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53–478 2009

ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT HEARING 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

PERMANENT SELECT 

COMMITTEE 

ON INTELLIGENCE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, FEBRUARY 25, 2009 

( 


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PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE 

SILVESTRE REYES, TX, Chairman 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey 

C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

MIKE THOMPSON, California 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma 

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

PETER T. KING, New York 


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ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT HEARING 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2009 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:02 a.m., in room 334, 

Cannon House Office Building, the Honorable Silvestre Reyes 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Reyes, Hastings, Eshoo, Holt, 

Ruppersberger, Tierney, Thompson, Schakowsky, Langevin, Murphy, Schiff, Smith, Boren, Hoekstra, Gallegly, Thornberry, Rogers, 

Miller, Kline and Conaway. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. The committee will please come 

to order. 

Today we convene the first public hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for the 111th Congress. Before I welcome our new members, I want to remind everybody we 

are having this hearing today in what I call the home of Chairman 

Sonny Montgomery, someone that championed issues for America’s 

veterans, someone that is highly regarded and revered not just in 

Congress but by veterans everywhere. So we are very appreciative 

to Chairman Filner for allowing us to borrow this great, historic 

hearing room here. 

With that, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the new 

members of this committee: Mr. Smith, Mr. Boren, Mrs. Myrick, 

Mr. Miller, Mr. Kline, and Mr. Conaway. And I would also like to 

welcome back to our returning members from previous service with 

the committee. My Vice Chair, Mr. Hastings, welcome back; and 

Mr. Blunt as well. 

Director Blair, welcome. This morning, we are pleased that you 

are here and happy to see you today. We also want to congratulate 

you on your recent confirmation and wish you well as you go forward under these difficult times that we are facing today as a Nation. 

As the Nation’s third Director of National Intelligence, you will 

be required to continue to refine the role of the DNI and advance 

the goals of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act 

of 2004, while at the same time never losing sight of the threats 

to our national security. I think we often make reference that this 

will be much like flying a plane and building it at the same time. 

So we are definitely prepared to stand with you and support your 

efforts. 

Before we get started, I also wanted to thank the Director for 

meeting with members of the committee yesterday in an informal 


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session. Feedback that I have gotten has been very positive, and 

we intend to do more of those meetings, being mindful and respectful of the challenge that you face and the time limitations that you 

have. But we deeply appreciate your willingness to do that. 

There were a few things about our discussion yesterday that I 

personally found very encouraging. 

First, I am pleased, Mr. Director, that you are looking carefully 

at the situation in Mexico and are in the process of determining 

whether we need to redouble our efforts in helping President 

Calderon and the Mexican government deal with threats posed by 

the drug cartels. 

Second, I am encouraged that the administration is conducting a 

comprehensive review of our policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

Third, I was interested to hear your thoughts on dealing with the 

detainees at Guantanamo Bay. When discussion turned to what 

our options might be with respect to closing of Guantanamo Bay, 

I think it is important to remind everyone that the United States 

has been capable of detaining and holding terrorists on our soil for 

many, many years. 

By way of examples, today, the U.S. prison system holds Ramzi 

Yousef, who is Khalid Sheik Mohammad’s nephew and one of the 

planners of the first World Trade Center attack. He was captured 

in Pakistan, extradited to the United States, convicted, and he now 

sits in a U.S. jail. 

The U.S. prison system also holds Omar Abdel Rahman, better 

known as the Blind Sheik, a participant also in the first World 

Trade Center attacks; as well as Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of 

participating in the September 11 attacks, also in a U.S. prison. Ali 

Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who has been labeled an enemy combatant 

by the Bush administration, has been securely held in a Navy brig. 

Those are just some of the examples of terrorists that are being 

held in the United States. 

Today, I am going to make a few general remarks and then address some specific areas of concern for our Nation. 

This is the third Annual Threat Assessment that I have presided 

over as chairman of this committee, and we are in a unique position this year. Although the new administration is just over a 

month old, we have seen some major changes to some of the most 

controversial issues which impact the Intelligence Community. 

President Obama’s Executive orders on detention and interrogation policies and on Guantanamo Bay represent a significant departure from the previous administration’s policies. I know that many 

of us have strong opinions on what should be done in these critical 

areas. My intention, though, is to give the President and his new 

appointees some space to work through these issues as they propose a way forward. However, I think we all recognize that we 

don’t have an unlimited amount of time. So I hope that the executive branch will move quickly on these critical issues. 

Director Blair, I am also hopeful that you and the new administration will bring about an improved interaction between the executive and legislative branches on intelligence matters. Too often in 

the past we have been left in the dark, or simply told things too 

late, or told only part of the story. You heard some of those comments yesterday in the informal session. I am truly optimistic that 


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you will bring positive change in this area as we see our way forward. 

One thing that will not change in the new administration is the 

strong character and drive of the men and women of the Intelligence Community. I have traveled throughout the world, as we 

mentioned to you yesterday, and have met with our intelligence 

personnel and have consistently come away impressed by the level 

of their dedication, their skill, their commitment, and their bravery. I know, in talking with you, you intend to spend some time 

traveling and meeting these same men and women around the 

world that are doing such critical work for our Nation. I hope that 

as you meet with them you will deliver to them our message of 

gratitude, support, and encouragement. 

In the coming months, we will also be asking you questions 

about funding and resource needs for the Intelligence Community. 

One of the principal functions of our committee is to ensure that 

the men and women working on the front lines have the tools that 

they need to combat terrorism and to protect our national security. 

We look to you for a frank assessment of what those needs may be. 

With respect to the substance of the threats facing the United 

States, I will outline four very basic principles on which I hope we 

will all agree and will seek your comment on them. First, al-Qaeda 

remains a significant threat. Second, American security policy will, 

for years, continue to be driven by Iraq and Afghanistan. Third, 

while we will continue to focus on the hot spots around the globe, 

we simply cannot forget about growing threats from China, Russia, 

Iran, and about long-standing problems in Latin America and in 

Africa. Fourth, our Nation’s cyber infrastructure remains vulnerable to attack. Our Intelligence Community must be deeply engaged as we respond to these threats. 

On the subject of al-Qaeda, I think it is beyond dispute that the 

last few years have seen expansion of the influence of al-Qaeda and 

the Taliban in the Federally Administered Tribal areas of Pakistan, a region known as FATA. This simply, in my opinion, cannot 

continue. With the freedom to recruit, train, and plot new attacks 

from the FATA, new safe havens across the globe continue to grow 

and emerge. Of particular concern are the expanding al-Qaeda networks in the Sahel region of North Africa and the emerging and 

intensifying al-Qaeda presence in Yemen. 

The fight against al Qaeda is not simply a matter of warfare. We 

have also got to make progress in countering the extremist ideology. This committee needs to know what has been done to 

counter the extremist message throughout the world. What threat 

do we face from radicalization in the homeland? What advances 

have our allies made in combating this threat? And, simply stated, 

what can we do better to address these threats worldwide? 

With respect to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our national 

interests will be tied to the outcome of these conflicts. Our children 

and grandchildren will pay the cost of these wars and will either 

reap the benefits or suffer the consequences of what we do here. 

The past 2 years have seen some success in Iraq, thanks to the heroic efforts of our military intelligence and diplomatic personnel. 

We are very grateful for all of their efforts. 


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At the same time, while significant progress has been made in 

Iraq, we are losing ground on the Taliban and insurgents in Afghanistan, who are now virtually indistinguishable from al-Qaeda. 

These terrorists, who have long found sanctuary in the border area 

between Afghanistan and Pakistan, not only directly threaten U.S. 

national security; they threaten our allies by insisting on spreading 

their violent and distorted interpretation of Islam. 

So as we balance forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, how will we 

protect the gains in Iraq while stopping the slide in Afghanistan? 

As I noted at the outset, while we maintain focused on al-Qaeda 

and on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have also got the rest 

of the world to worry about. We must continue to focus on the 

threats posed by state actors such as Iran and North Korea. As we 

have recently read in the open press, Iran placed its first domestically built satellite in orbit. But the same technology that can 

launch a satellite and put it in orbit is also useful for launching 

missiles. 

Coupled with the possibility of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, what is 

the Intelligence Community’s assessment of this threat? What is 

the Community’s assessment of Iran’s openness to increased diplomacy and engagement with the United States? Similarly, what 

progress has been made in the efforts to disarm North Korea? And 

what more needs to be done in both these important and vital 

areas of the world? 

Russia continues to pose challenges to our country. It has engaged in an aggressive foreign policy designed to provide an alternative to the United States and has positioned itself as a counter 

to U.S.-led international efforts. Through its military offensive in 

Georgia last summer, as well as its continuing intelligence efforts 

around the globe, Russia shows that it remains a threat to U.S. interests and our allies. Do we have, Director Blair, our intelligence 

resources adequately deployed to deal with this resurgence from 

Russia? 

In the last Congress, I expressed my desire for the Intelligence 

Community to focus on areas that had long been neglected in favor 

of other high-priority issues. Latin America and Africa come to 

mind. We previously believed the threats from these regions to be 

much less urgent, but they continue to have the potential to seriously threaten core U.S. national and security interests and will 

continue to grow in scope and severity. The security of the United 

States is directly affected by events in these important places. 

Like many people on the southwest border of the United States, 

I am specifically concerned about the increase in violence and drug 

trafficking coming from Mexico. How has President Calderon managed this issue, and how will it affect the security of the United 

States? 

Colombia’s long-term efforts to bring terrorism and narcotrafficking under control have had great success; yet Colombia continues 

to be the primary source of cocaine entering the United States. 

How can we help the Colombian government move forward? 

Africa-based terrorist groups, such as al-Shabaab and al-Qa’ida 

have grown in influence and capability. How will we address these 

threats, especially when our resources are stretched so thin elsewhere? 


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Finally, a word about cyber security. It is only in the past couple 

of years that we have really begun to appreciate the threat to our 

cyber infrastructure. This is a problem of enormous proportions, 

and I want you to know that we intend to work with you to address 

this vital and important national security asset from an intelligence perspective. 

There are a host of other concerns that I could address, such as 

the ongoing conflict in Israel, the threat of WMD proliferation, and 

the security impact of the global economic crisis. I will leave those 

subjects for the question period and conclude by reiterating my 

thanks to the brave men and women of our Nation’s Intelligence 

Community. I want them to know that, as chairman of this committee, I am reminded on a daily basis of their sacrifices as I look 

for our work here to be worthy of their commitment and their efforts. I trust and hope that you will consider us your partners in 

this effort. 

