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¡Punto Final!

The U.S. Must Work to Increase the Diversity of the U.S. Intelligence Corps.

This is a crucial time in our nation’s history - we are a nation at war, and are facing many diffuse and long-term threats to our national security. I have the honor and challenge of serving as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at this critical juncture, and am committed to ensuring that all our nation’s capabilities are devoted to identifying these threats and protecting America - and doing so in a manner that is consistent with our constitutional rights.

As a 26 and a half year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, I have experience collecting and using intelligence, and working with international counterparts in what were often sensitive and stressful conditions regarding narcotics and human trafficking and illegal immigration. I know that success requires much hard work and collaboration.

As Intelligence Committee Chair, I will apply these lessons and experience, as I have throughout my 10 years in Congress as a member of the Intelligence Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. I look forward to working with all members of the Intelligence Committee in a bipartisan, civil and professional manner. Intelligence is the tip of the spear in the war on terror, and it is absolutely essential that we produce the most effective intelligence for both policymakers and our men and women serving in the intelligence community and in the armed forces. We need to work together to achieve success, and as Chair, I am committed to ensuring that we will.

The Committee is focusing on our two current primary theaters of conflict right now - Iraq and Afghanistan - and working to understand why we are having such problems achieving our objectives in those two theaters. We will also continue the work that began in the last Congress to understand the threats posed by Iran and North Korea - two nations that are bent on obtaining a nuclear arsenal in defiance of the world community. What do we know about these regimes? How are their decisions made? And perhaps more importantly, what don’t we know?

The Al-Qaeda network has evolved over the past five years. Is Al-Qaeda still the greatest threat to the U.S. homeland? What about Hezbollah, Hamas, or other radical Islamist groups? What about so-called “homegrown” terrorists? These are serious questions that need answering, and we want to know more about these threats and what we can do to stop them.

We also plan to focus on areas of the world that have received far less attention in the past: Latin America and Africa. These threats often appear less urgent, but both of them demonstrate trends that, if left unaddressed, could seriously threaten core U.S. national security interests.

We will be able to identify and diffuse these threats if we have a strong core of intelligence professionals who speak the languages and have the cultural sensitivity to penetrate and understand the hardest targets. Diversity is not just something we pursue to make ourselves feel better; in an intelligence war, it is a matter of national survival.

The Intelligence Committee will also carefully and systematically review some of the more controversial and sensitive intelligence programs, such as the National Security Agency wiretapping program and the Central Intelligence Agency’s detainee program.

While pursuing these goals, the House Intelligence Committee will stay true to the reason the Committee was created nearly three decades ago - to ensure that the intelligence activities of the United States are an effective, appropriate and lawful use of taxpayer resources. Our most precious commodities are the liberties and Constitutional values that bind Americans together, and the Intelligence Committee will not just work to protect the safety and security of American families, but also the freedom and rights upon which our nation was founded.