CIA head voices concern over cross-strait peace

CIA Porter Goss said on Thursday that the opportunity for reconciliation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait had been damaged by China's passage of its "Anti-Secession" Law and Taiwan's push for a new constitution.

In testimony to the Senate Committee on Armed Services on Thursday morning, Goss cited both the new law and Taiwan's "constitutional re-engineering" as negative factors affecting cross-strait relations.

Gross the statement while discussing current and future worldwide threats to US national security. He said the Taiwan Strait is one of the five most sensitive security issues in the world.

"A mild thaw in cross-strait relations, following the first-ever non-stop flights across the Strait, may be eclipsed by Beijing's Anti-Secession Law and Taipei's constitutional reform agenda," he said.

"Beijing enacted on March 14 an anti-secession law [that] Taipei characterizes as a war-authorizing law. Taipei's National Assembly will vote this summer on constitutional reforms that Beijing has warned are part of a timeline for independence," he said.

"If Beijing decides that Taiwan is taking steps toward permanent separation that exceed Beijing's tolerance, we believe China is prepared to respond with various levels of force," he said.

According to Goss, Beijing's military modernization and military buildup is tilting the balance of power in the Strait, and its improved capabilities are threatening US forces in the region now.

"In 2004, China increased its ballistic missile forces deployed across from Taiwan and rolled out several new submarines," he said, stressing that China continues to develop more robust, survivable nuclear-armed missiles, as well as conventional capabilities for use in a regional conflict.

He said that China is increasingly confident and active on the international stage, trying to ensure it has a voice on major issues and counter what it sees as US efforts to contain or encircle it.

"[The] new leadership under President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) is facing an array of domestic challenges in 2005, such as the potential for a resurgence in inflation, increased dependence on exports, growing economic inequalities, increased awareness of individual rights, and popular expectations for the new leadership," Gross said.

He also addressed the controversy over his agency's interrogation practices during his testimony.

US do not view torture as a method for gaining vital intelligence, Goss said. But he acknowledged some CIA operatives may have been uncertain about approved interrogation techniques in the past.

"Professional interrogation has become a very useful and necessary way to obtain information to save innocent lives, to disrupt terrorist schemes and to protect our combat forces," he said.

"The United States does not engage in or condone torture," he said.

"I know for a fact that torture is not productive. That's not professional interrogation. We don't torture," he said.

Goss the CIA complied fully with a broad definition of torture contained in a Justice Department memo issued on Dec. 30 last year. He could not offer assurances about CIA practices earlier last year, when the government followed a narrower interrogation policy.