So I look forward to a productive hearing this morning and a productive Congress. 

Now I would like to recognize our ranking member, Mr. Hoekstra, for any opening statement that he may wish to make. 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, Director. It is good to have you here. 

This is always a very interesting hearing. It is really one of the 

few opportunities where the American people have the opportunity 

to see and to hear from you a description of the wide range of 

threats that we face as a Nation and how we are organized to contain and defeat those threats. 

We recognize that much of the information that we potentially 

could talk about is of a sensitive nature and that we will get into 

that in closed session. I would like to really just address three specific areas that I would be interested in hearing you talk about how 

you will deal with these. 

One is what I perceive a lack of accountability in the Intelligence 

Community. I have been disappointed, sometimes appalled, by the 

attitude of certain people within the Intelligence Community who 

mistakenly believe that they are not accountable to anyone outside 

of the Intelligence Community. The shocking disdain for outside 

oversight was most recently displayed in one of the documents produced inside the Intelligence Community, the report that was produced by the Inspector General in the CIA on the Peru counternarcotics program. 

According to this report, the CIA helped a foreign government 

shoot down an aircraft believed to be operated by drug smugglers. 

The report also found that the CIA did not follow proper procedures to protect innocent lives. The CIA’s carelessness led to the 

death of Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity, two 

American citizens who were my constituents. In fact, Veronica 

Bowers’ parents are also the constituents of one of our new committee members, Mr. Miller from Florida. 

The Inspector General also found that certain CIA employees 

misled and withheld information from the Justice Department, 

Congress, and the White House regarding the repeated lack of 

proper procedures in this program. 


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In short, CIA officers disregarded the rules. Their carelessness 

resulted in the death of innocent Americans; and they then tried 

to cover up their carelessness, including, perhaps, lying to Congress. 

Congress hasn’t been very well in following up on this, and I 

don’t believe the Community has been either. We learned about the 

CIA Inspector General’s report in November. It’s February. It’s almost March now. This committee has not had one hearing or one 

briefing on the IG report about the Bowers shoot-down, what happened after it. No investigations have been launched, no witnesses 

interviewed, no reports filed. Nothing. 

Perhaps if those suspect flights in Peru involved banned steroids 

bound for professional baseball players, this Congress would have 

paid more attention. With all the attention generated by the 

steroids in baseball hearings, we finally see Major League players 

being investigated and perhaps going to jail for lying to Congress. 

What more will it take for the same thing to happen to CIA employees who may have lied to Congress? 

Director, I think it is important that we get to the bottom of this 

issue. I think many of us on this committee believe that over the 

years it has been too difficult to get information from the Intelligence Community on specific areas where they are involved and 

that we call it the Twenty Questions, where, unless we ask the specific right question, we are not going to get the information that 

we need to do our job. 

In this case specifically, the information appears to be very compelling. Again, it comes out of the CIA Inspector General’s report 

that the information about what happened in this situation was 

available, was in the Community, was known to many people within the CIA and within the Community, but yet was never shared 

with Congress, and not only this particular shoot-down but the pattern of what happened to this program and how it was run. 

And I hope that you aggressively go after this particular circumstance, because it is still hanging out there. The trouble is it 

is 5, 6, 7 years later, and there is no accountability. You need to 

work on restoring the trust between the Community, this committee, Congress, and the American people; and by dealing with 

this case, I think we can make significant progress in that direction. 

Secondly, with the administration’s decision to close Guantanamo 

Bay, I would like to hear when the administration is going to lay 

out a plan for addressing the threat from radical jihadists in a comprehensive way. Tactical decisions are being made regarding the 

threat from radical jihadism, but I have yet to hear the administration outline its long-term strategy for containing and ultimately defeating the threat. 

How are you going to ensure that efforts to combat radical 

jihadists are properly resourced in light of planned budget cuts? 

What direction do you see the administration leading America’s 

fight against radical jihadism, and what would you recommend? 

Finally, your own office, the Director. What will the Office of Director of National Intelligence look like? I am concerned by what 

I perceive and I think many others on this committee perceive as 


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a dramatic shift from the Congress’s vision of the size, composition, 

and function of the Office of Director of National Intelligence. 

When we passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004, we created a new position to help manage the 

Community and break down barriers between agencies. We deliberately broke apart the functions of the old Director of Central Intelligence and gave the CIA its own director. The DNI was to be 

a coordinator of the Intelligence Community, a community organizer of sorts. The DNI staff was intended to be small and efficient. 

It was supposed to stay away from operational management. 

In 4 years, Mr. Director, we now have an ODNI that we hardly 

recognize. The ODNI, under your predecessors, became entangled 

in management, grew enormous in size, and has amassed too many 

scarce intelligence resources for itself. 

Instead of a lean coordinating body, we got fat. Layer upon layer 

of bureaucracy in this Community. We wanted this bill to transform the Community, to coordinate the Community. And I appreciated some of the words that you shared with us yesterday, that 

you said, when I look at the Community, it’s working together 

more effectively than what it was the last time you saw it. And I 

give the legislation credit and the leadership of the Community for 

making that happen and integrating the various aspects of the 

Community. 

The other thing that we saw, though, that we wanted to have 

happen was that the ODNI would force key strategic decisions to 

be made; and in a number of areas we have seen that the ODNI 

has not forced the strategic decisions to be made. It, instead, has 

meshed itself in the tactical day-to-day operations of the Community. And how we experience that is things that we used to get 

from the Community relatively quickly by asking an agency, hey, 

we need this information, and getting it a few days later. We now 

find that we make the request to the Community. A few days later, 

we ask, where is it? And they say, oh, we had to send it over to 

the DNI’s office. Because before anything comes back to Capitol 

Hill, they have got to sign off on it. And instead of it being faster, 

more efficient, it is another layer of bureaucracy and controls, 

which has slowed the process. 

So I hope that under your direction you can create the foundation and the long-term direction for the ODNI that says this is the 

strategic arm of the Community that integrates the Community 

and makes sure that the tough and broad decisions get made. 

But we are not going to try to manage the Community on a dayto-day basis, because that will just slow the Community down. We 

need a flexible and agile Community that can respond quickly to 

the threats that are out there. The ODNI was intended to transform the Community and create that type of a Community, not to 

be another layer of bureaucracy. 

So those are the three points that I would hope that we would 

hear from that we hope you would address a little bit today. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hoekstra. 

I want to remind our members and witnesses that we are in open 

session this morning. If there is doubt about the classification of a 


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particular subject or statement, reserve those issues for the closed 

session that will follow after this open hearing this morning. 

Without objection, the written statement from our witness will be 

made part of the official record of this hearing. 

This morning, Director Blair, you have heard from the ranking 

member and myself framing some of the issues. You come to this 

position very highly regarded, highly respected, with a tremendous 

management background. I, for one, want to give you the time and 

the flexibility to address these critical areas, as I said in my statement. 

You have a sense of the frustration from the members from our 

meeting yesterday and also from the ranking member’s statement 

this morning. But we are here to support you. We are here to make 

sure that, as you go through this process and taking over from the 

previous administration, that you are measured and balanced and 

give us a clear accounting and your best judgment; and we are 

ready to work with you. 

With that, you are recognized, Mr. Director, for your opening 

statement. 

STATEMENT OF DENNIS C. BLAIR, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL 

INTELLIGENCE 

Admiral BLAIR. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Hoekstra, it 

seems that there are two sets of questions that you are concerned 

with this morning. 

My main preparation for the hearing was to give a sense of the 

threats, the opportunities, the strategic landscapes that the United 

States faces. There are also a series of questions about the capabilities and management of the Community. I would propose that I 

first give the summary remarks that I prepared on the overall strategic landscape and then perhaps after that get into some of the 

specific issues which will also be with us for a long time, and perhaps we will have other times to pursue if we don’t cover them. Is 

that satisfactory? 

The CHAIRMAN. That is satisfactory. You can proceed. 

Admiral BLAIR. Gentlemen, ladies, my assessment is based on 

the work of thousands of patriotic, hardworking, both collectors and 

assessors, and the many other people in the 16 Intelligence services. The remarks that I submitted, the report that I submitted, the 

remarks that I am making involved a lot of work of all of them; 

and it is a report not just of threats but also of opportunities for 

this country and a tour of the strategic landscape, which is dynamic and which is complex. 

Let me begin with the global economic crisis, because I believe 

it already looms as the most serious one in decades. Since September, 2008, 10 nations have committed to new IMF programs. 

Three European governments have fallen because of economic 

issues. Central and Eastern Europe are under tremendous strain, 

both in terms of their currency and in terms of their internal 

economies. And, unlike the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis, countries will not be able to export their way out of the crisis in one 

region of the world because it is so widespread. And the stakes are 

high. 


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Mexico, which the chairman mentioned, with its close trade links 

to the United States, is vulnerable to a prolonged American recession. Europe and the former Soviet Union bloc have experienced 

anti-state demonstrations. Much of Eurasia, Latin America, and 

sub-Saharan Africa lack sufficient cash reserves and access to 

international aid. 

Our analysis indicates that economic crises increase the risk of 

regime-threatening instability if they continue for a 1- or 2-year period. Instability can loosen the fragile hold that many developing 

countries have on law and order. 

There are some silver linings. With low oil prices, Venezuela will 

face financial constraints this year. Iran’s President faces less than 

certain prospects for re-election in June because of his handling of 

his economy. 

However, the reverse of that is that a serious energy supply 

crunch may happen in the longer term if sustained low prices leads 

to cuts or major delays in new investments in energy sources in the 

short term. The crisis presents challenges for the United States, 

since we are generally held responsible for it. 

The November G–20 summit elevated the influence of emerging 

market nations, more than just the G–8, who previously were the 

main meetings. But the U.S. also has opportunities to demonstrate 

increased leadership. Our openness, developed skills, workforce mobility put us in a better position to reinvent ourselves than other 

countries. 

Moreover, Washington will have the opportunity to fashion new 

global structures that benefit all in this crisis. The President certainly talked at length last night about the steps he is taking in 

the domestic economy, and there is much to do in the international 

economy as well. 

Moving now to terrorism. We have seen progress in Muslim opinion turning against terrorist groups. Over the last 18 months, alQa’ida has faced public criticism from prominent religious leaders 

and even from some fellow extremists. In 2008, these terrorists did 

not achieve their goal of conducting another major attack on the 

United States, and no major country is at immediate risk of attack 

from extremist terrorist groups. 

