Bush officials seek anti-terror funding

WASHINGTON -- Speaking with one voice, President Bush's top intelligence and military officials said Wednesday that terrorists are regrouping for possible new strikes against the United States.

They said the best defense was for Congress to approve the president's military and anti-terror budget. But some in Congress, including prominent Republicans, were questioning some of that spending.

Offering few specifics on terror threats, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a House hearing that the government could reasonably predict attacks would come from terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and other means.

Meanwhile, new CIA director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee the Iraq war was giving terrorists experience and contacts for future attacks, and FBI director Robert Mueller expressed worry that a sleeper operative in the United States may have been in place for years, awaiting orders for an attack.

"I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing," Mueller said in remarks he submitted to the senators.

Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee that the proposed $419 billion defense package for 2006 would set an ambitious course to "continue prosecuting the war and to attack its ideological underpinnings."

Yet the Republican-controlled Congress may exercise its considerable authority over federal spending and reject White House requests to simply sign the checks.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said lawmakers were questioning billions in foreign aid and State Department spending that Bush requested in an emergency bill this week.

DeLay, R-Texas, said some of Bush's foreign aid proposals "probably do not qualify" for the expedited treatment he's seeking.

The current congressional debate over how to allocate billions of dollars on initiatives aimed at spreading peace and ensuring security follows three years of massive spending in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Senior administration officials appearing at a series of congressional hearings Wednesday described a Muslim extremist threat that's become more diffuse, encompassing al-Qaida and like-minded associates.

Goss said al-Qaida remains intent on circumventing U.S. security measures and attacking the United States.

"It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaida or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons," Goss said at the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual hearing on threats.

In his first testimony as CIA chief, Goss said the Iraq conflict has become a cause for extremists.

"Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks," Goss said.

Even as terrorism remained at the forefront, senior diplomatic and intelligence officials outlined a number of countries that pose conventional diplomatic, military and intelligence problems to the United States.

Goss said North Korea continues to "develop, produce, deploy and sell ballistic missiles of increasing range and sophistication." He said the secretive regime could "at any time" resume flight testing of a long-range missile capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear payload.

Iran, too, is further improving its Shahab-3 long-range ballistic missile, which has a range of more than 800 miles, Goss said.

In written testimony, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he believes Iran will continue its support for terrorism and aid for insurgents in Iraq. "Iran's long-term goal is to see the U.S. leave Iraq and the region," he said.

Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blamed Syria for having undermined stability in neighboring Lebanon. On Monday, a massive car bomb explosion in downtown Beirut killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

"The Syrians (have) a special responsibility for the kind of destabilization that happened there, that this sort of thing could happen," said Rice, who also blamed Syria for contributing to the insurgency in Iraq and endangering U.S. forces.

Rice laid out a menu of spending initiatives, including $658 million for a new embassy compound in Baghdad, $1.2 billion for U.S. obligations to international organizations and $5.8 billion in assistance to U.S. partners in the war on terror.

Grim at times, the appraisals on threats to the United States indicated the second Bush term would remain fraught with warnings but often short on specifics shared with the public.

During the presidential campaign last year, the Bush-Cheney team often warned vaguely of terror threats.

Still, officials attempted to balance alarm with caution Wednesday. Rumsfeld noted U.S. successes in building a 90-nation anti-terror coalition, putting a squeeze on terror financing and eliminating two-thirds of al-Qaida's leadership.

But "it isn't over. It's going to take a while," Rumsfeld said. "It is a very serious business we're in."