CIA Director: Al-Qaida Remains No. 1 Threat To United States, Official Says

by Tom Gjelten Listen Now [4 min 3 sec]

Morning Edition, November 14, 2008 · Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA has updated its official assessment of the al-Qaida terrorist network. Michael Hayden, the agency's director, says al-Qaida remains "the most clear and present danger to the United States today."Hayden spoke Thursday in the midst of the presidential transition, the first handover during wartime in 40 years. He said his agency is aiming for "the smoothest transition in recorded history."Except for his appearances on Capitol Hill, it is rare for the CIA director to discuss al-Qaida in public at length. Speaking at the Atlantic Council on Thursday, Hayden emphasized that the date and the topic were set months ago, and that it was a coincidence he was describing the al-Qaida threat just as the country was changing presidents.His assessment was sober but balanced. He said the network has been disrupted by counterterrorism efforts but is still the No. 1 U.S. enemy — if there is a major strike on this country, "it will bear the fingerprints of al-Qaida."The network has operations from North Africa to Southeast Asia, he said, but the most dangerous al-Qaida bases are in the tribal regions along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan."All the threats we have to the West have a thread that takes them back to the tribal region. It may be training, it may be command and control, it may be financing, but there is at least one, and in some cases many threads that take them back there," Hayden said.Al-Qaida organizers have made alliances with extremist Taliban groups in Pakistan, supporting their causes, funding their operations, even marrying their women.

Plotting Attacks

From those bases in Pakistan, al-Qaida is plotting new attacks in the U.S. and Europe, Hayden said — recruiting Westerners who could carry out a plot with less chance of being detected.Some observers believe al-Qaida would like to attack during this critical presidential transition, when U.S. defenses may be down. But wanting to and being able to are not the same, Hayden said."This is not an omnipotent enemy," he said. "This is an enemy whose actions we can affect by the actions we take. In many ways, we've been taking those actions and keeping them off-balance. So even if al-Qaida had this strong wish to do something between Date X and Date Y, it's another thing to do it ... beyond just the wish.",,more..http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96993725