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The
Hill
Intel
chair warns of 'huge malevolence'
By
Megan R. Wilson
Americans
are in more danger of terrorist attacks than ever before, the leaders
of congressional intelligence panels said on Sunday.
“The
threat level has never been more diverse than it is today,” Rep.
Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence
Committee, told CNN’s Candy Crowley on "State of the Union."
“The
more efforts [extremists] try, the more perfect you have to be in
trying to stop something, and that's a challenge," he said.
Rogers
and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, discussed threats from terrorists with
greater numbers and evolving methods.
“There
are more groups than ever and there is huge malevolence out there,”
Feinstein said. “The fatalities are way up, the numbers [of
attacks] are way up, there are new bombs – very big bombs -- trucks
being reinforced for those bombs; bombs can get through magnetometers
[and onto planes].”
She
refers, in part, to a thwarted attack in 2010 where bombs were placed
in printer ink cartridges in Yemen and mailed via FedEx and UPS to
the United States. The packages were caught in the U.K. and Dubai
after a tip from Saudi intelligence, according to reports.
And
Feinstein said that groups are becoming more determined.
“There
is a real displaced aggression within this fundamentalist, jihadist
Islamic community. And that is, the West is responsible for all the
things that are going wrong," she said.
The
lawmakers argued that questions about the activities of the U.S.
intelligence community only damage its ability to thwart these
attacks, which, Rogers says, could become smaller and more frequent.
“We're
fighting amongst ourselves here in this country about the role of our
intelligence community that is having an impact on our ability to
stop threats. So we've got to shake ourselves out of this pretty soon
and understand that our intelligence services are not the bad guys,”
Rogers said...
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the rest of the article at The Hill
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