WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- When terrorists strike overseas or when U.S. agencies get other intelligence about their intentions and capacities, it is the job of a new Department of Homeland Security analysis unit to interpret and share it, not just with state and local law enforcement but with private sector companies that might be threatened.
"We do look at everything that occurs overseas" in terms of terrorist attacks, Melissa Smislova, head of the department's Homeland Infrastructure Threat Reporting and Analysis Center, or HITRAC, told United Press International.
After insurgents in Iraq incorporated canisters of chlorine gas into a truck bomb recently in the hopes of increasing its lethality the center, working with the FBI, penned what officials call a "Joint Homeland Security Assessment" which was distributed to state and local officials and private sector security professionals.
Smislova would not comment on the contents of the assessment which is classified "For Official Use Only." But she said it was widely distributed to state and local law enforcement and other officials and to private sector security professionals and executives.
"We write many of these jointly with the FBI," said Smislova. She said the joint authorship is designed to "reach a broader audience with a consistent message," adding that the FBI had more law enforcement contacts in its distribution base, which complimented the private sector and state and local non-police agencies that are served by Homeland Security.
In the past, the department and other agencies have been criticized for providing conflicting or inconsistent information about terrorist threats, and HITRAC is just the latest incarnation of a troubled function at Homeland Security.
HITRAC's role -- marrying information about terrorist intentions and capabilities with data about the vulnerabilities of U.S. critical infrastructure, like transport or telecommunications systems -- has been seen since even before Sept. 11 as a vital task in protecting the United States from terrorism. When the Department of Homeland Security was stood up in March 2003, it was seen as one its most important new roles. But HITRAC is at least the third attempt to set up a structure to carry it out.
"We've been chasing our tail on this for more than a decade," said former senior Homeland Security intelligence official John Rollins, pointing out that HITRAC's predecessor at the department, the now-dismantled Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate had itself been designed to mirror an earlier FBI-led initiative, the National Infrastructure Protection Center.
"They're doing the best they can," said Rollins of the officials at HITRAC, "given the lack of support they're getting" from departmental leaders.
Rollins said one problem for the center was the paucity of good intelligence about terrorist plans and the limits of their capacity to carry to them out. "There's just not that much specific credible intelligence about (terrorists') intentions and capabilities," he told UPI.
Rollins, now an analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said he feared that the limited intelligence there was, was not properly shared.
"I'm not sure if (what intelligence there is) is being conveyed back to (Homeland Security) in as timely and complete a manner as they'd like," he said.
One source of specific, credible intelligence about terrorist capacity, if not intent, is analysis of new weapons used in actual terror attacks, like the chlorine gas bombs used in Iraq, or the kerosene-based incendiary devices used in an attack on Indian trains last month.
Smislova said a report on the Indian kerosene bombs -- in the form of an Infrastructure Intelligence Note prepared by the center -- was being completed last week.
"We push out anything new or different in terms of tactics, whether its attacks (or) recruitment patterns," said Smislova.
The kerosene bombs technique "is of concern," she said, because the incendiary devices are seen as easier to make than those employing explosives which have to be stolen or manufactured from scratch.
"This is something you might have under your sink," said one federal law enforcement official of the ingredients for such a device.
Infrastructure Intelligence Notes and Joint Homeland Security Assessments are just two of a number of different intelligence briefing documents the center produces as part of its effort to keep the private companies that own most U.S. critical infrastructure informed about the latest analysis.
Officials say most of HITRAC's products are produced at the "For Official Use Only" level to enable the widest possible dissemination. The Department of Homeland Security has special authorities under the law that established it to share such information with the private sector owners of critical infrastructure.
But the department can also sponsor clearances for executives so that they can receive briefings at the "Secret" level, and officials say HITRAC does produce analysis at that level.
Rollins said that typically such briefings would be given orally, either in person or via secure video calls. Strict regulations govern the storage of classified documents, even those at the lowest "Secret" level and few state or local agencies, let alone private sector companies, have facilities in which they could legally be kept.
He said "a handful" of key executives had been sponsored for clearances by the department. Smislova said only that they "had no problems getting clearances" for the people that needed them.
