WASHINGTON - With key improvements in the
security situation in Iraq during 2007, al-Qaeda -
and particularly its central leadership based in
border regions of Pakistan - continues to pose the
most significant threats to the United States,
both at home and abroad, according to the Director
of National Intelligence, retired Admiral J
Michael McConnell.
And while the group has
suffered major setbacks, particularly in Iraq,
during the past year, it has successfully
maintained its unity and is improving its ability
to attack the United States itself, in part by
identifying, training and positioning westerners
capable of carrying out such an attack, according
to McConnell, who presented the intelligence
community's "annual threat
assessment" before the Senate
Intelligence Committee in Washington on Tuesday.
"While increased security measures at home
and abroad have caused al-Qaeda to view the West,
especially the US, as a harder target," he told
lawmakers, "we have seen an influx of new Western
recruits into the tribal areas [in Pakistan] since
mid-2006."
Al-Qaeda and its affiliates,
among the most active and dangerous of which is
the al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb,
remain the most significant threat. However, US
intelligence agencies remain concerned about the
alleged weapons of mass destruction programs of
both Iran and North Korea and Washington's
vulnerability to attacks by both states, non-state
or criminal actors on its information
infrastructure.
McConnell's 45-page
written testimony also expressed concerns about
global energy security, including the possibility
of "a major oil supply disruption" and its impact
on the global economy; and the increased risk of
social and political instability in developing
countries resulting from the "double impact of
high energy and food prices".
The
increased cost of both fuel and food, according to
McConnell has already "outstripped global aid
budgets and adversely impacted the ability of
donor countries and organizations to provide food
aid", he noted, adding that recent public protests
from Mexico to Morocco could portend broader
disruptions.
McConnell, who appeared with
the directors of Washington's most important
intelligence agencies, including the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), also said the
intelligence community was worried that major oil
exporters, both Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries and non-OPEC members,
including Venezuela and Russia, will use their
"windfall profits" to pursue political goals
harmful to US interests.
In Tuesday's
testimony, CIA director retired General Michael
Hayden acknowledged publicly for the first time
that the controversial interrogation technique
known as "waterboarding" - which human rights
groups have denounced as torture - had been used
against three senior al-Qaeda leaders while they
were being held secretly in 2002 and 2003.
His confirmation prompted a call by Human
Rights Watch late Tuesday for a criminal
investigation by the Department of Justice.
Waterboarding, in which the prisoner is made to
believe he is drowning, has been prosecuted by US
courts as torture since the Spanish-American War
110 years ago.
The annual threat
assessment, of which McConnell's testimony
represents the unclassified version, is designed
to provide an overview to lawmakers of the most
important risks to US national security.
McConnell reiterated the main finding of a
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) from last
July that al-Qaeda has "regenerated its core
operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks
in the homeland", primarily through its retention
of a safe haven in Pakistan's border areas which
serve as a "staging area" for 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". On Afghanistan,
McConnell insisted that NATO, US and Afghan army
forces had scored tactical victories over the
Taliban, but that the security situation in the
southern part of the country has deteriorated,
while Taliban forces have expanded operations into
previously peaceful forces in the west and around
Kabul.
On Pakistan, a growing concern of
US policymakers, McConnell warned that "radical
elements have the potential to undermine the
country's cohesiveness" and that December's
assassination of former prime minister Benazir
Bhutto could embolden Pashtun militants, many of
whom are linked to the Taliban.
On Iran,
McConnell stuck closely to the findings of last
December's NIE which asserted "with high
confidence" that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons
design and weapons development activities in the
fall of 2003, even while it maintained other
programs, including ballistic-missile development
and uranium enrichment that could be used for a
nuclear weapons program.
Hopes for regime
change in Iran and North Korea were unlikely to be
realized, at least in the near term, according to
McConnell.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and
Iran's various conservative factions, despite
growing infighting in the run-up to this year's
parliamentary elections, "are expected to maintain
control over a politically stable, if economically
troubled Iranian state". Record high oil export
earnings have placed Iran "on its soundest
financial footing since the revolution".
As for North Korea, "The regime appears
stable, but persistent economic privation and
natural disasters ... and uncertainty about
succession arrangements create the potential for
domestic unrest with unpredictable consequences."
Elsewhere, he said, "Russian national
power - from trade and energy, to diplomatic
instruments and military and intelligence
capabilities - are on a path to grow over the next
four years."
On Latin America, he said
"gradual consolidation of democracy remained the
dominant trend over the last year ... but a small
group of radical populist governments continues to
project a competing vision that appeals to many of
the region's poor."
He cited Venezuela,
Bolivia, Nicaragua, and "more tentatively",
Ecuador as governments pursuing agendas that
weakened democratic institutions. On Cuba, he said
the political situation is "likely to remain
stable at least in the initial months following
Fidel Castro's death and do not expect to see
overt signs of major cleavage in the ruling elite
..."
As for Africa, he said the situation
in the oil-producing Niger Delta "poses a direct
threat to US strategic interests in the region. He
said Nigeria's "overall political stability
remains fragile". Ethiopia and Eritrea, he noted,
appear to be preparing for a new war, while the
Ethiopian-backed government in neighboring Somalia
"is incapable of administering [the country]" and
probably would flee Mogadishu or collapse if the
Ethiopians withdrew.
Meanwhile, "The
crisis in Sudan's Darfur region shows few signs of
resolution, even if the planned UN peacekeeping
force of 26,000 is fully deployed."
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