William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry: “understandably in this debate, we tend to emphasize our differences, but I think it is important to step back a little…”

“understandably in this debate, we tend to emphasize our differences, but I think it is important to step back a little bit and remember that the basic premise upon which the 9/11 Commission report is based and upon which this legislation is based is that the arrangement of the intelligence organizations we had for the Cold War is not necessarily the best arrangement for today or for tomorrow. That should not be surprising. It has been true of the military, and we are making changes in the organization of the military. It has been true of our homeland security organizations, and we have made changes there; and it is also true of our intelligence organizations, and this bill begins to make those changes as well. The issues related to whether we need an overall director of national intelligence have been around since the second Hoover Commission of 1955. CRS has documented about a dozen or more studies that have made this point over the years since then. This bill does it. There has been unanimous agreement since September 11 that we need to have better fusion of intelligence from all sources, and this bill formalizes that with the National Counterterrorism Center.”