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from threat to threat to threat. . . . [T]here was not a system in place to say,`You
got to go back and do this and this and this.'" Not just the DCI but the entire
executive branch needed help from Congress in addressing the questions of
counterterrorism strategy and policy, looking past day-to-day concerns. Mem-
bers of Congress, however, also found their time spent on such everyday mat-
ters, or in looking back to investigate mistakes, and often missed the big
questions--as did the executive branch. Staff tended as well to focus on
parochial considerations, seeking to add or cut funding for individual (often
small) programs, instead of emphasizing comprehensive oversight projects.

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Fifth, on certain issues, other priorities pointed Congress in a direction that

was unhelpful in meeting the threats that were emerging in the months lead-
ing up to 9/11. Committees with oversight responsibility for aviation focused
overwhelmingly on airport congestion and the economic health of the airlines,
not aviation security. Committees with responsibility for the INS focused on
the Southwest border, not on terrorists. Justice Department officials told us that
committees with responsibility for the FBI tightly restricted appropriations for
improvements in information technology, in part because of concerns about
the FBI's ability to manage such projects. Committees responsible for South
Asia spent the decade of the 1990s imposing sanctions on Pakistan, leaving pres-
idents with little leverage to alter Pakistan's policies before 9/11. Committees
with responsibility for the Defense Department paid little heed to developing
military responses to terrorism and stymied intelligence reform. All commit-
tees found themselves swamped in the minutiae of the budget process, with lit-
tle time for consideration of longer-term questions, or what many members
past and present told us was the proper conduct of oversight.

111

Each of these trends contributed to what can only be described as Con-

gress's slowness and inadequacy in treating the issue of terrorism in the years
before 9/11.The legislative branch adjusted little and did not restructure itself
to address changing threats.

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Its attention to terrorism was episodic and splin-

tered across several committees. Congress gave little guidance to executive
branch agencies, did not reform them in any significant way, and did not sys-
tematically perform oversight to identify, address, and attempt to resolve the
many problems in national security and domestic agencies that became appar-
ent in the aftermath of 9/11.

Although individual representatives and senators took significant steps, the

overall level of attention in the Congress to the terrorist threat was low. We
examined the number of hearings on terrorism from January 1998 to Septem-
ber 2001.The Senate Armed Services Committee held nine--four related to
the attack on the USS Cole. The House Armed Services Committee also held
nine, six of them by a special oversight panel on terrorism.The Senate Foreign
Relations Committee and its House counterpart both held four. The Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, in addition to its annual worldwide threat
hearing, held eight; its House counterpart held perhaps two exclusively

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