Al Qaeda Not Imminent Threat To U.S.
By CBS News Justice Department correspondent Bob Orr and Justice Department producer Rob Hendin
The re-emergence of an increasingly sophisticated al Qaeda command structure inside a safe haven in Pakistan is the major factor fueling fears of a summer attack on the United States.
Al Qaeda has regained strength and is now having renewed success in raising money and recruiting jihadists. In addition, there are a number of raw intel source reports and tips that al Qaeda is having some success in dispatching operatives beyond Pakistan. Some have traveled to Europe, but US officials say they have NOT been able to prove or disprove that there are any new terror cells either inside the U.S. or on the way here. To this point, none has been identified.
However, the re-strengthening of al Qaeda and numerous other troubling events -- the U.K. attacks, credible threats in Germany, bombings in North Africa, and the recent "graduation ceremony" for suicide bombers -- all add up to a reason for real worry.
Officials say that while al Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks over the six year "War on Terror," "it is still in a position to strike the West."
This is behind the findings of a new draft National Intelligence Estimate and reflects the conclusions of a classified National Counter Terrorism Center report which the Associated Press disclosed parts of earlier this week.
The U.S. is not raising the terror threat level because, so far, no credible plot against America has been uncovered. The FBI is looking hard. Agents and analysts are constantly re-scrubbing old cases and intelligence, re-checking names and numbers, interviewing past witnesses and sources looking for, as one former analyst puts it, "the needle in a haystack."
The FBI is downplaying its activities as routine law enforcement, "doing what people should expect."
All of this taken together is what prompted Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's now infamous "gut feeling." But a senior US Intelligence official repeated again today: "There is no specific, credible, near-term plot that I know of, and I would know of it!"
Of course, there are considerable worries that U.S. intelligence has missed something. A senior counterterrorism official says "there are a lot of bad people out there, and there are people we'd like to get a better handle on."
He said that while the U.S. sees no imminent threat, "there's no there, there," he also offered the obvious caution, "We don't know what we don't know."