The Homeland Security department doesn't have tasking authority in the intelligence community. They can ask for stuff but they can't direct anything except inside their bureau.

I believe that reforming our intelligence community is one of the most important things that we can do in order to ensure that our country is in fact safer stronger and wiser.

I never threatened him and no Syrian intelligence officer has ever pointed a gun to his head.

The standard rumor at the time was that Rumsfeld as chief of staff had persuaded President Ford to appoint George H.W. Bush as director of Central Intelligence assuming that that got rid of a potential competitor for the presidency.

Another factor is the decision made in 1976 to sharply divide the FBI and the foreign intelligence agencies. The FBI would collect within the United States the foreign intelligence agencies would collect overseas.

You want to keep intelligence separate from policy.

Intelligence we gathered at the time indicated that this was in fact leadership and we struck the leadership.

But the same intelligence compels Germany to practise the same policy.

That U.N. Security Council resolution requires getting Syrian troops and intelligence officials out of Lebanon so that the Lebanese can have elections here this spring that are free and fair and free of outside influence.

First I have the privilege of being Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is not an oxymoron I assure you.

Affairs of state tend to drive most presidents toward the center on both foreign and domestic policy no matter where on the political spectrum they begin and especially so in the areas of intelligence and law enforcement.

The plan we developed to deal with al Qaeda depended on developing sources of human and technical intelligence that could give us insights into his plans at the tactical level. This is easy to say but hard to accomplish.

We worked to develop our own operations to advance U.S. counterterrorism objectives by penetrating terrorist safe havens and collecting intelligence that would inform policy and enable our own operations.

I am sure that in Canada the people appreciate this principle and the general intelligence which prevails over that country is such that I am sure there is no danger of a reactionary policy ever finding a response in the hearts of any considerable number of our people.

And I understand that I testified in closed hearings over eight years because there are intelligence matters there are sensitive matters that should not be held in a public hearing.

Collecting intelligence information is like trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant. You know in hindsight It's great. The problem is there's a million dots at the time.

The terrorist uses surprise and stealth and the only way to defeat that is by having accurate and timely intelligence.