That’s what Senators want to know. Gonzales is testifying right now before the Judiciary Committee–not exactly his favorite audience–about a host of issues. But earlier, Senators grilled him over the famous nighttime visit Gonzales and then White House Chief of Staff Andy Card paid to John Ashcroft, back in March 2004, when the attorney general [...]

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters this morning that President Bush has not ruled out military action in Pakistan’s tribal areas against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Aboard Air Force One, Snow said, “We never rule out any options, including striking actionable targets.” By actionable targets, Snow presumably means individuals or Al Qaeda holdouts [...]

Since the release of the new intelligence estimate on Al Qaeda Tuesday, the one that concluded the terrorist group has revitalized itself in the lawless hinterlands of Pakistan, intelligence analysts I talk to have been wondering why the administration chose to release the NIE now. Certainly the White House understood that its critics–and some of [...]

My colleague at Government Executive magazine, Katherine McIntire Peters, has a good story about the exodus of senior officials in the Homeland Security Department’s upper ranks.
Senior Homeland Security Department employees left their jobs over the past two years at rates significantly higher than the average for other Cabinet-level departments, according to a report released Monday [...]

There are no real surprises in the unclassified “key judgments” of a new National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism, out this morning. Most of the important assessments of the 16 intelligence agencies have already leaked out or were highlighted in other forums by senior officials in recent months.
We judge the US Homeland will face a persistent [...]

I stumbled onto the terrorism enhancement story several months ago while reporting on another one: the National Security Agency’s terrorist surveillance program. I learned about a trial of so-called “eco-terrorists” in Eugene, Oregon, part of the FBI’s Operation Backfire against the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. After lawyers for the defendants for [...]

For one year and 51 days, the nation’s top intelligence official has been without a second-in-command. When Gen. Michael Hayden stepped down as the principal deputy director of national intelligence, in May of last year, to become the CIA director, it effectively left the intelligence community without a chief operating officer.
But today, Director of National [...]

Tom Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, is delivering a “global security assessment” to the House Armed Services Committee today. In his prepared remarks, just released, Fingar singles out Pakistan as the current home base for Al Qaeda, which he calls “the terrorist organization that poses the greatest threats to U.S. interests, [...]

In a discussion about surveillance cameras in New York City this morning, Diane Rehm devoted some air time to turnover and vacancies in the senior ranks of the Homeland Security Department. (See yesterday’s post.) DHS Spokesman Russ Knocke joined by phone, and said that, in April, the department was permitted to hire an additional [...]

A congressional report out this morning leads off with a story I wrote about the Homeland Security Department’s reliance on politically appointed leaders.
Spencer Hsu has a good piece in this morning’s Washington Post about that report and the administration’s failure to fill about a quarter of the top leadership posts at DHS, “creating a ‘gaping [...]