I'm not.

SEN. LEVIN: Then what about the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. All parts, all agencies of the U.S. government will respect our international obligations.

SEN. LEVIN: Including that one?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sir.

SEN. LEVIN: The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 you just described.

GEN. HAYDEN: Right. Yes, sir, absolutely consistent with that.

Sir, can I put a footnote on the previous one?

SEN. LEVIN: Sure.

GEN. HAYDEN: You know, obviously with the reservations that have been stipulated by the U.S. government in the ratification of that treaty.

SEN. LEVIN: Finally, the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

GEN. HAYDEN: The Army Field Manual, as the Detainee Treatment Act clearly points out, specifically applies to prisoners under the effective control of the Department of Defense.

SEN. LEVIN: And therefore you're -- the CIA you do not believe is bound by that language.

GEN. HAYDEN: Again, the legislation does not explicitly or implicitly, I believe, bind anyone beyond the Department of Defense, Senator.

SEN. LEVIN: I think my time is up. Thank you very much.

GEN. HAYDEN: Thank you, Senator.

SEN. ROBERTS: Senator DeWine.

SEN. MICHAEL DEWINE (R-OH): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

General, welcome.

GEN. HAYDEN: Thank you, sir.

SEN. DEWINE: Good to be with you today.

General, in 2002 the Senate and House issued a report on its joint inquiry into the intelligence community activities before and after the terrorist attacks of September 11th. In that report, I had additional comments to the report, and I raised several issues that I believe, frankly, are still valid today, and I'd like to spend some time talking about those comments. I want to ask you whether, as director of the CIA, you have plans to address them.

When I wrote in my additional comments, what I wrote in those comments and what I still believe to be true today is that we are facing a broken corporate culture at the CIA. Too many of our clandestine officers work under official cover, which is of limited use today in getting close to organizations like al Qaeda.

The CIA's Directorate of Operations have struggled to transform itself after the Cold War, including taking better advantage of nonofficial cover or NOC operations. Often this is because the tradecraft required to support nonofficial cover operations is so much more difficult and elaborate than what is required for official cover.

To the extent that the Directorate of Operations is engaging in nonofficial cover operations, these have been damaged, in my opinion, by half-hearted operational security measures and underutilization by CIA's management. I believe that to truly advance our intelligence collection capabilities against the hard targets, like terrorist groups, proliferation networks and rogue states, we need to make smarter and better use of nonofficial cover capabilities. It may be that to do this, we need to put these kinds of operations simply outside of the Directorate of Operations.

General, you're a former director of NSA. You've spent now a year as DNA's principal deputy, and you are before us today to be confirmed as the next director of CIA. You certainly know the issues as well as any person does.

I'd like to ask you a few questions. First, do you agree that we could make still better use of nonofficial cover operations? Do you agree that we need to be more creative and risk-taking in how we construct and use nonofficial cover? And am I right to be concerned that nonofficial cover operations have not been given the resources and attention that they need to be given to truly be successful? Are you prepared to give a NOC operation to support and resources they need to truly succeed even if that means further separation and perhaps, perhaps general, even bring them in to a new agency separate from the mainstream of the Directorate of Operations.

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, I remember your language in the 2002 report.

SEN. DEWINE: Well, I'm glad you do. Very few people do, but I appreciate you do.

GEN. HAYDEN: (Laughs.) Yes, sir.

On your first two questions, on the value of it and the need to invest more in it, absolutely yes on both accounts. I think the record will show that the agency's done that. I take your point, and that's a challenge to the agency. Clearly, there's not done that third step what you suggested, you essentially, I think, concluded that the culture of the agency was such that this baby will be strangled in the crib by the traditional way of doing business under embassy cover.

I got to go find that out because, clearly, we have not done what you suggested might be a course of action, which is a separate entity, a separate agency that -- but I think according to your language would actually draw in nonofficial cover folks from beyond the NSA or beyond the CIA into this new structure. That clearly has not been done.

