CIA Director Predicts Terrorism Rise; Seeks to Boost Spy Network

CIA Director John M. Deutch warned Congress Tuesday that he expects “tremendous growth” in international terrorism over the coming decade, which will have a major effect both on U.S. foreign policy and on the way in which American businesses operate abroad.

Deutch told the House Intelligence Committee that the expected surge in terrorism is one of the best arguments for strengthening the CIA’s ability to conduct espionage with a network of spies around the world, since spy satellites and other technical intelligence resources are often of little value in tracking small terrorist cells.

“One of the interesting features of international terrorism is that it is not like searching for fixed silos, like an intercontinental ballistic missile field in Russia,” Deutch said.

“The international terrorist organizations are surprisingly spread out and diffuse around the world, and one has to rely, to an extraordinary degree, on human intelligence as opposed to the technical intelligence capabilities.”

Deutch named Hamas, a radical Palestinian faction, and Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian fundamentalist group in Lebanon, as prime examples of potential terrorist threats.

President Clinton has made international terrorism one of his intelligence priorities, and in response the CIA and federal law enforcement agencies have been moving more resources into counter-terrorist activities.

The CIA’s counter-terrorism center, once widely dismissed as ineffective, has been beefed up and now has staff members assigned from the Secret Service, the FBI and the National Security Agency. Deutch has been working to try to improve the spy agency’s tense relationship with the FBI.

But CIA officials remain concerned over the growing role that the FBI is playing overseas, especially in criminal cases that spill over into the intelligence field. Deutch made it clear Tuesday that he is still not satisfied that the division of labor between the CIA and the FBI has been resolved.

The two still have very different objectives: The FBI wants to make arrests, and the CIA wants to gather secret information. “Good cops don’t make good spies, and good spies don’t make good cops,” Deutch said.