[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 5] [Senate] [Page 6496] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]TRIBUTE TO ARTHUR M. CUMMINGS II Mr. REID. Mr. President, I rise today to acknowledge the extraordinary work of Arthur M. Cummings II, who has served with distinction for more than 20 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Cummings was appointed on January 9, 2008 as executive assistant director of the FBI's National Security branch. In that position, Mr. Cummings worked diligently to oversee the FBI's counterterrorism, counterintelligence, weapons of mass destruction and intelligence programs, as well as the Terrorist Screening Center. His outstanding work leading the FBI in the coordination and liaison with the U.S. Director of National Intelligence and the rest of the Intelligence community contributed greatly to the FBI and the entire intelligence field. Mr. Cummings brought to the job a wealth of investigative and managerial experience. Since becoming an FBI special agent in 1987, Mr. Cummings was assigned to five field offices and to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters. He managed ounterterrorism, counterintelligence, violent crimes and drug programs in several field offices, and had deployed overseas to support several major counterterrorism investigations. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Mr. Cummings played an instrumental role in the reorganization of the FBI's counterterrorism program and later served as chief of the Counterterrorism Operational Response Section, responsible for the development and oversight of FBI operations in foreign theaters such as Afghanistan. In 2003, Mr. Cummings became Chief of the International Terrorism Operations Section, responsible for developing and managing FBI strategy and operations directed against al-Qaida and its affiliated organizations and networks. Mr. Cummings also served in 2004-05 as deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, NCTC, a multiagency organization dedicated to eliminating the terrorist threat to U.S. interest domestically and abroad. After his tenure at NCTC, Mr. Cummings was named special agent-in- charge of the Counterterrorism Division and Intelligence branch of the FBI's Washington field office. In recognition of his accomplishments, Mr. Cummings was awarded the 2004 Attorney General's Award for Exceptional Service and the 2006 Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive. Mr. Cummings is a former Navy SEAL and speaks Mandarin Chinese. He is a graduate of the University of California in San Diego. I, along with all of my Senate colleagues, congratulate Arthur on his well-deserved retirement after such a distinguished career. ____________________