Here's the dilemma: We've faced it; we've created the National Security Branch inside the FBI. It's the same question. Can you do something that new, that different inside the existing culture, or do you have to just make this clean break, which, I think you'd admit, would be disruptive, but are the facts such that you have to make that clean break. Clearly, the folks who preceded me there haven't made that decision yet.

Senator, I need to find out how well we're doing and come back and tell you.

SEN. DEWINE: General, I think you framed the issue perfectly, and I appreciate your response. We trust when you're in there you're going to make that decision one way or the other because that is the question, whether it can be done that way or it can be -- has to be done by breaking the mold and done an entirely different way, but it has to be done.

SEN. DEWINE: And we have to move --

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. DEWINE: -- and we have to move quickly.

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. That's right.

SEN. DEWINE: And so, you know, you have to be the agent of change. You have to move, you have to break the culture one way or the other.

In that light, let me ask a question. A lot has been written in the press about your plans to have Steve Kappes serve as your deputy director at the CIA. Mr. Kappes by all accounts did a great job in the director of operations, but his successes there are really in the traditional mold. He was successful in working under official cover, running and managing traditional operations. He was successful as a member and a leader of the traditional corporate culture at the CIA.

What does it tell us that you're putting him in this position? And can he move this agency or help you move this agency into new areas?

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir. I need to be careful here not to be presumptuous of my confirmation --

SEN. DEWINE: We understand, sir. We understand.

GEN. HAYDEN: And I know Ambassador Negroponte did mention Steve's name at a press opportunity a week or so ago.

I know Steve pretty well, have the highest regard for him. When I did the Rolodex check around the community about Steve, when I first became aware that I may be coming to this job -- which was not too long ago, Senator -- they were almost universally positive that this is a guy who knows the business.

I don't -- I don't know enough of Steve's personal history to refute some of your concerns. But let me offer a couple of additional thoughts, Senator.

SEN. DEWINE: And, you know, I'm very complimentary of him.

GEN. HAYDEN: Yeah, no. I know. I know.

SEN. DEWINE: I mean, you know, you just -- you look at someone's background and you say what have been his assets, and what were his strengths. And it doesn't mean he can't move in a new direction.

GEN. HAYDEN: Right. And let me tell you my thought process on that. I did this at NSA; at NSA I brought back a retiree -- Bill Black. And I brought Bill back as a change agent. Imagine the antibody, Senator, for somebody like me. I mean, the phrase -- I don't know what it is at CIA, but the phrase at NSA when describing the guy in the 8th floor office is "the current director." All right? (Chuckles.) You get a lot more authority when the workforce doesn't think it's amateur hour on the top floor. You get a lot more authority when you've got somebody welded to your hip whom everybody unarguably respects as someone who knows the business. My sense is, with someone like Steve at my side, the ability to make hard turns is increased, not decreased.

SEN. DEWINE: I respect your answer.

Let me ask you another question in this regard before I move on. In your written statement you talk about expecting more from HUMINT collectors at DOD and the FBI. But I don't think I saw it in the written statement any mention about the CIA itself. I think you already answered this, but I want to make sure it's on the record. Do you also expect more from the director of operations?

GEN. HAYDEN: Absolutely. I actually parsed into two boxes in the statement, Senator. One is internal -- the CIA's got to actually get bigger and do more and do better. But there's also that other role where CIA -- the director of CIA has now been given responsibility for human intelligence across the government.

SEN. DEWINE: General, let's turn to the question about access of information. Another concern I wrote about in 2002, and which I still have concern about, is the need to improve information access for analysts throughout the entire intelligence community.

Information access -- that is, making sure that the analysts across the community get access to all that data that they are cleared to see. It's really been a major focus of the chairman, a major focus of this committee.

In 2002, in my comments, I wrote that we needed to look at ways to do this such as by using technology like multilevel security capabilities. I believe we need to develop systems that allow analysts to get to information quickly, easily and with the confidence that they are seeing everything that they are permitted to see. Technology should not be the obstacle to achieving this, and we have the technology today.

