NU Online News Service, Oct. 27, 11:20 a.m. EDT

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. --Hanging over the collective heads of Americans trying to recover from the recession are a handful of threats, each with the potential to block the road to prosperity, a military expert here said.

Five possible roadblocks to economic recovery are Iran, China, cyberspace, Mexico and terrorism, General Michael Hayden, retired director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told attendees of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America meeting here.

While large-scale attempts at terrorism have been thwarted by intelligence, the general, who also is former director of the National Security Administration and deputy director of National Intelligence, said less-complex strategies are likely to succeed. Those plans, he added, will be "less lethal but more numerous."

The question now posed is one of civil liberty--as in how much Americans are willing to give up to pursue smaller-scale attacks, he wondered aloud to the insurance industry executive attendees, noting it's likely that Americans are not willing to give up much more.

"Somebody who makes policy needs to say that," the general said. "Lack of success is not the same as failure. This is inherently hard."

The second question, he said, surrounds the needed ability to keep legitimate secrets in a culture that increasingly demands more transparency.

Still, the country is doing "pretty well" in its war against terror. "It is much more difficult [for terrorists] to mount a preferred brand of attack," Gen. Hayden said.

Some other threats he mentioned have not been dealt with. Iran, the top sponsor of terrorism, is on its way to gaining nuclear capability. "If that doesn't make you double-clutch, I don't know what will," he said.

Behind terrorism, Iran was the second-most discussed topic when he was in government, Gen. Hayden said, but a concrete course of action has not been determined and will probably not need to be until the next presidential term. Although serious, Iranian nuclear capability is "less urgent than the press would have you believe," he said.

While China is not an enemy of the U.S., the general said he was personally in "awe" of the sophistication of China's espionage efforts against the U.S. Doing business in China has become increasingly difficult, he said, likening the country to a teenager whose strength and capacity outpaces judgment.

The cyber world, he observed, is a "dangerous place," with no one identifiable enemy to target. What's more, cyber terrorism is "in your backyard," with the capability of directly impacting an enterprise. Gen. Hayden downplayed so-called "cyber Pearl Harbors."

Regardless, "this is a problem whose time has come," Gen. Hayden said of the Web.

Finally, the drug war in Mexico has grown so serious the Mexican government has lost control in some critical areas of the county and the U.S. is debating whether to judge the Mexican drug lords as an insurgency--an important distinction in terms of the kind of assistance offered by the U.S., he said.

The general said that our country's defense agencies need to be recapitalized to defend against threats beyond the war on terror. Much of the focus so far has been squarely on terrorism.

"That is a very serious challenge," Gen. Hayden added.

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