kwimt, iranian presence and assistance to assad, what's the outlook as far as the situation in syria is concerned? bh in your view do we and the arab leagues and other like-minded countries need to do to alter that equation if it's an apparent stalemate with the massacre continuing? >> well, there are four -- as we call them, four pillars of assad regime. the continued effectiveness of the military and support, his own military which is quite large. there have been deshert shse de they have assaults on civilian population. the economy is another pillar

that is really taking some hits, the price of gas has doubled since september. the price of food has gone sky high. they have periodic electrical interruptions, so that is the -- the economy is going south. the state of the opposition, which is quite fragmented, it's very localized. the syrian national council really doesn't only control -- command and control these opposition groups. the free syrian army is a separate organization not connected to the syrian national council, and, of course, the other is the cohesion of the eli elite. although we've seen signs of some of the seniors in the assad regime making contingency plans to move financial resources. to this point they've held

together. assad himself probably because of his psychological need to emulate his father sees no other option but to continue to try to crush the opposition. >> i guess my question, sir, was, unless something changes as far as assistance from the outside, do you see a continued stalemate in syria? >> i do, sir. i think it will just continue. we don't stee any short of a coup or something like that that assad will hang in fl and continue to do as he's done. >> the massacre continues. >> yes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the witnesses. it's been very helpful. >> thank you, senator mccain. senator lieberman. >> thanks, mr. chairman. director clapper, general burgess, thanks for your extraordinary leadership of the intelligence community and all you do to protect our security.

director clapper, i want to go back to iran for a couple of minutes quickly. you said this morning that it's your assessment or the ic's assessment that iran has not made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. but i assume you also believe based on international atomic energy agency reports and information that the intelligence community has that -- that iran has taken sfeps to put them in a position to make a decision to break out and bld build a nuclear weapon. >> yes, sir. that's a good clarification. >> i appreciate that. >> there are also certainly things they have not yet done, which i'd be happy to discuss in closed session that would be key indicators that they have made such a decision. >> whether they have done things, is it fair to say that are inconsistent with just

wanting to have peaceful nuclear energy capacity. zo >> well, the issue is the extent to which they produce a highly enriched uranium. they have produced small amounts of 20% highly enriched uranium which could be used for legitimate, peaceful purposes. if they go beyond that, obviously, that would be, you know, not a good, negative indicator mplt that would be great. >> general burgess, you want to add to that at all? >> i would agree with what director clapper said. i would agree with the clarification because of the movement of the 3 1/2 to 20% enrichment, this is a leap and not that much of a bigger leap to the bigger 90% that they would need to go to. >> great. thank you. do you both agree that -- is it

your assessment that p if iran makes a decision to build a nuclear weapons capability in effect axhooefs it, that it is likely to set off a nuclear arms race within the region? in other words, that other countries -- saudi arabia, for instance -- will want to have a nuclear weapons capacity? >> it's certainly a possibility, sir. absolutely. >> and is it also fair to say -- we've talked about the iranian sponsorship of terrorism -- if they had nuclear weapons capability, it might embolden nem in their use of terrorism against regional opponents and even the united states? >> yes, sir, it would serve as a -- as a deterrent. even to a certain extent the ambiguity exists now as a deterrent and serves to help embolden them.

>> i'll go to cyber security. thank you for your statement of support for the legislation that senators collins and rockefeller and feinstein and i introduced. the main intention of the legislation does a lot of things, but it's to create a system where the federal government, through the department of homeland security, advised and supported if you will by the nsa can work with the private sector to make sure that the private sector is defending itself and our country against cyber attack. to me, we spent a lot of time on this. right now because of the remarkable capacities of cyber attackers and the extent to sch they can attack privately owned and operated cyber infrastructure for either economic gains or to literally

attack our country that we need to ask the private sector to make investments to defend themselves and us, then i'm afraid a lot of them are not yet making. is that your general impression? in other words, bottom line do we have a vulnerability at this moment. does the privately owned and operated cyber infrastructure of america have a vulnerability to both economic thievery and perhaps -- and strategic attack? >> well, sir, both the chairman and the ranking member cited the national counterintelligence executive report we issued in october, which called out both china and russia as our primary concerns and particularly with respect to the chinese and theft of intellectual property, of

