Amid criticism that intelligence services missed the signs of Arab revolt in Tunisia and Egypt, the nation’s top intelligence official was scheduled to tell Congress that the threat from al-Qaeda and its affiliates remains his No. 1 priority, US officials said.
In testimony scheduled for yesterday before the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was to stress that counterterrorism to keep Americans safe is the focus of the intelligence community, according to one of those officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Clapper was expected defend how the intelligence community tracked the revolts that have swept through two major US allies in the Arab world, toppling the leader of Tunisia and threatening the regime in Egypt, the officials said.
Lawmakers have questioned whether the focus on al-Qaeda and its militant offshoots has weakened the intelligence community’s attention on other parts of the world.
The threat assessment hearing is often described as the most important of the year because the director of intelligence lays out the 16 major intelligence agencies’ priorities. It drives the agenda for the intelligence community and the congressional committees that must decide what issues to tackle and what programs to fund.
For the past two years, Clapper’s predecessor, retired Admiral Dennis Blair, faced the lawmakers alone, but Clapper has reverted to the previous practice of bringing other top agency chiefs with him.
Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Clapper will be CIA Director Leon Panetta, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, and the directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
In Blair’s last such hearing, he trumpeted cyber-terrorism as the top challenge for the community to tackle.
Clapper would revisit cyber terror, as well as stressing the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, one official said. However, Clapper would focus on the militant threat, just a day after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the House Homeland Security Committee that the terrorist threat to the US is at its highest level since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. During the same hearing, Leiter said al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Yemen was “the most significant risk to the US homeland.”
The threat assessment hearing is also the lawmakers’ annual opportunity to put their most pressing questions to the top officials in a public setting. This year, the House Intelligence Committee gets the first crack at them, with the Senate going second.
Intelligence Committee members are expected to ask whether the intelligence community fumbled its analysis of the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia. The lawmakers received a classified briefing on Tuesday on Egypt and other “Middle East hotspots,” said a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.
The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, on Tuesday called the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts a “wake-up” for the intelligence community in an interview on MSNBC.
Last week, Feinstein and other senators questioned CIA official Stephanie O’Sullivan over whether the combined US agencies had provided specific warnings that violence was about to unfold.
O’Sullivan said US President Barack Obama was warned of instability in Egypt “at the end of last year.” She was speaking at her confirmation hearing to become the deputy director of national intelligence, second in command to Clapper.
The senators pressed O’Sullivan to provide a timetable of what intelligence the president was provided and when. The responses will be provided within days, according to an intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese