Washington, May 31 : A top U.S. intelligence official has predicted that the Bush administration would make little progress before leaving office on top national security priorities, including an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, political reconciliation in Iraq and keeping Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
A top U.S. intelligence official has predicted that the Bush administration would make little progress before leaving office on top national security priorities, including an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, political reconciliation in Iraq and keeping Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
A regenerated al-Qaeda will remain the leading terrorism threat, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald M. Kerr said.
Pakistan's "inward" political focus and failure to control the tribal territories where al-Qaeda maintains a haven, he said, is "the number one thing we worry about."
Kerr's analysis, in a speech Thursday evening that he posited as a presidential intelligence briefing delivered on January 21, 2009, contrasted with more optimistic administration forecasts of rapprochement among Iraq's political forces and a possible Middle East peace agreement in the next eight months.
It also seemed at odds with CIA Director Michael V. Hayden's judgment that al-Qaeda is now on the defensive throughout the world, including along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Kerr is one of two officials -- the other is National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell -- who deliver the President's daily briefing at the White House.
He was speaking to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Bush
