Live: CIA Director testifies in Senate hearing on worldwide threats

Live: CIA Director testifies in Senate hearing on worldwide threats

e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e can you ch good morning uh the committee meets today to receive testimony on the global threats facing the United States and our International Partners I would like to welcome our Witnesses Director of National Intelligence ail Haynes and director of Defense intelligence agency Lieutenant General Jeffrey Cruz I would take a moment to recognize that this is General Cruz first posture hearing before the committee thank you both for joining us and please convey the committee’s Gratitude to the men and women of the intelligence Community for their critical work over the past several months this committee has received testimony from nearly every Military Department armed service and combatant command about the threats they face as they have testified and as the dni’s annual threat assessment has made clear these challenges are evolving quickly China Russia Iran and North Korea seek to undermine if not outright challenge the United States interest and leadership in the world I’m encouraged that many of these threats are addressed in part by the National Security Supplemental that Congress passed two weeks ago this bill was long overdue but we cannot overstate its importance Even in our most conflicted moments the world looks at the United States for leadership our allies rely on us for fortitude and our adversaries hope for us to for Walter by finally passing the National Security Supplemental Congress sent a powerful message to the world the legislation demonstrates that we stand resolutely with our allies and partners and that America’s interest and safety won’t be challenged by dictators or bullies for the ukrainians the bill would provide critical weapons ammunition and combat vehicles to revitalize their heroic Fight For Freedom Vladimir Putin Must Be Stopped both for the sake of Ukraine survival and the security of all Americans as the annual threat assessment Wars Putin has repeatedly said that if he succeeds in Ukraine he intends to quote reunify other former Soviet States this will almost certainly involve direct military conflict with a NATO country requiring the United States to send our own men and women into H’s way director Haynes General Cruz I would ask for your assessment of the Ukraine conflict in the larger context of the evolving International order I hope you will also address the extent to which Russian and Chinese efforts are aligning under their so-called No Limits partnership and potential implications for US National Security as we know China is watching us closely and the supplemental Aid package will serve as an important deterrent to president xi’s aggressive Ambitions in the Indo pafic and around the world for several decades the people’s Liberation Army has studied the internat States way of war and focus its efforts on countering our advantages China has invested in offsetting Technologies like anti- access and area denial systems artificial intelligence hypersonics and of course nuclear weapons further China has leveraged a combination of military and civil power against its neighbors including statecraft economic pressure coercion and deception Beijing has sought ways to achieve its National objectives while avoiding a direct confrontation with the United States military just as Chinese leaders have studied our way of War we need to study theirs with that in mind I would ask our Witnesses for their assessment of how China is evolving its competitive strategies and objectives I would also appreciate an update on what military and non-military factors are most likely to impact Chinese decisionmaking with respect to potential coercive actions against Taiwan and other Regional parts Partners finally in the Middle East I’m concerned that we fa a uniquely dangerous moment with Israel and Hamas engaged in a violent conflict in Gaza Iran is seeking to exploit the chaos as an opportunity to force the United States out of the region Iran peers have calculated the best strategy to achieve this is by directing its proxy forces to attack American Israeli and Allied interest in the Middle East the Iranian linked hooie rebels in Yemen have launched hundreds of drones and missile attacks against us and international vessels in the Red Sea and even further disrupting nearly 15% of global commercial trade driving up cost and inflation around the world the National Security Supplemental will equip US forces with the resources they need to protect our service members and international shipping Landes and will help Israel defend itself from vicious attacks from Iran Hamas and other violent groups just as importantly it will provide critical humanitarian Aid to Palestinians Court in the crossfire I would appreciate our Witnesses perspectives on these complex challenges thank you again to our Witnesses I look forward to your testimony as a reminder for my colleagues there will be a closed session immediately following this hearing in room SVC 217 let me now turn to ranking member worker thank you very much Mr chairman today’s hearing is a chance for the committee to hear the intelligence community’s assessment of the many threats that our uh country faces I regularly hear from our nation’s top uniformed and civilian Personnel their testimony makes it clear to me that the United States faces a troubling threat environment and that the situation urgently requires American leadership armed conflict is Raging in multiple theaters Regional instability is on the rise violent Islamic terrorism is EXP expanding several of our principal adversaries are deepening their cooperation forming a new axis of Evil and striving to reshape the geopolitical order we have reached a pivotal moment in history the decisions we make this year will have far-reaching implications for our national security it is disturbing to me that the intelligence Community seems unable to give our national security officials or the American public an answer about the size of the Chinese defense budget that said we do know that our principal adversary communist China has announced has announced another 7.2% increase to its defense budget for 2024 I would like our witnesses to articulate a plan for how they will answer this question a plan that involves more than one full-time analyst working on the problem as is currently the case no matter the exact size of the Chinese budget we see with our own eyes in public and in classified settings the scope and scale of the Chinese military modernization if we hope to maintain deterrence or win a fight we will need the military and the intelligence Community to work more closely together than they ever have to that end I would like to understand what specific policies the intell Community has changed to enable a more effective targeting process for the military Beijing is leading that increasingly integrated access of countries bent on undermining United States interest this new alignment of cooperation among China Russia Iran and North Korea is a greater Menace than we have faced in decades I do not believe the American people have a sufficient understanding of the danger many of us do not know the ways in which these adversaries are working together to make Americans our allies and our partners less safe I hope our witnesses can comment with specific examples about this new threat the National Security Supplemental Congress passed last um but supplemental that Congress passed last week is an important and historic step in the right direction as the chairman just stated it was necessary but it is insufficient we have much more work to do to restore our industrial base to a wartime footing to strengthen our allies and to get Innovative Technologies into the hands of our service members we do all of this because we hope to prevent a war from ever coming to pass so I thank our Witnesses for their service to the country and for being with us today thank you thank you Senator worker uh director hes please thank you very much chairman Reed ranking member wicker members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to be here alongside my wonderful colleague General Cruz the director of the defense intelligence agency to present the icc’s annual threat assessment before I start I want to thank publicly the people of the intelligence Community from The Collector to the analyst and everybody in between we are presenting the result of their labor at this hearing they work tirelessly every day to support our military to keep our country safe and prosperous and we are proud to represent them today the United States faces an increasingly complex and interconnected threat environment characterized by really three categories of challenges the first is an accelerating strategic competition with major authoritarian powers that are actively working to undermine the rules-based order and the open International System which the United States and our partners rely on for trade for Commerce and for the free flow of information and the second category is a set of more intense and unpredictable transnational challenges such as cyber security terrorism climate change narcotics trafficking and health security that often interact with traditional state-based political economic and security challenges and the third category is made up of regional and localized tensions including those that have erupted into full-blown conflicts with far-reaching and at times cascading implications not just for neighboring countries but globally and all three categories are affected by Trends in new and emerging Technologies environmental changes an economic strain that is stoking instability making it that much more challenging for us to forecast developments and their implications and the report we have issued goes through the threats we see in all three categories as they intersect with these key trends giving you a sense of the icc’s Baseline assessments of the most pressing threats to US national interests but rather than attempt to summarize the report here I’ll just touch on some of the issues that I know are top of mine starting with the prc’s Outlook this year then provide a brief update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the conflict in Gaza and the scale and scope of cyber attacks that we’re currently monitoring with respect to the PRC president XI and his senior leadership expect some degree of future instability in the bilateral relationship with the United States and they continue continue to believe that the United States is committed to containing China’s rise and undermining the party’s rule but they also perceive value in projecting stability in the relationship this year particularly from a domestic economic perspective which is their main priority we assess that the prc’s leadership recognizes the productivity debt demographic demand challenges that China’s economy is facing but rather than looking to stimulate consumer spending or adopting more investment friendly approaches presidenti she appears to be doubling down on a long-term growth strategy powered by manufacturing strength and technological innovations that will almost certainly deepen public and investor pessimism over the near term and president shei is counting on China’s investments in technology such as Advance manufacturing and Robotics artificial intelligence and the high performance Computing to drive productivity productivity gains and spur growth in the future yet he is increasingly concerned about the United States ability to interfere with China’s technological goals consequently PRC leaders modified their approach to economic retaliation against the United States over the last year imposing at least some tangible costs on us firms and we remain of the view though that in the coming months they are likely to limit the level of economic retaliation they engage in in order to avoid the domestic cost of such actions in particular the significant decline in foreign direct investment in China down 77 .5% in 2023 is likely to prompt the PRC to be more measured in their responses absent and unexpected escalation by the United States and rather than engaging in direct economic retaliation that might result in such negative domestic Economic Consequences the prc’s tactics are evolving to promote an increasingly sophisticated exploitation of loopholes avoid detection engage in stockpiling moreover the PRC also remains focused on achieving its Regional and Global ambitions which warrants from their leadership’s perspective a strategy that boosts China’s indigenous Innovation and technological self-reliance supports efforts to acquire steal or compel the production of intellectual property and capabilities and controls critical Global Supply trains that provide the leverage to achieve certain geopolitical outcomes to their advantage and furthermore given its Ambitions Beijing will continue to use its military forces to intimidate its neighbors and to shape the Region’s actions in accordance with the prc’s priorities most obviously in relation to Taiwan as the PRC presses for unification we expect the pla will field more advanced platforms deploy new technologies grow more competent in joint operations and seek to strengthen their nuclear forces and cyber capabilities while also seeking to divide us from our allies in Europe and in the indopacific in the meantime China is working to develop its own form of multilateralism while deepening its relationship with Russia and Iran in particular in fact China’s provision of dual use components and material to Russia’s defense industry is one of several factors that tilted the momentum on the battlefield in Ukraine in moscow’s favor while also accelerating a reconstitution of Russia’s military strength after their extraordinarily costly Invasion when it comes to Ukraine we assess that President Putin thinks that domestic and international Trends are in his favor Russia is making incremental progress on the battlefield with the potential for tactical breakthroughs along the front lines in areas such as donet and K and publicly T Putin touts his ammunition and missile production capacity in contrast with what he portrays as significant us European and Ukrainian limitations he likely views his position based on Russia’s economic trajectory rearmament efforts and his political staying power as advantageous compared with the challenges facing the ukrainians including the hard fight here and in Europe for continued support for Ukraine like Ukraine Putin has for months indicated a willingness to enter into talks with Ukraine and the United States about the future for Ukraine but without any indication that he is willing to make significant concessions Putin’s increasingly aggressive tactics against Ukraine such as the strikes on Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure are intended to impress on Ukraine that continuing to fight will only increase the damage to Ukraine and offer no plausible path to Victory by targeting critical infrastructure Moscow aims to create logistical hurdles that impede Ukraine’s ability to move forces and supplies to the front