S. HRG. 107-597 CURRENT AND PROJECTED NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS TO THE UNITED STATES HEARING BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION CURRENT AND PROJECTED NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS FEBRUARY 6, 2002 81-064 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 2002 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office LL CONTENTS Hearing held in Washington, DC, February 6, 2002 Ford, Hon. Carl W. Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence Tenet, Hon. George J., Director of Central Intelligence, Central Intel- Watson, Dale L., Executive Assistant Director, Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation Wilson, Vice Admiral Thomas R., Director, Defense Intelligence Agency Letter to Hon. George J. Tenet transmitting Questions for the Record Letter to Hon. Carl W. Ford, Jr. transmitting Questions for the Record Letter to Hon. Robert Mueller, transmitting Questions for the Record Letter to Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson transmitting Questions for the Page 5 57 THE WORLDWIDE THREAT WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002 U.S. SENATE, SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, the Honorable Bob Graham (chairman of the committee) presiding. Committee Members Present: Senators Graham, Rockefeller, Wyden, Bayh, Edwards, Shelby, Kyl, Roberts, and DeWine. Chairman GRAHAM. I call the meeting to order. For several years, this Committee has had a practice of commencing its annual oversight of the United States intelligence community by holding a public hearing to present to the American people and our Committee members the intelligence community's assessment of the current and projected national security threats to the United States. There is nothing more important to our national security than timely and accurate intelligence. Intelligence forms the foundation of our foreign policy and provides the basis of our nation's defense planning, strategy, and supports our warfighters. The intelligence community is our nation's early-warning system against threats to the lives and property of United States citizens and residents here and around the world. The importance of this mission became particularly apparent on September 11 when our nation's greatest strengths-our freedom, our openness were successfully exploited by an elusive global network of determined zealots. The terrorist threat has been on the intelligence community's radar screen for years. Indeed, it was almost exactly a year ago today, on February 7th of 2001, when Director George Tenet testified at this same open session. He stated, and I quote, "Usama bin Ladin and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat. His organization is continuing to place emphasis on developing surrogates to carry out attacks in an effort to avoid detection, blame and retaliation. As a result, it is often difficult to attribute terrorist incidents to his group, the al-Qa'ida." While the intelligence community has been aware of the great threat posed by bin Laden and his terrorist organization, it is a priority of this Committee to ascertain what more the intelligence community could have done to avert the September 11 tragedy. We must identify any systemic shortcomings in our intelligence community and fix those as soon as possible. We owe it to the Amer |