Mr.
Chairman, my classified statement sets forth additional
detailed information about what we know and can anticipate
about al-Qa’ida’s operational methodology.
I will be happy to address those matters with the Committee
in a closed session.
We
also remain concerned about al-Qa’ida’s efforts
to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The discovery
of ricin in Europe, al-Qa’ida’s clear interest
in a range of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear
(CBRN) weapons, and its desire to attack the U.S. at equal
or greater levels than 9/11, highlight the need for continual
vigilance in this regard.
Finally,
al-Qa’ida retains a cadre of supporters within the
U.S. that extends across the country. These supporters
are not confined to individuals of Middle Eastern extraction,
as evidenced by the members of the al-Qa’ida support
group arrested and convicted in Portland, Oregon. In fact,
al-Qa’ida appears to recognize the operational advantage
it can derive from recruiting U.S. citizens. While the
bulk of al-Qa’ida’s supporters in the U.S.
are engaged in fundraising, recruitment, and logistics,
there have been cases of those apparently involved in
operational planning.
Other International Terrorist Groups
While al-Qa’ida and like-minded groups remain at
the forefront of the war on terror, other groups, such
as Hizballah, HAMAS and PIJ in the U.S. warrant equal
vigilance due to their ongoing capability to launch terrorist
attacks inside the U.S. Historically, however, these groups
have limited their militant activities to Israeli targets
and have reserved the U.S. for fundraising, recruitment,
and procurement.
The
FBI disrupted several significant Hizballah cells over
the last year. In Charlotte, North Carolina, an individual
was sentenced to 155 years in jail for conspiring to provide
material support to Hizballah. In Detroit, Michigan, 11
individuals – some of whom have admitted to ties
to Hizballah – were charged with bank fraud, cigarette
smuggling and RICO offenses. These arrests were the result
of a long-term investigation of criminal enterprises associated
with Hizballah.
The Foreign Intelligence Threat
Mr. Chairman, although the impact of terrorism is more
immediate and highly visible, espionage and foreign intelligence
activities are no less threats to U.S. national security.
Given our country's stature as the leading political,
military, economic, and scientific power, both now and
for the foreseeable future, foreign intelligence services
and non-intelligence collectors will continue to recruit
sources to penetrate the U.S. Intelligence Community and
U.S. government, target our national economic interests,
research and development base, and national defense plans
and information, and assert political influence through
perception management operations. The loss of sensitive,
classified, and proprietary information critical to U.S.
interests can hamper our ability to conduct international
relations, threaten our military, and diminish our technological
base and economic competitiveness.
My classified statement discusses our National Strategy
for Counterintelligence and our current assessment of
foreign intelligence threats. I will be happy to address
these issues in greater detail in a closed session.
The Cyber Threat
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to mention that
the FBI is also expanding our efforts to address the rapidly
growing cyber threat as it relates to both terrorism and
national security. The number of individuals and groups
with the ability to use computers for illegal, harmful,
and possibly devastating purposes is on the rise. We are
particularly concerned about terrorists and state actors
wishing to exploit vulnerabilities in U.S. systems and
networks.
The
FBI has a division dedicated to combating cyber crime
and cyber terrorism. We are committed to identifying and
neutralizing those individuals or groups that illegally
access computer systems, spread malicious code, support
terrorist or state sponsored computer operations, and
steal trade secrets that present an economic and security
threat to the U.S.
TRANSFORMATION
OF THE FBI
Prioritization,
Mobilization, and Centralization
Over the past year, the men and women of the FBI have
continued to implement a plan that fundamentally transforms
our organization to enhance our ability to predict and
prevent terrorism. As you know, we took the first steps
toward this transformation in the days and weeks following
the 9/11 attacks. We established a new set of priorities
that govern the allocation of manpower and resources in
every FBI program and office. Counterterrorism is our
overriding priority, and every terrorism lead is addressed,
even if it requires a diversion of resources from other
priorities. The other threats discussed above are also
top priorities for the FBI.
