WASHINGTON — The new director of national intelligence warned Thursday that Afghanistan’s weak and corrupt government is failing to halt the spread of Taliban control, and said public support for the Taliban and local warlords was increasing. The assessment underscored in stark terms the obstacles facing the Obama administration as it vows to focus more American troops and attention on deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. The intelligence chief, Dennis C. Blair, described the American-backed government of Hamid Karzai as increasingly ineffective and unpopular.Mr. Blair delivered his assessment in written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, offering the government’s first public accounting of the national security challenges facing the new administration. Mr. Blair also reiterated that no improvement in Afghanistan was possible without Pakistan taking control of its border region but said that Pakistan’s government was losing authority over that territory and that even more developed parts of Pakistan were coming under the sway of Islamic radicalism.Mr. Blair did say that a top echelon of Al Qaeda’s leadership hiding in the Pakistani mountains has been battered in recent months — the result of a barrage of strikes by drone aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. But American intelligence officials have long said that dismantling Al Qaeda’s safe haven in Pakistan would take more than a campaign of airstrikes against the group’s leadership, but a sustained effort by Islamabad to develop and govern the semiautonomous tribal lands.Mr. Blair’s written testimony was made public as he prepared to appear in person before the intelligence committee on Thursday afternoon. For the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks, the annual threat report does not list Al Qaeda as the most immediate threat facing the United States. Instead, Mr. Blair devoted the beginning of his testimony to the implications of the economic crisis and the “likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests.”The crisis spawned by American markets, the report read, “has increased questioning of U.S. stewardship of the global economy and the international financial structure.”Mr. Blair also cited growing concern among American spies that North Korea could be using a covert uranium enrichment program to produce fissile material for its small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Officials in Washington believe that North Korea is preparing for another long-range missile test, in an attempt to demonstrate an ability to threaten cities along the west coast of the United States.Reversing Afghanistan’s downward spiral is a top priority for President Obama, who has pledged to send thousands more American troops there. In his testimony on Thursday, Mr. Blair, the president’s top intelligence adviser, laid bare the challenges standing in the way of the White House meeting its goals.His critique of Mr. Karzai’s government was withering.“Kabul’s inability to build effective, honest, and loyal provincial and district-level institutions capable of providing basic services and sustainable, licit livelihoods erodes its popular legitimacy and increases the influence of local warlords and the Taliban,” Mr. Blair reported.Taliban gunmen on Wednesday demonstrated just how far they could penetrate the inner workings of the Afghan government, storming government buildings and even taking control of the Ministry of Justice.In a departure from previous years, when the heads of several intelligence agencies joined the director of national intelligence to deliver the threat testimony, Mr. Blair on Thursday is facing the committee alone. The message was clear: that the Obama administration plans for Mr. Blair to exert greater control over American spy agencies and for him to take on a more public role at the top of the intelligence pyramid.
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