slow Ukrainian defense production and build pressure for keev to consider Pathways out of the war including through negotiations and these aggressive tactics are likely to continue and the war is unlikely to end anytime soon in fact in a major change in fiscal policy President Putin has increased defense spending to almost 7% of Russia’s GDP nearly double the historical average the defense budget now accounts for roughly 25% of federal spending in Russia and in many ways this is prompted by the fact that Russia has paid an enormous price for the war in Ukraine not only has Russia spent hundreds of billions of dollars suffered more than military losses than in any time since World War II with more than 300,000 casualties but the war precipitated finlands and Sweden’s membership in NATO which Putin believes requires an expansion of Russia’s ground forces and Putin continues to judge that Russia is under threat and almost certainly assumes that a larger better equipped military will drive that point home to Western and domestic audiences Putin’s strategic goals also remain unchanged he continues to see NATO enlargement and Western support to Ukraine as reinforcing his LGH held belief that the United States and Europe seek to restrict Russian power in turn he has tried to capitalize on global events such as the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and Hamas to divide us from our allies and the crisis in Gaza is another striking example of how a localized conflict can produce Global impact nearly 7 months in the Gaza conflict has roiled the Middle East presenting new security paradigms and humanitarian challenges while pulling in a range of actors most prominently there was the unprecedented level of attacks between Iran and Israel with Iran and its proxies launching hundreds of weapons towards Israel in response to Israel’s killing of Iranian officials in Damascus and additionally crossb attacks along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon continue at a pace and intensity that is controlled but has the potential to escalate even as we continue to assess that hisbah does not want the situation to develop into an allout war with Israel and the United States and as of last week the houthis resumed nearly daily Maritime attacks after announcing last month that they intend to escalate strikes and expand their hostile actions to the Indian Ocean and meanwhile Iranian align milit groups in the region continue to plan attacks against our forces but have broadly paused conducting such attacks though it is not clear how long that pause will last moreover the crisis has galvanized Violence by a range of actors around the world both Al-Qaeda and Isis inspired by Hamas have directed supporters to conduct attacks against Israel and US interests demonstrating yet again the degree to which so many threat streams have system effects finally I’ll just end by talking about the increasing challenge associated with one of our most pernicious transnational threats cyber attacks we have seen a massive increase in the number of ransomware attacks globally in the last year which went up as much as 74% in 2023 us entities were the most heavily targeted with attacks against the health care sector roughly doubling what they had been the year before and moreover this year cyber actors are attacking us industrial Control Systems which are typically used to automate industrial processes at record levels many critical infrastructure sectors including Water and Wastewater food and agriculture defense energy and transportation rely on such systems and although the likelihood of any single attack having a widespread effect on interrupting critical Services remains low The increased number of attacks and the actor’s willingness to access and manipulate these Control Systems increases the collective odds that at least one could have a more significant impact and virtually all of the attacks we’ve seen against us critical infrastructure cyber actors took advantage of default or weak passwords unpatched known vulnerabilities and poorly secured network connections to launch relatively simple attacks and for this reason it is crucial that all of us particularly critical infrastructure owners and operators improve our cyber security practices to reduce our V our vulnerability to such efforts State actors can of course use more sophisticated capabilities to more reliably cause greater disruptions by breaching better defended targets resulting in for example multiple failures at once State actors however also tend to recognize their own vulnerabilities and are unlikely to engage in attacks on critical infrastructure unless they are at War instead these actors put a premium on preparing offensive capability basically during peace time in part by preemptively planting footholds in our infrastructure and what is often the case particularly in the context of ransomware attacks is that we are dealing with unaffiliated cyber actors focused on obtaining money power or activists who seek notoriety for specific causes and there are of course so many threats and scenarios that I haven’t covered to in my opening remarks but I hope we can do so when we get to your questions and most of all thank you for your support for the intelligence community’s work and also for the work on 702 reauthorization we very much appreciate it thank you thank you very much director General Cruz please chairman Reed ranking member wicker and distinguished members of the committee thank you for the opport opportunity to join director Haynes in presenting our assessment of the Global Security environment I’d like to streamline my opening comments this morning first by echoing the dni’s overall assessments and her remarks as well as her thanks to the men and women of the intelligence Community the defense intelligence agency alone has officers in more than 140 Nations around the globe and we are joined by thousands more from across the 18 members of the IC and with your support they are world class in their commitment and their results and as it’s a privilege to represent them in their work before the committee the National Security Arena’s complexity trajectory and rate of change is perhaps the highest and most consequential we’ve seen in several decades how we respond matters and our level of innovation focus and integration must equal or outpace that of our adversaries in this vein I would offer three overarching themes beyond what the dni has already mentioned that are the most concerning to me as the Director of the defense intelligence agency first is that while individually threats are growing whether specific countries or rapid growth in malign use of advanced technology artificial intelligence biotechnology unman systems or cyber there are a growing number of adversaries who are interacting and partnering in ways and toward ends that we have not seen before historical friction points are no longer governing their relationships and the new resulting Partnerships are still nent and untested meaning how we predict and shape their trajectory is nent and untested as well second while much of our collection our analysis our modernization and our engagements are laser focused on near and Midterm issues and impacts in Ukraine the Indo Pacific and the Middle East the long-term trajectory in these regions and the impacts on the United States are equally troubling and perhaps even more far-reaching for example how events in Ukraine play out in the months ahead will be critical and will impact how Russia emerges postured and emboldened for potential future conflict with its neighbors including NATO similarly the Chinese Communist party’s National and Military plans are not solely focused on Taiwan and the South China Sea in the 2020s but also on securing an entirely new place for the People’s Republic of China throughout the 2030s and the 2040s these Ambitions and they’re associated military space cyber and nuclear expansion to entice or compel outcomes are at the expense of their neighbors the region the United States and the open International System and in the Middle East as mentioned how the current conflict between Hamas and Israel is resolved is likely to determine Regional Dynamics for decades consequently how we View and adequately prepare for these longer term outcomes is a near-term issue with near-term actions required and then finally the third issue is our unquestionable need to protect our networks our data and our people from the pervasive threat of cyber actors foreign intelligence entities and Insider threats this includes not only the sophisticated capabilities of State actors such as Russian China but also Rogue cyber actors Loosely aligned to governments in addition to what director Haynes has already stated on the growing threat to critical infrastructure in local governments this threat directly endangers our defense industrial capabilities our hard one technological and Military advantages our allies and partners and our future defense operations we must partner invest and integrate in new ways to to secure what we value and Safeguard the assured resiliency of our networks the data and the people thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today we are grateful for the committee’s long-standing partnership and support and I look forward to your questions thank you very much General uh for both uh director on the general um the intelligence Community I believe and correct me if I’m inaccurate concluded that Iran was not aware prior to the attack by Hamas of the operation but they seem to be exploiting it uh significantly and um by using their proxies throughout the region and as you pointed out uh director uh Hayes our retaliation in September remember uh 82 different U strikes has for the moment uh inhibited many of their proxies uh still the hoodies are conducting operations um can you give me an assessment of the Iranian strategy uh it is it uh reactive or proactive are they trying to organize you know a decisive uh Victory or they simp ly reacting to what’s going on or trying to take advantage of what’s going on thank you so much chairman I I think um really it’s a combination of all of those things which is to say that uh even though we don’t assess that they were aware of the particular attack at the moment that it occurred in the way that it did they obviously have been supportive of Hamas in the past have provided funding and training and uh other uh assistance of different types and and the reality is that um in many ways they support efforts to counter Israel as we’ve seen they see Israel as their enemy and they have long done so and uh and so as things have um developed I think they’re taking advantage of every opportunity to ultimately um try to undermine the state of Israel in many respect so that is certainly part of what they’re doing it is also I think true that they’re looking to take advantage of opportunities to enhance their influence in the region that is something that again they have long uh worked on you know whether it’s through the um Iranian aligned militia groups that we’re all aware of in the region or through their relationship with the houthis or through their relationship with Hamas and of course one of their closest partners hisbah and uh and so in supporting them and in also increasing their influence there is a kind of a long-term strategy of trying to enhance that including in countries like Iraq and so on and so I think that’s a fair but I General Cruz may have I think I would just Echo a couple of things that the dni mentioned one is that they have had a long-term strategy over many decades and they have been long-term suppliers and supporters of the groups already mentioned um within that larger strategy this conflict came into being and they’ve used every opportunity uh to take advantage of the circumstances I wouldn’t call it necessarily reactive but the ability to within their larger construct increase influence and come out um at some point this conflict will end uh Iran has gone through various sets of calculus over time about escalation or not escalating and I think they’re navigating a path by which they think they can create um uh more influence within the region for the longer term uh environment that we’ll find at the end of the existing conflict uh in looking at China you mentioned uh director Haynes that uh and both I think uh General crw that they’re trying to uh use their economic power throughout the world Supply chains that seems to be particular the case with strategic minerals uh do you see us in a fight uh quote unquote over securing adequate strategic minerals because these are essential to batteries and other things that could be the the source of power in the Next Generation yes absolutely I mean I think um one way to think about this is as follows they have they have used Rare Earth elements and critical minerals as um a leverage point for achieving geopolitical outcomes in different spaces because I think they both recognize their capacity with respect to Mining and processing is significant and it gives them the ability to sort of move forward on a plan for how do we control the global Supply Supply chains in these areas and recognizing that these are incredibly important to the prosperity of many economic uh you know futures for different countries and the um moving forward they’ve seen the ability to use that again as a leverage point and what we’ve seen in in this area and I think there sort of history is um a useful uh lesson in this which is to say that they have actually passed laws that from dating back uh decades now even for being able to control the Rare Earth elements and we saw them actually use this first I think in the context of um a dispute with Japan over the sakaku islands where they ultimately uh Ed their leverage there by cutting off exports that were important to Japan’s economy at the time as a way of pressuring them in the context of a land dispute and Maritime dispute so I mean I think that’s an example of what we’ve seen we’ve also seen them pass export controls of gallium and geranium more recently and other things that are um important and again using this as a leverage point and I think uh you know what we have been trying to do is try to help policy makers understand how they’re approaching this where they are getting close to having control over a critical supply chain and then uh being able to highlight opportunities for trying to disrupt that so that we can maintain resilience in these areas thank you uh no need for responsive unless I’m inaccurate but one of the key Advantage is they do a tremendous amount of refining so these minerals could be in fact I think Australia has a huge cache of these minerals but the refining is all done in China and that’s the choke point yeah lithium is a good example of this thank you Senator fish please thank you Mr chairman and thank you both for being here today uh director Haynes in the 24 annual threat threat assessment it stated that if Beijing believed that a major conflict with the United States were emminent it would consider aggressive cyber operations against us critical infrastructure and Military assets such a strike would be designed to