For example, the National Air and Space Intelligence Center in Dayton, Ohio, has developed on its own over the past few years a multilevel access system called SAVANT -- which is used by their allsource analysts, analysts who hold different levels of clearance -- to gain appropriate access to information of various -- varying classification levels in different databases. NASIC developed their software with investments of a few million dollars. They developed their systems themselves, and they did this in a short period of time, so we know that this type technology is really feasible. We know that it can be done.

If you compare what NASIC has done to the situation at the National Counterterrorism Center, it's a little scary. Our chairman likes to point out that when he visits the National Counterterrorism Center, he sees sitting under the desk of each of the analysts an amazing collection of eight or nine different computers, each with different connections back to the 28 different networks our intelligence community maintains. The chairman calls this the baling wire approach to bringing together our intelligence data. To me, it's more like we have duct-taped our systems together. Surely, we can do better than this.

But the obstacle I think here is policy. Intelligence community policies continue to work against information access and protect more parochial interests of various agencies in the community, such as the CIA and NSA.

I saw that you talked about this issue in your written statement. I appreciate that. You wrote that you would strongly push for greater information sharing. I saw you cited some of your own work at NSA as proof of your commitment to this goal.

So let me ask you if you could talk for a moment in the time I have remaining about your commitment to information access. You're, of course, the former director of NSA. You're about to be the next director of CIA. These agencies, quite candidly, I don't believe, have a great record when it comes to implementing information access. I know you're doing better, but I think we have a ways to go. Talk to me a little bit about what NASIC has done, the SAVANT program -- where can the CIA go in this area? How can we change the thinking at the CIA? The technology, I think, is clearly there.

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, you're right. It's not a question of technology. It's -- the impediments are by and large policy. And sure, you've got to make sure the technology works and you've got to hold it to a standard and it's got to perform at the standard. But fundamentally, these are questions of policy.

In the current post, with the DNI, we've actually taken some steps forward in this regard, and perhaps this afternoon I can elaborate on that a bit as to some things we have done. But I can tell you in open session, you just have to will it. I mean, you're not going to get everyone saying, oh, yeah, this is good and it's okay. You're not going to get everyone to agree. In many ways you just have to make the decision and move forward. And we've done that on two or three things I'd really be happy to share with you this afternoon.

Now, I need to be careful. As I said earlier, you know, human intelligence sources are a bit more fragile -- I mean that literally -- than other kinds of sources, and that has to be respected. But as we did at NSA, I think that the way ahead is you hold all the premises up to the light. Senator, there was an instance in NSA when we were trying to go forward and do something, and someone said, "You can't do that, there are several polices against it." And it took me a while of getting those kinds of briefings to then say, "Whose policies?" And they were mine. They were under my control. So they were changeable. They weren't, you know, handed down to us from Mount Sinai.

SEN. DEWINE: General, I appreciate --

GEN. HAYDEN: (Inaudible) -- changes.

SEN. DEWINE: -- your answer. Just one final comment before I turn it back to the chairman.

This committee has spent a lot of time looking at what happened after September 11th. We've looked at a lot of problems and the challenges of the intelligence community. It seems to me one of the biggest challenges is to make sure that every consumer, every person who needs to know, every analyst who needs to know information gets that information in a timely manner. It's so simple to state, but it's so hard, many times, to implement. And, you know, your dedication to making sure that that happens and we change the culture, we drive through that culture -- the technology is there, and we just simply have, have to do it.

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. DEWINE: And I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. ROBERTS: Senator Wyden.

SEN. RON WYDEN (D-OR): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, good morning --

GEN. HAYDEN: Good morning, Senator.

SEN. WYDEN: -- to you and your family. And Mrs. Hayden, you'll be interested to know your husband went into considerable detail about how much you two love to go to those Steelers games together, so I know y'all are very devoted to family. And we're glad you're here.

