Yesterday I took a break from watching the Winter Olympics to read press accounts of a couple of Soviet Union ballistic missile tests conducted in the fall of 1987. According to a report in the October 2, 1987 Washington Post, the warheads of one of the missiles fell into the Pacific Ocean “about 500 miles from Hawaii, prompting U.S. diplomatic complaints”. Thankfully the warheads were what the intelligence community called “dummies” as compared to nuclear or conventional war heads that would be expected to be used in the event the Cold War had gone Hot.
At the time of the incident I was assigned to the Navy’s Pacific Fleet intelligence staff. As I recall it was not only the government that protested the Soviet tests, the Hawaii public was stunned and in an uproar. I remember being puzzled by the reaction thinking didn’t the public know we were in the midst of a Cold War that if God forbid ever went Hot would be major ugly ops?
I had a similar reaction last week watching public and media reaction of a terrorist’s court appearance in New York. The young man confessed that he had been trained by Al Qaeda and had planned to blow up subways in Manhattan in September 2009. Media coverage was widespread and as part of the coverage of the event frequently showed the scene of Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair responding to Senator Diane Feinstein’s question of the likelihood of another terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland in the next 3 – 6 months. Blair’s response was that an attack was certain. People seemed surprised by the incident. With all the effort our nation is putting out in attempts to destroy Al Qaeda why would anyone be surprised to learn that group is still trying to carry out attacks on U.S. soil?
I’m retired now but remember during my time in the military frequently thinking there was a lot of “Cassandra” when it came to dealing with public attitudes towards the military and the intelligence community. According to ancient Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of the King of Troy. The God Apollo, who apparently was the best looking man of the time, fell in love with her. For whatever reason she rejected his affections; enraged Apollo put a curse on her. He gave her the gift of prophecy. The catch, no one would ever believe her.
That brings me to the intelligence community’s annual threat assessment. I found it interesting that the terrorism issue was mentioned third in the report behind cyber threats and concerns the global economic crisis might impact national security if things didn’t continue to improve. I’m not implying the issue has declined in importance. It’s simply that there are many potential threats to national security and as mentioned in my last blog on the subject, the annual assessment gives the public and Congress a window into what areas the intelligence community is focusing on.
What does the report say about terrorism? Actually it’s pretty succinct: “terrorist under pressure; terrorist threat to Homeland remains”. Points that jumped out at me: “Muslim opinion increasingly turned against terrorist groups…because of their brutal tactics that resulted in the deaths of Muslim civilians.”
There have been major counter terrorism successes by the U.S. and its allies against terrorist leaders and operatives. Although there have been successes Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda inspired terrorists remain committed and have the capability to attacking the U.S. Homeland and interests abroad; but we are making the attacks “very difficult to pull off”. The report goes on to state: “At the same time, the recent successful and attempted attacks represent an evolving threat in which it is even more difficult to identify and track small numbers of terrorists recently recruited and trained and short term plots than to find and follow terrorist cells engaged in plots that have been ongoing for years.”
What are the potential targets? According to the assessment: “Targets that have been the focus of more than one Al Qaeda plot include aviation, financial institutions in New York City, and government targets in Washington D.C., bridges, gas infrastructure, reservoirs, residential complexes, and public venues for larger gatherings.”
Those are the key points that I noticed. I’ll stop for now….need to get my couch ready so I can watch the last day of the Olympics. I’ll cover some more of the threat assessment in the coming weeks. There are many potential flashpoints like the upcoming election in Iraq and impacts of Iran’s activities in the Persian Gulf region. Did I mention the report is 47 pages long? As always my thoughts are my own. Have a good week.
