Monday, March 11, 2024

Nation’s intelligence chiefs to tell Congress world remains a dangerous place



By Jamie McIntyre

March 11, 2024 7:03 am


WORLD AS DANGEROUS AS EVER: Led by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, the nation’s top spymasters and law enforcement officials will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee today and the House Intelligence Committee tomorrow about the growing threats from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, among others.

Also appearing before the committees to testify about the “Annual Worldwide Threats Assessment” will be CIA Director William Burns, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Brett Holmgren, National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh, and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.

China, which is building up its military at a “breathtaking” pace and making increasingly ominous statements about forcing unification with Taiwan, is once again expected to be identified as posing the greatest long-term challenge to U.S. national security. “Countries around the world see a unipolar order, and they seek to challenge it,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CBS yesterday. “In China’s case, they want, if not to replace, at least to be an alternative to the American-led system.”

“One of the things that Sen. Rubio and I have done on a bipartisan basis is try to go industry by industry in America and warn them of the potential theft of intellectual property, $500 billion a year,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Intelligence Committee chairman, said sitting alongside Rubio on CBS’s Face the Nation. “China is investing in quantum computing, in bioengineering. … I think we need to compete against that.”

“The vast majority of innovation is still taking place in this country,” Warner added.



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