Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Special Intelligence Briefing:DNI

Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon,said Lieutenant General James R. Clapper,Jr.,US Air Force retired,Director of National Intelligence.That would be decided solely by the Supreme Leader,Ayatollah Khamenei.We would only have a brief forewarning,General Clapper told the Senate Armed Forces Committee April 18.
Pakistan views India as their preeminent threat.They have lost thousands of troops in pursuit of militants,whose presence in Pakistan hasn't changed basically.
The Defense Intelligence Agency has a higher degree of confidence that North Korea can weaponise a missile than the rest of the intelligence community.We do not know if that would work.
I saw how little the DIA was devoting to terrorism when I was its director in the 1990s.I fear I've seen this movie before.
The Iranians are developing two systems that could have intercontinental capability.The sanctions on Iran are having a huge impact on their economy,but have not yet changed their policy.
In Sudan,a very high proportion of the population is young,unemployed males,susceptible to jihadism.This is also true in other African countries.
The sequestration is certainly consuming us,the capability.We collectively are gonna have to correct what people expect of the intelligence community,because it is not gonna be the same.
We won't know what we've missed until something blows up,as Senator Angus King(I-Maine) put it.
We are facing more threats now than at any time in the past fifty years,General Clapper believes.
General Clapper,72,served in the US Air Force from 1963-95 in various military intelligence capacities.The Vietnam veteran went on to head the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1992-95;and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from 2001-05.He was Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence from 2007-10,when President Barack Obama appointed him Director of National Intelligence,the nation's senior intelligence official.
General Clapper was decorated with the Legion of Merit(3);the Bronze Star(2);the Air Medal(2);and the National Intelligence Defense Service Medal.He is also an Officer of the Order of Australia(Honorary).

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