Building on the global awareness we have outlined in
our combined testimony before this committee and on a range
of future-oriented assessments, including the INR study
Diplomacy 2010 of two years ago, we have the ability to
aggregate problems and assemble now the range of resources
we will need in coming years. But we need to ensure that
the production of valuable intelligence, and the judgments
we can draw using it, are not hobbled by a smothering amount
of bureaucratic process and artificial boundaries. Just as
the military speaks of a tooth to tail ratio, the community
must maximize the enhancement of expertise, in both
collection and analysis.
Depth. Expertise is our lifeblood. Hiring hundreds of
new analysts and throwing money at challenges makes sense
only if we can engage the best people and apply expertise
quickly and effectively. Ir INR we have many analysts with
20 to 30 years of experience or a small set of issues or
countries. They are a tremendous resource, but they must be
replenished. Throughout the Intelligence Community we have
a major challenge to make the analytic profession attractive
to America's brightest and most energetic, and to offer the
stimulation and stature that will persuade many to remair. in
public service. We must give them the tools, training, and
time to build and apply their expertise. Technology without
time and training is insufficient and ineffective. Though
many agencies use a model where advancement means movement
into some management rank, we in INR believe strongly we
must reward expertise as such-elevating people for what they
know and produce. The best school teacher may make the
worst principal. Enabling analysts fully to exploit their
deepening expertise, and perhaps assigning to the most
senior and valuable of them both understudies and research
assistants who can aspire to greater skill and rank-and
provide a measure of analytic continuity-deserve serious
examination and testing.
The issues we confront have exploded in quantity and complexity since the Cold War ended. But Mr. Chairman, the greatest ration on earth with the world's most creative and innovative brains can deal successfully with a complex world of interlinked politics, economics, and societies if we can keep them constantly under our intelligence collection and
BEFORE THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
HEARING ON CURRENT AND PROJECTED NATIONAL SECURITY
THREATS TO THE UNITED STATES
Chairman Shelby, Senator Graham, Memcers of the
Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to present INR's
view of current and projected threats to the United States,
American citizens, and American interests. Happily, the
severity of specific threats to our nation, cur values, cur
system of government, and our way of life are low and likely
to remain so for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately,
that is not the case with respect to threats to individual
Americans and other national interests. Indeed, there
appears to be a perversely inverse relationship between the
diminution of threats to the United States homeland and the
changing magnitude and variety of increasing threats to
American citizens and interests.
The dramatic decline in the mega-threat symbolized by the end of the Cold War and the growing preponderance of our military capabilities make it increasingly difficult and irrational for any adversary to threaten our national existence. This makes resort to asymmetric threats more tempting. A variety of national and non-state actors are seeking both means and opportunities to achieve their goals by threatening Americans at home and abroad.
Americans abroad (residents, tourists, diplomats, business people, members of our Armed Forces, etc.) are a special target for many groups who oppose us and our values, resent our prosperity and power, or believe that Washington holds the key to achieving their own political, economic, of other goals. We become aware daily of threats to US businesses, military facilities, embassies, and individual citizens. Recent examples include the seizure of an American relief worker in Chechnya (since freed), the execution of an American cil worker seized in Ecuador, and the terrorist attack on the USS Cole.
Unconventional threats are the most worrisome because they are harder to detect, detex, and defend against. Misguided individuals, religious fanatics, self-styled
crusaders, and agents of national or rebel groups can--and
do--operate everywhere and are capable of striking almost
anywhere, anytime. Their most common weapons are bullets
and bombs, but some in the catchall category of "terrorists"
clearly seek to obtain chemical or biological weapons.
Others appear capable of inflicting isolated damage through
attacks on our information infrastructure. The magnitude of
each individual threat is small, but, in aggregate,
unconventional threats probably pose a more immediate danger
to Americans than do foreign armies, nuclear weapons, long-
range missiles, or the proliferation of WMD and delivery
systems.
Terrorism. The United States remains a number one
target of international terrorism. As in previous years,
close to one-third of all incidents worldwide in 2000 were
directed against Americans. The most devastating attack was
the October 12 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen that killed
17 sailors and injured many more.
The locus of attacks can be, and increasingly is, far
removed from the geographic origin of the threat.
Ladın (UBL) is based in Afghanistan but his reach extends
far beyond the subcontinent. Plausible, if not always
credible, threats linked to his organization target
Americans and America's friends or interests on almost every
continent. His organization remains a leading suspect in
the Cole investigation, and he and several members of his
organization have been indicted for the 1998 embassy
bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Had it not been for
vigilant Jordanian security, UBL operatives would have
conducted attacks in that country to disrupt Millennium
celebrations. Members of his network and other like-minded
radical Mujahedin are active globally. Bin Ladin funds
training camps and participates in a loose worldwide
terrorist network that includes groups such as the Egyptian
Islamic Jihad and the Kashmiri Harakat al Mujahedin.