course, much of which occurs in the private sector. i know the bill is quite lengthy, some 270 pages. i have not read it all. the important thing for me was the preseps that it addresses, which delineates roles of the various components of the government to include the department of homeland security which has an important role to play here. it defines what i feel is a good balance of -- in the relationship with the private sector and how intrucive the government is going to be, which is certainly an issue. most importantly protect civil liberties and privacy. i'm sure there are other provisions in the bill that -- that some might take issue with but the preseps are important in terms of the balance between protection and freedom. >> i appreciate what you said.

part of the problem as we go forward is so much of the vulnerability we have and even the attacks that are occurring now are largely invisible to the public. so am i right in this regard that there's -- there is. the report you just cited said it. there is extensive, ongoing theft of intellectual property of american businesses, which, in fact, enables competition from abroad that actually costs us jobs here at home and diminishes our economic prosperity at home. >> absolutely, sir. one of the downsides of this, profound downsides for the united states is when people are robbing us of our technology, which, of course, saves them the investment in r & d. that's almost a double whammy, if you will.

i think there is difficulty for some and something you can't see, feel or touch since it is a passive theft and you don't directly see immediately the negative impacts of that. unlike an attack, which obviously is by its nature active, in which you would feel the effect of a seizure of the banking system or the stopping of our electrical grid or some other egregious effect like that. >> would you agree, finally, or general burgess that right now we're not -- our privately owned and operated infrastructure, transportation, even water sfli and dams are not adequately defended against such an attack? >> that's probably true, and it's -- you know, it's uneven. some parts of the infrastructure

are reasonably well protected. >> i agree. >> but it's not complete. of course, you're kind of in the weakest link proposition here, the vulnerability. >> general burgess, do you want to add something? >> sir, i was just going to say and i'm like director clapper, i have not read the whole thing. from my days when i was in the director of national intelligence and took on the issue with mike mcconnell of cyber security, i think what you have put on the table, sir, is a great first step. as an american citizen, thank you for doing that. it is a good first step. it is progress. change is evolutionary' posed to reeve lugsary.

it's not a requirement to share information. it's encouraged. i always tell people when i speak publicly. we're separated by a common language, and we define them differently. in terms of economic attack and so forth, some entities may not want folks to know what has been taken and they're not required to divulge that. sir, just a comment from the peanut gallery. >> i take that seriously. it's a good comment. it's a thoughtful poke, and thank you for your words. thank you sh, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lieberman. senator enhoff. >> i think this is one of the better hearings we've had, the straightforward sfonss. i appreciate that very much. your comment about language, i'm going to get that for the record and use it later on. >> i just wrote it down. >> all right.

that was a good one, general. i think we have pretty much decided on this 20% getting back to iran now it that it's something that's either achieved or being achieved as we talk. general burgess, you said we have the scientific, technical and industrial capabilities to produce a weapon, but we didn't talk about when. when is the big issue? i remember what secretary panetta said just the other day about -- we've repeated that several times, several questioners have. i think that's consistent. that's consistent back in the debate where we had a difference of opinion as to whether we should continue with the ground based interceptor in poland. at that time the unclassified date was 2015. so this is pretty consistent. one thing i don't understand is i think there are a lot of people that don't and i'm about to get the clarification, we do

know in terms of the percentage necessary for the production of power we're talking about from 3 3.5% to 5% enrichment. is that pretty well something that's been used? >> i think so, sir. the power generation, and i don't know what the percentage is. i think that's right. >> it's something less than the 20% that apparently where they are right now. >> yes, sir, i would guess. >> this morning in the today's early bird they talked about iran has invoked the medical reactor to justify the enrichment of uranium to 20%, the higher level of refinement that nuclear power systems require. the higher enriched material also enables iran to move more quickly. so it talks about something that i have heard, and i assume it's correct. that the difficulty is getting up to the 20 percentage. the time between reachesiing th

