The prospect of another terrorist attack on American soil will not curtail the military’s plans to destroy Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, says US lawmakers who — to prove their point — recently approved funding increases for the intelligence community, and enabled them to be less selective in the kind of informants they paid money for state secrets.
“I don’t think another terrorist attack is dependent on whether or not we retaliate,” says Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-California), a ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee. “We will retaliate.”
Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pennsylvania), who is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, says the “very real likelihood” of another attack by terrorists “should not in any way impact our support for President George W. Bush.”
“We’ve got to take this network out now,” says Weldon. “If not, the next attack against the United States is going to make the last one look like a Sunday school picnic.”
The Bush administration is confident it has proof that Bin Laden’s terrorist organization carried out the September 11 attacks.
Members of the US House of Representatives unanimously approved the intelligence-authorization act for fiscal 2002, a bill so secret that its total cost is classified. Spending was increased 9 percent, 2 percent more than President Bush requested for the bill that, sources tell Strategic Policy, is about $30 billion.
The congressional move increases resources for more intelligence agents and for language training for agents and analysts. It also directs the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to devise more flexible guidelines for recruiting foreign operatives, even those with questionable backgrounds, known as “dirty assets.” During the administration of President Bill Clinton, CIA officers were prohibited from knowingly seeking agents engaged in illegal or amoral activities.
“The CIA’s new agent recruiting policy provides more resources and more people for human intelligence, for our eyes and ears around the world. They are the essential part of the equation,” says Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York). “There is no substitute for people.”
Lawmakers recently provided with CIA briefings on the status of the September 11 terrorism crisis say the Agency does not believe another terrorist attack against the United States as imminent. But members of Congress privy to these briefings say the CIA does expect agents of Bin Laden to act again.
“I’m not aware of any specific imminent threat right now,” Congressman Porter J. Goss (R-Florida), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters shortly after his colleagues voted to increase the intelligence budget.
When Goss was asked to comment on media reports predicting another terrorist attack as imminent, Goss said: “That’s a little hysterical. That is unnecessarily alarmist. I’m not sure that’s responsible.”
Nevertheless, authorities responsible for the US Capitol grounds have begun coating all building windows with a special transparent film to prevent them from shattering into deadly shards in case of an explosion.
Experts estimate that flying glass would cause 70 percent of injuries from a car bomb at the Capitol, notes Congressman John P. Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), a ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee.
“A car bomb is still our biggest threat,” says Murtha. “I think we can count on it happening. It’s going to happen. Just hope you’re not in the Capitol.”
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), says that “no one can say” when or if another attack will occur. “What you can say is, with what the President has put in place around the country the threat is less than it was three weeks ago,” DeLay says.
Under a Goss amendment to the bill, a panel of people with experience in the field — with no subpoena power — would focus on evaluating the nation’s security readiness. The Intelligence Committee’s original bill proposed using an outside commission armed with subpoena power.
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