Replacing the loss of key leaders since 2008 in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas has proved difficult for al-Qa’ida. 

Al-Qa’ida in Iraq has been squeezed. Saudi Arabia’s aggressive 

counterterrorism efforts have rendered the kingdom a harsh operating environment for al-Qa’ida. 

But, despite these setbacks, al-Qa’ida does remain dangerous. 

Yemen is reemerging as a jihadist battleground. The capabilities of 

terrorism groups in East Africa will increase next year, and we are 

concerned about the potential for homegrown American extremists 

inspired by al-Qaeda’s militant ideology to plan attacks inside the 

United States. 

There are many challenges in that region that stretches from the 

Middle East to South Asia, despite the progress I mentioned in 

countering violent extremism. The United States has strong tools, 

from military force to diplomacy, and good relationships with the 

vast majority of states in the region; and we will need all of these 


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tools to help forge a durable structure of peace and renewed prosperity in the region. 

The revival of Iran as a regional power, the deepening of ethnic 

sectarian economic divisions across much of the region, the looming 

leadership successions among U.S. allies are all shaping the strategic landscape in that region. 

Hezbollah and Hamas, with support from Iran, championed 

armed resistance to Israel, a development that complicates efforts 

to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and undercuts the legitimacy of modern Arab states to support a negotiated settlement. 

Battle lines are increasingly drawn not just between Israel and 

Arab countries but also between secular Arab nationalists and ascendant Islamic nationalist movements inside moderate states. 

The Iranian regime views the United States as its enemy and as 

a threat. A more assertive regional Iranian foreign policy, coupled 

with dogged development of two of the major components of a nuclear weapons capability, alarms most of the governments from Riyadh to Tel Aviv. The Levant is the key focal point for these strategic shifts. Recent fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza 

Strip has deepened Palestinian political divisions. It has also widened the rift between regional moderates led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan and hardliners, including Iran, Hezbollah, and 

Syria. 

With Hamas controlling Gaza and Hezbollah growing stronger in 

Lebanon, progress on a Palestinian-Israeli accord is more difficult. 

With Iran pursuing uranium enrichment and Israel determined not 

to allow it to develop a nuclear weapons capability, there is potential for an Iran-Israeli confrontation or crisis. 

Moderate Arab states fear a nuclear armed Iran, but without 

progress on a Palestinian settlement, they are harder put to defend 

their ties to the United States. 

Turning to Iraq. Coalition and Iraqi operations and dwindling 

popular tolerance for violence have helped to sideline the extremists there. Fewer Iraqis are dying at the hands of their countrymen 

than at any time in the past 2 years. 

Nevertheless, disputed internal boundaries, perceptions of government repression, or potential increased foreign support to insurgent or militia groups could reverse political and security progress. 

Baghdad will also be coping with declining oil revenues. 

In Afghanistan, the Taliban-dominated insurgency forces have 

demonstrated greater aggressiveness recently. Improved governance and extended development were hampered in 2008 by lack of 

security. Afghan leaders must tackle endemic corruption and the 

extensive drug trade. 

Progress has been made in expanding and fielding the Afghan 

National Army, but many factors hamper efforts to make the units 

capable of independent action. The upcoming 2009 presidential 

election will present a greater security challenge than did that in 

2004, and insurgents probably will make a concerted effort to disrupt it. 

No improvement in Afghanistan is possible without Pakistan 

taking control of its border areas and improving governance and 

creating economic and educational opportunities throughout the 

country. 


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In 2008, Islamabad intensified counterinsurgency efforts, but its 

record in dealing with militants has been mixed as it balances conflicting internal counterterrorist priorities. The government is losing authority in the north and the west, and even in the more developed parts of the country mounting economic hardships and 

frustration over poor governance have given rise to greater 

radicalization. 

The time when only a few states had access to the most dangerous technologies is, unfortunately, long over. Often dual use, 

they circulate easily in our globalized economy, as does the scientific expertise to put them together in weapons. 

It is difficult for the United States and its partners to track 

them. Components and production technologies are widely available. Traditional deterrents and diplomacy may not prevent terrorist groups from using mass affect weapons. 

One of the most important security challenges facing the United 

States is fashioning a more effective nonproliferation strategy with 

our partners. 

The assessments in our 2007 National Intelligence Estimate 

about Iran’s nuclear weapons program are generally valid. Tehran, 

at a minimum, is keeping open the option to develop deliverable 

nuclear weapons. The halt since 2003 in nuclear weapons design 

and weaponization was primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure. So it leads us to believe that some 

combination of threats, threats of intensified internal scrutiny and 

pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security 

goals, might prompt Tehran to extend the halt to some other nuclear weapons-related activities. 

Turning to Asia, rapidly becoming the long-term focus of power 

in the world, Japan remains the second largest global economy and 

a strong ally. But the global downturn is exacting a heavy toll on 

Japan’s economy. To realize its aspirations to play a stronger regional and global role will require political leadership and difficult 

decisions there. 

The rising giants, China and India, are playing increasing regional roles economically, politically, and militarily. China tries to 

secure access to markets, commodities, and energy supplies that it 

needs to sustain domestic economic growth. Chinese diplomacy 

seeks to maintain favorable relations with other powers, and especially the United States. The global economic slowdown threatens 

China’s domestic stability, and Chinese leaders are taking economic and security steps to deal with it. 

Taiwan as an area of tension in U.S.-China relations has substantially relaxed. Taiwan President Ma, inaugurated in May, has 

resumed dialog with Beijing; and leaders on both sides of the 

straits are cautiously optimistic about less confrontational relations. 

Preparations for a possible Taiwan conflict nonetheless drive the 

modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army, but, at the 

same time, China’s security interests are broadening. Full civilian 

and military space capability, formidable capabilities in cyberspace 

are rapidly developing. China will attempt to develop at least a 

limited naval power projection capability, and we have already 


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seen it deployed for peaceful purposes in anti-piracy off the coast 

of Somalia. 

Like China, India’s expanding economy will lead New Delhi to 

pursue new trade partners, gain access to vital energy markets, 

and generate other resources to sustain economic growth. India’s 

growth rate will slow this coming year, but ample foreign reserves 

and a sound banking system will help ensure relative stability 

there. 

Determined efforts by India and Pakistani leaders to improve relations could unravel unless Islamabad for its part takes meaningful steps to cut support to anti-Indian militant groups and New 

Delhi for its part in turn makes credible efforts to allay Pakistan 

security concerns. 

The increase in violent attacks within India is a cause of great 

concern to its government, as is instability in neighboring countries 

in south Asia, in addition to Pakistan. 

On the global stage, Indian leaders will continue to follow an 

independent course. That we and India are both democracies does 

not guarantee a congruence of interests. Nonetheless, good relations with United States will be essential for India to realize its 

global ambitions. 

Although the Middle East and Asia have the highest call on our 

attention, our concerns are broader. Russia is actively cultivating 

relations with regional powers, including China, Iran, Venezuela. 

Moscow is also trying to maintain control over energy networks 

that go to western Europe and to east Asia. 

Now, Russian leaders have recently spoken positively about the 

possibilities for change in the U.S.-Russian dynamic, but NATO enlargement, the conflict over Georgia’s separatist regions, missile defense, all pose difficulties in the relationship. 

In Latin America, populist, often autocratic, regimes pose challenges to the region’s longer term success. Basic law and order 

issues, including rising violent crime, powerful drug trafficking organizations, confront key hemispheric nations, as do uneven governance and institution-building efforts in confronting chronic corruption. 

The corruptive influence and increasing violence of Mexican drug 

cartels impede Mexico City’s ability to govern parts of its territory. 

Unless the United States is able to deliver market access on a permanent and meaningful basis, its traditionally privileged position 

could erode with a concomitant decline in political influence. 

Africa has made substantial economic and political progress over 

the past decade; and the level of open warfare has declined significantly, especially in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast. The 

drop in commodity prices and global recessions will, however, test 

the durability of the region’s recent positive growth trend. Even before the current crisis, the 6 percent GDP rate which Africa was 

achieving, although impressive, could not bring about the necessary 

structural changes to reduce poverty there. 

A number of intractable conflicts persist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Sudan, and Somalia. In Darfur, U.N. 

peace talks remain stymied; and larger peacekeeping forces are 

slow to deploy. 


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Let me finish with the long-term challenges of environmental security and the threats to our information technology infrastructure. 

Adding more than a billion people to the world population by 

2025 will put pressure on clean energy sources and on water supplies. Most of the world’s population will move from rural to urban 

areas, seeking economic opportunity; and many, particularly in 

Asia, will achieve advanced lifestyles with greater per capita consumption and generation of pollution. 

According to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change, physical affects of climate change will worsen in coming 

years. Multilateral policymaking on climate change is likely to be 

substantial and a growing priority within traditional security affairs. 

The world sees the United States in a pivotal leadership role. As 

effects of climate change mount, the U.S. will come under increasing pressure to help the international community set goals for mission reductions and to help others through technological progress. 

Finally, threats to our information technology infrastructure are 

an important Intelligence Community focus. Our information infrastructure is becoming both indispensable to the functioning of our 

society and vulnerable to catastrophic disruption in the way that 

previous analog decentralized systems were not. Cyber systems are 

being targeted for exploitation and potentially for destruction or 

disruption by a growing array of both nonstate and state adversaries. 

Network defense technologies are widely available to mitigate 

threats but have not been uniformly adopted. A number of nations, 

including Russia and China, can disrupt elements of the U.S. information structure. We must take protective measures to detect and 

prevent intrusions before they do significant damage. We must recognize that cyber defense is not a one-time fix. It requires a continual investment of hardware, software, and cyber defenses. 

In conclusion, the international security environment the United 

States faces is complex. The global financial crisis has exacerbated 

what was already a growing set of political and economic uncertainties. We, nevertheless, are in a strong position to shape a world 

reflecting universal aspirations and the values that motivated 

Americans since 1776: human rights, the rule of law, liberal market economics, social justice. Whether we can succeed will depend 

on actions we take here at home, restoring strong economic growth, 

maintaining our scientific and technological edge, and defending 

ourselves at reasonable costs while preserving our civil liberties. 