deter US military action by impeding us decision M making inducing societal panic and interfering with the deployment of US forces in your opening comments uh you mentioned how u Chinese cyber actors uh are currently working to disrupt and Destroy um some of our critical infrastructure putting um putting things in place for for uh future possibilities of of using that in this setting can you provide us with any examples of um this type of malign cyber activity so yes I think just to to be precise but I think consistent with what you just said what we see is both China and Russia effectively trying to preposition themselves in ways that would allow them to conduct those kinds of attacks um not actually yet necessarily engaging in those attacks and obviously we can discuss this further in a closed session um and I can get back to you I think we do have one or two examples that we’ve Declassified of where they’ve tried to um produce such footfall footholds essentially in infrastructure so I I’ll do so in a followup okay does the intelligence Community work at all with um our utility companies and others so that um you can increase awareness about the possibility of attacks and how uh the these companies can work with you to help mitigate their vulnerabilities yes we do so largely through for example sisa for um you know cyber security related to critical infrastructure um but we are very heavily working with them to ensure that they’re able to provide the kind of warnings that you’re describing for critical infrastructure across the board and this is something that we spend quite a bit of time on and as I indicated we are seeing this sort of significant increase in attacks on Control Systems which is so important to critical infrastructure so much of our critical infrastructure relies on these types of automated control systems that are vulnerable to Cyber attack but again what’s um you know sort of working through exactly uh the attribution chain of where those attacks are coming from is quite challenging and that’s something that we spend quite a bit of time on and um and again as I indicated so many of those attacks are uh are basically possible as a consequence of just not engaging in good cyber secur practices is not updating passwords not you know doing the kind of work that needs to be done patching vulnerabilities that we’re aware of we will put out um you know the government will put out uh notices essentially about such vulnerabilities and we really think it’s crucial for folks to do those types of cyber secur practices because if they did that it actually would reduce the yeah significantly right over the past several years we’ve watched as Russia and China Iran North Korea Korea they um are rapidly expanding and modernizing their nuclear arsenals they’re also developing some really dangerous new capabilities um that they can strike the United States with and it it it really uh can happen without much warning do we have any idea uh general or director on how large stockpiles that these countries have and or also uh what their intention is in future production I I think in this setting I would say yes we have a great um I think insight into a handful of the countries uh with with um good Precision uh there’s a few countries where we have some ranges and in the close session we’d be happy to share those with you as well as um their likelihood of delivery of those to the continental United States right now the United States provides a nuclear umbrella to our allies um they are dependent upon that and I believe it um it limits nuclear proliferation around this world because of the confidence that that our allies have uh in our umbrella that we provide them do you do you worry about our allies losing confidence in our ability to provide them with a strong deterrence when we see our adversaries continue to um build at a breathtaking Pace their nuclear capabilities I’ll start I mean I think um I think you’re absolutely right that the nuclear umbrella that we provide is intended to uh ultimately um counter proliferation of nuclear weapons and uh and whether or not we’re seeing a degradation in our allies confidence that we will be there in these circumstances given the thing is it I would say like it’s not that I take it for granted but rather that I think it’s something that we have to continue to be very Vigilant in working with our allies to ensure that they um continue to uh have confidence in that nuclear umbrella in certain circumstances I think there’s been a fair amount of discussion about whether the Republic of Korea for example um is is you know particularly concerned and uh given what they’re seeing from the north and whether or not they continue to have confidence in us being able to provide that nuclear umbrella versus their own particular um you know whether or not they should in fact engage in their own uh nuclear program but our assessment at this stage is not that they are uh you know pursuing that at this point even though we recognize it’s a area of public conversation and I would just Echo that having been assigned in the indopacific med times so that’s really some of the adversaries uh Who present the threat and then some of our allies who engage in the dialogue with this uh is that uh they will occasionally uh when we see a change in stockpile have a great conversation with us and what you’ll see is that as long as we continue that dialogue um they’re confident in uh the US nuclear umbrella um and I would offer as we think through this uh sometimes it is not just the capacity and an increase in the number don’t change the nuclear umbrella that the US provides it’s really only when you get to changes in capabilities uh and every conversation that we’ve had to date uh have been good constructive uh conversations and those will just continue thank you thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator official Senator Shaheen please um good morning thank you both for being here during the New Hampshire primary back in January we had a domestic actor who used artificial intelligence to voice clone President Biden’s um voice and to Target voters in a robo scam in New Hampshire um your threat assessment talks about how Russia is contemplating using um electoral outcomes in 2024 to affect Western support for Ukraine um both Russia and China are using AI to improve their capabilities to reach into Western audiences you both mentioned that in your opening statements the potential imp impact um so and I have a couple of questions first of all are you able to share information with state and local officials when you see um those kinds of AI or cyber generated um influence into what’s happening in States director Haynes yes thank you so yes working with sisa what we’ve been doing is in fact been trying to expand our capacity to do so but we do have direct communication with them on um basically deep fakes and other types of manipulated uh media and our aders are our adversaries using um AI Platforms in the United States to conduct disinformation and spread propaganda yes absolutely Russia in particular has um you know engaged in the use of artificial intelligence generative AI in the context of their information operations this is something that we’ve seen pretty consistently and they’re not the only ones and to what extent are we seeing those kinds of efforts um attempting to manipulate the unrest that we’re seeing on college campuses so I don’t have any information that suggests that they’re doing that at this stage but that doesn’t mean that it won’t really because ruers had a report that sh looked at the back end of Tik Tock which has now been closed off that says that in fact the Chinese are um manipulating um through disinformation to populations um who use Tik Tock to manipulate the situation in Gaza and spread um misinformation you’re not seeing any of that even though that that’s been publicly reported yes that we’re seeing with respect to the Gaza conflict apologies I thought you talked about using that to instigate protests in the United States and that’s what we’re not seeing does that make sense you you don’t consider the protest on campus protests in the United States I do I’m sorry we are seeing misinformation disinformation that is being um and even true information that’s being exacerbated with respect to the Gaza conflict it’s not directed at protesters so far as I am aware at this stage does that make sense in other words not looking to direct protests I’m not being clear because there have also been public reports that um particular Chinese sympathizers are funding um some of these protests to exploit the situation in Gaza I mean that’s been reported publicly for several months and in fact even the the commiss committee in the house that’s looking at China Mike Gallagher has talked about this um so are we not are we seeing that I am not seeing information that indicates that the Chinese government is directing that so that’s the piece that I’m sorry I don’t see um but we do see Chinese sympathizers who are doing this that is part of FBI pieces was they’re looking at what’s happening within the United States and I defer to them and we can certainly get back to you on that question um I can follow up in the closed session but I’m also I also wanted to raise the concerns about renewed reporting that has again as the result of uh work done by CBS 60 Minutes that suggests that um our adversaries um could be behind the anomalous Health incidents that have affected um so many of our diplomats and service members abroad are you rethinking how the Intel Comm Community is looking at what’s happened with those anomalous Health incidents and thinking that maybe we should do a little more investigating about who’s behind those thank you Senator so we absolutely are continuing to investigate what’s happening with anomalous Health Institute you know incidents and we identified in our last uh which is now a little over a year ago intelligence Community assessment a whole series of Gap areas that we have to continue to work to ensure that we’re collecting intelligence making sure that we are in fact uh closing those gaps so that we can be more confident in our assessments but also to determine whether or not they undermine any of the basic assumptions that we make in those assessments and um and so that has been a continued process and will continue as a process and there’s no question that we all see this as a very important and you know priority for the intelligence commit when we went back obviously after the 60-minute show we said you know is there anything here that changes our assumptions our assessments our analysts took a very close look at it the vast majority they say they had already actually known before the intelligence Community assessment was issued but there were new things since the intelligence Community assessment that had come in and they still have not changed their basic assessments at this point which is essentially that some elements think it’s very unlikely some think it’s unlikely they have various degrees of confidence as to whether or not a foreign actor would be is behind ahis but that is something that we just have to continue to work at in order to make sure that we in fact have that right and moreover that there isn’t some further information that would be useful to us in understanding what is causing these well thank you I appreciate that and I hope you will report back to the committee thank you Senator Shen Senator rounds please thank you Mr chairman um thank you to both of you for your service to our country and for your testimony here today uh we live in what is perhaps the most complex if not most dangerous threat environment this nation has had to deal with since since World War II accurate intelligence assessments are crucial to our success in navigating these challenges director Haynes your annual threat assessment points out the persistent threat of malign influence uh operations that are being conducted by Russia China and Iran a host of our systems and platforms critical to our national security operate on the 3.1 to 3.4 5 gahz band of the spectrum or the lower 3G band I know we’re going to get into the weeds a little bit on this but I I just want to get for public understanding the seriousness of this particular issue are you aware of any or of the Chinese efforts to encourage other nations to build out their fiveg infrastructure on the 3.1 to 3.45 gigahertz portion of the spectrum let me come back to you on that question sir okay um let me ask at this way are you aware of any Chinese campaigns to encourage us companies to push the department the Department of Defense to auction off their share of the lower 3B three three band the lower Three band of the uh of the spectrum I should come back to you just to be confident that I have it right sir okay I’ll skip the rest of the questioning along that line till later okay all right um director Haynes based on the increasingly robust cooperation between China and Russia is it fair to assume that if either one of them engaged in hostilities with the United States and our allies that it would increase the likelihood that the other would also initiate some form of hostilities as well yeah we see China and Russia even for the first time exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them and we see no reason why they wouldn’t General Cruz in your professional military opinion is the department taking into consideration this increased cooperation between Russia and China when it comes to identifying joint Force requirements I think the department is uh concerned um it has been for a while and then what we’ve seen over the last two years has um caused the department to relook at its analysis and become even more concerned about what are our Joint Force requirements in an environment where as discussed we would anticipate uh even if uh Russia and China and a military force are not interoperable they would certainly be cooperative uh and we would need to take that into account in for structure and planning uh I’ll just address this to both of you then um have any of our plans been updated to reflect this no limits partnership between Russia and China I think what I’d say is from a departmental perspective um our planning process is a multi-year process starting with what the threat looks like and then how do we step through u a fairly intensive betting of what kind of operations we might want to conduct uh and we have um for the plans that your probably most interested in we are in the middle of that revision today director Haynes yeah and I would say I I we produced quite a bit of analytic material I think a lot of what you have read that indicates this increasing cooperation in the No Limits partnership as you say but just across really every sector of uh Society political economic military technological and so on and so that is something that our understanding is prompting uh new planning across the government in many respects bottom line is that that basically if we were to have a conflict with one the chances are we would have a second front and that the planning that we have to do includes confrontation and not just one front now but