Home-grown terrorism is overtaking the threat to Americans posed by groups backed by foreign governments, according to top U.S. officials.
Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh and CIA acting Director George Tenet told a Senate panel Tuesday that terrorism is a growing threat being met with an expanding and global U.S. effort involving law enforcement, intelligence and the military.Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, the officials described a counterterrorism effort that has yielded arrests of key ringleaders and the interruption of terrorist plots before serious damage could be done.
"There is a long list of planned acts of terrorism that have been interrupted," Freeh said. Tenet said the CIA and FBI recently "averted bombings at two American embassies overseas."
But the three said the problem is getting worse, more complicated and closer to home, with an increasing number of terrorist acts aimed at prominent U.S. targets.
"The risk of terrorism within our borders does not result solely from grievances imported from overseas as, increasingly, acts of terrorism have been perpetrated by disaffected (U.S.) citizens," Reno said.
"There are many, many groups" with no affiliation to a sponsoring state, Freeh said, "and I see them proliferating and becoming a more serious threat than state-sponsored terrorism."
Reno, Freeh and Tenet did not request more money even though senators made clear they were willing to provide it.
"I don't think it's a question of money," Tenet said. "I think it's a question of focus."
Tenet said the CIA is addressing the issue of focus in its human-intelligence gathering branch and has made better progress in penetrating terrorist cells than is generally understood.