It will also depend on our actions abroad, not only how we deal 

with regions, regimes, and crises but also in developing new multilateral systems, formal or informal, for effective international cooperation in areas such as trade and finance, in neutralizing extremist groups using terrorism, in controlling the proliferation of 

weapons of mass destruction, developing codes of conduct for cyberspace and space, and in mitigating and slowing global climate 

change. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I would be happy to 

turn to questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Director. 

[The statement of Admiral Blair follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. I will save my questions for later and yield my 

time to the Vice Chair of the committee. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, let me congratulate you on holding this hearing. 

Mr. Director, Admiral, as others have welcomed you, so do I. I 

will not take a lot of time. I would like to make a statement and 

then to give you something to get back to me on that I consider 

of critical importance to your mission. 

There is a lot of discussion regarding Guantanamo, and there 

will continue to be a lot of discussion regarding Guantanamo. Admiral, when I was president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the 

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe—and I am 

fond of saying, if you can say that, you ought to be the president 

of the organization. But there are 56 countries that are represented 

by parliamentarians in that organization. After Abu Ghraib, what 

I found was a continuing harangue, specifically directed at Guantanamo more than anything; and then, with the considerable information that appeared in the public realm regarding renditions, 

Guantanamo continued to loom large. 

A delegation from France and Belgium came to me as president 

and said that they wanted to go to Guantanamo. It took me a year, 

but I appointed a task force within the organization, led by the 

then President of the Belgian Senate, a woman named Anne-Marie 

Lizin. 

I contacted the Defense Department and Secretary Rice, and 

they assisted in allowing Ms. Lizin and her entourage visit Guantanamo. They did so on two occasions. Came back, reported to Secretary Rice, and then to the organization. And it ameliorated some 

of the concern that members in the organization had, the mere fact 

that they had an opportunity to see it. 

Now, we have persons at Guantanamo that are going to raise 

genuine concern among the American citizenry as to where they 

are placed. That said, I am of a mind that we need to rethink 

Guantanamo and allow, among other things, as I said to you on 

yesterday, that it be made manifestly clear why certain individuals 

are required to be held somewhere, no matter whether it is Guantanamo or a prison in the United States or in places where our allies or others may take them. But as long as our allies know these 

things and as long as the nongovernmental organizations know 

these things, if Amnesty International and the Red Cross are permitted to see the actual circumstances, then I believe that Guantanamo, different than most, can stay open with a greater understanding in the world as to why the individuals are being held 

there. 

At least it is a different thought concerning how we go forward 

and contain individuals that simply cannot be released to the general public and cannot be released in many places, in many instances, in countries where they are likely to cause harm to U.S. 

interests and allies. 

That said, you and I—I returned to this committee after a considerable amount of service, having taken myself off for a year, returning now for what will be a final 2 years. So you and I are 31⁄2

weeks on the job, and it is a steep learning curve. And I don’t expect that you have had an opportunity to do everything that I beVerDate Mar 15 2010 03:10 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 053478 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A478.XXX A478

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lieve, knowing your background, that you are going to be able to 

do and accomplish in this job. 

However, I do wish that in your examination that you pay specific attention to something that many members on this committee 

and many members past on this committee have continuously 

brought to the attention of the Intelligence Community, and that 

is diversity. Diversity as it pertains to the number of women in the 

Intelligence Community, diversity as it pertains to the number of 

blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and every category. 

We are again dealing with the subject of languages specifically 

and the great need that we have to examine the clearance mechanism and methodology that we employ so that we can find the necessary persons to match up with the circumstances of the day. That 

also includes cyberspace. 

I hired a young man, 23 years old, at an entry level salary, that 

could run circles around many persons that are in the Intelligence 

Community dealing with cyber technology. We need to be able to 

pay these kids and bring them in and give them long-term retention, because there is going to be a problem. 

I hope I have said something—I don’t need an immediate response, but this is something you will continue to hear from me. 

If I continue to see nothing but white people come in here and 

nothing but men come in here, then you are going to see a continuing harangue from me, you and everybody in the Intelligence 

Community. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. 

Mr. Hoekstra. 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Director, I didn’t hear you address some of the questions 

that I had brought up about—you talked about the worldwide 

threats that are out there, but you didn’t talk about how the Community was going to be arranged to confront these threats to get 

the information to provide this committee and Congress and the 

administration with the information that they might need, the 

structure, your vision for the ODNI and how you are going to repair and rebuild the trust between the Community and Congress. 

Can you address those couple of points? 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes, sir. Let me turn to some of these organizational issues and management issues. 

First, on diversity raised by Congressman Hastings. In my first 

week on the job, I met with Pat Taylor, who is our director of diversity. She showed me the figures in terms of minority and gender 

representation in the Intelligence Community. They are not bad, 

but they are not as good as they ought to be when you compare 

them to the Federal workforce, the workforce at large, and the population at large. 

I also share the point that you and Chairman Reyes have made 

that diversity as far as the Intelligence Community is not simply 

a matter of something nice to have, it is something essential to 

have because of the diversity of environments in which we have to 

operate and which people that look like me are very conspicuous, 

and people who only speak Russian and English, like I do, are not 

that useful. So we are very much on that. 


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And we have good programs, including connections with learning 

institutions that can provide the sorts of skills that we need; and 

we include it in our management evaluations of our managers in 

the Community, from the executive level right down. So I look forward to continuing to talk to you on that, to all of you on that, because it is something that is important to me, and I think it is the 

right thing to do. 

On the question of accountability, Congressman Hoekstra, every 

time a new administration comes into a job, it inherits a number 

of cases from the past. In my case, just to cite a couple, there is 

the Algerian chief of station who is being prosecuted by the Justice 

Department right now for actions that he took. You mentioned the 

Peruvian investigation. There are several others that are going on. 

There are the questions about the interrogations that were done by 

the CIA in the previous regime. And I think we have to deal with 

those in a prompt and fair manner, and I pledge to you that we 

will. 

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the Intelligence Community 

want to do the right thing for the right reason. But in an organization of the tens of thousands that we have, I am not naive enough 

to believe that somebody out there isn’t screwing up. I think what 

is more important is how you handle the example you set and, 

therefore, the culture that you build into the Community over time. 

And I will tell you that my background has to do with accountability. I intend to exercise it. I intend to exercise it through the 

leaders of the organization in the Community. I don’t drive down 

into an organization and pull a case up to my level if it is being 

handled correctly where it should be, which is by the directors of 

these 16 agencies. But I pledge to you that we will have a culture 

of accountability in the organization; and I know I have heard 

many individual concerns, all of which I will look into. 

On the size of the DNI staff, I am getting a feeling for it right 

now. I am getting a feeling for the magnitude of the challenges. I 

will tell you that coordination can happen with ex cathedra pronouncements and with simply giving out orders, but integration is 

often harder and takes staff in order to understand what the carrots and sticks are at the working level where it counts and how 

you build the right structures to get integration across the Community. 

Things like common security systems, common personnel standards, don’t just happen by me signing an Intelligence Community 

directive. They have to be checked on. They have to be followed up. 

So there is a staff requirement for all of these integrative functions 

which are in the IRTPA Act of 2004; and I am getting a feeling now 

for whether we have the right amount of staff to do that, whether 

we can do it through just getting reports from the organizations 

themselves rather than checking on them. 

I do feel strongly that we should not from the DNI level be involved in operations, and I think we are not. The only operations 

that I think we should be involved in are directing collection, for 

example, when we have to make decisions among competing priorities across INTs and across targets. Somebody’s got to make a call 

that you put the satellites on this, you put the human intelligence 

on this. And that is my job, and I need some staff to do that. 


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Admiral BLAIR. And I need some staff to do that. So it is a complicated situation. But as we have talked previously, I don’t think 

that many layers of bureaucracy in fat organizations are successful. 

I think they should be as lean as they need to be to do the job. And 

I look forward to talking with you about that. On Guantanamo 

Bay, we had a lively discussion yesterday. And I certainly gained 

more perspectives on it than I had when I walked in the door. But 

I do need to emphasize that the Intelligence Community is playing 

a role in this issue of Guantanamo. It is not running the show. The 

show is run by the three executive orders that the President signed 

a couple of weeks ago that assigns most of the responsibility to the 

Department of Justice, with major chunks of it to the Department 

of Defense, and major chunks of it to me. 

I also would point out in the executive order that enabling legislation will be taken in consultation with the Congress. So there will 

be plenty of opportunity for both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to 

decide these tough questions. And they are tough questions. The 

more I read about it, the more I realize how few easy answers 

there are, and we are going to have to make some calls. They are 

calls of the entire executive branch. And of course, they need support from this body as well. 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Thank you, Mr. Director. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hoekstra. Mr. Tierney. Mr. 

Tierney is not here. Then Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, thank you 

very much for being here. I had a couple of comments and a couple 

of questions. I want to reiterate the chairman’s comments regarding gang activities south of our border, and would like to hear from 

you a commitment that you will work in a coordinated effort with 

all of the pertinent Intelligence Community, relevant Intelligence 

Community folks. We have got a tremendous problem not only with 

gangs, as the chairman brought up, but also with illicit drug trafficking and the fact that we have cartels now growing marijuana 

in this country using the money to purchase guns, ammunition, 

bringing it back across the border to continue with their cartel 

wars that also have a spillover effect into this country. And my 

sense is that we can do a lot more in regard to a coordinated effort 

to get ahead of this, and would like to make sure that we move in 

that direction. You had mentioned in your statement, or maybe it 

was the ranking member said that we wanted to create a lean and 

coordinated body when we developed your office. 

And there has been a number of people, you heard about it yesterday in our briefing, and you heard it again today. Many of us 

feel that we have really strayed from that assignment. And I want 

to add on to that list. We have created duplications that hamper 

our ability do some of the things that we need to do. And I would 

like to hear from you a very honest assessment of how we break 

down some of that duplication, some of those barriers, and how we 

could maybe redesign or recoordinate our efforts to put those bodies 

in the field and make sure that we are able to meet our intelligence 

mission and not get bound up in bureaucracies that duplicate efforts and stop us from being able to do our oversight work. 


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And I just want to remind you our oversight function is something that we work in partnership with the Intelligence Community. We are not here in an adversarial role. The work that we do 

helps you do a better job and make sure that our country is safe 

and our interests are in fact safe. 