the capabilities the planning the equipment Manpower that would be necessary uh for two different fronts simultaneously am I correct yeah I think um certainly it’s a possibility I the question of just How likely it is I think differs depending on the scenario which I’m sure is obvious to you but yeah a greater possibility now than what it was two or three years ago though I think from the Department of Defense perspective that would certainly be the case uh and it just has to be taken into account whether or not we actually believe uh there would be two full upfronts uh that is analysis and assessments that will mature over time uh but certainly we have take that into account into the planning as you have suggested thank you thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator rounds Senator King please thank you Mr chair first I want to thank you director Haynes for starting with an emphasis on Cyber uh the truth is we’re in An Invisible War on many fronts on Cyber already uh as you outlined everything from ransomware to attacks on SK systems to insertion of what I call sleepers elves in our critical infrastructure um you also emphasize rightly the the fact that it’s got to start at the desktop and and personal cyber hygiene is is critically important however particularly on these state sponsored uh potential attacks well I would say they’ve already occurred on our on our critical infrastructure we’re not going to be able to patch our way out of that and you sort of slid by this in your opening comments but we they have to be deter the these State adversaries have to be deterred do they not they’ve got to understand that we hold their systems at risk and that’s part of that’s got to be part of our strategy it can’t just be patching and cyber hygiene do you agree I do I think that the deter isn’t necessarily um doesn’t necessarily have to be about holding their systems at risk from a cyber perspective alone it’s part of an integrated strategy that’s right but but they have to feel that they have something at risk and that there will be costs imposed if they move in this direction otherwise it’s a it’s a lowcost kind of warfare that to which we’re very vulnerable yeah and uh do you see I I think you also touched on this do you see heightened Russian activity with regard to the upcoming elections yes I mean we are consistently uh you know obviously the last several um intelligence Community assessments that we’ve done on Election threats have identified Russia as really the major actor in this space and we continue to see them focused on this and increasingly so well one of the things that worries me in in 2016 and 18 we saw them penetrating something like 40 States electoral systems in terms of databases of Voters and that kind of thing they never did anything with it but my contention has been they weren’t doing that for fun there’s a great potential for disrupting our election simply by uh erasing a a voter database in in Miami or having the lights go out in in Atlanta uh assess that risk please yeah I mean I think there’s no question that they’re increasing their capacity and that they are developing and using new technologies that are available better at doing what they’ve done before and um and ultimately pursuing uh the potential for such altering as you say though they haven’t done it and what um what I’d also say is that you know I agree General nakason before he left indicated that he thought we were never better prepared to actually defend our election uh security infrastructure and I think honestly the intelligence community and in particular NSA and others have really done tremendous work in this area and cybercom is consistently engaged in both defensive and offensive work in this area to try to protect General nakason coined the term defend forward which we all know what that meant yeah but siza is also working with the states and there’s been a relationship of trust that I think is important yeah one other area you haven’t touched on this and that’s part of my problem I’m afraid in all the pivot toward great power competition we’re losing focus on terrorism the terrorism threat hasn’t gone away and in terms of great power competition deterrence is an important factor but when you’re talking about terrorism deterrence isn’t really a factor they don’t have a capital city that is at risk they don’t care about dying so intelligence is our first line of defense reassure me that the the intelligence Community isn’t look losing focus on terrorism because we’re just you know three or four guys with a with a Mal intent can do an awful lot of damage in our country yeah I absolutely agree with you I this is a critical issue it’s a growing issue in many respects and it is one that we are absolutely focused on and we can talk further in obviously close session about some of the things we’re doing in that area I just hope I just hope that we don’t lose that Focus because again we we tend to shift you know we had 911 and terrorism was everything for 15 or 20 years now it’s all about China and Russia and I just don’t want to lose that Focus final question U I recently finished a book about the KGB the KGB is a essentially paranoid organization they believe that the West is out to get them and Putin came out of the KGB how do we convince Putin that NATO is not an aggressive entity we don’t want to invade Russia nobody wants to invade Russia we just want to protect the borders of Europe as they as they have existed since World War II do you agree with me that part pu Putin really believes that that NATO is winding up to somehow uh invade or otherwise invade otherwise violate the sovereignty of Russia yes I I do agree with you that there’s a certain paranoia associated with this and there is um you know as I indicated in my opening remarks Putin really does believe that the security of his country country is at risk on some level it is um uh I think a question actually I wish director Burns were here for you know how could you convince him psychologically that in fact NATO is not because you know in so many respects the actions that NATO has taken has actually uh been intended to reassure and at the same time it has um not landed and in many ways what Putin has done has precipitated so many events that he was seeking to avoid I mean he obviously did not want to see NATO enlarge and yet his invasion of Ukraine precipitated you know Finland and Sweden joining something that never would have happened frankly or we we certainly would not have assessed that as being likely on the timeline that had occurred before The Invasion he’s actually made it much harder to convince him of that because you know there were a number of efforts in NATO to actually talk to Russia he’s provoked the very things he was worried about yeah ex I’m sorry my my time is up thank you very much thank you chairman uh thank you Senator King Senator erns please yes thank you Mr chair and thank you both for testifying in front of us today um director Haynes of course we’re here to talk about global threats we’ve heard about China Russia and so forth um but earlier this week the Press reported an effort that would bring one of our Global threats here to our homeland uh a recent poll found that 71% of gazans viewed hamas’s brutal attack on Israel including the rape of of innocent women their murder of children and their murder of and capture of Americans as quote the correct decision uh do you believe that welcoming a significant number of Gins who likely are harboring these views into the United States um do you believe that that would threaten the safety of Americans I mean I obviously think uh it is outrageous to think that um that hamas’s attack on Israel was anything other than a terrorist attack that was utterly brutal and depraved and uh and I you know I don’t have enough information to understand you know as when we analyze threats and where the threats come from and how they develop that is something we do with great care and deliberation and if you pointed us to here’s the you know individuals that were concerned about then we obviously would do an assessment for you so just broadly though um 71% % in this poll of those in Gaza support what Hamas did and yet our president is considering an action to bring gazen refugees to our homeland um so I know you’ve spent your career working in the intelligence field um but given this poll um which I would assume is factual uh can you tell me uh for certain that this proposed action by the president of the United States won’t put our citizens at risk here in the United States I’m unfamiliar with the poll but I can tell you that the process for bringing individuals into the United States includes a very significant vetting process that would be the kind of process I would expect would occur and so therefore that would mitigate against any concern or risk that we would have okay um I know that we have tried to do vetting on Afghans and and other refugees as they come in um many times that has not been successful um I’m adamantly opposed to what the president is attempting to do um so you’re serving by laws the head of the intelligence community and so you’re saying basically under oath that you’re really unaware of any risk that that that might pose to our citizens sorry I’m just what I’m saying is that if there’s a process for bringing people into the United States I’m familiar with that process and that process is intended to against any risk of security and that’s something that I would feel confident about okay thank you um I I’d like to Pivot now um to hamas’s backers uh the Iranian mulas Iran is currently enjoying a golden era of oil profits we’ve seen over 80 billion dollar uh in oil Revenue enabling Iran to give pay raises and recruitment bonuses to its proxies and you’ve discussed some of those proxies earlier um and these revenues come from sanctioned transactions but the enforcement of the sanctions remains non-existent uh do you agree yes or no that the decision not to enforce sanctions has directly led to the death of US citizens I I couldn’t make a sweeping statement like that I’m afraid I the um I think it’s no question that Iran uh continues to benefit from oil sales and that they look for ways to get around sanctions and that’s something we’ve seen uh them engage in and that they are um also as you say um funding and assisting various groups in the region I think it’s also uh the case that frankly the Iranian economy is in deep trouble right now and is actually suffering significantly it’s been one of the uh challenges that they’re facing but beyond that unless I’m faced with a particular scenario that we can assess for you then we would obviously do that well um what I would say is that they do back Hamas we we know that they backas and I wouldn’t even say they’re trying to get around sanctions because we just don’t enforce them um so there’s there’s open trade of Iranian oil uh we as the United States have these sanctions we don’t enforce them so a a good deal of their profits of course will go to support these proxies and Hamas has killed Americans they killed Americans on October 7th um they have held eight Americans three we know are confirmed dead um they’re still holding five so I would say that it just in my my mind my estimation is that yes they are using the profits to kill Americans they have done it already um I would like to see additional enforcement of these sanctions not your area but certainly um it all ties together so uh I look forward to visiting more about this um maybe in a closed session but uh we have got to do better and uh I’m just using this time to make a a statement to that I disagree wholeheartedly with what the president is trying to do by taking people out of Gaza and bringing them to the United States I have seen failures in the betting process before I certainly don’t want to see those failures repeated so I appreciate your time today thank you thanks Senator Senator hono please thank you Mr chairman director uh hes you have acknowledge Russian interference with our upcoming elections in another area I am wondering whether the intelligence Community was able to identify Russia’s use of social media to put out messages that the Maui Wildfire was caused by government or that that um the Maui Community should not trust FEMA was the Intel Community able to identify Russian use of social media in this regard and this is an important question because I can of course as we uh experience so many more of these kinds of um massive um climate disasters or natural dis disasters we can expect that Russia will use social media or some other ways to to create instability and questions yeah thank you very much for the question M and I I um I don’t remember so we will get you an answer to that yeah uh I know that for example the the um Microsoft for example was able to um discern that Russia was doing this with regard to the mai Wildfire so I really would like you to address this for me now that we know that there’s a huge need for um people to to be able to work in the Intel arena in the Intel uh environment and so both of you we know that there’s a huge need for that and for uh General Cruz uh the Pacific intelligence and Innovation initiative is working to create a local skilled Workforce to meet dod’s demand for cyber and Intel Professionals in Hawaii there’s a huge need in Hawaii for people with this kinds of of background how is this working and um how um are are you also resorting to Ai and and other means of of making your Intel collection uh more efficient and effective because you know there’s a huge need for people uh with this kind of back background but we don’t have those people yet so can you respond to those two questions uh certainly um as mentioned I’ve done several assignments to include 2016 to 2019 as the Director of intelligence uh at us Indo paycom and Camp Smith uh and uh personally participated in several recruiting events with local universities and uh in in partnership with National Security Agency uh and Dia lots of recruiting even down into the high school level to build some local recruiting and local uh Workforce and then in Partnership with the intelligence Community working to develop uh centers of academic excellence and a recruiting pool as well so it is absolutely critical I do not believe we’ll be able to fully man the intelligence requirements on island uh without doing local recruiting and being able to develop the workforce and the local Partners have just been absolutely tremendous so to your to your answer there it’s critical to do we are investing in additional stem and cyberpay where those kind of skill sets are required but to your point we have skill sets that we need uh all across the board on the artificial intelligence question about how do we become more efficient I think what you’ll find across the intelligence Community is that we are applying Ai and in the close session we can also talk about counter AI but how can we be the most effective and the most efficient I’d be happy to walk you through a couple of very specific examples that the defense intelligence agency uh is currently doing and then right now we’re looking at how do we partner with NGA nro NSA