Do you see any changes in that in terms of a different relationship between the president elect and the kremlin . No i dont. The russians recently deployed their loan carrier and conducting some ops off of that. Presence sustained a of their artillery and the deployment of a very advanced their deployment air defense system. , clearly theicates russians are there to stay. They want to maintain a presence and base in syria, their only base outside of the former soviet union, the Permanent Base they maintain. I expect their planning on expanding. Russia. Ust question on the 30,000 foot question, and that is one aspect of the putin doctrine has been to enhance his own stature at home by provoking confrontation provoking confrontation with the west, by trimming for his people at home the United States the russian equivalent to the great satan. With hishe square that comments or overtures to the president elect . Kremlin words, does the needed the american bogeyman to maintain popularity at home and how will they deal with that conflict if there is a different relationship between the president elect and the kremlin . Clearly can say is to this spiritd of nationalism in russia by , and ing to citizenry think somewhat as a distraction or offer opposition for the economic amortizations that the russian population continues to suffer because of their economic straits they are in and the continued contraction of their economy. He does exhort an appeal to patriotic spirit of the russian people. His standing up to opponents of the west. Reaffirming in their minds a russian greatness. Let me ask one last question, both director clapper and secretary work about isis and the campaign in syria. There have been a number of statements from the pentagon about the timing of the campaign against raqqa. I have had concerns about whether we have the forces to undertake that. Whether it is premature. But there have been Public Comment about two imperatives accelerating that campaign and one is an intensification of plotting by isis against the United States and the need to move quickly. The need to diminish that threat. And the other is the fear of people, isis figures, leaving mosul and reinforcing efforts in raqqa. How much are those two concerns driving that campaign and how do you ascribe that threat to the United States from isis at the moment in terms of external Operations Planning . And the military tradeoff of moving more quickly than the forces are prepared but the necessity of cutting off people that are fleeing mosul . The Campaign Design that was settled on a year ago today is generally going on along the lines of which we expected. It always was to isolate mosul and raqqa and then to reduce them. We are far ahead on the Mosul Campaign because we have reliable partners on the ground. The Iraqi Security forces, especially their Counterterrorism Service have really been getting after the bad guys. We have been providing a lot of support in going after the external operations leaders, both in iraq and syria. That is the president s and that secretarys number one concern going after the external ops guys and we have had a lot of success. The campaign to isolate raqqa was always number two in the queue. The Syrian Democratic forces are the isolation force and they are in the process of isolating raqqa and the force that will ultimately reduce raqqa is now being determined among all of the actors in the region. Meanwhile, we continue to head every single external ops guy, either on the front or al qaeda in syria or isil. We are having a lot of success in doing so. I dont think we can make a direct correlation between as the pressure increases on the caliphate and it shrinks, that we can relate that directly or we dont have evidence to heightens the threat to the homeland. That has been a constant with isil and i dont think there is a direct relationship between the diminishment of their territory and the magnitude of that threat. It is still a concern of ours. We have had a lot of success in taking out both leaders of the external operations and some of their lesser lowerlevel people. I yield back. Mr. Khan awaits is recognized. Russia today the propaganda arm of putin is wellfunded. They have a scheme, a playbook that says, if we can force the americans to question one another, how does the line of questioning relative to trying to create some sort of a sinister link between whatever mr. Trump may have done how does that play into the playbook . As trained professionals, intelligence professionals, is that in fact exactly what they are trying to get us to do . Dir. Clapper they have incurred some budget cuts on their network and have not been all that successful in conveying messages here in the u. S. They do broadcast elsewhere and that is exactly what they tried to do particularly in europe. Having traveled there and watched rt, they are focusing much more on europe then the than the United States. It is in their playbook. If you look at what they did in ukraine and elsewhere, they get the citizens to turn on themselves. That line of questioning you will hear all day today will be playing directly into the rt playbook and they are quite successful in europe. Turning from that though, we have been fighting in afghanistan and iraq for a long time. Can you give us a couple of examples where we are better today than when we first started Lessons Learned that are now part of the norm versus dir. Clapper in terms of sharing intelligence with dod . Gathering and sharing. Are you better now than you were in 2003 . Dir. Clapper i think so. Can you give us some examples . Dir. Clapper i cannot go into specifics in this setting. I did visit kuwait, the Task Force Command there last week. I was briefed on some examples of the contributions the agencies have made, specifically nsa and dia. General townsend was very high in his praise regarding what the Intelligence Community is doing on his behalf. I think this is emblematic of the relationship because these are combat support agencies in dod as well as well as being parts of the Intelligence Community. I am happy to give you specific examples that would be classified to illustrate that. You mentioned joint duty and the successes early on. I had questions regarding the impact it would have on the personnels career paths, if they left their home agency and went somewhere else. Can you talk about the impact that has had on Career Development . Are commanders willing to give up their best and brightest to go to the intel agencies . Is the joint duty working the way you intended . Congressman, i will take a first crack at this. In my experience, the joint duty program for Intelligence Officers has soft to model the has sought to model the successes of the joint tours of duty on the military side under Goldwater Nichols which had been successful in driving that integration in the last 30 years for the military. The same is starting to play out in the intelligence joint duty program. My observation is that in almost all cases, individuals who serve a joint duty gain experiences that make them far more valuable and developed as leaders for the Intelligence Community upon completion of that joint duty tour. That said, one of the things we need to continue to work on in the years ahead is how to make that return back to the Home Organization even more effective so that in a seamless way, they are able to come back to their Home Organization, to the right kind of job that fully leverages that kind of assignment. We have had to go to school on this a bit on how to manage this arrangement. It is easier and more convenient when you manage a workforce that is selfcontained within a particular agency. In my own headquarters, where we have maintained 40 of our workforce, our detail ease from other components and you do need to Pay Attention to that and manage their assignments, ensure they get appropriate ratings and bonuses where appropriate. And i think though the enrichment of the force, and the professional capability of the force is far better. There has been a profound sociological change in the Intelligence Community. Thousands of employees have deployed multiple times since 9 11. And that has had i think of profound change in the professionalism and the identification with the mission of our civilian employees. Your time has expired. Thank you, chairman. Thank you gentleman for your service. Mr. Clapper, a word of advice when you talk about retirement. You mentioned your wife. A friend of mine retired and his wife said i married you for better or for worse but i did not marry you for lunch. Good luck on that. In the time we have, would you give us a little of your thoughts concerning the homeland and security what are your priorities or chief concerns besides Cyber Attacks . To me, it is a concern that the attacks could be more could be generated from the outside but also less sophisticated and harder to stop or even know about. Dir. Clapper you have touched on what is of great concern to us not so much the massive complex attack that we suffered on 9 11 but rather those caused by individuals or small cells of people. That is a tremendous challenge for us. One of the things i have tried to work in my time as dni is promoting not only the horizontal integration across our agencies but also vertically with the state, local, and private sector. I think we have made a lot of improvement there. I will for example be meeting with my Homeland Security and Law EnforcementAdvisor Group tonight which is an Outstanding Group of chiefs of police and Law Enforcement intelligence representatives who do great work. I think the creation and operation of the Fusion CenterNetwork Across the country which are increasingly becoming more internetted is a great bulwark against foreign attacks. But i will leave this job concerned about the impact of socalled lone wolves or homegrown extremism. That is a very complex problem that requires i think first and foremost community involvement. Intelligence and Law Enforcement can do so much to help clarify the picture of what that threat is. Congressman, may i say that in addition to counterterrorism and Cyber Threats that the director mentioned, on the military side, we also think about threats to the homeland regarding more traditional military capabilities involving missiles. A one of the main projects we have underway is to look at how to improve our intelligence indications and warning to better be able to respond to those types of contingencies as well. I think it is important to think about the full spectrum of threats to the homeland that we face. I have heard several talk about the affects of sequestration on our protection of the homeland. What concerns me is if you could add a thought and i note this and i know it doesnt come out of this committee but Homeland Security grants to local governments cut by 50 roughly in the last five years transportation security grants, 75 . Infrastructure was zeroed out. Your thoughts . Dir. Clapper sequestration the specter of sequestration which runs through 2021 continues and potentially has impact across the board. That is something we struggle with every program year and of course the uncertainty that creates and