Terrorists regrouping, plotting attacks, officials say
Goss, Rumsfeld urge Congress to pass Bush military budget
By Katherine Shrader
Associated Press
Published February 17, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Speaking with one voice, President Bush's top intelligence and military officials said Wednesday that terrorists are regrouping for possible new strikes against the United States.
They said the best defense is for Congress to approve the president's military and anti-terror budget. But some in Congress, including prominent Republicans, are questioning some of that spending.
Offering few specifics on terror threats, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a House hearing that the government could reasonably predict that attacks would come from terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and other means.
New CIA Director Porter Goss told the
Senate Intelligence Committee that the Iraq war is giving terrorists experience and contacts for future attacks, and FBI Director Robert Mueller expressed worry that a sleeper operative in the U.S. may have been in place for years, awaiting orders for an attack.
"I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing," Mueller said in remarks he submitted to the senators.
Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee that the proposed $419 billion defense package for 2006 would set an ambitious course to "continue prosecuting the war and to attack its ideological underpinnings."
Yet the Republican-controlled Congress may reject White House requests to simply sign the checks.
House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said lawmakers are questioning billions in foreign aid and State Department spending that Bush requested in an emergency bill this week.
DeLay (R-Texas) said some of Bush's foreign aid proposals "probably do not qualify" for the expedited treatment he's seeking.
Senior administration officials appearing at congressional hearings Wednesday described a Muslim extremist threat that has become more diffuse, encompassing Al Qaeda and like-minded associates.
Goss said Al Qaeda remains intent on circumventing U.S. security measures and attacking the United States.
"It may be only a matter of time before Al Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons," Goss said at the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual hearing on threats.
According to written testimony by Adm. James Loy, deputy secretary of homeland security, intelligence "strongly suggests" that Al Qaeda operatives have considered using the Mexican border as an entry point, The New York Times reported. But Loy wrote that there is "currently no conclusive evidence" that this had succeeded.
Goss' testimony was his first as CIA chief.
He said the Iraq conflict has become a cause for extremists. "Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism," he said.
Officials also spoke of countries they said posed conventional diplomatic, military and intelligence problems to the United States.
Goss said North Korea continues to "develop, produce, deploy and sell ballistic missiles of increasing range and sophistication." He said the secretive regime could "at any time" resume flight testing of a long-range missile capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear payload.
Iran, too, is further improving its Shahab-3 long-range ballistic missile, which has a range of more than 800 miles, Goss said.
In written testimony, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he believes Iran will continue its support for terrorism and aid for insurgents in Iraq. "Iran's long-term goal is to see the U.S. leave Iraq and the region," he said.
Rumsfeld noted U.S. successes in building a 90-nation anti-terror coalition, putting a squeeze on terror financing and eliminating two-thirds of Al Qaeda's leadership.
But "it isn't over. It's going to take awhile," he said. "It is a very serious business we're in."
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
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