UBL network is analogous to a multinational corporation.
Bin Ladin, as CEO, provides guidance, funding, and
logistical support, but his henchmen, like regional
directors or affiliates, have broad latitude and sometimes
pursue their own agendas.
Some terrorists, including bin Ladin, have evinced
interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Thus
far, however, only Aum Shinrikyo, the group responsible for
the 1995 subway gas attack in Tokyo, has actually used such
a weapon. There has been no repetition or credible threat
of such an attack in the last five years, but the problem
what we do not, and possibly cannot, know is when, where, by
whom, and why.
State sponsorship of terrorism has declined, but it has not disappeared. Iran stili supports groups such as the Palestine Islamic Jihad dedicated to the disruption of the Middle East Peace Process. Iraq also harbors terrorists and may be rebuilding its intelligence networks to support terrorism. Afghanistan's Taleban, though not a national government, does provide crucial safe haven to UYL.
Proliferation. The efforts of many nations to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the missiles to deliver them continues to present a serious potential threat to the safety of US citizens abroad and at home, and to US interests worldwide. It is difficult, however, to characterize the WMD threat without caricature, difficult to raise alarms without drowning out reasons for encouragement.
The gravity of nuclear proliferation significantly
outweighs that of either chemical weapons or biological
weapons proliferation. But, although the basic
understanding of nuclear weapons physics is widespread,
nuclear weapons are, fortunately, the most difficult kind to
produce or acquire. Access to fissile material is a
critical impediment. The challenges to the international
nuclear non-proliferation regime represented by the Indian
and Pakistani nuclear tests of 1998 are real but must be
seen in the context of decisions earlier in the decade by
South Africa, Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil, and others (1.e.,
Belarus and Kazakhstan) to forgo the nuclear option. The
success of diplomatic efforts to extend indefinitely the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, to enhance IAEA safeguards, and to
win nearly universal membership in the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty provide evidence that the international community
recognizes the nuclear danger and is making progress in
providing the means to counter it. Today only a few states
appear to be actively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
The greatest near-term danger remains the potential for
shortcuts in the transfer of weapons technology and weapons
grade fissile materials to such states from the existing
nuclear powers. But, despite fears of "leakage" from
stockpiles of the former Soviet Union and sales by North
Korea, we have not yet been faced with activities in this
area on a scale that has raised significant concerns.
Chemical weapons are more of a tactical threat to US forces and allies than a strategic threat to the homeland. Biological and toxin weapons are more of a terrorist threat to civilian populations than an effective instrument cf
warfare. Potential CW and BW threats are nonetheless real
and increasingly widespread. Despite broad participation in
the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons
Convention, the dual-use nature of the relevant
technologies, modest technological prerequisites for
development, and the low profile of illicit activities
suggest that the potential threat from both state and non-
state actors will continue to grow.
Ballistic missiles remain the most feared delivery mode
for WMD because of their speed, relative invulnerability to
attack (when mobile), and ability to penetrate defenses.
There has been a dramatic increase in the aggregate number
of short-range ballistic missiles in recent years; this
growth will continue. The increase in the number of longer-
range missiles has been much slower. International efforts,
such as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and
various bilateral understandings between supplier states,
have made it more difficult for states of proliferation
concern to develop and deploy ballistic missiles. By adding
to the significant technological challenge proliferant
states must overcome to develop multi-stage missile systems,
these external controis force such states to use covert or
less efficient paths of development, increasing the cost and
Lime requirements for system development. As a result,
missile proliferation has occurred at a slower rate than
predicted by previous Intelligence Community (IC) estimates.
INR assesses that, among states seeking long-range missiles,
only North Korea could potentially threaten the US homeland
with ballistic missiles in this decade, and only if it
abandons its current moratorium on long-range missile flight
testing.
The Nuclear Threat. Only Russia has the unqualified
capacity to destroy the United States. Indeed, for the
foreseeable future, Russia's ability to threaten US
territory and overseas interests is greater than that of all
other potential adversaries combined. China is the only
other country not an ally of the United States that
currently has the capacity to strike the US homeland with
nuclear weapons. The aggregate nuclear-armed ICBM threat
against the United States is declining dramatically,
however, as a result of Russian military choices related to
START I and START II and the significantly reduced size of
the Russian economy (compared with that of the Soviet
Union). China's force, however, is in the process of modest
expansion. We assess the likelihood of an attack on the
United States by either Russia or China to be extremely low
and judge that both have effective safeguards against
|