ican people to do all that we can to prevent a recurrence of September 11. These and other issues will be explored with our witnesses in a closed hearing this afternoon and for the remainder of this session of Congress. I want to thank our witnesses who are appearing here today. We have with us Mr. George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence; Mr. Carl Ford, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research; Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; and Mr. Dale Watson, Executive Assistant Director for Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence. In order to optimize the time for questions of our witnesses, immediately after Vice Chairman Senator Shelby makes his opening statement, we will ask Director Tenet to present his testimony. We will ask our other witnesses to submit their full statements for the record. For our question-and-answer period, we will observe the normal Committee rule of first arrival, first to question. The questions will be limited to five minutes per round. Vice Chairman Shelby. Vice Chairman SHELBY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We held our last open hearing on national security threats one year ago tomorrow, as Senator Graham has alluded to. Director Tenet, on that day, you testified here that first and foremost among the threats to the U.S. was the threat posed by international terrorism, and specifically by Usama bin Ladin's global terrorist network. We all agreed with you when you said, and I quote, "The highest priority for our intelligence community must invariably be on those things that threaten the lives of Americans or the physical security of the United States." To fight this terrorist threat, you assured us then, and I quote again, "The intelligence community has designed a robust counterterrorism program that has preempted, disrupted and defeated international terrorists and their activities." In fact, you told us then, "In most instances, we've kept terrorists off-balance, forcing them to worry about their own security and degrading their ability to plan and to conduct operations.” Seven months after your testimony, in an attack that apparently had been years in the planning, Usama bin Ladin's terrorists killed nearly 3,000 innocent Americans in less than one hour. As you know, the U.S. has an intelligence community today and a Director of Central Intelligence in large part because of the Pearl Harbor disaster of December 7th, 1941. The fear of another Pearl Harbor provided the impetus for our establishment of a national-level intelligence bureaucracy. This system was created so that America would never have to face another devastating surprise attack. That second devastating surprise attack came on September 11th, and as I said, it killed more Americans than did the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. All of us, I think, owe the American people an explanation as to why our intelligence community failed to provide adequate warning of such a terrorist attack on our soil. After all, as Director Tenet has stated, the Director of Central Intelligence is hired not to observe and to comment but to warn and to protect. In the very near future, this Committee will join with the House Intelligence Committee in an effort to provide an explanation to the American people. Once we determine why we were caught completely by surprise, I believe we must then work together to ensure that there is no third Pearl Harbor. I'm pleased that the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, and his colleagues have joined us today. These threat hearings are important, because understanding what the threats are is the first step toward helping our intelligence community meet the challenge of defending against them. Mr. Chairman, these hearings also give the respective leaders within the intelligence community an opportunity to speak directly to the American people. While the bulk of the activities of the intelligence community are secret, there is a great deal we can and I think we should discuss in a public forum, as you called for today. With that in mind, I ask each of our witnesses to address members' questions to the greatest extent possible in this open setting. Not long ago, our intelligence community faced a single clear threat-the Soviet Union and its communist allies-against which it could devote most of its resources and attention. With the end of the Cold War, the world situation facing our intelligence agencies underwent a fundamental change. Until that point, murky transnational threats had been only sideshows to the main event of the East-versus-West strategic rivalry. Today, however, coping with asymmetric transnational challenges such as terrorism has become the most important duty of our intelligence community. To say the least, the post-Cold War period has been one of difficult transition. Even before September 11, we had a rocky history of intelligence failures-among them, the bombing of Khobar Towers, the Indian nuclear test, the bombing of our East African embassies, the first attack on the World Trade Center buildings, and the attack upon the USS COLE. Examined individually, each of these failures, tragic in their own way, may not suggest a continuing or systemic problem. But, however, taken as a whole and culminating with the events of September 11, they present a disturbing series of intelligence shortfalls that I believe expose some serious problems in the structure of and approaches taken by our intelligence community. We will have many opportunities in the very near future to discuss the structural and organizational defects inherent in our intelligence community. But for today, we should remember that understanding the threat is the first step along a road that must lead to improvements in how our nation confronts these threats. It has become apparent that international terrorism now poses the most significant threat to our national security and our interests at home and abroad. I will be interested to hear what our intelligence agencies believe such threats will look like in the future. Just as militaries can face defeat if they keep trying to fight the last war, so can intelligence agencies suffer terrible strategic surprise if they spend their time trying to meet the last threat or if they try to meet new threats with the mindset, tactics and obsolete mythologies of the past. The U.S. clearly faces unprecedented dangers today, and we will surely face new ones tomorrow. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today as we discuss these threats and how we can work together to defeat them in the future. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. As indicated previously, we will now receive the testimony from Director Tenet. We'll ask for the other witnesses to submit their statements, and then we will proceed to questions. Director Tenet. [The prepared statements of Mr. Tenet, Mr. Ford, Admiral Wilson, and Dale Watson follow:] Worldwide Threat - Converging Dangers in a Post 9/11 World Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (U) Mr. Chairman, I appear before you this year under circumstances that are extraordinary and historic for reasons I need not recount. Never before has the subject of this annual threat briefing had more immediate resonance. Never before have the dangers been more clear or more present. (U) September 11 brought together and brought home literally-several vital threats to the United States and its interests that we have long been aware of. It is the convergence of these threats that I want to emphasize with you today: the connection between terrorists and other enemies of this country; the weapons of mass destruction they seek to use against us; and the social, economic, and political tensions across the world that they exploit in mobilizing their followers. September 11 demonstrated the dangers that arise when these threats converge—and it reminds us that we overlook at our own peril the impact of crises in remote parts of the world. (U) This convergence of threats has created the world I will present to you today-a world in which dangers exist not only in those places where we have most often focused our attention, but also in other areas that demand it: • In places like Somalia, where the absence of a national government has created an environment in which groups sympathetic to alQa'ida have offered terrorists an operational base and potential haven. UNCLASSIFIED • In places like Indonesia, where political instability, separatist and ethnic tensions, and protracted violence are hampering economic recovery and fueling Islamic extremism. • In places like Colombia, where leftist insurgents who make much of their money from drug trafficking are escalating their assault on the government-further undermining economic prospects and fueling a cycle of violence. • And finally, Mr. Chairman, in places like Connecticut, where the death of a 94-year-old woman in her own home of anthrax poisoning can arouse our worst fears about what our enemies might try to do to us. (U) These threats demand our utmost response. The United States has clearly demonstrated since September 11 that it is up to the challenge. But make no mistake: despite the battles we have won in Afghanistan, we remain a nation at war. TERRORISM (U) Last year I told you that Usama Bin Ladin and the al Qa'ida network were the most immediate and serious threat this country faced. This remains true today despite the progress we have made in Afghanistan and in disrupting the network elsewhere. We assess that Al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups will continue to plan to attack this country and its interests abroad. Their modus operandi is to have multiple attack plans in the works simultaneously, and to have al-Qa'ida cells in place to conduct them. • We know that terrorists have considered attacks in the US against high-profile government or private facilities, famous landmarks, and US infrastructure nodes such as airports, bridges, harbors, and dams. High profile events such as the Olympics or last weekend's Super Bowl also fit the terrorists' interest in striking another blow within the United States that would command worldwide media attention. 2 |