Al-Qaeda is gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States, the director of national intelligence told a Senate panel on Tuesday. Director Mike McConnell told lawmakers that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, remained in control of the terrorist group and had promoted a new generation of lieutenants. He said al-Qaeda was also improving what he called “the last key aspect of its ability to attack the US” — producing militants, including new Western recruits, capable of blending into American society and attacking domestic targets. A senior intelligence official said on Tuesday evening that the testimony was based in part on new evidence that Qaeda operatives in Pakistan were training Westerners, most likely including American citizens, to carry out attacks. The official said there was no indication as yet that al-Qaeda had succeeded in getting operatives into the US.The testimony, in an annual assessment of the threats facing the United States, was the latest indication that al-Qaeda appears to have significantly rebuilt a network battered by the American invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. It follows a National Intelligence Estimate last summer that described a resurgent al-Qaeda, and could add fuel to criticisms from Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates that the White House focus on Iraq since 2002 has diverted attention and resources from the battle against the Qaeda organisation’s core. In recent weeks, fresh concerns about the threat posed by al-Qaeda have prompted senior Bush administration officials to travel to Pakistan to seek approval for more aggressive American military action against militants based in the tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan. General Michael V Hayden, Director of the CIA, also offered the Government’s most extensive public defense for the use of waterboarding, saying that the CIA had used the harsh interrogation technique against three Qaeda operatives in 2002 and 2003 in a belief that another terrorist attack on the US was imminent. He identified the three as Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed .General Hayden said the technique, which induces a feeling of drowning, had not been used since 2003. McConnell said that a future CIA request to use waterboarding on a detainee would need to be approved both by Attorney General Michael B Mukasey and by President Bush. The CIA is the only agency permitted under law to use interrogation methods more aggressive than those used by the American military. Both Robert S Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Lt Gen Michael D Maples, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers that their agencies had successfully obtained valuable intelligence from terrorism suspects without using what Mueller called the “coercive” methods of the CIA.But General Hayden bristled when asked about Congressional attempts to mandate that CIA interrogators be required to use the more limited set of interrogation methods contained in the Army Field Manual, which is used by military interrogators. “It would make no more sense to apply the Army’s field manual to CIA,” General Hayden said, “than it would to take the Army Field Manual on grooming and apply it to my agency, or the Army Field Manual on recruiting and apply it to my agency. During the testimony, McConnell tried to recalibrate somewhat the intelligence agencies’ view of Iran’s nuclear programme, telling senators that the public portion of a National Intelligence Estimate released in December placed too much significance on the fact that Iran had halted secret work on nuclear weapons design in 2003.McConnell said that weapons design was “probably the least significant part of the programme” and that Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment meant that it still posed a potential nuclear threat. In his testimony on al-Qaeda, McConnell said Osama and Zawahri were precluded by “security concerns” from the day-to-day running of the organisation. But he said both men “regularly pass inspirational messages and specific operational guidance to their followers through public statements”.
