2008 National Intelligence Estimate Vindicates Bush Foreign Policy

While political pundits, politicians, hundreds of millions of Americans, and millions more around the world watched Super Tuesday results with confused and baited breath yesterday, a bigger and more important story went almost completely unreported. The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) presented Congress with yet another National Intelligence Estimate (a summary of opinions presented by a committee of representatives from all 17 American intelligence entities).

This National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is uncharacteristically well-written. It coldly, and apolitically presents the good, the bad, the ugly, and surprisingly addressed a long-time suspicion of those who support the war in Iraq about the frequent, deliberate, misleading of information regarding that war as a means of opposing it politically.

I was surprised, and in the strongest possible way I suggest everyone who is interested in the security of the United States should read this report. It’s a whole 47 pages, but the text is almost all 1-column and only covering 1/2 the page. Again, the NIE is also unusually well written, concise, and clear.

People who suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) will find lots to complain about, but that’s the nature of the syndrome (see also Rosie O’Donnell’s claim this week that President Bush almost killed her back in 2000) .

From the PDF document the opening pages....:

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Before I talk about specific threats, I want to raise an issue of immediate importance for the functioning of the Intelligence Community and protection of the nation. The authorities granted by the Protect America Act (PAA)—which temporarily closed gaps in our intelligence collection and allowed the Intelligence Community to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance—are critical to our intelligence efforts to protect the Nation from current threats. Briefly, some of the most important benefits include:

• Better understanding of international al-Qa’ida networks;

Greater insight into future terrorist plans that have allowed us to disrupt attacks;

More extensive knowledge of instructions to foreign terrorist associate about entering the United States

Information on efforts to obtain guns and ammunition

Knowledge on terrorist money transfers.

Expiration of the Act would lead to the loss of important tools the Intelligence Community relies on to discover the plans of our enemies. As reflected in your Committee report, merely extending the PAA without addressing retroactive liability protection for the private sector will likely have far reaching consequences for the Intelligence Community. At the request of members of Congress, I have provided letters discussing these matters in greater depth.

I know that this bill required intense, sustained hard work of the Committee's Members and staff in a very technical and complex area to ensure a product that reflected member concerns raised about the Protect America Act, but preserved key operational needs of speed and agility in tracking hard to find enemies intent on harming our country. Over the past several weeks, proposals to modify the Senate Intelligence Committee bill have been discussed and I would ask Members to consider the impacts of such proposals on our Nation's Intelligence Community and its ability to warn leaders of threats to our Homeland and our interests. As my testimony will describe, the threats we face are global, complex, and dangerous; we must have the tools to enable the detection and disruption of terrorist plots and other threats.

For almost two years, senior leaders of the IC have testified in both open and closed hearings about the critical role of private parties in ensuring our citizens are safe, and the need to provide liability protection to those who provided assistance after the attacks of September 11. If we are not able to address this issue, I believe it will severely degrade the capabilities of our Intelligence Community to carry out its core missions of providing warning and protecting the country.

In turning to the threats, the judgments that I will offer the Committee in these documents and in my responses to your questions are based on the efforts of thousands of patriotic, highly skilled professionals, many of whom serve in harm’s way. I am proud to lead the world’s best Intelligence Community and pleased to report that it is even better than it was last year as a result of the continuing implementation of reforms required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. This Statement is, in part, a product of our moving forward with the transformation of US intelligence, including more innovative and rigorous analysis and wider and more far-reaching collaboration.

You will see from the testimony that many of the key topics I touch on are not traditional “national security” topics. Globalization has broadened the number of threats and challenges facing the United States. For example, as government, private sector, and personal activities continue to move to networked operations and our digital systems add ever more capabilities, our vulnerability to penetration and other hostile cyber actions grows. The nation, as I indicated last year, requires more from our Intelligence Community than ever before and consequently we need to do our business better, both internally, through greater collaboration across disciplines and externally, by engaging more of the expertise available outside the Intelligence Community.