and Dia to bring almost a system of systems to be able to cue uh and be much more effective and much more efficient in uh how do we collect and how do we assess what we’re collecting thank you director hes you acknowledge that we have critical infrastructure in the private sector I.E our electrical grids that are subject to a cyber attacks and you noted that you spent quite a lot of time in this area talking I suppose with the state people and the private sector who provide these kinds of grids but I’m and you you noted that good cyber security practices such as something as relatively simple as updating the um passwords would be very helpful do you know if this is happening and and do do you uh partner with uh with for example the Public Utilities Commission in the state of Hawaii and other agencies that actually regulate uh what they the these entities do our electrical other power entities but I just want to know something as simple as updating passwords do you know if this is happening yeah so we are not working directly with um uh sort of the utility companies across the United States it’s really DHS in the form of sisa and the department of energy and others that are doing that and we support their work by trying to make sure that they have the intelligence they need to provide warning but also then to better understand what the questions are that are coming from uh Utilities in this space and my understanding is that they are working very hard with them to improve their cyber security practices patch vulnerabilities deal with these issues but it is just more an observation from our perspective that as we’re looking at the attacks that are occurring particularly against industrial control systems in the country that um the vast vast majority of them would have been actually prevented if it weren’t for those kinds of cyber security uh practices not being what they need to be and you know instead using default P um passwords weak passwords not patching vulnerabilities that are uh publicly available and so on so he’s a Department of Homeland Security and basically the energy Department who would be the people that I should ask and yes s within the Department of Homeland Security um and and we can give you uh we can work with your staff to make sure you have yeah exactly who is talking to who that sort of thing and if that’s helpful for Hawaii thank you thank you Mr chairman uh thank you Senator hono uh I will uh recognize Senator Scott but I will depart short short ly for the uh Appropriations Committee and Senator Kane has agreed to chair the proceeding in my absence I shall return someone once said that uh so uh Senator Scott thank you chair uh director Hayes and general Cruz thanks thanks for being here we’ve discovered that the dod purchases equipment from communist China like printers computers TV cameras also they purchase drugs made in communist China which shocks me I get the secret that communist China wants to destroy our way of life um I think we ought to stop everything we should never buy anything none of should ever buy anything from communist China I don’t think they ought to get a a penny of our money U because all they do is build up their military to eventually try to defeat us a couple weeks ago the Secretary of Defense testified that he doesn’t think we should purchase anything from China uh do you each agree with the secretary I I would Echo the secretary’s comment certainly make it a practice to agree with the Secretary of Defense so Israel was attacked on October 7th um I went back over to visit kabut I was at um saw what the devastation uh the Secretary of Defense also testified that there was no evidence that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza or committing war crimes in Gaza do each of you agree with that I certainly have no evidence that that’s the case but the fact is in the intelligence Community we don’t make that kind of determination that’s a legal determination made by others in the US government and I would Echo that answer okay so you have no intelligence that Israel is committing genocide or war crimes so you don’t have any evidence that they are as I said sir we just don’t make that determination what we do is we identify the intelligence as we see it and we give it to others who would make that kind of determination Okay so we’ve watched what’s happened on a lot of our college campuses like Columbia UCL UCLA even here in DC at George Washington University uh do you have any any intel of outside countries or groups funding some of these violent protests that are going on around the country thanks sir we don’t we’ve yet to see intelligence that Hamas which is generally how the question is framed to us is actually influencing the Gaza related protests occurring in the United States or directing it in any way that doesn’t mean that over time we will not gather intelligence that indicates that certainly for example I would expect other countries to take advantage of the opportunity and use it as part of inflence operations but we we’ll continue to monitor that General Cruz uh the same thing I um I don’t believe we’ve seen exactly what you’re asking uh but I would anticipate the environment would be an opportunity that others would take advantage of okay how about cutter have you seen any evidence that they’re um supporting these protests no sir a couple weeks ago the head of space command asked him a question if um if 12 of our satellites were destroyed and all the debris was up there how much how how much of it impact would it have on um the rest of our satellites that we depend on and how would it impact our ability to um defend ourselves so have you done any intelligence briefings that that you believe this is a risk not a risk so um it this is one of these things where it’s so case dependent in other words um just having debris in space is always a problem and one that obviously uh you know ultimately um allows for the potential damage of not just National Security uh interests but also commercial and other interests that are um effectively facilitated um by space but where the debris occurs uh makes a difference and so how much of an impact it would have would matter upon where it is what other satellites are in the region what satellites have been destroyed for example all of those things are important and we can talk further in close session I think about some of the modeling that we’ve done that might be helpful to you CH Cruz I would just add the other part of the calculus there is which 12 satellites in this scenario would be taken out and that there’s a capability reduction that is also a decrement that we’d be very much concerned about but uh purely to the debris question I I agree there’s been some modeling done uh that we could discuss how big a risk do you think it is on um ingredients in our drugs from China for our military either of you I don’t know that I know enough about that topic to be able to speak uh on that and I’d be more than happy to um work with our analyst to see if we have an answer for you that would be useful for you does it surprise you guys that that so many so many of the ingredients in our drugs are coming from China when they’re at the same time trying to u to kill Americans through you know fit and all and and everything else and that we’re our military is still relying on a majority of our I think it’s a majority of our drugs ingredients are coming from China I I don’t believe that I’m surprised by how the market has developed over years and decades and then where we find oursel today uh as the environment uh wants us to withdraw uh there is a supply chain that we will have to modify you know to implement the policies you’re talking about but certainly you’ve accurately described how the market has developed how our supply chains currently work okay thank you thank you Senator Scott good to see you both um I I want to just acknowledge some amazing work that the US military has done in two very challenging contexts recently the US effort to support um Israel together with other nations during the attack from Iran was truly u a superb operation and I don’t think that kind of thing happens by accident or by chance it it demonstrates an awful lot of training an awful lot of capacity an awful lot of cooperation and had we not been successful in that the level of escalation that we might have seen in the region the damage to Israeli cities communities people the likely escalation thereafter could really have been devastating at a very critical time where the last thing we need is escalation in the Middle East and so I just at at a hearing like this I want to acknowledge the great service of uh US military in in forming together with Israel and other nations a defense against the Iranian attack and second the work that the US primarily the Navy but not solely the Navy has done in the Red Sea to repel attacks by houthis against commercial ships military ships again in tandem with allies but most of the work is being the hard work the kinetic hostile fire is being uh taken by US military has been truly remarkable and the remarkable thing and I know this has got to keep you guys up every night is when we are sitting there in the Red Sea and absorbing incoming over and over and over again we have to have 100% success rate it can’t be 98 can’t be 99% my understanding is we’ve it’s been 100% up to now I don’t want to jinx it and it’s been we’ve we’ve been as close as 3,000 yards from striking a US ship that we were able to take down with the Gatling gun some use of missiles has enabled us to take down incoming missiles or drones if at further distance but 3,000 yards is pretty close and we’ve got a lot of Virginians on those ships in the Red Sea and I know other members here have Sailors from their states there too so I want to start with that um and and that it takes a lot of work to get to that I mean the development of the egis system and goes back decades and and and good Intel and using the Intel well both to defend but also to strike positions in Yemen that could do damage I mean I just want to express appreciation I do want to focus on the Red Sea and so let me begin with director Haynes what is the IC assess about the houy continuing threat on commercial shipping and how long is that threat by could to remain active yeah so our assessment is essentially that it is going to remain active for some time it is um in part because abdumalik the leader of the houthis uh continues we think to see domestic political Advantage for some of the actions that he’s taking that um that he is interested in kind of burnishing his Regional reputation and he has seen this to be adding to that in many respects and that um they continue to indigenously produce a fair amount of uavs other uh weapon systems and so on and of course are also getting assistance from the Iranians in this respect and that neither of those things are likely to change in the near future now that doesn’t mean that the strikes that uh the Department of Defense and the Coalition um with our allies have taken haven’t had impact they have but it’s been insufficient to really stop the houthis from going down this road and so that is sort of our what what’s your assessment about if there were to be a ceasefire in Gaza what’s the likelihood that the pace of attacks would would significantly reduce yeah it’s it is honestly unknown at this stage they have indicated that um at different times that they would comply with the ceasefire so I think there’s a fair possibility that that is what and wasn’t there some abatement of the pace of attacks into the Red Sea during the first the sea Spire that’s exactly right they did in the prior one but it’s it’s just one of the things that’s been challenging is that their rationale for their attacks has shifted over time a bit and it’s gotten more complicated at times he was indicated that uh they wouldn’t stop unless until humanitarian assistance had been delivered to a certain degree things like that and so it seems like there are additional requirements um that he’s added but it doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t cause and and even if the ceasefire you know might under past rationale lead them to stop to the extent that that they feel like this is B you know burnishing their reputation for being kind of a bad actor they might continue even in a ceasefire condition yeah it’s possible La last question why aren’t more allies and members of the Coalition helping the United States and actually actually taking military action against houthis who are targeting their ships I mean we’re protecting commercial ships of other nations the number of nations that are participating in the military activity seems small to me what why how do I how should I understand that yeah I mean I’ll start and general Cruz may have more to add here I think a number of them really are um trying to help in any way that they can and we’ve seen it come in different forms uh you know and I I would really defer to the Department of Defense in terms of the degree of it but let me how about a quick answer since I’m over my time General Cruz sir I think I would just add that uh to the dni’s point um many of them are contributing in other ways and there are important ways and um while there’s few that might be doing defense in the Red Sea uh specifically they’re doing things that we actually count on and we appreciate the partnership uh but would welcome anyone else who would want to participate Senator cotton um Senator ER raised the uh media reports that suggest presid Biden May admit Gins to this country as refugees um I agree with her I think that would be insane there’s a reason why Egypt won’t let them in and Egypt is right on their border and speaks their language and has a vested interest in protecting itself from threats from Gaza uh if they won’t let him in I don’t think the United States should let them in either but I want to focus now on the actual threats from the crisis at our Southern border of actual migrants who have crossed in this country already director Hayes FBI director recently said the terrorist threat level that we’re contending with right now is at a whole other level do you agree with director Ray’s assessment yes I think it’s just um absolutely the terrorist threat level is of grave concern and we can obviously have discussions and close sessions about what that means but um but so I would agree with that how many illegal immigrants on the terror watch list have been caught at the southern border this year I believe I don’t remember the number exactly and we can get you that um uh many of them if I recall it are um uh ones that came out of Colombia we should give you I think the answer is 75 do do you think we pitched a perfect game at the border and caught every single migrant on the terror watch list trying to cross into our country no but being on the terrorist watch list meaning that if there is known or suspected terrorists or there’s information that they may have had contact with doesn’t actually mean that they are all okay how many terrorists have tried to cross the southern border during the Biden administration’s tenure sir I don’t know that I can give you a