the painful trades we have to make they are a fact of life. Programmatically it has become the new norm having lived with it for five years. Mr. Pompeo i sit on a joint task force along with others looking into the manipulation of intelligence at Central Command. Have you had a chance to read the interim report filed by the task force . Dir. Clapper i have read that. Mr. Pompeo there are clear cases of intelligence manipulation. What accountability for any Person Associated with that has been held . What we have been waiting for is the completion of the ig investigation. Mr. Pompeo we have soldiers in the field and we had intelligence not getting to the right place. To tell a soldier that they are waiting for an ig report is unacceptable. Tell me who has been held accountable. I would have to ask if any particular people have been held accountable. What we have said over and over again is we expect the highest standards in the Intelligence Community. Mr. Pompeo did we get that . Director clapper spoke to the overall assessment is we are improving. Congressman, i will add that we are not able to take authoritative personnel related actions on these instances and allegations until the ig investigation is completed. It has taken quite a while. We are as eager as this committee is to get the result of that ig investigation and be able to take action on those. In the interim, there are some systemic and management actions we have taken on the dod side working closely with director clapper and his team. First and foremost, as director clapper mentioned, in the natural changeover of duties at Central Command with the commander and the j2, we both have along with the director of dia strongly emphasized the need for the j2 to look at the situation. We have also taken a number of initiatives. We are in the process of ensuring that there is an ombudsman in place. Someone analysts can come to anonymously. Report concerns that they may have and have an advocate. I am glad you are doing those things. They sound great to me. I have to tell you that the American People and our soldiers deserve not to wait to hold accountable those folks who put Bad Information in the field. There are indications that information was withheld from the president ial daily briefing. Is that accurate . Dir. Clapper i am aware of the reports and the examination done by our analytic integrity officers found no substantiation of that. There are also press reports that say you had conversations with great frequency circumventing the chain of command. You testified that they come to the National Level only through the dia. How do you square conversations you are having with the j2 add one command with that testimony . Dir. Clapper the conversations i had with the j2 was only for tactical updates. Not to discuss a broad assessment. And i would also comment that in every one of these it was a split screen and the j2 was always represented in these dialogues. The reference to a assessment the reference to assessment finding their way into National Intelligence estimates or pdb articles is done through the Defense Intelligence agency, not direct from centcom or any other command. Director clapper, president obama removed irans designation as a proliferator. Did iran change its activities in any way to prompt this removal . Dir. Clapper i believe, if i am correct, iran is still a statesponsor of terrorism. I dont think we have reclassified iran. The designation was removed as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction. Can you tell me if irans behavior has changed to justify such a removal . Dir. Clapper i cannot say that irans behavior has changed. It has continued its aggressive Missile Development and missile fielding. In terms of its proliferating to other countries, i cannot i would have to research that and provide on a classified basis if we have information on that. Thank you mr. Clapper. Thank you mr. Chairman. I want to devote my five minutes to the topic of Cyber Security. And in particular let me start with you director clapper and thank you for your service. We really appreciate all you have done over the length of your long career. I would like to start with you. Let me give you the bulk of the time. What i am interested in is not achievements and the progress we have made because clearly we have with integration system but Integration Center and Everything Else, but as you think about withdrawing on the field, what would you identify as the most specific weaknesses, unaddressed vulnerabilities, areas of focus for both the ic and this committee in terms of our defense against Cyber Threats . Dir. Clapper we need i think we make a healthy investment in the National Intelligence program on intelligence to support Cyber Threats. Obviously, it is always good to have more money but i think as a proportion of Everything Else we have to look at, i think we are in reasonably good shape. But the challenge for us is always going to be the fundamental fact that the internet is insecure and any time you have a dependency on internet, we are going to be playing catchup in reaction to defending our networks. The other issue i would mention is the creation of both the substance and the psychology of deterrence in the cyber realm. That has been a challenge. The issue there is whether you react on a binary basis or asymmetrical basis via cyber us all and you react in the cyber context or do you retaliate some other way . I think that is going to be a challenge for the country is the challenge as you identify it one of the development of the doctrine or is it a technical issue . Dir. Clap