Jane Harman: “I want to agree with the comments of the last speaker and commend his service as part of the Central Intelligence…”

“I want to agree with the comments of the last speaker and commend his service as part of the Central Intelligence Agency. He brings great expertise to this House, and I as one Member value it enormously. He may not know that the Bremer Commission on which I served recommended that the Deutch Guidelines not apply in the case of recruitment of terrorist spies. We, too, found that, though well-intended, and I believe they were well-intended, those guidelines inhibited the aggressive recruitment of people who had the qualifications to penetrate the worst terrorist organizations, which we need them to do. Yes, these are unsavory characters, and yes, we need them, provided that they are reasonably vetted so that we know that they are reliable, but nonetheless, yes, we need them. I do not want to be heard to be ambivalent about this at all. A few years ago, our committee found that those guidelines had not been rescinded; and on a bipartisan basis, we directed that the DCI rescind them and replace them, and that was done at our direction.”