Title: CIA terms Pak
breeding ground for extremists
Author: Agencies
Publication: times of
India
Date: February 4, 2000
WASHINGTON: In a remarkably
sobering assessment of the threats facing the US, CIA director George Tenet
told a Senate committee Wednesday that growing resentment of American power
plus new technologies means that the US has become ``a lightning rod for
the disaffected''.
Tenet told the Senate
select committee on intelligence, ``The fact that we are arguably the world's
most powerful nation does not bestow invulnerability. In fact, it may make
us a larger target for those who don't share our interests, values or beliefs.''
Pakistan is now one of the breeding grounds for extremists and Saudi dissident
Osama Bin Laden is still the foremost among terrorists ``because of the
immediacy and seriousness of the threat he poses,'' Tenet warned.
Testifying on the fight
against terrorism, he said that ``there is now an intricate web of alliances
among Sunni extremists worldwide, including north Africans, radical Palestinians,
Pakistanis and central Asians.'' Some of these terrorists, he said, are
actively sponsored by national governments that harbour great antipathy
towards the US and one is Iran which remains the most active state sponsor.
Tenet went down the long
list of threats facing the US:
-- The missile threat
to the US from states other than Russia or China, which includes Iran,
North Korea, Iraq and Syria, is steadily emerging.
-- The spread of technology
such as computers and guidance equipment means an increasing risk of substantial
surprise for any attack on the US.
-- The threat of terrorism
remains and in some ways becomes larger due to cooperation between various
terrorist groups and their ability to finance themselves with narcotics
sales.
-- Terrorist groups are
more able to engage in ``information warfare'', attacking computer-based
supply and control systems in the US from anywhere on the globe. It is
a weapon ``that comes ashore'', affecting the daily lives of Americans
across the country.
Tenet also said the war
in Chechnya may impact directly on the US as the militants are pushed out
of Russia. They might seek refuge and stoke militancy in the South Caucusus
and Central Asia.
West Asia was heading
into a much less predictable period at the same time as the US would be
depending on the region for more oil a decade from now -- 40 per cent compared
to 26 per cent dependency today.
In the Balkans, Montenegro,
now a constituent republic of Yugoslavia, might be heading toward independence.
Both Serbia and Montenegro would try to avoid a serious confrontation for
now but a final showdown between them appeared to be difficult to avoid.
In South Asia, the potential
for a wider and possibly nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan remained.
Africa's instability would continue to grow as the economic situation in
sub-Saharan Africa grew worse.
``Endemic violence and
instability increase the danger that criminal and insurgent groups will
zero in on individual US citizens as soft targets,'' he said.
Tenet dwelt at length
on Chechnya and said the breakaway region could become the terror training
ground for the new millennium. ``Afghanistan was the calling card in the
'70s and '80s. Chechnya will become the calling card of this millennium
in terms of where do terrorists go and train and act,'' Tenet said.
``Terrorists'' were likely
to take the opportunity to inject themselves into the situation for religious
reasons or to help the Chechens, he said. That in turn ``will create a
cascading effect of people proving their mettle on a battleground that
they will then come back and test against us in other places,'' Tenet said.
Russia's military action
alone will not resolve its conflict with Chechnya, Vice Admiral Thomas
Wilson, director of the defence intelligence agency, said at the same hearing.
The Chechen situation has ``been going on for centuries and it won't be
solved by military action,'' he said.