level and reaching the 90% we're concerned about goes much more rapidly than it would be to get up to 20%. is this accurate? >> that's generally true, sir, but there are a number of factors that would affect the pace and volume, which would frankly be best left to a closed discussion. i'd be happy to do that with you. >> sure. that's good. i have heard this. these are things that we assume, we've talked about. my concern has been when we can do end up getting to that point. it's been reported by the president that he's weighing the omgss of cutting down our nuclear arsenal unilaterally by you want to 80%. that's something i'm very much concerned about, and there are a lot of us who back during the new -- when the treaty -- the

new start treaty was key baited, were concerned about these things and i still am. it's my understanding and i remember and i'm going to read a quote by the president, when the president was trying to get the additional senators on board to pass the treaty, he made some commitments. he said, i recognize that nuclear modernization requires investment and long-term. it's my commitment to the congress that my administration will pursue these programs and capabilities for as long as i am president. yet, in the fiscal year '13 budget he's decreasing that amount by $347 million and actually delaying the system of modernization. i have a quote that i used recently by gates that talks about -- i can't find it right here, but it talks about the fact that we have some 30-other

countries that depend on our nuclear umbrella here. do either have any comments to make about this, which is not a proposal yet, but it is a discussion of reduction of ab t about -- of some 80%? >> well, sir, that's news to me. that's -- to what extent we may reduce or not our nuclear arsenal is certainly not an intelligence call. i can assure you that the intelligence community is a participant in sush dlip ragss and wousuch deliberations and wd convey the threat dimensions of this, particularly with respect to our primary nuclear -- the nation's primary nuclear concern, which, of course, russia and china. >> well, you said its news to you, but this was released yesterday. maybe you were preparing for this hearing and didn't get that. let me just mention something about north korea.

i've always questioned -- >> what i meant was news to me was reducing that to that extent. >> that was in the release yesterday. okay. the area of north korea, i've always been concerned about the accuracy of our intelligence there, and i have told the story of going back to 1988 when i made the request as to when north korea would have the capability. at that time -- this is a rocket. at that time they taked about three to five years and it was seven days later in 1898 that they fired one. i'd like to know how confident the of two you are on the quality of the intelligence we have on north korea. >> i followed north korea for a long time. i served as the director of intelligence to korea in the '80s. i will tell you that north korea is one of the toughest intelligence targets we have and has long been. they're very, very secretive

society. very controlled society. and there is ambiguity about our insight into north korea's nuclear capabilities and their intentions. and there is -- there are some promising developments, which i'd be happy to discuss with you in closed session with respect to enhancing the quality of our intelligence insights. >> good. i appreciate that very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator enhoff. senator webb is next. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman and senator enhoff both actually, the writer in me

has to say this. before you use that quote from general that quote from general burgess, i believe the first person that made that statement was winston churchill, and he said the united states and britain were two countries separated by a common language. i didn't want to out you, general burgess, but someone was going to do it sooner or later. >> well, i appreciate that. >> it actually goes to one of the points that i need to make this morning and to ask both of you for your advice on, and that's words do count. and i also sit on the foreign relations committee, and the last few days we've been trying to put together a resolution with respect to syria. and first i would say, director, that your comments, your

testimony ask your comments -- people think they need to do something, but we have to be careful what we do. we have to be careful about the statements we make about the senate, and i have had a number of occasions to attempt to look at some of these statements that are well meaning but hastily drawn, and sometimes overconclusive in their tone and yet are not really complete in the detail. and these things are pulled into the media, and they say the senate unanimously made this particular conclusion about one event or another. we had general dempsey up here two days ago. i asked him a question about the nature of the opposition in syria.

