WASHINGTON — Six years after the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil, the United States is in many ways unprepared to stop another major strike against the homeland, which Al Qaeda appears intent on carrying out in the near future, four of the nation's top counter- terrorism officials told a Senate panel Monday.
Al Qaeda's intentions have been underscored in recent days by the disruption of suspected terrorist plots in Germany and Denmark, the first propaganda video by Osama bin Laden in three years, and persistent intelligence showing that Al Qaeda has regrouped in a Pakistan haven and is training operatives there for attacks worldwide.
Al Qaeda's media arm said Monday that it was preparing to release a second Bin Laden tape. He is expected to again taunt President Bush and other pursuers, and praise those responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Our counter-terrorism efforts have disrupted some of the enemy's plans and diminished certain capabilities," John Scott Redd, the director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "But the events of the last days and the last weeks clearly demonstrate the clear and present danger which continues to exist."
In more than three hours of prepared testimony and questioning, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Redd said significant progress had been made in deterring another attack on the scale of Sept. 11, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
McConnell said counter- terrorism intelligence-gathering was much improved, in part due to expanded post-Sept. 11 electronic surveillance powers, including those under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Confirming a Times report, McConnell told the committee that U.S. electronic intercepts helped in last week's thwarting of an alleged terrorist plot in Germany involving militants trained in camps run by Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Jihad Union.
The surveillance "allowed us to see and understand all the connections" to Al Qaeda, McConnell said. "Because we could understand it, we could help our partners through a long process of monitoring and observation, realizing that the perpetrators had actually obtained explosive liquids."
After the hearing, Redd confirmed that U.S. intercepts played a central role in disrupting a suspected "major" plot in Denmark. Eight alleged Al Qaeda affiliates were arrested.
