Terrorism Still No. 1 Threat To U.S. National Security
ARENA: The war on terrorism moves back to center stage this week. The directors of the CIA and FBI testified before Congress on Tuesday and gave a frightening assessment of the possibility of new attacks against the United States. Well new audiotape is attributed to Osama bin Laden's, Aimen al- Zawahiri, appeared again. On the tapes, more warnings are more attacks on the way with special criticism directed towards France and its controversial ban of Muslim head scarves in schools. Joining me now to evaluate these threats is terrorism analyst Jim Walsh of Harvard university. Thanks for joining us.</s>JIM WALSH, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Happy to be with you, Kelli.</s>ARENA: Jim, let's start with that tape from al-Zawahiri. We have heard tapes like this before, threats before. Is there anything about this latest audiotape that struck you?</s>WALSH: We just had a tape about two months ago, the end of January we had a tape -- well, I should say one month ago. And when we'd get a tape we wonder, is this going to be followed by an attack? Because in the early days, soon after 9/11, it seemed there was a relationship, a videotape was followed by an attack. But over time, that relationship has gotten weaker and weaker. What it does tell us is al-Zawahiri is still alive. There are references in these tapes to recent events, but it's hard to know what to make of it beyond that.</s>ARENA: All right. Getting over to the testimony that we heard today on Capitol Hill, we all heard al Qaeda remains strong, could pull off an attack similar to the September 11 attacks, that targets could include the Capitol, the White House. Still, a very formidable foe?</s>WALSH: Absolutely. Bot -- all of the intelligence officials testified that terrorism is the No. 1 threat to the U.S. national security. Coming in number third was proliferation. Coming in sort of a weak third. Then in between terrorism and the issue of proliferation was Iraq. National security threats faced by U.S. men and women in Iraq. But terrorism continues to be No. 1. And the big news here is, al Qaeda is transforming. It's morphing into a different kind of threat. It's no longer centraly organized, it's locally organized and it seems to be spreading.</s>ARENA: All right. Also, obviously, whenever we hear the officials talk about the threat, they say, al Qaeda and affiliated groups. And we heard a little from a group Ansar al Suna possibly being active in Iraq. We also know Ansar al Islan is active in that region. Give me a sense of the other satellite groups that are starting to emerge?</s>WALSH: Well Kelli, you've put your finger right on it. This has to do with this change, this morphing of al Qaeda. In the good old days, you had terrorism and most of it was local. Local folks attacking other local targets over local causes. And then you had this thing al Qaeda, which was its own special category. Now al Qaeda has suffered and its central leadership has suffered . Now we have little al Qaeda in Libya, in northern Iraq in Indonesia and in elsewhere. So they're smaller, which is good for us, but it also means that that ideologist is spreading, and that's bad for us.</s>ARENA: Jim, some news today, published in the "New Yorker" magazine that Pakistan will allow U.S. forces into that country to hunt for Osama bin Laden. How significant is that?</s>WALSH: Well, we certainly see a steady stream of reports that suggests there are more aggressive actions going to be taken in Afghanistan. Why? One of the reasons is the weather will get better. and if you're going to get bin Laden you get him when it's springtime, early summer, not winter. There also seems to be about renewed commitment on the part of President Musharraf in Pakistan. Some argued because he finally sees al Qaeda as a threat. He has suffered at least two assassinations attempts and worries he may be not as lucky the third time. So, some people are suggesting he's decided okay, I'm going to burn the bridge, pay the cost that has to be paid and I'm going in and attack al Qaeda and these frontier areas. Even with renewed commitment, it's going to be difficult, though. There's a reason why they're called frontier areas. There is very little rule of law. So, it will be a tough job, I think.</s>ARENA: All right. Jim Walsh, Harvard university, thanks very much for joining us.</s>WALSH: Thank you, Kelli.</s>ARENA: Haitian rebels celebrate as U.S. Marines are deployed to the Caribbean nation, but could the resignation of a Democratically elected president spell trouble for haiti's future? We'll speak with two U.S. present representatives. Plus, construction of Israel's west bank security wall hits a hurdle in the Israeli Supreme Court.