US Intel Officials Differ With Obama in View of al-Qaida
Feb. 11, 2014 - 03:45AM | By JOHN T. BENNETT
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140211/DEFREG02/302110017/US-Intel-Officials-Differ-Obama-View-al-Qaida

WASHINGTON — Senior US intelligence officials on Tuesday offered a more
alarming assessment of al-Qaida than President Barack Obama’s declaration
that the organization is on the run and headed toward defeat.

For several years, Obama and his top national security aides have talked
publicly of an al-Qaida greatly diminished by US armed drone strikes in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the emergence of affiliate groups mostly
focused on attacks in Southwest Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

In a landmark speech on his targeted-killing program last May, Obama
described al-Qaida’s core cell and leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan as
“on the path to defeat.” The commander in chief said al-Qaida’s “remaining
operatives spend more time thinking about their own safety than plotting
against us.”

“They did not direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston,” Obama said. “They’ve
not carried out a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11.”

Obama also made clear that he and his top advisers see an al-Qaida focused
less on attacks in the United States.

“While we are vigilant for signs that these groups may pose a transnational
threat, most are focused on operating in the countries and regions where
they are based,” Obama said at the time. “And that means we’ll face more
localized threats like what we saw in Benghazi, or the BP oil facility in
Algeria, in which local operatives — perhaps in loose affiliation with
regional networks — launch periodic attacks against Western diplomats,
companies and other soft targets, or resort to kidnapping and other criminal
enterprises to fund their operations.”

In his State of the Union address a few weeks ago, Obama again described a
weakened al-Qaida, although he did acknowledge “the threat has evolved, as
al-Qaida affiliates and other extremists take root in different parts of the
world” like “Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Mali.”

When describing the role of any American and NATO forces that will remain in
Afghanistan after this year, Obama said one of the primary missions would be
“counterterrorism operations to pursue any remnants of al-Qaida.”

In that address, Obama again said “we have put al-Qaida’s core leadership on
a path to defeat.”

Obama also vowed to take America “off a permanent war footing.”

But during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday,
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Defense Intelligence
Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn offered a different assessment.

Under questioning on that topic from panel Ranking Member Sen. James Inhofe,
R-Okla., Clapper described al-Qaida as “morphing,” with new groups popping
up in North Africa.

Flynn replied, “they are not,” when asked by Inhofe if al-Qaida is, as Obama
has said, on a path to defeat and on the run.

Clapper seemed to downplay his own warnings about the threat to the United
States posed by so-called al-Qaida affiliates when he said such
organizations are not currently plotting attacks on “the homeland.” But he
keeps them on his lengthy threat list simply because one day, “they could.”

Obama sees al-Qaida groups outside Afghanistan and Pakistan as focused on
the countries in which they operate and not on attacking America. When asked
by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., whether the emergence of new Islamic extremist
groups in Syria increases the threat of attacks on the US homeland, Clapper
said yes.

No panel members pressed Clapper on this seeming disconnect with his boss.

In his written testimony, Clapper stated that regarding “core al-Qa’ida” in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, a number of factors have put it “on a downward
trajectory since 2008.” The group now possesses “a degraded … ability to
carry out a catastrophic attack against the US homeland and eroded its
position as leader of the global violent extremist movement.”

Where Obama describes a mostly defeated core al-Qaida, Clapper warns it is
poised for a comeback.

“It probably hopes for a resurgence following the drawdown of US troops in
Afghanistan in 2014,” the DNI told the Senate panel.

Meantime, panel Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., pressed the duo on
whether the situation in Afghanistan would be improved if Washington and its
allies simply announced it would wait for a new Afghan president before
again pushing for finalization of a long-term security pact between the two
countries that would keep US forces there into 2015 and beyond.

“The United States and the Coalition of which we are a part would be better
off waiting for [Hamid] Karzai’s successor to sign the agreement the Afghan
people favor, as reflected by the consensus of the 3,000-member Loya Jirga,”
Levin said.

Clapper revealed he believes Karzai will not sign the security pact before
he leaves office later this year.

The DNI said that waiting this long to finalize the agreement already has
yielded “negative trends,” such as an exodus of foreign investment in
Afghanistan.

On Iran, Clapper remained in lockstep with the White House, telling the
Senate committee that the US intelligence community has concluded new
sanctions against Iran would be “counterproductive” to ongoing multilateral
talks aimed at convincing Tehran to give up its atomic-arms program.

Some Republicans and a declining number of Democrats on Capitol Hill want to
vote soon on a measure that would slap new sanctions on Iran over its
nuclear-arms desires.

The White House is lobbying hard against such a vote in one or both
chambers.

Email: jbennett@defensenews.com.