Since
9/11, we have centralized management of our counterterrorism,
counterintelligence, and cyber programs to limit “stove
piping” of information, to coordinate operations,
to conduct liaison with other agencies and governments,
and to be accountable for the overall development and
success of our efforts in these areas. Our operational
divisions at Headquarters have analyzed the threat environment,
devised national strategies to address the most critical
threats, and are implementing these strategies in every
field office, task force, and Legat.
We
have also reallocated resources in accordance with the
new priorities. For example, we increased the number of
agents assigned to counterterrorism from roughly 1,300
to 2,300, and hired over 400 analysts. To enhance our
translation capabilities, we increased the number of permanent
and contract linguists with skills in critical languages
from 555 to over 1,200. We also established a number of
new operational units that give us new or improved capabilities
to address the terrorist threat.
The FBI Intelligence Program
Over the past year, we have made tremendous progress in
implementing the next key step in our transformation –
the FBI’s Intelligence Program.
While the FBI has always been among the world's best collectors
of information, for a variety of historical reasons, the
Bureau never established a formal infrastructure to exploit
that information fully for its intelligence value. Individual
FBI agents have always capably analyzed the evidence in
their particular cases, and then used that analysis to
guide their investigations. But the FBI as an institution
never elevated that analytical process above the individual
case or investigation to an overall effort to analyze
intelligence and strategically direct intelligence collection.
Today,
an enterprise-wide intelligence program is absolutely
essential. The threats to the homeland are not contained
by geographic boundaries and often do not fall neatly
into investigative program categories. Consequently, threat
information has relationships and applicability that crosses
both internal and external organizational boundaries.
Counter-terrorism efforts must incorporate elements from
-- and contribute toward -- counter-intelligence, cyber,
and criminal programs. In order to respond to this changing
threat environment, we are building our capabilities to
fuse, analyze and disseminate our related intelligence,
and to create collection requirements based on our analysis
of the intelligence gaps about our adversaries.
We have created an Office of Intelligence within the FBI
to establish and execute standards for recruiting, hiring,
training, and developing the intelligence analytic workforce,
and ensuring that analysts are assigned to operational
and field divisions based on intelligence priorities.
We also established a new position, the Executive Assistant
Director for Intelligence (EAD-I), who joins the three
other Executive Assistant Directors in the top tier of
FBI management. We have hired an intelligence expert with
25 years of experience in the Intelligence Community to
serve in this position, which is responsible for managing
the national analytical program and for institutionalizing
intelligence processes in all areas of FBI operations.
We
have established a formal requirements process for identifying
and resolving intelligence gaps. This will allow us to
identify key gaps in our collection capability that must
be filled through targeted collection strategies.
Finally,
in order to ensure that FBI-wide collection plans and
directives are incorporated into field activities, all
field offices have established a Field Intelligence Group
(FIG). The FIG is the centralized intelligence component
in each field office that is responsible for the management,
execution, and coordination of intelligence functions.
FIG personnel gather, analyze, and disseminate the intelligence
collected in their field office.
Field
offices will also support the "24-hour intelligence
cycle" of the FBI by employing all appropriate resources
to monitor, collect, and disseminate threat information,
investigative developments (e.g. urgent reports), and
other significant raw intelligence to meet the executive
information needs of the field offices, other field offices,
FBI Headquarters, Legal Attachés, and other federal
or state and local agencies.
If
our Intelligence Program is to succeed, we must continue
to build and strengthen our intelligence workforce. Our
efforts to recruit, hire, and train agents and analysts
with intelligence experience began shortly after September
11, 2001. In 2003 and in early 2004, we have also taken
steps to enhance the stature of intelligence and analysis
within the FBI and to provide career incentives for specialization
in these areas. To ensure that our intelligence mission
is carried out, we revised field office and program inspections
and agent and management evaluations to make it clear
that developing and disseminating intelligence is the
job of every office and agent.
Mr.
Chairman, my prepared statement provides additional details
about the many enhancements to our intelligence program
to include increased training, targeted hiring, creation
of a College of Analytical Studies, establishment of career
tracks for Agents who devote their careers to intelligence,
and improvements to our information technology. In the
interest of time, Mr. Chairman, I will conclude at this
point and respond to any questions the Committee may have.
Thank you again for the opportunity to be here today.