precise the answer is 357 again do you think we pitched a perfect game for the last three and a half years and got 357 out of 357 no I don’t think so how many terrorists tried to cross the southern border during the four years of the Trump Administration I don’t know sir I think the answer is 11 the Biden Administration has also granted entry to more than 7,300 illegal aliens who are known as special interest aliens which means they come from notorious terrorist breeding grounds like usbekistan Syria and Iran and and POS a potential National Security risk that number was based on data collected before AOS is October 7th atrocity against Israel uh since then do you think that there may be an even greater surge of Islamic extremists trying to cross our open Southern border can you repeat the question sir um the Biden administration had granted entry to more than 7,300 illegal aliens in the special interest alien category from places like usbekistan Syria and Iran and that comes before that number came before the October 7th atrocity in Israel since then do you think there might have been an even greater surge in Islamic extremists trying to cross our open Southern border we haven’t seen um Hamas directing essentially folks or others in the region to come into the United States to engage in attacks from the Gaza conflict that doesn’t mean that uh obviously this isn’t something that could develop over time but we’re not seeing that related to the Gaza conflict if that’s Customs and Border Patrol officials in San Diego issued an internal intelligence notice titled foreign fighters of the Israel of the Israel Hamas conflict May potentially be encountered at the Southwest border so CBP certainly expects Islamic radicals will try to exploit the Border do you think that report is excitable and exaggerated no I think it’s absolutely you know appropriate to be vigilant on these issues and as we’ve talked about in the context of the Gaza conflict we’ seen that Galvanize in a sense different terrorists around the world in different ways and so I think we’re just trying to be as careful as we can we just haven’t seen I would turn to China briefly here um last week secretary blinkin on his Bal Hood trip to China said that China is quote overwhelmingly the number one supplier for Russia’s war against Ukraine do you agree with secretary blink’s assessment there is no question that the Dual use material that’s coming from China is having an enormous is China overwhelmingly number one supplier I mean they are overwhelmingly the number one supplier to the defense industry in Russia right now he also said that th those supplies are having quote a material effect end quote on the war in Ukraine do agree with secretary blink’s assessment there I do I indicated in my opening remarks that we see their supply is actually one of the key factors that essentially adjusted the momentum on the battlefield in Ukraine okay on March 18th 2022 3 weeks after the war started president Biden had a a call with Xin ping where he said do not provide quote material support end quote to Russia otherwise you and China could find yourself in quote significant Jeopardy end quote uh that appeared to have gotten his Xin Ping’s attention in 2022 if you look at trade data but over the last year China has become or China has now become what you and secretary blinkin call Russia’s overwhelmingly number one supplier uh one of your predecessors Deputy National Security adviser says that um Joe Biden is now not enforcing the red line he drew in March 18th do you agree that President Biden is now refusing to enforce that red line he drew with xinping in March 2022 about providing material support to China I don’t I here’s the challenge that I think we’ve encountered which is basically there was a lot of focus on China not providing lethal support and uh and what they have done is try to avoid what is characterized as lethal support in other words you know a fully constructed gun or weapon system Etc to Ukraine and that has been something that they’ve maintained but what has happened in the meantime is they provided effectively dual use materials such as nitro cellulose a whole series critically important long sort of holes in the tent for the Russia reconstitution of the defense industry and that’s been the space that policy makers I know have been working including with Congress to try to prevent from coming from going to Russia and there’s been mixed success in pushing back against my time is up I would dispute the characterization that China is only providing dual use material but I don’t think there going be any question that President Biden drew a red line in March of 2022 and he has not been enforcing it against China since thank you Senator CT Senator jber please director Haynes uh earlier this week the administration published an updated National Security memorandum on critical infrastructure security and resilience how is the IC ensuring effective intelligence sharing and information exchange regarding threats to critical infrastructure including threats to food and agriculture sector thank you Senator I know this has been an area that you have focused on for quite some time and we’re basically through our uh critical our cyber security threat integration Intelligence Center we have been expanding our support in a effect um anticipating the NSM but also more generally uh for critical infrastructure working with sisa working with the Cyber director obviously out of the executive branch and and across the inter agency and I think it’s um continues to be an effort um in moving across different sectors that are at risk in this area given the recent news about uh Aven bird flu have leapt to other animals um can you talk a little bit about um since covid-19 um I’ve been advocating for a one health approach to biocurity that incorporates animal plant and environmental health in addition to human health to detect and prevent the next pandemic do you believe that the IC is sufficiently equipped to detect and assess the full range of biological threats that can appear in humans animals and plants and how is the national counter proliferation and biocurity Center at odni supporting this effort yeah I think it would be um always an overstatement to say that we can detect everything that would be you know um ultimately uh a potential Vector for both human and um and animal uh concerns but the fact is we have really expanded and invested a tremendous amount in improving our bio security practices and not just in terms of just um you know what the um um National counter proliferation and biocurity Center does in the context of allocating resources for collection to ensure that we actually have what we need in order to be able to identify vectors but also in doing some really extraordinary modeling for how it is that we can detect when there are outbreaks what’s happening and how we can manage it thinking through the analytic structure that we need to build it into a variety of different functional and Regional areas that we’re managing in these are these spaces and supporting which has been um obviously a main effort by the policy Community a broader all of government kind of biocurity uh effort in these areas so I do think we were improved but I think there’s still room to grow because what the legislation would do it would collocate um not only uh the IC Community but with the Agriculture and scientific community so that you’re in constant communication on a regular basis in the same way we do fusion centers for antiterrorism fusion centers for cyber security it would be a one Health Fusion approach and I know that’s not the exact um organization today but today are you at least having Communications with those sectors um to be informed and to get the most up-to-dated information possible yeah our director has actually invested quite a lot in improving our communication with non-title 50 agencies which is how we think about it you know with including the Department of Agriculture and others so that we can actually have those sorts of conversations and um and it’s also been supported by the work that our uh cyber security threaten integration Center has done which is also improving our communication with um various uh non-title 50 um agencies and departments including again the Department of Agriculture because we see them as one of the major sort of threat U potential vectors thank you um I think as you know the National Defense authorization act from 2024 expanded the Cyber service Academy to allow up to 10% of graduates to serve in the non DOD intelligence Community if that component enters into an agreement with the Department of Defense has odni entered into discussions with the dod yet to take advantage of this source of cyber professionals and have you encourag nonod components of the IC to pursue um this talent pool yes absolutely and I believe we are in discussions but we have not yet concluded an agreement thank you um thank you Mr chairman thank you very much Senator jul Senator Mullen please thank you Mr chairman um Dres you mentioned briefly a little bit about uh Iran’s economy you want to broaden a little bit more on that I I should get you the facts and figures I don’t have them in front of me and we’ll supp but you said it was it was in bad shape right yes um I I uh I I I don’t disagree that it’s probably not in great shape but would you agree it’s in better shape than it was three years ago no I think we we just recently did a piece that really looked at some of the challenges ma’ according to the the the statistics that study that uh actually the GDP for um for uh Iran is projected to have a ninth consecutive year by 2029 and in the last four years since Biden released the sanctions they’ve actually doubled their GDP uh in 2019 they were just about 250 billion GDP and 2020 they had dropped to below 200 and today they’re over uh they’re over 500 and rejected to have continue to grow until 2029 underneath the current statistics now this is stuff that’s open source that you can get and I can actually read it to you the gross domestic product for GDP is currently priced in Iran was forecasted to continue to increase between 24 and 29 which has already had four consecutive years of increase uh over $ 101 billion dollar US dollars at a 24.5% increase over the next four years since uh 2025 uh to 20 2 2 their gross domestic out put is 5762 billion so has the sanctions uh that were lifted been a good thing or a bad thing for Iran and the world and the war on terror so I will get you the figures that we have on this issue and see if uh that helps well I mean these figures are these figures are government figures I I literally just pulled them up since we were sitting here since you said that and so I think I mean you’re the director of intelligence these are something that you really should know because it the more money they have is not good for the US would you agree with that I certainly think that the more money that they spend on destabilizing activities on funding various groups is there any is there any all those things are not is there really any debate that Iran is the number one sponsor of War on Terror at this point they are absolutely a sponsor okay so we can both agree that the more money they have is bad for that absolutely okay but what I would see is for example if you so is this a good thing’ what I’m trying to get to is the the we saw a decrease in their GDP when Trump put in strong sanctions and worked with Congress those were lifted underneath the Biden Administration do you agree with those actions I don’t take policy positions from the intelligence the intelligence is following the money I understand so from the intelligence perspective not a policy then from perspective director HS was that a good thing it’s neither a good thing or a bad thing if you want an assessment on whether or not how can you say it’s not it’s neither a good thing or a bad thing ma’am when you just said that they’re the number one sponsor of war on terror that’s not debatable we know that and and while ago you said their economy was faltering but yet we’ve seen that it’s actually doubled underneath the Biden Administration since they since they lifted the sanctions that Congress and uh the Trump ad Administration put in place that means they have more money to spend on this that and you can’t say that’s that’s not really a policy question that’s from an intelligence perspective that’s got to cause problems Senator it so on the economy why don’t we get you our assessment of how they’re doing even if I’m right that they’re having challenges economically I don’t think that necessarily is a line that you can draw directly between sanctions and how their economy is doing there are a number of factors that obviously you have to look at in order to determine that and I’m more than happy to do an assessment for you that helps to identify what the impact of either of different sanctions less sanctions more sanctions all of those things on the economy and then how that relates to spending for example on National Security issues that are of importance to us which we do produce an annual report for you on well I I um I would appreciate that and I I don’t think that you know we say their econom is in great shape I mean that’s but we can say that throughout all the you know I say say all the Middle East the the middle of the Middle East uh we could say that there’s a problem there with their economy uh but what I’m getting to is that the current position that the administration this current Administration has taken underneath underneath Biden has not been helpful for our security posture we have seen that their economy has greatly increased and is going to continue to increase if we stay underneath the big the continued projection of the way we’re treating Iran currently uh I think that our posture should and you can agree disagree or not in fact you don’t even have to answer because I’m not going to put you in that position again our we have to relook at our at our posture we have with them because they their GDP has increased and that means their spending on the war on terror against us and against our allies has also increased re with that I’ll I’ll yield back thank you Senator Mullen uh Senator Warren please thank you Mr chairman so director Haynes when you testified before the committee last year we talked about how crypto is being used to help finance major threats against National Security like North Korea’s nuclear weapons program Iran’s ability to evade sanctions and ransomware attacks on American hospitals it seems the problem is getting worse according to the Wall Street Journal last month crypto has become quote indispensable to Vladimir Putin’s War Machine allowing Russia to get around sanctions and to throw billions of dollars into its war against Ukraine according to the treasury Department hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel in October were financed in part with crypto and their current financing depends on crypto crypto according to the blockchain analytics firm elliptic um Iran is deep into crypto and so let’s focus for just a minute on how Iran is using crypto director Haynes reports