Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [38]
These issues may be moot for the time being, because Secretary Gates has already begun to scale back some of these initiatives, such as in the area of HUMINT. However, the war against terrorism will undoubtedly go on beyond Gates’ tenure and those of his new intelligence associates, thus raising the possibility of these issues resurfacing under a new national security team.
CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS. Also of great importance are the relationships of the two intelligence committees with each other and with the other House and Senate committees with which they must work. The oversight responsibilities of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are not identical, which accounts for their differing sets of relationships. The Senate Intelligence Committee has sole jurisdiction over only the DNI, CIA, and the NIC. The Senate Armed Services Committee has always jealously guarded its oversight of all aspects of defense intelligence. The relationship between Senate Intelligence and Senate Armed Services has been standoffish at best and hostile at worst. Antagonism has usually stemmed from the Senate Armed Services Committee’s reactions to real or imagined efforts by Senate Intelligence to step beyond its carefully circumscribed turf. Senate Armed Services has usually responded with punitive actions of varying degrees (such as delaying action on the annual intelligence authorization bill).
Both committees also jealously and successfully guarded their oversight of intelligence against possible intrusions by the then-Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (SGAC). However, legislation dealing with the reorganization of the intelligence community was referred to SGAC because of its role in government organization. This move was seen by some as a slap at the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose chairman, Pat Roberts, R-Kan., had offered a much more radical proposal for intelligence organization earlier in 2004.
The House Intelligence Committee has exclusive jurisdiction over the entire NIP—all programs that transcend the bounds of any one agency or are nondefense—as well as shared jurisdiction over the defense intelligence programs. This arrangement has fostered a better working relationship between House Intelligence and House Armed Services than exists between their Senate counterparts. This is not to suggest that moments of friction do not arise, but the overall relationship between the House committees has not approached the hostility exhibited in the Senate. However, the House Armed Services Committee was the strongest advocate for DOD interests in the debate over the 2004 legislation and in the 2005 intelligence authorization legislation.
Good relationships between the two intelligence committees and the House and Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittees are important for avoiding disjunctions between authorized programs and appropriated funds. Generally speaking, all appropriators tend to resent (and would sometimes like to ignore) all authorizers. Once again, the relationship between intelligence authorizers and appropriators has been smoother in the House than in the Senate. This relationship in the House became somewhat confused in 2007. As part of their reorganization of the Congress, the new Democratic majority, responding to one of the findings of the 9/11 Commission, created a Select Intelligence Oversight Panel (SIOP), bringing together intelligence authorizers and appropriators. The SIOP does not mark bills, as do the authorizers; nor does it appropriate money. Its primary role is to allow more thorough oversight of intelligence