Many of the analytic judgments I present here have benefited from the increasing integration of collection and analysis. Our systematic effort to synchronize requirements across the national intelligence, defense, Homeland security and federal law enforcement communities ensures collection assets will be better utilized and the collection community will be able to mount efforts to fill the gaps and needs of analysts. This more integrated Community approach to analysis and collection requirements is part of my plan to transition the IC from a federation of independent intelligence organization to a more integrated enterprise; the beginning results of this new approach are reflected in the more nuanced and deeper analysis of the challenges and threats facing the US.

Against this backdrop, I will focus my statement on the following issues:

The continuing global terrorist threat, but also the setbacks the violent extremist networks are experiencing;

The significant gains in Iraqi security since this time last year and the developing political and economic improvements;

The continuing challenges facing us in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, where many of our most important interests intersect;

The persistent threat of WMD-related proliferation:
o Despite halting progress towards denuclearization, North Korea continues to maintain nuclear weapons;
o Despite the halt through at least mid-2007 to Iran’s nuclear weapons design and covert uranium conversion and enrichment-related work, Iran continues to pursue fissile material and nuclear-capable missile delivery systems.

The vulnerabilities of the US information infrastructure to increasing cyber attacks by foreign governments, nonstate actors and criminal elements;

• The growing foreign interest in counterspace programs that could threaten critical US military and intelligence capabilities;

Issues of political stability and of national and regional conflict in Europe, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Eurasia;

Growing humanitarian concerns stemming from the rise in food and energy prices for poorer states;

Concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China, and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to achieve political ends.

TERRORISM

Let me start by highlighting a few of our top successes in the past year. Most importantly, there was no major attack against the United States or most of our European, Latin American, East Asia allies and partners. This was no accident.

Last summer, for example, with our allies, we unraveled terrorist plots linked to al-Qa’ida and its associates in Denmark and Germany. We were successful because we were able to identify key plotters. We worked with our European partners to monitor the plotters and disrupt their activities. In addition, our partners throughout the Middle East and elsewhere continued to attack aggressively terrorist networks recruiting, training, and planning to strike American interests. The death last week of Abu Layth al-Libi, al-Qa'ida’s charismatic senior military commander and a key link between al-Qa’ida and its affiliates in North Africa, is the most serious blow to the group’s top leadership since the December 2005 death of then external operations chief Hamza Rabi’a.

Al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) suffered major setbacks last year, although it still is capable of mounting lethal attacks. Hundreds of AQI leadership, operational, media, financial, logistical, weapons, and foreign fighter facilitator cadre have been killed or captured. With much of the Sunni population turning against AQI, its maneuver room and ability to operate have been severely constrained. AQI’s attack tempo, as measured by numbers of suicide attacks, had dropped by more than half by year’s end after approaching all time highs in early 2007. We see indications that al-Qa’ida’s global image is beginning to lose some of its luster; nonetheless, we still face multifaceted terrorist threats.

AL-QA’IDA

Al-Qa’ida and its terrorist affiliates continue to pose significant threats to the United States at home and abroad, and al-Qa’ida’s central leadership based in the border area of Pakistan is its most dangerous component. Last July, we published a National Intelligence Estimate titled, “The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland,” which assessed that al-Qa’ida’s central leadership in the past two years has been able to regenerate the core operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks in the Homeland:

Al-Qa’ida has been able to retain a safehaven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that provides the organization many of the advantages it once derived from its base across the border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less secure scale. The FATA serves as a staging area for al-Qa’ida’s attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives, for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the United States.

Using the sanctuary in the border area of Pakistan, al-Qa’ida has been able to maintain a cadre of skilled lieutenants capable of directing the organization’s operations around the world. It has lost many of its senior operational planners over the years, but the group’s adaptable decisionmaking process and bench of skilled operatives have enabled it to identify effective replacements.