from our intelligence national security agencies say that Iran uses crypto to evade us sanctions for example in four years binance just one of many crypto exchanges processed 8 billon billion dollars in transactions for Iran can you explain what threat that poses for our national security yeah I think there’s no question that cryptocurrency is a significant issue for our national security and as you say we talked about dprk last time and I you know today we continue to produce statistics that indicate that I think it’s now over 50% of their foreign currency revenues are coming through crypto that there is really just significant exploitation of this as a way to get around sanctions to ultimately engage in illegal transactions to um uh to support a system and certainly the ransomware attacks and other things like that demonstrated and with respect to Iran we see this I it’s um so there’s no question that Iran permits the use of cryptocurrencies right in smart contracts to pay for imported goods because it lacks access to the US dollar and that’s a consequence of the sanctions regimes that are in place it what is also true though and I think is just to frame it doesn’t mean that this isn’t a problem but its use is relatively limited as compared to other transaction pieces so um it’s not been as much of a major factor in our judgment as um it might otherwise seem so in other words we’ve got in early August 20122 the country made its first official cryptocurrency payment for imports with were worth 10 million out of a total of 102 billion for imports so it’s just it’s a and it’s sort of a similar challenge in the context of uh Russia as well where we see them using cryptocurrency and I think it is almost certainly going to expand in different ways but there are some kind of structural limitations on their capacity so so let’s look into that let’s look at the structural limitations here because I I think what you’re telling me is Iran is definitely using crypto to move money around yes and to do that to evade sanctions and to fund Hamas and your assessment is consistent with the assessment of the Treasury Department on this but it’s that’s not all that Iran is doing with crypto Iran is also making money by processing crypto transactions for other people so as you know crypto relies on middlemen uh in the crypto world they’re called miners or validators and they process or verify transaction actions the Iranian government officially entered the crypto industry in 2019 because it could make money doing it so if I sent a, in Bitcoin over to you lieutenant general Cruz and you and I might be sitting here in Washington when we engage in this transaction but Iran may be the one that is processing the transaction for us and pocketing the transaction fee that I pay and neither one of us would never would ever even know that we were enriching Iran through this transaction according to one estimate in 2021 Iran processed as much as 7% of the world’s Bitcoin transactions enough to earn them about a billion dollars so Lieutenant General Cruz the bigger the crypto Market gets the more opportunities Iran has to profit by processing other people’s crypto transactions let me ask you how important is it that we cut off this Revenue source for Iran well if I could what I would say is this is uh not dis similar to the previous conversation about the source of Revenue whatever Iran source of Revenue crypto or uh other transactions oil sales and then how Iran uses it so it does come the more uh finances they have available to them this or other sources certainly allows Iran to make decisions on how it’s going to all right so look we have the tools to cut off countries like Iran from the banking transactions but those tools weren’t designed for cryptocurrencies so crypto money keeps flowing here and that’s why I’m concerned about any effort to regularize stable coins without giving Regulators the full set of tools they need to crack down on terrorist Finance financing anything Congress does to legitimize and grow the crypto Market must have strong protection so we don’t increase money-making opportunities for Iran and other adversaries thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator Warren uh Senator Rosen you’re recognized thank you Mr chairman and I’d like to thank director Haynes and general Cruz for testifying today and uh and for your service and so I guess the theme this morning is Iran and of course I’m going to expand on a little bit but Iran and the Russia defense cooperation because Iran has used the war in Ukraine to bolster its own military partnership with Russia by providing Putin’s regime hundreds of drones that have killed Ukrainian civilians in return Russia’s providing Iran with missiles cyber tools air defense systems and Iran’s also seeking to acquire modern Russian fighter jets helicopters and Radars so General Cru how does Iran’s capacity to produce and Export long range attack drones evident in both the Middle East and against Ukraine potentially accelerate the spread of such capabilities globally particularly with Iran supplying these systems to Russia for its use in war and um I’ll just add if you want to talk about both of these how does this acquisition also enable Iran to take an even more aggressive posture right now in the Middle East I think Iran has um spent considerable time in and effort uh to be able to produce uh the kinds of uh uavs and other equipment that others would find Value uh and they continue to improve the capabilities of what they’ve been selling over time uh you mentioned several hundred I would say is probably even a thousand or more of uavs that Iran has provided directly to the Russians that they are using on the battle space uh and also providing design so Russian can do their own manufacturing of that so uh this has been a somewhat new business line uh it’s just a continuation of Iran’s previous business line but it does provide uh two things one is a revenue source to Iran uh it provides also some capabilities to the uh proxy organizations and other adversaries and increases their capability uh and their capacities over time thank you um I’m going to move on a little bit into uh what powers a lot of these systems particularly uh as we think about Bitcoin cyber all these threats um artificial intelligence um and so we have a little bit uh to worry about an artificial intelligence competition so director Haynes as we continue to explore really the potential of artificial intelligence and we have to really discuss these ethical boundaries right because there’s growing concern that our strategic competitors like China uh Russia and others may not adhere to the same ethical standards especially regarding the weaponization of of Technology uh potentially leading to uh abuse what can threaten our Global Security our national security so could you discuss the implications of this difference in ethical standards uh for AI development and deployment particularly in terms of threats uh to our security and how do we work with our allies to put in these ethical standards because we know artificial intelligence it’s only it’s garbage in garbage out whatever you put in is what comes out and that’s why this is particular important yeah absolutely I mean I think I agree with how you characterize the challenge and I think it’s it is one of the um you know there sort of the first order issue which uh is an ethical issue but maybe even a Step Beyond what you’re describing which is to say that an educational issue because computers learn exactly yeah and and it’s also I mean so one is clearly um in many respects generative AI in particular but AI generally can exacerbate existing threat streams as we’ve seen them and make our adversaries far more effective and also sort of lower the cost of entry into these kinds of uh you know threat streams so in other words for information operations for cyber security for biocurity other issues like that obviously these are um uh technologies that allow you to be more effective and to do so do so more cheaply in many respects um in a number of scenarios so there’s that piece of it a second piece of it I would say is that um there are as you say different standards that we apply so for example our commercial uh companies will um only train their models on what is appropriate from an intellectual property perspective whereas you may see other countries not paying attention to those kinds of standards and getting into other uh material and that can you know um create a different series of challenges um in these faes and how you sort of develop against that you obviously need to ensure that you’re paying attention to that through regulatory through standards or other things that can be useful to try to achieve that in addition um to your point we obviously care very much about the governance of AI how we’re applying sort of privacy and civil liberty issues to the work that we’re doing and you know I think um on the one hand um that may mean that we move sometimes a slightly more slowly or we’re thinking through how it is that we’re ensuring what we’re producing uh is consistent with with our values and our ethics in these spaces but at the same time I actually think that can increase the efficacy in many respects of the work that we’re doing because ultimately what you really want to do is train AI on the best possible data quality data things that do not have inherent biases in them things along those lines that will actually get you to answers that are more effective in answering the questions that you’re ultimately trying to do so we are spending quite a bit of time both on thinking about how we use it in a positive way and for our own mission but also how to counter what it is that we’re seeing obviously from allies in these faes maybe I’ll leave that thank you I have some questions on anti-Semitism I’ll submit them for the record thank you Mr chairman thank you very much Senator Rosen Senator Schmidt please thank you Mr chairman um director Haynes I have a couple questions um so recently you stood up the foreign malign influence Center um and you are quoted um as stating that it would allow the fmic to track disinformation campaigns from a foreign country but also quote the public opinion within the United States what does that mean I I don’t know that is what are you tracking the public opinion of the United States no okay um how is um how is FM I see different than sisa I thought sisa was created to do this ah okay so fmic is actually um we established it pursuant to a statute that asked us to establish it it what we do within the farmaline influence Center which encompasses our election threat work effectively across the community is um allocate resources in relation to collection we work through analytic work that is supportive of what sisa does for example um but also uh in coordination with our cyber security intelligence um threat integration Center and um and we um ultimately coordinate the work that the community is doing in order to counter foreign malign influence that is not something um that sisa does in other words sisa is taking our products and the intelligence that we produce and is ultimately deciding what it is that needs to be for example shared uh with local and state partners with uh industry depending on the cyber security threat or other things like that in order to protect our critical infrastructure so uh in a sense we do the normal intelligence Community work that we do and they basically take that information hopefully we are supporting them in their mission to actually take action and response in in your um 2024 unclassified annual threat assessment uh make several mentions uh of the threats of misinformation and disinformation uh specifically the report mentions um adversarial State actors leveraging disinformation attempt to propagate division of societal issues to weaken America and our democracy it also references um medical disinformation as a threat to Global Health security does um uh how do you What are what steps are you what are you doing here I I’m because as you know a court has found that there’s been great coordination between the intelligence community and government agencies to censor speech in the Missouri versus Biden the fifth circuit to censor speech and so the determination was made that opinions about efficacy of masks or transmissibility of covid after the vaccine was taken down at the behest of government actors so my big concern is are you using this to um quell dissenting points of view because I don’t know what you know medical disinformation means and why you know if you’re involved with censoring or or limiting speech of Americans who may have different points of view of let’s say if masks work or not so is that what you’re talking about with medical misation so just a few things I think I um obviously don’t play a lawyer in this position but I I’m would not accept your characterization of what the court has found and well I would actually was the lawyer that I was attorney general that filed the lawsuit so I’m pretty familiar with that case Okay understood I am just saying that from my perspective the intelligence Community does not and has not engaged in any sort of censorship of well okay well okay I have limited time so let me just focus on the question you’re asking which is just basically in the context of um medical disinformation so for example we saw um Chinese uh efforts to um uh ultimately engage in disinformation campaigns about um the US vaccine for example the quality of those types of vaccines whe that ultimately if you take a different vaccine you might be better the Russian um efforts to do that as well so that’s the kind of thing is medical misinformation if I were to go online right now and say that mass are ineffective and they might actually hurt kids is that medical misinformation well you’re not a foreign actor so that wouldn’t be foreign malign influence what we would be looking for is a campaign from another country such as Russia and China engaging disinformation about um for example what I just described in the context so I I just one last question then so obviously you work with the FBI right absolutely the FBI is actually part of the intelligence correct um have there been any consequences to the FBI’s pre-b punking of the hunter Biden laptop story because we know that Elvis Chan was claiming that the hunter Biden laptop even though it was in the FBI’s possession was a quote unquote Russian Hack and leak operation and it was n right we know that it wasn’t but yet there’s sworn affidavits now from senior Executives of social media companies is that that it’s exactly what was they were told have there been any repercussions has anybody been fired for you know claiming this was a Russian hacken leaking operation when in fact it was Hunter Biden’s laptop and by this way the story got censored has there been any repercussions have you done anything about that I suspect that we’re not going to have the same characterization of the scenario either but happy to take this offline and see if there is anything that we need to answer I I hope so because I have genuine concerns about The credibility of the intelligence Community