General, like millions of Americans, I deeply respect the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States. Every day our military risks life and limb to protect our freedom, demonstrating qualities -- like accepting personal responsibility -- that are America at its best. Here on the Senate Intelligence Committee, I've supported our national security at a time of war by voting to give you the tools needed to relentlessly fight the terrorists while maintaining vigilance over the rights of our citizens.

Those votes I've cast fund a number of top-secret programs that have to be kept under wraps because America cannot vanquish its enemies by telegraphing our punches.

Now, in return for keeping most of the vital work of this committee secret, federal law, the National Security Act of 1947, stipulates -- and I quote here -- you "keep the congressional Intelligence Committees fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities other than a covert action."

It is with regret that I conclude that you and the Bush administration have not done so. Despite yesterday's last-minute briefing, for years -- years, General -- you and the Bush administration have not kept the committee fully and currently informed of all appropriate intelligence activities. Until just yesterday, for example, for some time now, only two Democratic senators -- present this morning -- were allowed by the Bush administration to be briefed on all these matters that are all over our newspapers.

These failures, in my view, have put the American people in a difficult spot. Because the committee hasn't been kept informed, because of these revelations in the newspapers, now we have many of our citizens -- law-abiding, patriotic Americans who want to strike the balance between fighting terrorism and protecting liberty -- now they're questioning their government's words.

So let me turn to my questions.

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure.

SEN. WYDEN: In your opening statement, you said that under your leadership the CIA would act according to American values. So we're not talking about a law here, but we're talking about values.

For me, values are about following the law and doing what you say you're going to do. When it comes to values, credibility is at the top of my list.

Now, General, having evaluated your words, I now have a difficult time with your credibility. And let me be specific.

On the wiretapping program, in 2001 you were told by the president's lawyers that you had authority to listen to Americans' phone calls. But a year later, in 2002, you testified that you had no authority to listen to Americans' phone calls in the United States unless you had enough evidence for a warrant.

But you have since admitted you were wiretapping Americans.

Let me give you another example. After you admitted you were wiretapping Americans, you said on six separate occasions the program was limited to domestic-to-international calls. Now the press is reporting that the NSA has amassed this huge database that we've been discussing today, of domestic calls.

So, with all due respect, General, I can't tell now if you've simply said one thing and done another, or whether you have just parsed your words like a lawyer to intentionally mislead the public.

What's to say that if you're confirmed to head the CIA, we won't go through exactly this kind of drill with you over there?

GEN. HAYDEN: Well, Senator, you're going to have to make a judgment on my character. And let me talk a little bit about the incidents that you brought up.

The first one, I believe, is testimony in front of the combined HPSCI and SSCI, the joint inquiry commission on the attacks of 9/11. And in my prepared remarks, I was trying to be very careful because we were talking not in closed session in front of the whole committee, but in front of the whole committee in totally open session. I believe -- and I haven't looked at those remarks for a couple of months now -- I believe I began them by saying that I had been forthcoming in closed sessions with the committee. Now, you may quibble that I've been forthcoming in closed sessions with some of my information with the leadership of the committee or with the entire committee. But that the language of the statute you referred to earlier does allow for limited briefings in certain circumstances. And I know they'll probably be questions on what are those legitimate circumstances.

If anyone in the U.S. government should be empathetic to the dilemma of someone in the position I was in, it should be members of this committee who have classified knowledge flitting around their left and right lobes every time they go out to make a public statement. You cannot avoid, in your responsibilities, talking about Iran or talking about Iraq or talking about terrorist surveillance. But you have classified knowledge. And your challenge and your responsibility is to give your audience at that moment the fullest, most complete, most honest rendition you can give them, knowing that you are prevented by law from telling them everything you know.

That's what I did when I was speaking in front of the National Press Club. I chose my words very carefully because I knew that some day I would be having this conversation. I chose my words very carefully because I wanted to be honest with the people I was addressing -- and it wasn't that handful of folks downtown, it was looking into the cameras and talking to the American people.