Al-Qa’ida’s top leaders Usama Bin Ladin and Ayman al- Zawahiri continue to be able to maintain al-Qa’ida’s unity and its focus on their strategic vision of confronting our allies and us with mass casualty attacks around the globe. Although security concerns preclude them from the day-to- day running of the organization, Bin Ladin and Zawahiri regularly pass inspirational messages and specific operational guidance to their followers through public statements.

Al-Qa’ida is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the US: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack in the Homeland. While increased security measures at home and abroad have caused al-Qa’ida to view the West, especially the US, as a harder target, we have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas since mid-2006.

We assess that al-Qa’ida’s Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population.

CBRN THREAT FROM AL-QA’IDA

We judge use of a conventional explosive to be the most probable al-Qa’ida attack scenario because the group is proficient with conventional small arms and improvised explosive devices and is innovative in creating capabilities and overcoming security obstacles. That said, al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and materials (CBRN). We assess al-Qa’ida will continue to try to acquire and employ these weapons and materials; some chemical and radiological materials and crude weapons designs are easily accessible, in our judgment.

AL-QA’IDA AFFILIATES

Al-Qa’ida’s affiliates from Africa to Southeast Asia also pose a significant terrorist threat. I will discuss the success we are having against al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) as part of the larger discussion of the Intelligence Community’s analysis of the Iraq situation, but here I would like to highlight that AQI remains al- Qa’ida’s most visible and capable affiliate. I am increasingly concerned that as we inflict significant damage on al-Qa’ida in Iraq, it may shift resources to mounting more attacks outside of Iraq.

Although the ongoing conflict in Iraq will likely absorb most of AQI’s resources over the next year, AQI has leveraged its broad external networks—including some reaching into Europe—in support of external operations. It probably will continue to devote some effort towards honoring Bin Ladin’s request in 2005 that AQI attempt to strike the United States, affirmed publicly by current AQI leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri in a November 2006 threat against the White House.

AQI tactics, tradecraft, and techniques are transmitted on the Internet, but AQI documents captured in Iraq suggest that fewer than 100 AQI terrorists have moved from Iraq to establish cells in other countries.

AQIM. Al-Qa’ida’s other robust affiliate, al-Qa’ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is the most active terrorist group in northwestern Africa. We assess it represents a significant threat to US and European interests in the region. AQIM has continued to focus primarily on Algerian Government targets, but since its merger with al-Qa’ida in September 2006, the group has expanded its target set to include US, UN, and other interests. AQIM likely got a further boost when the al-Qa’ida central leadership announced last November that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group united with al-Qa’ida under AQIM’s leadership. Two simultaneous suicide car bomb attacks in Algiers in December killed nearly 70 people and marked AQIM’s highest profile act of violence to date. Improvements in AQIM’s use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) suggest the group is acquiring knowledge transmitted from extremists in Iraq.

AQIM traditionally has operated in Algeria and northern Mali and has recruited and trained an unknown, but probably small, number of extremists from Tunisia, Morocco, Nigeria, Mauritania, Libya, and other countries. Although the degree of control that AQIM maintains over former trainees is unclear, the IC assesses some of these trainees may have returned to their home countries to plot attacks against local and Western interests.

Other Affiliates Worldwide.

Other al-Qa’ida regional affiliates kept a lower profile in 2007, but we judge that they remain capable of conducting attacks against US interests. Al- Qa’ida is active on the Arabian Peninsula and presents a long- term threat to both Western and host nation interests there, particularly in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen. In 2007, Saudi authorities detained over 400 extremists, highlighting both the threat and the Kingdom’s commitment to combating it. We judge al-Qa’ida will continue to attempt attacks in the Arabian Peninsula, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

