VCU hears from Homeland Security Intel Chief

America is the No. 1 terrorist target, and “we might as well get used to it” in keeping the country safe, Charles Allen, chief intelligence officer in the Department of Homeland Security, told a packed room Thursday.

Allen, who started his career in the CIA in 1958, focused on changes in the intelligence community following the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We have to revisit how we think and how we operate today,” he said.

Allen became Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff’s main intelligence advisor a year and a half ago, following a shakeup of the department to focus more on intelligence and warning.

Chertoff “gave me the tools and the authorities. We really are transforming intelligence within the department,” he said. “I think we’ve made a lot of progress in the last year. The quality and quantity of intelligence is improving.”

Allen said Chertoff “devours intelligence” during his morning briefing, and that his department provides purely objective information.

He focused on the importance of “fusion centers” bridging DHS and state and local governments. By 2008, they plan to have 35 centers like the Virginia center started in Richmond in 2005. Allen called them the “centers of gravity for information sharing.”

Al-Qaida has become weaker in the last few years, but new cells and networks with anti-American agendas are still emerging.

The West has yet to find the best way to counter al-Qaida’s ideology and its rapid spread over the Internet.

“We have done very poorly, I think, in trying to counter extremists and their ideology,” Allen said. “I don’t know if any country in the West has done a good job of trying to understand and counter that ideological effort. ”

Terrorist groups are putting their plans into action faster, Allen said.

“Now we see our adversaries moving more quickly from aspiration to operation. The timelines are different today.”

Allen said terrorism is the main, but not sole, focus of DHS.

“Make no mistake about it, we are always focused on terrorism and terrorist threats,” Allen said.

A key part is hardening the sea, air and land entries into the United States.

“Border security is a very vital part of what I do,” Allen said. “You can’t just look at the border and do terrorism, or alien smuggling. We have to do it all.”

Radicalization within society, especially within prisons, is another issue the department is studying.

“There’s all kinds of radicals; there are Aryan brothers, black separatists, ecoterrorists . there are some religious extremists,” Allen said. “What causes people from having strong views, strongly held beliefs, to crossing a red line where you turn from strong beliefs to being willing to engage in extremist violence? I think we need to understand this.”

Allen also cited gangs as a growing “transnational threat.”

Phillip Heglar, a senior criminal justice major, said he enjoyed the speech.

“I’m interested in homeland security. I’m curious about what they’re trying to do, what they’ve done,” Heglar said. “It broadened how much I know about terrorism, like where they were looking for information.”

Allen said he was delighted to see so many students studying the field of emergency management.

“If we’re going to meet 21st century threats, we need to have diversity in the intelligence community,” he said.

Following the speech, he answered several tough questions from the audience. He said he learned from misleading intelligence before the Yom Kippur War, a surprise attack on Israel by Syria and Egypt. When he saw the same signs from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, he got the word out on the imminent invasion of Kuwait.

“I was not going to be wrong again,” Allen said. “I tried to ring the claxon and wake up Washington, D.C.”

Matt Cyr, intelligence officer at the Virginia Fusion Center, called Allen “a legend.”

Cyr said the goals of academic programs in the intelligence and emergency management field is to “hopefully prevent the next 9/11.”

“I want us to get it right,” he said. “This definitely is the way to go.”

The veteran intelligence analyst was the first speaker in the homeland security and emergency preparedness program series, “Intelligence and Information Sharing in a Post-9/11 World.” The series continued Friday with a speech by Arthur Cummings, deputy assistant director of the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI. Cummings discussed both anti-terrorism and counterterrorism operations within the FBI.