US intelligence agencies seize policy initiative

The crisis of confidence that beset the US intelligence community for much of the last six years was not in evidence when the Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell, delivered his annual threat assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee on 5 February. After warning the assembled legislators that his analysis would move into areas that "are not traditional national security topics", McConnell embarked on a briefing that revealed as much about the current state of mind of the intelligence community, as the threats currently facing the US.

Perhaps the most revealing conclusion of the assessment, which represents the collegial view of the 16 US government agencies involved in intelligence gathering and analysis, was that the chief foreign security challenges in 2008 are Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq. It is in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan, said McConnell, that Al-Qaeda is rebuilding its capacity to plan and execute attacks elsewhere in the world, including against the US homeland. In Afghanistan, he argued, "the security situation has deteriorated" in 2007, and it is on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border "where many of our most important interests intersect" in 2008.

The self-confident tone and ambitious scope of the threat assessment is consistent with a recent trend in intelligence community reports. Not only does this point to an intelligence community that is determined to avoid any future accusations that it has acted as a stooge of the White House, it also reflects a realisation within the intelligence community of the crucial importance of building strong relationships in Congress during the final months of a lame duck presidential administration.