House Armed Services Committee Global Security Assessment

Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), said that although a lot of time is spent focusing on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we cannot afford to be any less vigilant regarding the rest of the world and be careful that we don’t become so near-sighted that we fail to see what’s developing around us.

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Republican Duncan Hunter (R-CA) said that he has concerns in “functional areas,” which were that more than 20 countries have ballistic missile capability, some foreign entities are acquiring American defense companies with critical capabilities, industrial espionage, and cyber-security.

Dr. Thomas Fingar, Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis, said that al-Qaida continues to present significant threats both home and abroad. He said the assessment is their plotting is designed to create mass casualties and massive visibility in order to create fear. AQI, he said, has been weakened but remains al-Qaida’s most visible and capable affiliate.

Home-grown extremists are an evolving danger, Fingar said, and described home-grown extremists as persons inspired by militant Islamic ideology but without operational direction from al-Qaida itself.

During the question and answer period, Fingar said with instability in the Middle East, and the importance of energy in that region, localized conflict is a threat to Americans everywhere and it didn’t take “a crystal ball” to see that. He said that a suicide bomber was an “asymmetrical threat.”

Congressman Hunter asked Dr. Fingar if our exposed and open border was a threat, and Fingar answered that a positive development in the last year was the effective efforts by Mexico to make the border less vulnerable for their own domestic stability. Yes, he said, the lack of fences and physical borders along our 2000 mile border with Mexico was a vulnerability.

In response to that same question, Robert Cardillo, Deputy Director for Analysis of the Defense Intelligence Agency, agreed that the access through Mexico is a liability and increases the threat to the United States as long as it remains open.