U.S. officials: 9/11-type attacks still possible
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CIA Director George Tenet, left, and FBI Director Robert Mueller talk Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
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CIA director George Tenet says al Qaeda is still a major threat with the potential to attack interests overseas and in the U.S. CNN's David Ensor reports (February 24)
Former top U.S. weapons inspector David Kay discusses policies to discourage nuclear proliferation.
President Bush names members of a panel to probe intelligence failures.
CIA Director George Tenet defends prewar intelligence.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Directors of the top U.S. security agencies on Tuesday told the Senate Intelligence Committee that terrorist networks are damaged, but still capable of targeting American interests, including plots on the same scale as the attacks of September 11, 2001.
CIA Director George Tenet testified to the committee that agents have "time and again uncovered plots that are chilling."
"On aircraft plots alone, we have uncovered new plans to recruit pilots and to evade new security measures in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe," Tenet said. "Even catastrophic attacks on the scale of September 11 remain within al Qaeda's reach."
In their annual assessment of global threats, Tenet, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, each described successes and progress made in their mission. Mueller said the mission was far from accomplished.
"We face an enemy that is determined, an enemy that is resilient, an enemy that is patient, an enemy whose ultimate goal is destruction of the United States," Mueller said. "The enemy still has the capability to strike in the United States and strike United States citizens abroad with little or no warning."
Tenet said that the hierarchy of al Qaeda's network had been particularly damaged, but added that other, loosely organized, regional networks -- operating more autonomously -- were filling the gaps caused by Osama bin Laden's difficulty in coordinating attacks.
Tenet: Finding Iraqi WMD a necessity
Tenet also said that terrorist organizations are still seeking and trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, which makes it necessary for the U.S. to continue searching for WMD in Iraq.
The CIA chief brushed off suggestions that David Kay, former head of the Iraqi Survey Group, was correct when he said Saddam Hussein likely did not possess such weapons at the start of the war.
"I'm in the middle of a big debate," Tenet said, referring to trailers found in Iraq that Vice President Dick Cheney has said were proof of Iraqi biological weapons production.
"I have analysts in my building who are convinced that that's exactly what they were," Tenet said, "and analysts with the Defense Intelligence Agency who tell me the opposite."
Tenet has been criticized for pre-war intelligence that indicated Iraqi weapons of mass destruction posed a threat to the United States. The Bush administration named Iraq's alleged WMD as a key reason in its decision to invade Iraq last year.
Also during his Capitol Hill testimony Tuesday, Tenet cited Libya's agreement to end its nuclear programs as an intelligence success.
Mueller said al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are "committed to damaging the U.S. economy and U.S. prestige."
"They will revisit missed targets until they succeed," Mueller said. "That list now includes both the White House and the Capitol, and in addition our transportation system, bridges in major cities and our airlines."
Both Mueller and Tenet told senators that operations in Iraq have caused "no lessening of the efforts" to capture bin Laden.
Jacoby agreed that al Qaeda's planning abilities had become "more decentralized," and added that "attacks against civilian aircraft remain a concern."
