Summary: The nation's No. 1 intelligence official says the U.S. intelligence committee has been tracking unrest in North Africa for years.
The nation's No. 1 intelligence official says the U.S. intelligence committee has been tracking unrest in North Africa for years.
"But we are not clairvoyant," said James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, at a House hearing this morning.
He said questions have arisen about whether the intelligence community is tracking effectively what's going on in Egypt and elsewhere. Both he and CIA Director Leon Panetta said hundreds of intelligence reports were issued last year alone on rising tensions and instability in North Africa.
"But specific triggers cannot always be known or predicted," Clapper said.
Clapper said even Ben Ali, the dictator who fled Tunisia, "had no idea when he drove to work in the morning that he'd be on a plane out of their that night."
Even so, Panetta said he has set up a 35-member team to more closely track popular popular sentiment, the strength of the opposition, and the role of the Internet in North African countries
Lawmakers have questioned whether the focus on al-Qaida and its militant offshoots has weakened the intelligence community's attention toward other parts of the world.
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