On Sunday, Mike Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA, issued a warning about the “a lack of urgency” in the Biden administration and Congress to address the increasing threat of terrorism in the US.
A feeling of urgency is required, and I believe the American people must be made aware of the nature of the danger. Morell explained this to Margaret Brennan of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” explaining that the reason behind the request for a public congressional hearing was to address the dangers posed to the nation’s security by terrorists. “We should know the administration’s broad stance on this.”
Earlier this month, Morell was a co-author of an article in Foreign Affairs headlined “The Terrorism Warning Lights Are Blinking Red Again” that drew parallels between the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks and current national security concerns. He made several points in the piece, including the southern border’s susceptibility and the possibility of assaults on American soil inspired by the attacks of October 7th and Israel’s conflict in Gaza.
Even on the morning of 9/11, Morell was delivering the President’s Daily Brief to then-President George W. Bush as a CIA analyst. Morell stated in Foreign Affairs that current FBI director Christopher Wray and other senior officials have been sounding the alarm, echoing previous warnings from then-CIA director George Tenet and Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke regarding Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda prior to 9/11.
The “almost universal” response from current and former intelligence officials and lawmakers, according to Morell, who stated on Sunday that the piece was published, gave him the impression that the Biden administration isn’t handling these dangers with enough urgency.
Given the recent change in emphasis from counterterrorism to China, he acknowledged that there is a problem with available resources. Morell said that “there’s a cost to the intelligence we’re collecting,” although he did say that it was “understandable to some degree.”
The report from the June 7th Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, which Morell cited, called for the department to enhance its screening procedures for noncitizens and asylum applicants. Earlier this month, eight men from Tajikistan were apprehended in several American cities on suspicion of being terrorists; news reports suggested that they had entered the nation over the southern border.
To paraphrase Morell, “the vetting system does not provide all of the information that the government has,” meaning that it does not have all the necessary information. “So it’s the system itself, and it’s lack of information.”
“There are a lot of problems that require fixing here,” he emphasized.