Reading The Threat Matrix
Once again, the nation is on edge, amid warnings that terrorists may strike--somehow, sometime, somewhere. How real is the danger?
The sources are sketchy and often unreliable--interrogations of al Qaeda detainees, reports from CIA operatives overseas or FBI field agents, intercepted phone calls and E-mails, even menacing postings on the Web. Most of the threats are vague and uncorroborated. Some are little more than guesswork. A sudden spike in telephone calls to a known terrorist accomplice might signal a pending attack. Or a compelling tip outlining a sinister plot might turn out to be the rantings of someone with a history of mental health problems.
Deep inside the Central Intelligence Agency's sprawling headquarters in Langley, Va., a team of experts in the Counterterrorism Center sifts through this kind of raw material. Its task: to produce the "Threat Matrix," a daily top-secret compendium of the latest intelligence about potential terrorist plots and activities. Specialists from both the agency's analytic and covert branches work side by side, assembling clues from every corner of the U.S. government for what officials regard as the key early-warning system for possible terrorist attacks.
Throughout the day and into the night, the CIA team culls the reporting to focus on the most pressing, alarming, or credible threats. Slowly, the next day's matrix takes shape. Analysts assemble the spreadsheetlike document--ranging in length from several pages to two dozen--which describes each potential threat, the warning's source, and the government's reaction. The matrix evolves as the vast threat database is updated around the clock. By sunrise, the team makes its final changes. A CIA briefer, often accompanied by CIA Director George Tenet, carries a copy to the White House for a daily 8 a.m. meeting with President Bush and his top advisers. Copies also go out to every agency that works on homeland security.
Last week, Americans got a sense of the threat matrix--and what makes it so problematic for officials--as they were inundated with a series of ominous warnings, as vague as the original threats. Television news crews clogged the Brooklyn Bridge after information leaked out about a possible threat to that and other New York City landmarks. Officials in Orlando, Fla., reported a confusing threat against the water system. Other advisories were issued about possible subway system plots and terrorist scuba divers. The fresh case of jitters was reminiscent of the weeks following September 11, as the stock market hiccuped and nervous officials canceled events like a 119th-birthday party for the Brooklyn Bridge. This flood of warnings coincided with a spike in what intelligence officials call "chatter," or communications between suspected terrorists. But it also comes amid a burgeoning congressional inquiry into intelligence failures by the FBI and others before the September 11 attacks (box, Page 30).
The drumbeat intensified as senior officials offered a range of alarming predictions. Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertion that al Qaeda will certainly strike again. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said terrorists will inevitably obtain weapons of mass destruction. FBI Director Robert Mueller forecast the inevitability of suicide bombers. And Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, reported that two dozen "extremists" may have entered the United States in recent weeks after hiding aboard containerships.
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