after what’s come to light in that litigation and I don’t think that’s you know anyway I’m happy to talk to you about it more I’m out of time thanks thank you uh Senator SMI Senator bual please thanks Mr chairman uh thank you both for being here and thank you for your service to our nation there have been reports um as recently as this morning about a potential progress in discussions with Saudi Arabia about uh a pact that in effect could lead to normalizing relations to with Israel those discussions I’m aware were underway before the October 7th attack with great promise uh could you update us as to what you know about those discussions and whether an agreement with Saudi Arabia directly without involving Israel in the first aid is possible at this point Thank You Senator I I couldn’t the intelligence Community is not involved in those discussions and uh but I’m happy to defer that obviously and we can get you an answer from the policy Community thank you um on Iran um I am somewhat um perplexed about what you say in your report Iran is currently not under under taking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device but then you say um Iran continues to increase the size and enrichment level of its uranium stockpile and so forth isn’t Iran continuing to take steps that would put it in a position to have nuclear arms yeah I think we can probably talk about this more in closed session but I think the distinction that’s being made in the report in that particular scenario is basically to say that what they’re doing is um shortening the time period that it would take for them to actually for example um uh enrich a sufficient amount of material for a nuclear weapon if they make a decision to move forward on it as opposed to actually having made a decision to move forward on it does that make sense it does and I guess that leads to the next question which is what is the time period now that they have shortened too yeah I think we can discuss this in close session and for okay could you uh talk a little bit about efforts to free uh Evan uh gvic uh the Wall Street Journal reporter currently imprisoned in Russia uh are we making any progress there in sir uh we are working on that I think we can discuss that in close s and yeah which leads to my next question uh there there’s a lot of public interest in it and I’ve long felt that there’s over classification of information uh as you know the present system dates from I think it’s Harry Truman executive orders in terms of classifications of different materials are in my view very Antiquated I’ve been to countless classifi briefings in the skiff and I’ve read about them the next day or the previous day in the New York Times or wherever uh aren’t we over classifying information shouldn’t we be disclosing more of it what I find and I say it in these briefings our adversaries know what you’re telling us about them uh we know our adversaries know all about it they know we know the only people who don’t know are the American people aren’t we over classifying yes I I’ve been very public in saying that over classification is an issue and it’s one that we’re working quite hard on it is not going to be solved in the you know quickly because it is actually um there are a lot of institutional issues that are at stake and challenging and one of the things that we’re doing for example is uh related to the fact that um we recognize we produce produce an enormous amount of information some of it gets Declassified over time it is necessary for us to get that information out we are trying to use technology in a more productive way to actually ensure that we are doing this at a more rapid rate and we’ve had some progress on this and there’s actually money in our current budget proposals to try to increase the amount of technology and work that we can do in this area to ensure that we’re pushing out information that should be pushed out we are working with our foil officers to basically ensure that they are better staffed that they’re in position to be able to do more work more quickly prioritize what is of the highest public interest we are working through trying to ensure that we actually incentivize to the greatest extent possible accurately classifying things not over classifying things Etc so I I’m happy to share we’ve got a lot of lines of effort frankly on this issue to try to improve the situation well just one last quick question on uh Evan gersovitz um are we making progress or not I honestly this is not an area where I am involved in the specific talks and I would rather yeah that others thank you thank you Senator blumthal Senator bu please thank you chairman General director thank you both for being here today uh director Haynes the annual threat assessment it states that the intelligence community assesses that and a quote from there is that Iranian leaders did not orchestrate nor had for forn knowledge of the Hamas attack against Israel so how confident are you about that assessment and to the extent that you can discuss it here how has October 7th impacted the relationships and operations of the broader Iranian threat Network sure I can give a start at this and general Cruz may have more to add to I mean I think we’re uh reasonably confident and growing more confident over time that that assessment is correct um um with respect to their for knowledge of the attack and then in terms of the um relationship um impact that it’s had as you indicate I think it has um certainly increased the um degree of work that is being done between for example Iran and the houthis that was obviously a long-standing relationship but that one continues to build and uh and the houthis are increasingly relying on Iran for um assistance in their capacity and um uh for weapon systems and so on and and to make them more uh precise in many respects it is certainly um continued I mean I think the relationship with the uh Iranian align militia groups as we often refer to them within the region um these are classically Shia militia groups that have been working with Iran that get money training weapon systems and so on from them and uh and we continue to see that relationship I don’t know that it’s had an enormous impact on the relationship um since actual Perth but it has been one that’s been quite active obviously during this period and they’ve been assisting in the sort of strategy that Iran has taken with respect to the conflict in the region during this period um I would say that the relationship remains strong between Iran and Hezbollah um that you know continues to be uh a key partner from their perspective and um one that they rely on to manage security in the region in many respects uh from their perspective and um and I guess that’s sort of a general Waterfront landscape if we could I’m going to ask little another part to that question director since October 7th Iran has encouraged and enabled its proxies to conduct strikes against Israel and then also us interests in fact we saw more than a 100 attacks against US forces in the Middle East including the killing of three American soldiers those attacks have dissipated but they seem to have started again director what is the the I’s assessment of whether the Iran threat network will re against US forces or is some level of deterrence been established and uh director we’ll start with you in general if you would add in okay yeah currently they continue to sort of be in this pause the the question of how long it um will last is you know unknown to us but here are some of the factors that I think are relevant to it one is um the Iranians have really been focused on pressuring the Iranian threat Network as you call it the Iranian align militia groups on Israel as you pointed out that is sort of their primary um instruction in many respects and uh and what has really in part been driving the Iranian militia groups in this scenario particularly Iraqi um uh groups has been also to drive uh US forces out of the region and Coalition forces out of the region but particularly US forces and um and so how the talks with the high military commission go how the conversation goes in Iraq and how much Sudani is able to manage that I think president Sudani will make a difference to essentially the calculus of those groups and whether or not they initiate uh continue to tax is um sort of where we are on this but we’ll continue and watch that and we do think obviously that the pause reflects a certain amount of deterrence that’s been establish during this period but again these factors can adjust that and it’s possible for it to start at any time as a consequence of that discussion but please uh I um would probably just Echo the point I would have made would have been the Iraqi connection and what the drivers are in the calculus of the um Iraq Iranian threat Network and the Irani align mili groups uh and then the deterrence I think that we have seen temporarily it it is a fleeting piece and needs to be refreshed and renewed or rediscussed and it’s the variables that the director laid out that I think will drive that thank you bottom line in the interest of time um could you describe the threats from Hamas and hezb to the Homeland how they’ve evolved since October 7th director yeah I mean in many respects the greatest threat that they pose to the Homeland is the degree to which uh they Inspire um folks within the Homeland to conduct attacks and also for other groups as I mentioned in my opening remarks ala and Isis have basically directed in a sense um renewed uh um instructions to continue to go against us interests and so that is um more of the impact that they’re having with respect to the Homeland at this point but over time that will develop and and I don’t want to suggest in any way that the counterterrorism uh concerns that we have are significant at this point Thank you thank you Senator Bud Senator Peters please thank you Mr chairman uh director Haynes as you know all too well uh rapid technological improvements like artificial intelligence and advanced photo editing is uh allowing malicious actors to spread very sophisticated deep fakes of photos videos Auto recordings and uh think one of a notable example of of that was a video that was circulated in early 20 to depicting Ukrainian president zalinski appearing to surrender Russian troops in that deep fake so in response to similar incidents uh several Fortune 500 companies have created the Coalition for Content Providence and authenticity to address these threats and to verify the origins of digital con content uh and in support of their efforts uh I was pleased to include a pilot program in the fiscal year 24 ndaa for the dod to assess the feasibility of establishing content standard Technologies on DOD produced and owned media content which can be used by malicious forces so my question for you director Haynes is with with thousands of government websites containing digital content easily altered by our adversaries How concerned are you about the proliferation of deep fakes uh and the resulting impacts on our national security thank you sir I I’m very concerned about the proliferation of deep fakes and the capacity to use generative Ai and other Technologies basically to improve information uh operations and and I think um you know that’s true just across the board as you indicated uh there was the example that we saw in the context of Ukraine there was also a deep fake audio recording that we saw in the Slovakian uh election parliamentary elections that had impact there a variety of um uh examples now of uh these types of things being produced and whether they’re produced from information that is available through a government website or otherwise frankly they’re a challenge right director Hayes I I share the homeland security committee and I’m keenly aware of the current and emerging threats Associated uh with unmanned aircraft systems both for the Homeland as well as our our folks abroad and major technical uh technological Investments are are going to be clearly needed to combat uh these risk but just as importantly we need to actually synchronize all of our fragmented inter agency uh efforts so so my question for you is how’s the intelligence Community coordinating and sharing intelligence with your inter agency partners to mitigate these uas threats and and uh in that response if you could tell us any roadblocks that you are facing in those coordination efforts to get everybody on the same page thank you sir no so obviously you know that the Department of Defense has a counter uas strategy we have nested uh essentially um against that um our own uh we do these sort of um unified uh intelligence collection strategies and it is intended to support that strategy and uh and that is sort of how we organize ourselves to ensure that we are in fact supporting the work that’s getting done at DOD but also in other parts of the US government on these issues and we really haven’t encountered so much challenges in the context of inter agency cooperation or sharing in this space but more in the sense of just actually going after the problem ensuring that we’re actually getting the information that we need for supporting them and also including uh talking to private sector and others who may have knowledge about some of the technologies that are being used mapping out Supply chains so that we canup issues things along those lines good very good General Cruz Russian disinformation efforts including attempts to influence EU elections and spread har harmful propaganda are being used uh to achieve military objectives uh in the War uh in Ukraine my question for you Sirah is what specific lessons has Dia gained from Russia’s ongoing information operations so there’s probably a couple and I think I would even add to your question to say what have some of our other adversaries learned from Russian misinformation campaigns I worry probably um less about our ability to how do we detect some of these pieces which uh in partnership with the rest of the community I think we’re able to identify a lot of that data the issue is how do you counter it what is the pathway by which you can authoritatively say something is fake then provide it to the people uh in an authoritative way um the uh the piece that I do worry about is what what are the Chinese learning what are uh the Iranians learning uh what does the impact of disinformation mean on all future battle spaces or in the leadup to Future conflicts uh which drives the need to really get our arms around um how do we effectively and efficiently detect deep fakes and other pieces and have a dissemination system in the same way that we do uh with traditional intelligence thank you thank you Mr chairman thank you very much Senator Peters uh director General thank you for your excellent testimony uh we will now adjourn the open session and we will reconvene let’s shoot for 12: noon uh in SVC 27 uh with that uh I will adjourn the Open Session thank you e e e

Watch live as US Director of Intelligence Avril Haines and the Director of Defense Intelligence Agency, General Jeffrey Kruse testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on worldwide threats.

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