Top U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials told a Senate panel on Wednesday that a ‘shifting landscape’ of fast-moving and interconnected global threats – ranging from climate change on cyberattacks – would mean that agencies need to reformulate their approach to national security issues.
No threat, according to them, is greater or thinner than the threat posed by China, which the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, called an “unparalleled priority” and a “tremendous challenge”.
“China is increasingly a competitive group challenging the United States in several areas, while insisting on reviewing global norms in a way that benefits the authoritarian Chinese system,” Haines said in prepared opening speech.
Haines testified along with directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, all of whom appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee for an annual public hearing on global threats.
It was the first time since 2019 that the trial, a tradition of more than a decade, took place. Intelligence leaders publicly testified last year to a public reprimand by then-President Trump, who previously interrupted his own intelligence officers for presenting reviews in apparent conflict with the policies of his administration.
The officials’ testimony follows the release of a written report on Tuesday setting out the collective assessment of the country’s 17 intelligence agencies on the biggest threats.
After Haines reiterated the report’s key findings in her opening statement, committee chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said it was “as many awful things in ten minutes as I’re heard lately.”
Warner said the technological threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which he feared would try to ‘dominate’ a wide range of new technologies, including artificial intelligence and biotechnology.
The intelligence community ‘must keep a clear eye on the assessment of the range of threats posed by the CCP,’ he said.
Vice President Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, urges Haines to continue the work of the intelligence community to trace the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. A laboratory accident scenario, Rubio claimed, remained ‘credible’.
Haines responded that the intelligence community “does not know exactly where, when or how” COVID-19 was initially transmitted, but said both theories about a natural rise and laboratory accident are still being investigated.
William Burns, director of the CIA, added that Beijing’s leadership was “not fully or transparently” in what the relevant global health authorities or the US government shared.
Senators have also repeatedly expressed concern about the country’s own willingness to fend off cyberbullying, including how the fight against the fall of the SolarWinds Russian espionage campaign and the Microsoft Exchange Hack attributed to Chinese spies.
Paul Nakasone, director general of the NSA, who also leads the US cyber commando, said the visibility of agencies in the cyber security of domestic entities was limited because opponents structured ‘their activities’ to exploit US legal and policy boundaries. . He also said that cybercriminals have moved beyond techniques such as spearfishing and guesswork with passwords, to ‘above best practices’ – more sophisticated maneuvers, such as targeting vulnerabilities in the supply chain and exploiting the use of zero days.
Nakasone has repeatedly told the panel that he does not want to seek a strengthened authority for the NSA or the Cyber Command, but that the existing ‘blind spots’ are a challenge that relevant agencies should eventually ‘be able to address’.
Senators seem to have reserved their most sensitive questions about current threats with real-time policy implications – including Iran’s nuclear program and Russia’s military build-up on Ukraine’s border – for the closed session following the public hearing.
President Biden on Tuesday proposed that a US-Russia Summit in a third country in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a White House reading, which also said that Mr. Biden wants a ‘stable and predictable’ relationship with Moscow.
The administration also sent officials to Vienna for indirect talks aimed at 2015 Iran Agreement.
Several lawmakers have raised the government’s planned withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, which President Biden announced Wednesday afternoon.
“When the time comes for the U.S. military to withdraw, the U.S. government’s ability to gather threats and take action will diminish; that is simply a fact,” Burns said. But, he added, the CIA and other partners will retain a range of capabilities that will help the US anticipate and dispel new threats that may arise.
“I think we need to look clearly at the reality of the potential terrorism challenge that al-Qaida and ISIS in Afghanistan are still planning to restore the ability to attack US targets,” Burns said. “After years of sustained terrorist pressure, the reality is that none of them have the capability today.”
Burns will testify with the same panel of witnesses before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday for his version of the trial.