Intelligence Chief Speaks of Need for Agile Intelligence Community

December 5, 2008
By Robert O'Neill

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell identified bioterrorism and cyberterrorism as grave threats facing the United States, discussed the integration of the country’s intelligence agencies, and gave insights into his daily presidential intelligence briefings during a free ranging discussion of the country’s intelligence needs at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on Tuesday (Dec. 2).

McConnell said that ever-changing security threats, including the increasing threat of terrorism and competition for resources such as energy, food, and water, require an agile intelligence community. He also spoke about the need to balance openness with protection of vital secrets.

McConnell said that there was a “better than even chance in the next five years” of a bioterrorism attack somewhere in the globe. He also described the threat of cyber terrorism as “the soft underbelly of the United States.”

“The United States depends on the cyber infrastructure more heavily on the than any other nation on earth,” he said.

McConnell also said he believed the group responsible for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India in November was responsible for similar attacks in 2006 and 2001 – attacks attributed to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmir-based militant group.

"If you examine the groups we think are responsible, the philosophical underpinnings are very similar to what Al-Qaeda puts out as their view of how the world should be. It is a continuation," he said.

McConnell spoke briefly about his role briefing both President George Bush and President-elect Barak Obama.

“The speed with which these two particular gentlemen absorb information and move on is astounding. But we go through a great deal of substance on any topic you can imagine in the context of national security and potential threats to the United States.”

But McConnell said that Obama is currently receiving a briefing seven days a week, compared to Bush’s six. “I don’t know if there’s a little competition there or not,” McConnell joked.

The event was cosponsored by the Institute of Politics and the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation, which honored McConnell’s office earlier this year with an Innovations in American Government Award.

The award-winning Intelligence Community Civilian Joint Duty Program requires intelligence personnel to serve outside their parent agency if they are to be promoted. “As a result, Joint Duty personnel gain a deeper and broader knowledge of the inner-workings of American intelligence, and in the process, build the collaborative, inter-agency information-sharing networks so vital to today’s post-9/11 intelligence mission,” the Ash Institute remarked.

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Photo of Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence

Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, makes a point during lecture at John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum

McConnell said that there was a “better than even chance in the next five years” of a bioterrorism attack somewhere in the globe. He also described the threat of cyber terrorism as “the soft underbelly of the United States.”

Photograph of Ash Institute director Anthony Saich, and DNI Mike McConnell

Ash Institute Director Anthony Saich (L) moderates the question and answer session with DNI Mike McConnell (R)