Senate Select Intelligence Committee hears evidence of terrorism, weapons in Iraq

By Deirdre Fulton

WASHINGTON – The Senate Select Intelligence Committee heard Tuesday what Maine Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, a member of the committee, called “a sobering reminder” of the threats facing the nation.

The United States faces terrorist threats from multiple sources, FBI director Robert Mueller and CIA director George Tenet told the panel at a public hearing. The two joined other defense and intelligence officials to testify about what they described as the unrelenting danger presented by Al Qaeda’s resourcefulness, determination and ties to Iraq.

Al Qaeda forces persist in developing plans for destruction, Mueller testified, and are the “most urgent threat” to the United States.

The intelligence regarding Al Qaeda that has come to the attention of U.S. officials in recent days “is not idle chatter on the part of terrorists and their associates,” Tenet said, referring to the terrorist threat level that was raised to high on Friday based on that intelligence. “It is the most specific we have seen, and it is consistent with our knowledge of Al Qaeda doctrine and our knowledge of plots in this network.”

In a statement after the committee session, Snowe said the hearing “was a sobering reminder that America must stand down an array of threats, from Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, that are poised against us.”

During questioning, Snowe said that while she was pleased that there has been increased communication between federal and state agencies, she was concerned about her experience at the Portland airport last week, when airport officials learned about the threat level only after hearing about it on CNN.

“I’m hoping that we are in the best position to disseminate this information, especially when we’re talking about the second-highest alert,” Snowe said.

In their testimony, Tenet and Mueller warned that Al Qaeda will aim at “softer,” less well-protected targets in future attacks while developing new ways to strike at the United States. Tenet also said there were signs that the terrorist organization has established a presence in Iraq and Iran and is “developing and refining new means of attack” like poisons and surface-to-air missiles – signs Secretary of State Colin Powell outlined in his speech to the United Nations last week.

Mueller emphasized that despite several agency successes since Sept. 11, 2001, including the deportation of many suspected terrorists and the damaging of terrorist networks in Seattle, Florida, Detroit and Chicago, Al Qaeda remains the “primary threat to our security.”

“FBI investigations reveal Islamic militants in the United States,” Mueller said. “We strongly suspect that several hundred of these extremists are linked to Al Qaeda.” These groups, he said, focus on fundraising and recruitment, but could also be tapped into to carry out terrorist attacks.

As Al Qaeda is evolving to develop new tactics, so must the FBI, Mueller said.

“The greatest threat is from the Al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify,” he added. “Finding and rooting out Al Qaeda members once they have entered the United States…is our most serious intelligence and law enforcement challenge.”

Information sharing among federal agencies has improved in the past 16 months, Mueller said. Because the FBI and the CIA have access to the same foreign and domestic intelligence, the agencies were better able to address certain threats that led to the rise in the terrorist threat level, they said.

Local agencies agree that communication has been much better between all federal and state agencies since the Sept. 11 attacks. Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said in a telephone interview that communication with Washington has been much more effective since then.

Maine emergency management officials have “taken the increased threat very seriously,” said Lynette Miller, public information coordinator for the Maine Emergency Management Agency. When the threat level was raised, Miller explained in a telephone interview, information was passed down “through a number of channels,” with messengers occasionally overlapping.

According to Michael Riccuti, chief of the anti-terrorism unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, regional anti-terrorism officials are collaborating and discussing ways to coordinate New England threat prevention and response in the future to make sure information is analyzed in ways that take the entire Northeast region into account.

Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.