And then lastly, I just want to touch on the GAO report. And I 

don’t know that everything that is brought up and the answers 

that we need can be discussed in this open hearing, but I want to 

lay them out. If you can, in fact, respond, I would appreciate it. If 

not, you have between now and when we move into the closed session to at least think about it. But the GAO report was pretty critical on our policies in Pakistan. And it stated, and I will quote the 

U.S. Government has not met its national security goals to destroy 

terrorist threats and close the safe haven in the FATA, and has not 

developed a comprehensive plan reflecting the integration of multiple U.S. Government agency efforts. And I would like to know 

what it is that we are not doing, why it is we haven’t been able 

to develop this comprehensive plan, what you see as the stumbling 

points in us getting there, and would be interested in knowing 

what you need in order for us to get there. And then lastly on the— 

again on the GAO report and the recent news out of Pakistan, open 

source reporting on the Taliban in the Swat Valley and the recent 

ceasefire that has been established. 

And my read on that is it is going to give the Taliban some 

breathing room, and would like to know what your assessment is 

on that, and if, in fact, it will allow the Taliban to come back and 

be even stronger. And if so, what does that mean for our future in 

Afghanistan, especially with reports that we are moving more U.S. 

troops in there now, and how that plays with regard to this 

ceasefire. We seem to be acquiescing to a group that clearly is not 

in our best interests, does not have our best interests in mind. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Director, if you will take a couple of his 

points and then answer the rest for the record so that we have 

enough time for members to—thank you. 

Admiral BLAIR. I will just go quickly. An integrated Pakistan 

strategy is what we are working on right now in the administration. We are part of it in the Intelligence Community. I agree with 

you we need to eliminate duplication. And as I said to Ranking 

Member Hoekstra, we will be in dialogue with the committee about 

that. And I couldn’t agree with you more that helping Mexico work 

against the drug gangs is high on our list of priorities. And we will 

be putting additional emphasis on it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Thornberry. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Chairman. Director, in your statement you say that sustained pressure against al-Qa’ida in the 

FATA has the potential to further degrade its organizational cohesion and diminish the threat it poses. So what happens if there is 

not sustained pressure, if it is relaxed in some way? 

Admiral BLAIR. They get stronger. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. And does the threat that it poses to us grow? 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. You say a few pages later in the statement 

that al-Qa’ida leaders use this tribal area as a base from which to 

avoid capture, produce propaganda, provide training, and the rest 


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of the things. So is there any doubt in your mind that this tribal 

area of Pakistan is the focus of al-Qa’ida leadership, it is where 

they are, and where they run their operation from? 

Admiral BLAIR. Right now that is where their headquarters is, 

Mr. Thornberry. And they have operated from other places in the 

past, in Africa. There are al-Qa’ida affiliates in the Maghreb in 

northern Africa, in Yemen, in Iraq. And so the most convenient and 

hospitable place for them right now is the place that you describe. 

But we are concerned about their ability to move around. It is kind 

of like toothpaste in a tube. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. But based on your previous answer, my impression is that you believe it is important to keep that pressure 

on in this area, understanding that if we put enough pressure they 

may squirt out someplace else. 

Admiral BLAIR. And that would be better for us. When they are 

moving, they are more vulnerable. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Okay. That be would better. Let me switch 

briefly to Iraq. The President said last night, he talked about ending the war, withdrawing troops. The press reports say that by August 2010, all combat troops will be out of Iraq—or that is the decision that the President has made. My question is, is there—I understand that 19 months was talked about in the campaign. My 

question is is there any intelligence basis to say August 2010, that 

is the date that we can have all our combat troops leave and the 

Iraqis can handle their security on their own? 

Admiral BLAIR. There is an intelligence basis for the decisions 

that the administration is in the process of making and hasn’t 

quite announced yet. And I would be happy to talk about those a 

little later on in closed session, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Okay. Just thinking back, my perception is 

that in the course of Iraq situations have changed on the ground, 

and we were slow to recognize it and even slower to change our 

strategy to deal with it. I guess my concern is that if we get locked 

into some sort of campaign promise, somebody has got to be willing, if facts warrant, to walk into the oval office and say Mr. President, this would be a disaster if we hold on this arbitrary timetable. And it seems to me the only—one of the few people who can 

do that is you. Are you, and do you think the Intelligence Community is willing to take into account the facts on the ground and give 

that unvarnished truth if, indeed, facts do change? 

Admiral BLAIR. Sir, I think the Intelligence Community has two 

roles in this policy process. Number one is where we are with a lot 

of policies with this new administration. When you make them, the 

Intelligence Community needs to be in there telling what the situation is on the ground, what are the likely consequences of alternative policies. And our—your Intelligence Community has been 

playing very strongly in that position now. Once a decision is made 

and a policy is announced, you know what your objectives are, you 

know what the time scale is, then the job of the Intelligence Community is to monitor the situation on the ground and say is that 

policy working. Is it achieving the things on the ground that it said 

it was going to? And I can assure you I will have no difficulty in 

being able to bring those judgments forward. And I would say the 

primary reason for that is that this President welcomes, welcomes 


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it. He doesn’t want to walk into box canyons without somebody 

pointing them out to him. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I would just say we all welcome that, and we 

all need the best judgments that our community can provide. 

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Boren. 

Mr. BOREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to congratulate 

you, Director Blair, on your new position. I know you will do a fabulous job. I have a few points and then a couple of questions. You 

talked a little bit about energy in your opening statement. After 

this hearing, I am going to the resources committee and going to 

be visiting with some of our energy executives in the United States, 

one being based in Oklahoma that is drilling some offshore wells. 

It seems to me that some of the rhetoric that has come out of the 

administration could be detrimental to our national security in exploring all the natural resources that we have in the United States, 

especially natural gas, which is a big component, I think, of protecting us and using as a transportation fuel. 

And as you mentioned, the prices have gone down, and that is 

good right now. But at some point, demand is going to pick back 

up, and we are going to be in the same position that we were when 

we had $147 a barrel oil. So that is one point. Second point, Guantanamo, I visited Guantanamo with then Chairman Duncan 

Hunter of the Armed Services Committee. We were there. Yes, 

maybe there were some problems. Yes, I understand that there was 

a public relations issue. But my concern is by closing that facility 

and not really having a plan to do something with these individuals, we are setting ourselves up for failure. And so those are my 

two points. But I don’t need an answer on those. The questions I 

have, I am really focused on Africa. As a new member of the committee, that is where I am going to be turning my attention and 

AFRICOM. Two questions. One, the Intelligence Community has a 

shallow bench of experts on sub-Saharan Africa. How will the establishment of AFRICOM enhance the Intelligence Community’s 

ability to understand and analyze developments in the region? 

That is the number one question. And the second question is about 

Zimbabwe. What do you think is happening on the ground there? 

And what are we doing to prevent any disaster if there is a real 

breakdown there? And what kind of humanitarian efforts can we 

do to stop that? 

Admiral BLAIR. Sir, on the first question, any time that there is 

an executive branch action body like out of the Department of Defense or the Department of State it is a good thing for us in the 

intelligence world because it gives us somebody who is asking the 

questions. It really helps us focus our intelligence assets. So 

AFRICOM, I think, will be good because they are out there doing 

things to protect American interests. They will be asking the hard 

questions of the Intelligence Community. And that he helps us 

more than just sort of a general appreciation, which you need, but 

which doesn’t really take you too far. On Zimbabwe, I would like 

to get back to you in more detail since I don’t have a personal deep 

knowledge of that country. And I would like to reply a little bit 

later if I might. 


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Mr. BOREN. Okay. I look forward to working with you in the future and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Boren. Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I too will be 

working with my colleague, Mr. Boren, and focusing on the continent of Africa as well and the new command that has been stood 

up there. But I would like to go back, if we could, to Guantanamo. 

And can you tell me any operational reason that Guantanamo 

needs to be closed? 

Admiral BLAIR. I can tell you as an intelligence assessment that 

the damage it has done to the international American reputation 

makes it difficult for us to achieve objectives in other areas. 

Mr. MILLER. It is a political reason, but not an operational reason. 

Admiral BLAIR. I mean, it is a realistic reason. Countries won’t 

deal with us. Our popularity is down. We don’t have blue chips to 

trade for things we want in other areas. 

Mr. MILLER. 30 days ago, the President did sign the executive 

order to close Guantanamo. What consultation was done with the 

Intelligence Community prior to the signing of that? 

Admiral BLAIR. Full consultation. Meetings with the officials at 

the CIA, representatives in the drafting committees that draft the 

executive orders. There was good consultation. 

Mr. MILLER. In looking at your opening statement, I didn’t see 

anywhere in the statement, and if I missed it I apologize, that you 

talk about a potential—or the potential for a threat by bringing detainees from Guantanamo to the United States. And hopefully you 

are not asserting that there is no threat. Or have you given any 

thought to the consequences of bringing them here? Not necessarily 

the people from the inside breaking out, but the possibility of people on the outside wanting to come into the communities and disrupt things at the facilities. 

Admiral BLAIR. You mentioned that yesterday, Congressman Miller. And I have been giving some thought to it. The primary objective of al-Qa’ida in the United States now is another spectacular, 

large people killing attack. That is what they seem to be thinking 

about. I will have to go back and see where the idea that you mentioned of trying to break in, rescue one of their colleagues, kill a 

lot of people is something that is worthwhile. But thank you for 

bringing that to my attention. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, sir. Moving to Pakistan, the Zardari 

government, does he have the full support of the Pakistani Army 

right now? 

Admiral BLAIR. President Zardari of Pakistan and the Army? I 

talked with General Kayani about 2 days ago, and he supports his 

President. So that much is sure. And that much is important. 

Mr. MILLER. What is the Intelligence Community’s assessment of 

the stability right now in Pakistan that you can give in an unclassified setting? 

Admiral BLAIR. I would rather give details in a closed session, if 

I might, Congressman Miller, but it is one of the countries that we 

feel is dealing with a larger number of problems than most. It is 

a very important country, as you know. So there is a cause for 

quite a bit of concern when you have that combination of imporVerDate Mar 15 2010 03:10 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 053478 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A478.XXX A478

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tance and pressures, economic pressures, governance pressures. We 

talked about the terrorist pressures in a rough part of the world. 

So it is a country that we need to watch closely. 

Mr. MILLER. You know, I think one of the biggest disappointments that I have had in watching what has happened in Afghanistan in particular is our feeble at best attempt to eradicate the 

poppy crop. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars. And 

now it appears that opium and the level of poppy production has 

reached all time levels. Can you give me an idea as to why we cannot get a handle on that issue? 

