Jane Harman Quotations

The point of it is to understand fully how we collected, analyzed and presented intelligence ... and what responsibility the intelligence community had to correct misinformation by policymakers,

We can no longer expect an Intelligence Community that is mostly male and mostly white to be able to monitor and infiltrate suspicious organizations or terrorist groups.

Many women have been successful at breaking the glass ceiling only to find a layer of men.

As the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted Al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to US national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.

There's no deep bench there, Mahmoud Abbas is, I think, the best leader of the Palestinians we could field.

The Clinton foundation has done a lot of good in the world.

I think I am aggressive, I think I am critical when it's necessary.

So, you know, I think that Democrats are being more successful in Congress and I'm really going to be proud of the role I will play tomorrow as ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee when this bill passes.

At the same time as we clearly condemn actions of violence by groups in Palestinian against Israel.

Democrats and Republicans love Israel and all of us care about the existential threat to Israel from Iran.

The point is to solve problems, not point fingers.

When you put your mind to it, you usually find that there is a way to achieve what you want after all.

But as I often say, terrorists wont check our party registration before they blow us up.

I think Democrats in Congress love Israel. Our relationship with Israel depends on a strong bipartisan relationship.

We need spies that look like their targets, CIA officers who speak the dialects terrorists use, and FBI agents who can speak to Muslim women who might be intimidated by men.

A lot of the things that we've been able to do in the last several years were Democratic ideas, including the structure for this new director of national intelligence.

My job as ranking member is about being a partner in making the committee effective.

Maybe it's my 15 minutes of fame, maybe it's longer.

I believe there are better options, and will continue to work with the DNI and the relevant congressional committees on a plan to save valuable technology and the work force that builds it,

But as I often say, terrorists won't check our party registration before they blow us up.

He came in with lots of baggage. . . . No one would have been surprised had he not been a star. But he dispelled all of that very quickly.

What we found was some successes, lots of good people, but real gaps in performance,

He's a likable fellow who has helped restore some bipartisanship to the committee.

Hundreds of years of leadership and experience has walked out the door in the last year, ... and more senior people are making critical career decisions as we speak.

Just the fact that the Iranian government is making a lot of noise doesn't prove their capabilities.

It clearly is not a pretty picture. I commend the Army for taking a hard, comprehensive look at how soldiers behave towards each other.

I want to understand what went wrong, ... I want to understand what was broken in the system so we can fix it, but the goal is to fix the system.

It is appropriate to insist on an overall strategy for space architecture and to face tough decisions, ... Boeing management readily admits that mistakes were made on this program. But those mistakes are now corrected and I remain hopeful that a well-managed program will ultimately move forward.

I said before that he needs to win the first turf battle, even if it is over the size of the table napkins.

Our interrogators have become risk-averse, ... Someone interrogating a detainee is afraid they'll find himself on the front page. ... I want our interrogations to yield the best possible information. ... That's why we need a legal framework.

President Bush has an MBA (Master of Business Administration). He should know that information flow is critical to effective management, ... No CEO would run her company without a chief information officer. The federal government should learn from the private sector.

looked like it had been the victim of attack by a weapon of mass destruction.

We know that there was a massive security failure, and despite repeated warnings by U.S. intelligence, the Saudis did not take adequate measures, ... This was wrong, and it was preventable.

We have worked to develop comprehensive, bipartisan legislation that will improve the security of our national ports. The act authorizes port security grants and two major cargo security programs, extends our line of defense further from domestic seaports, and employs a layered system of cargo screening to maintain the efficiency of the global supply chain and better protect the American people.

Thus far, the emerging evidence in Iraq does point to WMD programs but does not point to the existence of large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons,

Today's agreement by the White House and congressional leaders means that interrogators will be given clear, unambiguous rules to follow. The fog of law is finally lifting. America's moral black eye is finally healing.

We want to keep the bad guys out of our country, ... We want to identify them and keep them out, and we want to find them if they're already here. And we did a bad job of that on 9/11.

This requires a digital management system of the highest caliber,

There has not been the cooperation that there apparently has been on the Senate side,

We have to change the guidelines that we use to recruit those spies, ... In fact the CIA is required by law to change those guidelines and hasn't.

We've got about a year to get it right.

To make those changes effectively, he has to do them with an experienced staff, and he doesn't have one, ... Many of us worked with that staff in the House. Frankly, on both sides of the aisle in our committee, we were happy to see them go.

We will be a fact-driven, witness-driven review inquiry. We will not be driven by outside pressures.

Twelve sick, sadistic kids could not have acted alone,

Counterterrorism Analysis and Collection: The Requirement for Imagination and Creativity.

couldn't get the secretary of defense to stop his opposition, which has been ongoing for months and which emboldened some of these House folks to dig in.

The title is director, not ambassador. The skill sets are very different. The goal is not to grow a bureaucracy.

I set a high standard for myself. I seldom meet it, but life is a journey and I'm in the middle of a fascinating one.

Right now, under present law, battlefield commanders control tactical satellites,

As of yesterday, the report was still 'working its way' up the chain of command to senior Pentagon leaders, ... This is highly disturbing and raises questions about how seriously the administration and the White House were taking these allegations.

This decision, should it become final, would be heartbreaking for many tireless workers in El Segundo who have made a maximum effort to build a hugely complex system,

a management team in place that can help achieve objectives.

This is what we should have been doing awhile ago,

There's a NIMBY issue, ... We have to solve that before we recommend nuclear.

its thoroughness and accuracy can then be debated.

dangerous and highly skilled people who intend major harm to America.

The NIE is a logical starting point to this investigation. It helped frame the decision to go to war.

The agency seems in free-fall in Washington, and that is a very, very bad omen in the middle of a war,

It's clear the Intelligence Community must do more to make diversity in hiring and retention of minority employees a high priority for all agencies.

These topics bear little resemblance to the urgent recommendations made by the 9/11 commission,

Anyone who came in when he did would have had a steep hill to climb, in part because change can be difficult,

The military can set an example, ... I would suggest our president declare right now that we are transitioning our military fleet to alternative energy.

In 1969, when I graduated from Harvard Law School, women and minorities made up a tiny fraction of the first year associates accepted by top law firms.

In a post-9/11 world, diversity has become even more important.

If the withdrawal from Gaza goes badly, obviously, that will set us back.

Goss must persuade the public that he has dealt fairly with his agency's past mistakes

The fog of war is thick, but these acts of abuse and humiliation contradict international norms, military regulations and the very values that our military fights to defend,

The fog of law is finally lifting. America's moral black eye is finally healing.

The full facts of the case, including the role of Vice President Cheney, will come out at Libby's trial. But one thing is beyond dispute: Senior officials at the White House set out to discredit Ambassador Wilson, who contradicted the administration's claim that Iraq was acquiring nuclear material, ... They did this in an insidious way, by exposing the identity of his wife.

The Committee's review of a series of intelligence shortcomings, to include intelligence prior to 9/11 and the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, clearly reveal how vital a diverse intelligence workforce is to our national security.