Technology Ups Risk of Terrorism, CIA Head Says

The head of the Central Intelligence Agency warned Wednesday that the United States faces heightened risk of a surprise attack involving nuclear, biological or chemical weapons delivered by enemy missiles or foreign saboteurs.

CIA Director George J. Tenet said that the danger has increased because rogue states and terrorist groups now have better access to new technology and can more easily hire the experts they need to help manufacture--and deliver--weapons of mass destruction.

He said that, while the United States has been beefing up its intelligence operations in an effort to detect and thwart the proliferation of such weapons, “the hill is getting steeper every year” and the danger is growing.

Tenet, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, also conceded that the CIA bungled its investigation of former director John M. Deutch for mishandling classified information. But he denied that the agency had sought to impede the investigation to protect Deutch from prosecution.

Tenet said that, while the agency “cannot exclude” the possibility that Deutch’s lapses led to the compromise of highly classified information, investigators so far have found no evidence of serious leaks. He said the agency is tightening its internal procedures.

Tenet’s warnings about the increased risk of surprise attacks by terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction came during testimony on a broad array of threats facing the United States in hot spots around the globe, including increased tensions in China and the Middle East.

He attributed his assessment that the United States faces heightened risk of attack to several factors. He said that more nations are acquiring long-range missiles, high-technology equipment is becoming easier to acquire and expertise is more widely available.

He said that computer technology is making it easier to obtain sophisticated scientific information that could be used in making weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, the overlap between manufacturing vaccines and biological weapons is making germ warfare more accessible.

Despite Tenet’s concession that the CIA had mishandled the Deutch investigation, senior members of the Intelligence Committee were critical of the agency’s performance.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the panel’s chairman, asked Tenet rhetorically: “Isn’t it troubling to you that someone at the CIA--especially a director-- . . . would use an unclassified computer to do all these things . . . --not once, but continuously?”

Echoing Shelby’s view, Sen. Richard H. Bryan of Nevada, ranking Democrat on the committee, called the incident “extremely troubling,” even though investigators apparently found no evidence that any classified information had been compromised.

CIA investigators found that Deutch had violated regulations by using a home computer to write drafts of classified documents even though the machine had not been equipped with security features to safeguard the information.

After the agency delayed its own investigation, the Justice Department eventually decided that there was no reason to prosecute Deutch. Critics have contended that Deutch received special treatment that would not have been granted to lower-ranking CIA employees.

“Of course it’s troubling that we’re in this situation,” Tenet conceded. But he insisted that he had taken “stern action” against Deutch by stripping him of his security clearance.

Tenet cautioned that there is a “high potential” for another military flare-up in the Taiwan Straits this year, particularly if China becomes convinced that it must stage a new show of force to counter increased militancy by the next Taipei government after Taiwan’s March 18 presidential election.

Tenet warned that growing instability in North Korea could result in “sudden, radical and possibly dangerous change” in that country at any time, a view that undermines the hopes of some analysts that the United States will be able to coax Pyongyang into more liberal policies.

He also said that Osama bin Laden, the former Saudi millionaire whom the Clinton administration suspects is behind past bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, “wants to strike further blows” against America and could still attack without warning.

Seven months after the United States and its allies declared victory over Serb forces in Kosovo, Tenet said, CIA analysts believe that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s hold on power has not been seriously shaken and is unlikely to be toppled soon.

He predicted that Chechnya may become the training-ground for “the next generation of terrorists,” much as Afghanistan was in the 1980s--a situation that he said could threaten the United States later if the newly trained terrorists launch attacks on U.S. interests.