over there

Today, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held hearings on "Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States." Goss and Mueller were followed by Vice Admiral Jacoby, Director of DIA and Tom Fingar, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence.

According to Katherine Shrader, who covered the hearings for the AP, CIA, FBI Warn Panel of Top Threats to U.S.

Goss indicated that proliferation and terrorism are the main threats and that

We must, and do, concentrate our effort, experience and expertise on the challenges that are most pressing: defeating terrorism; protecting the homeland; stopping proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and drugs; and fostering stability, freedom and peace in the most troubled regions of the world.

According to the AP's Shrader, one of Goss's most salient statements concerned the threat of Al-Quaida's continuing effort to

[find] ways to circumvent the U.S.'s security enhancements to attack the homeland.

Mueller went on to caution against "radicalized Muslim sleeper operatives inside the United States." He emphasized that,

I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing.

Mueller referred many times to the FBI's National Strategy For Counterintelligence. He emphasized domestic threats and our ongoing need to identify, disrupt and change behavior of "exploited institutions and individuals."

Overall, Shrader called our intelligence leaders' assessments "bleak".

Not to be outdone, Shrader informs us that Donald Rumsfeld

... also sent out a warning, telling the House Armed Services Committee he believes terrorists are regrouping for another strike. But he also said the United States is preparing to deal with any threat.

"The extremists continue to plot to attack again. They are at this moment recalibrating and reorganizing. And so are we," the Pentagon chief said.

It's interesting how the same story, as a reason to continue nuclear testing by the United States, appears on this week's front page of the Center for Security Policy.

Another Republican symphony played by think tanks, government appointees, and elected officials, conducted by Sir Donald Rumsfeld at the podium.

The Center for Security Policy has this quotation from Rumsfeld on their website:

Through the years, the Center for Security Policy has helped ensure a vigorous national security debate and, in so doing, has strengthened our national security, with energy, persistence and patriotism."

- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
4 March 2001

They're promoting a removal of the ban on nuclear testing and more money for missile defense. That's what Mueller and Goss were singing about to the Senate Select Committee today.

Social security, education funding, tort reform ... it's all background music. The melody is being played by the basses and baritones. They sing an irresistable tune.