I bounded my remarks by the program that the president had described in his December radio address. It was the program that was being publicly discussed. And at key points, key points in my remarks, I pointedly and consciously downshifted the language I was using.

When I was talking about a drift net over Lackawanna or Freemont or other cities, I switched from the word "communications" to the much more specific and unarguably accurate conversation. And I went on in the speech and later in my question and answer period to say we do not use the content of communications to decide which communications we want to study the content of. In other words, when we look at the content of the communications, everything between "hello" and "good bye" we had already established a probable cause standard -- right to a probable cause standard that we had reason to believe that that communication, one or both of those communicants were associated with al Qaeda.

Senator, I was as full and open as I possibly could be. In addition, my natural instincts, which I think all of you have seen, is to be as full and open as law and policy allow when I'm talking to you as well. Anyone who's gotten a briefing on the terrorist surveillance program from me, and up until yesterday, that was everybody who had ever gotten a briefing on a terrorist surveillance program, I would be shocked if they thought I was hiding anything. There was only one purpose in my briefing, and that was to make sure that everyone who is getting that briefing fully understood what NSA was doing.

Now, Senator, I know you and other members of the committee have concerns that we've gone from two to five to seven to the full committee. I understand that. I told you in my opening remarks what my instincts were in terms of briefing the full committee. There's a very crude airmen's metaphor that talks about if you want people with the craft, you got to put them on the manifest.

SEN. WYDEN: General --

GEN. HAYDEN: Let me just make one more remark. Okay? And so my personal commitment is to be as open as possible. I cannot commit, Senator, to resolving the inherent stresses between Article I and Article II of the Constitution that were intentionally put in there by the Founding Fathers.

SEN. WYDEN: General, I'm focused just on the public record, and I'm going to go out and try now to dissect what you have just said and compare it to those other statements.

GEN. HAYDEN: Yes, sir.

SEN. WYDEN: Let me give you a very quick example.

GEN. HAYDEN: Okay.

SEN. WYDEN: The Trailblazer Program. As you know, I'm committed to be careful about discussing this in public, sensitive information technology program.

GEN. HAYDEN: Right.

SEN. WYDEN: But, as you know, I asked you about this in open session when you were up to be deputy of DNI. I went back and looked at the record, and you said, "Senator Wyden, we are overachieving on that program." Those were your words. I opened up the Newsweek Magazine this week and there are quoted again -- just out of a news report -- reports that there's a billion dollars worth of software laying around; people who have decades of experience saying -- I think there quote was -- "a complete and abject failure."

And so I ask you again, I'm concerned about a pattern where you say one thing in these open kind of hearings, and then I and others have got to get a good clipping service to try to figure out what independent people are saying and then to reconcile them.

So were you accurate when you came in an open session to say that the Trailblazer Program was overachieving?

GEN. HAYDEN: Senator, the open session you're referring to, was that last year during the confirmation?

SEN. WYDEN: Yes.

GEN. HAYDEN: Okay. Thank you.

Senator, I will promise you, I will go back and read my words. What my memory tells me I said was that a lot of the failure in the Trailblazer Program was in the fact we were trying to overachieve. We were throwing deep, and we should have been throwing short passes, if you want to use a metaphor; and that a lot of the failure was, we were trying to do too much all at once. We should have been less grandiose, not gone for moon shots, and been tighter in, more specific, looking at concrete results closer in, rather than overachieving by reaching too far. My memory is, that's what I was describing.

I can't ever think of my saying we were overachieving in Trailblazer. That was a tough program, Senator.

SEN. WYDEN: Those were your words, General. And again, I question, using your words, open session, whether we have got, on that particular program, the level of forthcoming statements that is warranted. And to me, this is a pattern and something that has made me ask these questions about credibility.

Now, to move on to the next area, for 200 years our government has operated on the proposition that the people must have some sort of indep