Admiral BLAIR. I have watched various campaigns over the years 

against both opium crops and against cocaine problems. And it 

seems that they have to be multi-pronged. There is no silver bullet. 

They have to be prolonged. And trying to find that right combination is difficult. And you fail more times than you succeed. So I 

would basically say it is a hard problem when the profits are so 

high, the alternatives are so few, and so many people are on the 

take because of the money involved. So I think it is a hard problem 

that we haven’t found the right key to yet. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Mr. Schiff. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Director, thank you 

for being with us. I want to follow up a bit on our conversation yesterday on the detainee issue and also on Somalia. I will be sharing 

with you and your staff, as we discussed, some legislation that I 

intend to introduce later this week or next week. 

Admiral BLAIR. Thank you. 

Mr. SCHIFF. But I wanted to just amplify a little bit more on it. 

I think that the people detained at Guantanamo should be given 

another status review, not use the same military commissions and 

tribunals that were established under the last administration, but 

by expanding the jurisdiction of the military courts martial to do 

status reviews. I think it is a natural venue to do that. I also think 

those who are determined to be unlawful combatants, and are 

therefore subject to prosecution on top of their combatant status, 

those prosecutions could, by and large, go forward in the military 

courts martial. Some may be appropriate to be tried in Federal district courts. 

I would think these combatants would be better suited for trial 

in the military courts martial. But there will nonetheless be both 

detainees at Guantanamo who will be determined to be unlawful 

enemy combatants, and therefore can be legally detained without 

charges based on their status for the duration of the conflict or 

until they are no longer a threat. And the question becomes where 

should they be detained? And what I would like to throw out that 

this is one of the options that my legislation would allow, among 

many others, is to establish a NATO-run detention facility in Afghanistan to internationalize the detention of unlawful enemy combatants. 

It is a coalition effort in Afghanistan. There is no reason why the 

United States should be solely responsible for the detaining of unlawful combatants. I think it would address a lot of the international issues that you alluded to in answer to Mr. Miller’s questions. If because of the black eye of Guantanamo we can’t get coVerDate Mar 15 2010 03:10 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 053478 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A478.XXX A478

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operation from allies in intelligence operations, that is not a theoretical or political impact, that is a very real impact on our ability 

in the war on terror. 

I think the idea of establishing a NATO detention facility also 

has the advantage that we are not just dealing with Guantanamo 

detainees, we are also going to be dealing with prospective detainees. And while all the focus right now is on what do we do with 

the hundreds of people at Guantanamo, the reality is both in Iraq 

and Afghanistan and down the road probably elsewhere, we are 

going to have people being detained as unlawful combatants who 

won’t be brought to Guantanamo anymore. And if they are detained, for example in Afghanistan, who should be detaining them? 

Now, it may be that some we will want to detain. It may be others we would want to detain in an international setting. So I would 

throw out that as a possibility. There are many of our NATO allies 

who are not able politically or otherwise to subject their troops to 

combat operations. This could be a valuable service they could provide. It wouldn’t be easy, being in charge of detaining very dangerous people—— 

Admiral BLAIR. Right. Right. 

Mr. SCHIFF [continuing]. But would be a very valuable service 

that they could provide. So I throw that out there. I also wanted 

to touch on your thoughts both on that as well as this. I want to 

follow up on Somalia, which as I mentioned to your colleague at 

CIA yesterday, is something I have been concerned about for a 

number of years as if I had to choose the next best alternative or 

the next, you know, greatest candidate for the next Afghanistan, it 

would be Somalia. I think our intelligence efforts to ascertain who 

in Somalia we can work with and who truly is affiliated with alQa’ida are going to be very important, not lumping all the Islamic 

parties there together. I would love to get your thoughts on both 

those issues. 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes, sir. As you know, one of the three executive 

orders is directed to exactly the question that you raised, what do 

we do going forward? That is with new detainees that we may capture or with the ones who are after some fashion it is determined 

that they should not be released. The Justice Department heads 

that. We participate in it. And we will ensure that the imaginative 

ideas that you described are in the mix. And I have heard some 

other excellent ideas from other Members of Congress. And I really 

appreciate the thinking that has gone on here, as well as in the 

task forces. And we will make sure that is in. 

On Somalia, I mean I think you are making the exact point that 

Congressman Thornberry made, which I very much agree with, 

that you can’t just look at one place here when you have all of 

these other potential spots. And frankly, Somalia has been a no 

man’s land here for what, 10, 15 years. The Ethiopians came in, 

it was a tough row for them, and they are just completing their 

withdrawal. It is a patchwork of a country now with some law and 

order in the north, none in the south. 

So I think that as part of our—yes, it is against al-Qa’ida, but 

in general, bad things happen in these ungoverned areas of the 

world. And we have to look at the Somalias, the Yemens, as well 

as the FATA areas and have a comprehensive approach to improvVerDate Mar 15 2010 03:10 Dec 17, 2010 Jkt 053478 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A478.XXX A478

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ing conditions in them so that they aren’t breeding grounds for not 

only al-Qa’ida, but for human misery and potential starvation, the 

sorts of things that drew us into Somalia 20-years ago. So it is 

something that is on the radar screen that needs to be part of the 

strategy, and I thank you for bringing attention to it. 

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Schiff. Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral, welcome 

aboard. 

Admiral BLAIR. Sir. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I just got here as well. So I am looking forward 

to the service. You mentioned a phrase a while ago, al-Qa’ida in 

America. Did you mean like al-Qa’ida in Iraq? Is there actually a 

formalized organization of al-Qa’ida in America here or were you 

just saying it? 

Admiral BLAIR. I must have either said it wrong or—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. You said the intent of al-Qa’ida in America is 

to—— 

Admiral BLAIR. I am sorry. I said of al-Qa’ida, in America as a 

target. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you. 

Admiral BLAIR. But there are, in fact, al-Qa’ida sympathizers in 

this country who would be involved in such an attack. So, no, we 

haven’t formed a phrase like that, but it is a real problem. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. All right. America bashing is a very popular sport. Always will be. I mean, envy is something that gets involved. You know, currently Guantanamo Bay is kind of a lightning 

rod for any excuse to not do something that somebody really didn’t 

want to do anyway. Okay, we do agree with Gitmo, which I disagree with, but let’s do away with that, there will be other things 

we do in our own best interests that our allies and many of our 

enemies will be able to point to and say, well, but for that we 

would do what you want us to do. We would take over the prison 

in Afghanistan but for whatever. Should we make it a practice of 

constantly deferring to ‘‘world opinion’’ to do things that aren’t in 

our best interests? 

Admiral BLAIR. I am going to step out of my intelligence role for 

just a second because I have been sort of in the operational role, 

and say there is going to be a certain amount of America bashing 

going on because we are the most powerful country. I think, 

though, that you shouldn’t make yourself an easy target for things 

that you can fix, that when you do act unilaterally it ought to be 

for a really good reason. And you will find in many cases that other 

countries will rally around strong leadership properly directed towards common goals. So, no, we should not be run by international 

opinion polls. But we should be protecting our country’s interests. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. I understand there is a tension there. 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONAWAY. But by the same token, we can’t use that as our 

own excuse to do something that is not in our own best interests 

simply because somebody else somewhere doesn’t like us. The 

President mentioned last night he is intending to dismantle the 

Cold War weapons systems to pay for everything else that is going 

to get done under what he is doing. Anything in the IC community, 


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or the Intelligence Community that is Cold War weapons systemlike that he is intending to dismantle or to take a dividend out of? 

Admiral BLAIR. Unfortunately, many of those Cold War systems 

are aging out, like satellites and things like that, and need to be 

replaced. And we are in the midst of some tough decisions on 

electro-optical satellites, in particular, that we have to make. I can 

assure you that as we make those decisions we are looking to the 

future, and not to the past in terms of—and for intelligence there 

is a fundamental difference in the Cold War. The enemy was hard 

to find and easy to kill. 

In the new situation it is hard to find. I mean it was easy to find 

and hard to kill. You know what—al-Qa’ida in America, those guys. 

But we knew where the enemy was, we just had to bring a lot of 

firepower to bear. Now the burden on intelligence is very much 

higher because of the smaller, individual nature of the targets, 

their ability to hide, move across borders. So it takes a different 

kind of intelligence system to do that. 

Mr. CONAWAY. In that regard, and again you have only been 

there a very short period of time, are there gaps that you feel comfortable talking about in this forum, and where additional resources are in fact needed to protect this country so that the intent 

of al-Qa’ida in America—al Qaeda’s intent in America is not fulfilled? 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes, sir, there are gaps. I would rather talk 

about them in closed session if I might. 

Mr. CONAWAY. All right. Admiral Blair, I look forward to working 

with you. Thank you. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Conaway. Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, thank you 

for being here and for your service. I want to turn my attention to 

the issue of cybersecurity. We had a brief conversation about it yesterday, but for the committee and for the public, I want to get your 

thoughts again on this issue. I have paid a lot of attention to cybersecurity, and I appreciate the fact that you raised it in your opening statement here this morning. As I mentioned to you yesterday, 

I have spent the last 2 years chairing both a Homeland Security 

subcommittee on emerging threats and cybersecurity, and then as 

one of the four co-chairs on the CSIS Report on Cybersecurity for 

the 44th Presidency. And I am pleased with its findings, and I hope 

that the administration is going to adopt many of the recommendations that are contained in the report. I know that right now the 

administration is doing a 60-day review of its cybersecurity strategy, and I applaud the appointment of Melissa Hathaway as the 

director for cyberspace in the NSC. It is my hope that this position 

will actually be elevated and will be a special assistant to the 

President. But can you give us at least a preliminary overview of 

your—how you believe the cybersecurity strategy will be structured? And in particular, where will it be housed? 

The previous administration put a lot of the focus and responsibility for securing cyberspace in the Department of Homeland Security. While I have great respect for the men and women that work 

in the Department, it is clearly still struggling to stand itself up, 

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ordinated out of the White House, with both policy and budgetary 

authority across a range of responsibilities in government. 

But can you share with us, at least on a preliminary basis, your 

vision for how our cybersecurity strategy will be conducted, what 

it will look like? And also talk to us about what you see as where 

the greatest threats would come from? I have been stunned by the 

amount of penetration across Federal networks in cyberspace and 

our U.S. assets, as well as the amount of data that has been 

exfiltrated from those networks. It is absolutely stunning, and an 

issue that had been ignored for many years at our own peril. We 

are finally paying proper attention to it, but I would like you to 

share your thoughts on some of those issues. Thank you. 