The Intelligence Community (IC) assesses al-Qa’ida- associated groups and networks in Lebanon pose a growing threat to Western interests in the Levant. In East Africa, the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia disrupted al-Qa’ida in East Africa (AQEA) operations and activities, but senior AQEA operatives responsible for the 1998 US Embassy bombings and the 2002 attacks in Mombassa, Kenya, remain at large. The IC assesses Jemaah Islamiya (JI) in Indonesia and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines—which have historic links to al-Qa’ida and have killed over 400 people—are the two terrorist groups posing the greatest threat to US interests in Southeast Asia. The IC assesses that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT) and other Kashmir-focused groups will continue attack planning and execution in India. Shia and Hindu religious observances are possible targets, as are transportation networks and government buildings. We judge Kashmir-focused groups will continue to support the attacks in Afghanistan, and operatives trained by the groups will continue to feature in al- Qa’ida transnational attack planning.

BUT AL-QA’IDA’S REPUTATION IS DIMMING

The brutal attacks against Muslim civilians unleashed by AQI and AQIM and the conflicting demands of the various extremist agendas are tarnishing al-Qa’ida’s self-styled image as the extremist vanguard. Over the past year, a number of religious leaders and fellow extremists who once had significant influence with al-Qa’ida have publicly criticized it and its affiliates for the use of violent tactics.

Usama Bin Ladin’s public statement about Iraq in October—in which he admitted that AQI made mistakes and urged it to reconcile with other Iraqi insurgent groups— provoked controversy on extremist Internet discussion forums. Likewise, deputy al-Qa’ida chief Ayman al- Zawahiri has been criticized by supporters for perceived contradictions in his public statements about HAMAS and softness toward Iran and the Shia.

THE “HOMEGROWN” THREAT

Over the next year, attacks by “homegrown” extremists inspired by militant Islamic ideology but without operational direction from al-Qa’ida will remain a threat to the United States or against US interests overseas. The spread of radical Salafi Internet sites that provide religious justification for attacks, increasingly aggressive and violent anti-Western rhetoric and actions by local groups, and the growing number of radical, self-generating cells in Western countries that identify with violent Salafi objectives, all suggest growth of a radical and violent segment among the West’s Muslim populations. Our European allies regularly tell us that they are uncovering new extremist networks in their countries.

While the threat from such homegrown extremists is greater in Europe, the US is not immune. The threat here is likely to be fueled in part by propaganda and mischaracterizations of US foreign policy as harmful to Muslims, rather than by any formal assistance from al-Qa’ida or other recognized groups. The al-Qa’ida-propagated narrative of an “us versus them” struggle serves both as a platform and a potential catalyst for radicalization of Muslims alienated from the mainstream US population.

A small, but growing portion of al-Qa’ida propaganda, is in English and is distributed to an American audience—either in translated form or directly by English-speaking al-Qa’ida members like Adam Gadahn, the American member of al- Qa’ida who, in early-January, publicly urged Muslims to use violence to protest the President’s Middle East trip. Bin Ladin’s September 2007 “message to the American people” and Zawahiri’s May 2007 interview include specific US cultural and historical references almost certainly meant to strike a chord with disaffected US listeners.

Disrupted plotting over the past 14 months in New Jersey and Illinois highlights the diverse threat posed by Homeland- based radical Muslims inspired by extremist ideology. A group of European and Arab Muslim immigrants arrested last May for planning to attack Fort Dix, New Jersey, used a group member’s familiarity with the US Army base to determine their target. In Illinois, the FBI arrested US Muslim convert Derrick Shareef in December 2006 as he attempted to obtain weapons for a self-planned, self-executed terrorist attack against a shopping mall in Rockford.

To date, cells detected in the United States have lacked the level of sophistication, experience, and access to resources of terrorist cells overseas. Their efforts, when disrupted, largely have been in the nascent phase, and authorities often were able to take advantage of poor operational tradecraft. However, the growing use of the internet to identify and connect with networks throughout the world offers opportunities to build relationships and gain expertise that previously were available only in overseas training camps. It is likely that such independent groups will use information on destructive tactics available on the Internet to boost their own capabilities.

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