Clinton: Islamist terror is No. 1 threat

Obama administration figures took to Sunday’s political talk shows to rebut charges of White House weakness on Islamist terrorism, with the nation’s top diplomat saying such networks pose the greatest threat to national security.

While one of the White House’s top national security advisers criticized lawmakers for politicizing national security threats, including the Christmas Day attack over Detroit, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said even a nuclear-armed North Korea or Iran isn’t as great a threat to the U.S. as al Qaeda and allied jihad groups.

“The biggest nightmare that any of us have is that one of these terrorist member organizations within this syndicate of terror will get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction,” she said in a Sunday appearance on CNN. “So that’s really the most threatening prospect we see.”

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told Congress earlier this month he was “certain” there will be an attempted terrorist attack on the United States within the next six months.

Also on Sunday, Iran threw down another gauntlet against international sanctions on its nuclear development, saying it will start Tuesday to enrich uranium to six times the nuclear purity usually used in civilian nuclear power plants, a step toward producing uranium pure enough to use in a nuclear weapon.

While Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that “obviously, a nuclear-armed country like North Korea or Iran pose both a real or a potential threat,” she said the terror threat is greater and, unlike some recent Obama administration figures, specified that threat in terms specific to Islam, though not the Muslim religion itself.

“But I think that most of us believe the greater threats are the transnational non-state networks, primarily the extremists, the fundamentalist Islamic extremists who are connected — al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, al Qaeda in the Maghreb [region of North Africa],” she said.

The Obama administration has drawn considerable criticism from Republicans and conservatives for downplaying the terror threat as if it were a law enforcement or disaster operation. The charge was emphasized most recently by newly elected Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who ridiculed granting foreign terrorists Miranda rights and other protections that civilians have in U.S. criminal courts.

“Quite frankly, I’m tiring of politicians using national security issues such as terrorism as a political football,” deputy national security adviser John O. Brennan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “They’re going out there, they’re unknowing of the facts and they’re making charges and allegations that are not anchored in reality.”

Mr. Brennan also denounced as opportunistic the Republican attacks on reading Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Detroit-bound airliner bombing suspect, his rights to an attorney and against self-incrimination — the well-known Miranda warning. He said he briefed four top Hill Republicans on Christmas night on Mr. Abdulmutallab and informed them that he was in FBI custody.

“They knew that in FBI custody that there is a process as far as Mirandizing,” he said. “None of those individuals raised any concerns … at that point.”

Mr. Brennan said he spoke with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner and Republican intelligence committee members Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri and Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan.

Since then, many Republicans have questioned whether Mr. Abdulmutallab would have given U.S. authorities more information had he not had access to an attorney.

In response, Mr. Hoekstra repeated his criticism of the administration’s handling of recent security threats.

“Can anyone take seriously the White House’s assertion that it consulted with Republicans when President Obama didn’t even consult his own director of national intelligence, FBI director or homeland security director concerning Abdulmutallab?” he said in a statement. “The mishandling of this case is the Obama administration’s failure and they have no one to blame but themselves.”

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