Admiral BLAIR. Thank you very much. I think there is one key 

aspect of this future cyber strategy which this committee and your 

counterpart in the other body can really help us with, and that is 

the role of the National Security Agency outside of the intelligence, 

its intelligence functions. I agree with you the Department of 

Homeland Security is finding its footing in this area. The National 

Security Agency has the greatest repository of cyber talent. With 

due respect to Congressman Hastings’ 23-year-old new hire, there 

are some wizards out there at Fort Meade who can do stuff. I think 

that capability should be harnessed and built on as we are trying 

to protect more than just our intelligence networks or our military 

networks, as we expand to our Federal networks and to our critical 

infrastructure networks. And the reason is that because of the offensive mission that they have, they are the ones who know best 

about what is coming back at us. 

And it is defenses against those sort of things that we need to 

be able to build into wider and wider circles. I think there is a 

great deal of distrust of the National Security Agency and the Intelligence Community in general playing a role outside of a very 

narrowly circumscribed role because of some of the history of the 

FISA issues in years past, general distrust of having—I mean, the 

NSA is both intelligence and military. You know, two strikes out 

in terms of the way some Americans think about a body that ought 

to be protecting their privacy and civil liberties. I think you all 

know that the fact of the matter is that the NSA, in fact, the entire 

Intelligence Committee operates under very strict rules. Sometimes 

people don’t follow them, but we find them and we hold them to 

account. 

So I would like the help of people like you, who have studied this 

closely and served on commissions, the leadership of the committee 

in finding a way that the American people will have confidence in 

the supervision, in the oversight of the role of NSA so that it can 

help protect these wider bodies. To me that is one of the key things 

that we have to work on here in the next few months. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Right. And I know my time has expired, but I just 

want to say that I agree with your assessment about the NSA. I 

think a great disservice was done to the hardworking men and 

women at the NSA and in the Intelligence Community because of 

the FISA issue. And it was more the issues that took place at the 

very top levels of our government, and not the hardworking men 

and women who worked there. They do have great capabilities. 

There is great professionalism, and they need to play a very strong 


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role in securing us in cyberspace. I look forward to our continued 

discussion and work on this issue. 

Admiral BLAIR. Sure. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Langevin. Before I go to Mr. 

Kline, I just want to remind members we will probably be voting 

between 11:00 and 11:30. We should be able to complete the open 

hearing before then. And then we will reconvene for the closed session at the Capitol. And lunch will be available for members. Mr. 

Kline. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Director. 

Welcome. I want to pick up, if I can, with the discussion we had 

yesterday, to the extent that we are comfortable talking about it 

in this open forum, and that is the issue of interrogation techniques. Much public relations discussion about those for the last 

few years. Arguably some uncertainty about what those techniques 

should be. I think most Americans thought that the President of 

the United States, President Obama had cleared that up and announced that everybody was going to use the Army Field Manual. 

Everybody in the Intelligence Community, everybody in the military was going to use the Army Field Manual for determining what 

those interrogation techniques could be. Could you talk about 

whether or not that perception is correct and what the status is of 

dealing with the question of interrogation techniques? 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes, sir. I would like to clear that up. The executive order specifies that the Army Field Manual will be the basis 

for interrogation techniques used across the government. That is by 

the Intelligence Community as well as by military interrogators. 

But it also specifies that that manual will be reviewed so that it 

meets the unique requirements both of intelligence and—— 

Mr. KLINE. Okay. Thank you. I just kind of wanted to get that 

on the record, because I believe what your answer is is that we do 

not know right now what the interrogation techniques are, and 

that the Intelligence Community is not bound by the strict interpretation of the Army Field Manual, which was the widely held 

public perception. And so there is an evaluation process that is ongoing, is that correct, to modify or expand? 

Admiral BLAIR. To review. 

Mr. KLINE. To review. 

Admiral BLAIR. But right now pending that review, the Army 

Field Manual techniques do apply to the Intelligence Community. 

So you are correct in that right now today, tomorrow it is the portions of the Army Field Manual, which as you know it is a human 

intelligence manual—— 

Mr. KLINE. It is. 

Admiral BLAIR [continuing]. Of which interrogation is a part, not 

the whole, but those procedures govern Intelligence Community interrogations. That will be adjusted pending the results of the review. 

Mr. KLINE. Pending adjustments. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Let me move to domestic intelligence, if I could, just picking up on 

Mr. Hoekstra’s comments and others that Congress is viewed, and 

I think the 9/11 Commission report called on your office to be a coordinating office to break up the stovepipes that so hampered us 


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on 9/11, where we had rules that forbade the FBI from talking to 

the CIA and so forth. And now I am from Minnesota, and we are 

very much aware that a refugee from Somalia left Minnesota and 

went overseas and blew himself and others up. So there is a question about the radicalization of some in this country. 

Minnesota happens to have a very large Somali population. Certainly not all those Somalis are radical by any stretch of the imagination, but clearly there is concern. We see about it constantly in 

the papers back in Minnesota. That story is prominently displayed. 

There are some fears in Minnesota. And I think that we should all 

be alert to that. But that raises a question of what do we do about 

that? That is an issue here in the United States. But we have now 

a number of organizations, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, 

CIA and an others. How is your organization now equipped, how 

do you feel like it is doing—I know you just got there—but in that 

ability to cross those lines so that we are not caught with our feet 

sort of nailed to the floor? 

Admiral BLAIR. I am—that is a high priority problem. And I have 

looked into it in some depth in my first few weeks on the job because of the importance. And I would like to provide details in 

closed session. But I think you would be pleased as to the flow of 

information between the FBI intelligence agents, who have the authority to operate in this country, and the rest of the Intelligence 

Community, which gathers intelligence and takes action overseas. 

The vehicle for that exchange, at the cap of is the National 

Counterterrorism Center. And I urge you to come out for a visit 

when you can, because you will find that the exact domestic-international connection that you are questioning, you will see how it 

is done physically with a row of FBI analysts interspersed with 

rows of analysts from other communities. And individuals are 

tracked very closely. 

So the structure is very much there in place. And in addition, 

there are other ways to communicate down to State and local levels. You will hear different stories from people who operate at State 

and local levels. The old joke we are from Washington, we are here 

to help you is alive and well in many. But I think if you poke at 

it you see a steady improving trend. I would say it is one of those 

things that I feel sort of good about, but you just don’t feel really 

good about it because of the possibility that you are missing something and the memory that we all have of what happened in 2001. 

Mr. KLINE. Right. 

Admiral BLAIR. But we can talk about that more, but I think it 

is basically a good news story, sir. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you. And I am looking forward to that visit. 

Again welcome aboard, and I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Kline. Ms. Schakowsky. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman and ranking member, first let 

me thank you so much for having this open hearing. I think it is 

incredibly useful for the American people to hear what I think, Director, has been a very constructive dialogue, that we have been 

able to raise a lot of concerns. You have been able to respond to 

a lot of them. And even when you can’t, I think the fact that we 

have outlined and somewhat demystified what the Intelligence 

Community is doing that the American people get a chance to see 


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you and understand much better your functions and who you are 

as a person. And I want to encourage you, Mr. Chairman, to consider this kind of format going forward more extensively than we 

have used it in the past. 

And I wanted to suggest, Director, that we also look at the issue 

of classification more carefully. There have been times when we 

have been presented with documents and information where members have kind of shaken their heads and wondered why is this 

classified information. I think the more that these issues are aired 

where we can, the better off we are as a Nation. And I know that 

the President has made transparency a hallmark of his administration. And I think that does require looking at classification. I wanted to ask a number of questions. Maybe you can answer them here 

and maybe not. One is about the issue of the prison at Bagram in 

Afghanistan. And I know that there has been a ruling about that, 

that those who are incarcerated cannot challenge their incarceration. 

I am concerned that there are, in fact, some innocent people in 

Bagram. And I just wonder what the future is there for those who 

are detained by the United States. And secondly, you outlined as 

the primary near term security concern of the United States the 

global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications. I know that 

the President has emphasized the need for the United States to act 

to prevent humanitarian crises, which I think we may see growing 

now around the world, the idea of economic refugees and all kinds 

of instability that may be created, humanitarian crises that go beyond that like what we see in Sudan. What I am wondering is how 

can intelligence capabilities provide early warning of humanitarian 

crises so that U.S. policymakers, the Intelligence Community can 

devise strategies to prevent or respond to such crises? 

Admiral BLAIR. Ma’am, on Bagram I think the exact same sort 

of issues are there as—not the exact same, but many of the same 

issues are there as are being sorted out in relation to Guantanamo. 

And I think those principles will have to be applied to those who 

are detained there. So that will have to follow in due course, the 

issues of process, the issues of long-term detention for those who 

need to be held. On the humanitarian situations, we have an actual 

unit within the Intelligence Community whose job it is to monitor 

the world for disasters that rise to that level. A great deal of that 

information is available from other organizations that are not involving secret intelligence, but there are some things that we can 

do with our collection mechanisms. That is put together, and we 

provide routine warnings of that so that we are not caught unawares. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Ruppersberger. 

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Yes. I would like to get back into the area 

of cybersecurity. Mr. Langevin brought up the issue. It is something extremely important to our national security, to our business 

community, to our privacy generally. There was a comment that 

people do not really trust some of the things that happened at the 

NSA, and it is unfortunate. NSA is in my district. I chair the subcommittee that oversees them. And they are some of the finest, 

hardest working people. And if they could talk and let the public 


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know what internal mechanisms they have to protect Americans 

and to follow the Constitution, we would be a lot better off. But 

they couldn’t even defend themselves when all the FISA issues 

were going on. 

I have been there for a period of time, I go there a lot, and I have 

never seen anything that violates the Constitution. With that said, 

one of the biggest issues we do have to deal with is the public, and 

educate the public what cyber is about. And I think in order to do 

that we have to tell some of the stories that have happened with 

cyber attacks, how Russia literally closed down Estonia’s banking 

system because there was a battle about a statue that Estonia was 

taking down. When Russia attacked Georgia, they cyber attacked 

and got into their communication systems and banking systems 

again. 

There are a lot of classified issues, but I can say there have been 

many newspaper articles about attacks in our Pentagon, about 

NASA, about how possibly China and Russia, if they have been 

able to attack NASA, that they have been able to save billions of 

dollars in research that we have done. Our business community 

and business secrets. And if you have a server, say in a bank in 

North Dakota, rural area, and that bank does one transaction with 

Bank of America, the bad guys could get in through that server 

and literally shut down a lot of Bank of America. 