the question going not to what the assad regime would be capable of doing, which, by the way, director, i thought you laid out in very understandable specifics, but, really, what is on the other side of the picket line, who are they, how much of this is domestic, how much is foreign, what is the regional dynamic? and he made one comment, i'm going to give you a partial quote, and he said syria is a much better situation than we saw in libya. it presents a very different challenge in which we all know other regional actors are providing support rebelling against an oppressive regime. we all know this, you made some comments about this as well. i asked him about the reports in the media last week that al-qaeda was involved in some of the assassination attempts in

syria. he would not reject it offhand, he said he didn't know. but one of the things that general dempsey was very clear about was they were still attempting to analyze the intelligence information, to come to some sort of conclusions, and so this is sort of an opportune time for me to be able to ask both of you, what are your thoughts on the nature of the opposition that is active on the ground in syria right now? >> let me take a stab at that and then i'll ask general burgess to amplify or correct, as the case may be. as i indicated earlier, the opposition is very fractionated. there is not a national movement even though there is a title of the so-called syrian council, but a lot of that is from external, exiles and the like. but there is not a unitary, connected opposition force.

it's very local. it's on a community-by-community basis. in some communities, they're actually providing services as if they're running the community and trying to defend itself from attacks against the syrian regime-controlled military. the free syrian army, which is kind of a blanket generic name that's sort of applied to the collection of oppositionists is itself not unified. there is an internal feud about who is going to lead it. complicating this, as you implied, of course, are sort of the neighborhood dynamics. the iranians, very, very concerned about propping up assad, so they have sent help in terms of trainers, advisers and equipment, mostly why it's oppression equipment, that sort

of thing. aq, another disturbing phenomenon that we've seen recently, apparently, is the presence of extremists who have infiltrated the opposition groups. the opposition groups in many cases may not be aware that they are there. we've had the two attacks that you alluded to, the two bombings in damascus in december, i think it was, and the two additional bombings in lealeppo, both of which were targets on security buildings, and had all the earmarks of an al-qaeda-like attack. so we believe that al-qaeda and iraq is extending its reach into syria. complicating all this is -- and this is another contrast with libya where we had one or two or three sites that had chemical

warfare components. it is a much more complex issue in syria which has an extensive network of installations. although to this point, and we're watching these very carefully, they appear to be secure. so many complexities here involving the opposition which i'm sure will affect any discussion about coming to some assistance. >> sir, there's not a whole lot i can add to what director cl clapper laid out. the only other comment i would make is in regards to what we have seen referencing the al-qaeda-like events. as we try and look at some of that, it appears to be those elements that may already be in country, but what we haven't seen so far and what we have not

assessed yet is whether there would be what i would call a clarion call to outsiders coming in to augment. we haven't seen much of that up to this time, so basically the team that's on the ground is playing with what it has. >> thank you. my time is up, but i would like to read very briefly from a piece that was just published by leslie gelp who needs no introduction. he's a foreign policy expert in our country, saying when intervention has become a venging angels, they blind themselves in the nation and run dangerously amok. they run in with no plans with plans to arm themselves with rebels they know nothing about. their good intentions could pave the road to hell for syrians,

paying for lives today but sacrificing many more later. again, i hope members of this body will keep this in mind as we develop policies. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator webb. senator ayat. >> thank you, mr. chairman, director clapper, general burgess, thank you so much for being here today and your service. director clapper, i believe you previously testified that the re-engagement rate from those who have been released from guantanamo bay was 27%. what is the current re-engagement rate of terrorists who have been released from guantanamo, and has it gone up again from the 27%? >> i think the next assessment will reflect a very small less than percentage point increase. >> so the next assessment will reflect perhaps a percentage

increase from 27% to 28%? >> somewhere in that neighborhood. >> certainly, anyone being released from there and getting back in to fight our soldiers is one too many, isn't it? >> yes. >> i wanted to ask you about, there's been reports from the administration about the potential of exchanging, and i asked secretary panetta about this the other day, of five detainees of two cutter in exchange for gestures of goodwill in the taliban and afghanistan. as i understand, these five detainees that have been reported by both the "washington post" and the wall street journal, they have previously been assessed by the administration in 2010 to present a high risk of returning to the site. has the designation for these five detainees changed by the admira