These are the stories that the public needs to know, because the 

public doesn’t have a clue, in my opinion, how serious this cyber 

attack is. The good news is President Obama has been briefed. He 

gets it, he understands it. You have people, I know Mr. Schiff and 

I have been to NSA being briefed on this issue, Mr. Langevin has 

a lot of expertise in this area. So we plan to really, from the technical point of view, look at some of the issues that are there. But 

in your job, and where I really want to ask the question, do you 

feel the mechanism is in place, and I believe it is a good move to 

bring Melissa Hathaway who probably has as much knowledge on 

cyber, and also General Alexander, who is as good from a technical 

point of view as anybody in this country, with those two people 

working with us and the present administration, I think we can 

come a long way. 

But where do you feel in your role as DNI that we need to go 

to deal with the cyber issue? And including with that is billions of 

dollars of money that are going to have to be put out there and the 

partnerships between the Verizons, the Microsofts, the AT&Ts. 

And I would like to hear your opinion, what you can do in an unclassified where we need to go. Is the threat real? And what are 

your recommendations? 

Admiral BLAIR. Sir, I agree with you that we need to have open 

descriptions of some of the damage that have been caused by recent 

attacks. And I am sure, having seen the inside story, you know 

that that is a fairly complicated process to sort all of that out, particularly attribution. And I think it is important to write these stories more on the fact of what happened than who the individual 

perpetrator was for that one, because there can be many, as you 

know. 

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. It could be al-Qa’ida, it could be other countries. One thing I want to point out that I think is important, since 


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this is a public hearing, we don’t own the Internet. So it is not as 

though we are controlling the Internet. We just have to protect ourselves from these invasions. 

Admiral BLAIR. I think you have that right, yes, sir. We play a 

big role in the Internet. As you know, it is an international body 

that governs it. I think on the second point you make is also absolutely vital, is that this has to be a public-private—— 

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Partnership. 

Admiral BLAIR [continuing]. Public-private partnership to move 

forward, because the owners of most of the servers and fiber-optic 

cables and all are private companies. On that front, there is also 

some good news, because through some of the initiatives that General Alexander, whom you know, started, we have good relations 

with the big IT software developers and vendors in a body that is 

actually organized that we in the Intelligence Community and others play a role in to tackle these problems together. 

And I think both common solutions, and also, frankly, I would 

like to bring in some business executives into government to take 

jobs on the inside to help us with their knowledge on the outside. 

So I think all of those are essential to solving this problem. 

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Okay. Well, there is a lot of work to do, and 

I look forward to working with you. 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Ruppersberger. Votes have just 

been called, and I would remind members that the new policy is 

they will go 2 minutes beyond the 15 minutes. At least that is what 

we have been told. I have got Mr. Holt and then Ms. Eshoo. 

Mr. HOLT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Director, again, 

congratulations. You have a lot of the skill and background necessary to do a good job in this position. And we wish you well, want 

to work with you. Since this is an overview today, I would like to 

ask an overview question about the relationship between the Intelligence Community and Congress. The 9/11 Commission recommended strongly that Congress show more oversight of intelligence activities. So let me ask several questions. I will ask them 

all at once, and then you can—do you think that vigorous Congressional oversight benefits the efficient functioning of the Intelligence 

Community or could you operate better without Congressional 

questioning about the workings and the activities of the IC? I think 

of that as a softball question, but it is important to answer I think. 

And do you and the DNI staff think that in recent years Congress, and by that, I really mean the duly sworn members with responsibility for intelligence, that Congress has received all the information and cooperation it needs to conduct full and appropriate 

oversight? More specifically, was it appropriate not to brief members about President Bush’s domestic electronic surveillance? Was 

it appropriate not to brief all members about certain covert activities in the Middle East and Latin America? Was it appropriate not 

to seek advice in these areas? Would you do anything different? 

Admiral BLAIR. Sir, for those questions I am reminded of that 

song, some kind of help is the kind of help that help is all about, 

and some kind of help is the kind of help that we all can do without. And I think vigorous, effective oversight of the right kind is 

nothing but good for our community. And I think we are working 


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it out. We are a new administration. There is some new members 

of the committee. There are some veterans here. And I think as a 

background thing I should say my pledge is to make it as a good 

a partnership as possible. And I think if you talk to those who 

serve on your counterpart committees who have dealt with the 

Armed Forces, you will find that my reputation is one who probably says more rather than less to Members of Congress, because 

I understand who pays the bills and who has the oversight responsibilities. So that is kind of my going in—— 

Mr. HOLT. So more specifically, was it appropriate in those circumstances that I mentioned? I think you know what I am talking 

about. 

Admiral BLAIR. Right. And on that question of fully and currently informing the committees, I follow the law, Congressman 

Holt, that says you will be—this committee will be fully and currently informed of intelligence activities. 

Mr. HOLT. So you would do it differently. In other words, it was 

inappropriate you are saying not to brief Congress about that surveillance program? It was not appropriate not to brief all members 

about these covert activities that I think you and I know what we 

are talking about? 

Admiral BLAIR. I would really rather talk about going forward 

rather than looking back. Because that is what I can affect, sir. 

And I will be leaning forward, I will be leaning on the side of consulting more rather than less. But there is a category of sensitive 

covert actions, which, as you know, is covered by a separate article 

of the statute, which I am also aware of and which I feel has to 

be observed. 

Mr. HOLT. Yeah, which I mean—what I am talking about, I just 

want to set some benchmarks here. 

Admiral BLAIR. Right. 

Mr. HOLT. Because what I am talking about, you know, we were 

not briefed at all. No one. Not a committee member, not a committee chair, no one. Was that appropriate? 

Admiral BLAIR. There is no case that I know of in which no one 

should be briefed about an intelligence activity—— 

Mr. HOLT. That helps. 

Admiral BLAIR [continuing]. In this Congress. 

Mr. HOLT. How am I doing on time, Mr. Chairman? 

The CHAIRMAN. You have less than a minute. 

Mr. HOLT. Less than a minute. Well, let me ask for the record 

then you have listed a number of specifics. If you were to look at 

all of the risks, threats, events that might affect Americans and 

multiplied the likelihood of these events occurring times the number of Americans affected, what would you rank as number one, 

two and three? And is the allocation of resources within the Intelligence Community, how does that match for those three? So 

whether we are talking about climate change or theft of nuclear 

weapons from Russia or Pakistan and the use of those weapons, or 

a series of al-Qa’ida terrorist attacks on the U.S.—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If you can hit just a couple of those, because I 

want to leave time for Ms. Eshoo so we finish up the open session. 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes, sir. I will just say quickly that the greatest, 

the greatest threats I think do lie in that convergence between 


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nonstate actors and weapons of mass destruction. And, you know, 

what would be the factors on likelihood and casualties I think we 

probably ought to talk about in closed session. But it is people who 

are not deterrable getting ahold of weapons that can cause a lot of 

deaths. 

Mr. HOLT. So if you could look at the top three later and tell us 

how you think the match of resources, the allocation of resources 

matches. 

Admiral BLAIR. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Eshoo. 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr. Director. The last question really segues very well into mine. I think the 

ultimate nightmare and Intelligence Community challenge is nuclear weapons and materials falling into the hands of those that 

want to destroy us, which leads me to Pakistan. I think that Pakistan poses an enormous challenge to us, along with Afghanistan, 

and I think they are tied in many ways. So I have two questions 

about it, and I think we can follow up on this in other forums, 

probably classified as well. But A.Q. Khan was released by the 

Pakistani Government from house arrest earlier this month. I was 

shocked and appalled when that was announced. 

So my question to you is does he still pose a proliferation threat 

in the eyes of the Intelligence Community? Do we know about any 

restrictions that may still be in place relative to this man that a 

colleague of mine dubbed the Johnny Appleseed of nuclear materials and information? And do we know what level of access he still 

has? So that I would like to ask you. And my second question, 

which you can answer maybe for the record later on is—and you 

touched on it earlier, I believe—is on climate change. 

There are many of us that have worked very hard on this issue. 

And to the credit of your predecessor, he agreed for the Intelligence 

Community to produce an NIE. I would like to know what your 

plans are for the ongoing effort within the Intelligence Community, 

and what the resources are that you are going to commit to this. 

Because there isn’t any question in my mind and many experts’ 

minds that the destabilization that is brought about as a result of 

climate change has a nexus to the Intelligence Community and vice 

versa. 

Admiral BLAIR. On those two questions, ma’am, on A.Q. Khan, 

I would rather answer in closed session in more detail, but it deserves an answer in open forum, which is that there are restrictions on him imposed by the government. And that they primarily 

involve ensuring that he is not connected to the network that he 

used before for the proliferation activities that you referred to. And 

I can tell you in detail. But he is not the head of a laboratory, 

which is in the business that he was in before. On climate change, 

I think that the way the Intelligence Community is approaching it 

now is correct. That is we are not funding scientific research on the 

important questions involved in it. We are looking at, with the 

range of predictions that are being made by science, what would be 

the national security effects of this issue? 

Ms. ESHOO. There is a whole pool of expertise that has existed 

within the Intelligence Community. And so I think maybe we need 

to follow up on that—— 


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Admiral BLAIR. Right. 

Ms. ESHOO [continuing]. On how you are going to capture that 

and keep it moving. I don’t think it just rests under a statement 

of recognition that this poses a threat. That is not good enough. 

And we have tremendous resources. So we can follow up on that. 

Admiral BLAIR. All right. 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Eshoo. And there is less than 4 

minutes left, but 400 members yet to show up to vote. So we will 

at this point conclude and adjourn the open hearing. 

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman? Since there seems to be a moment, 

may I follow up on—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Very briefly. 

Mr. HOLT. Very briefly. There is precedent for making the Intelligence Community resources available for climate change studies, 

the so-called MEDEA project. 

Admiral BLAIR. Right. 

Mr. HOLT. To what extent is that approach being revived? To 

what extent should it be revived, making available the various resources of the Intelligence Community? 

Admiral BLAIR. That is a good question. Let me look into that 

and get back to you and Congressman Eshoo, please, since I don’t 

have that on the tip of my fingers. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Holt. And thank you, Director 

Blair. And with that, the open hearing is adjourned, and we will 

reconvene after votes for the closed session at the Capitol. 

[Whereupon, at 11:04 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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