How big is the financial crisis?

Posted by: Allison Franklin

Financial crisis bigger threat than Al Qaeda, says US intelligence czar
Aziz Haniffa in Washington, DC

February 15, 2009 23:07 IST
The plunging global economy is an even bigger threat to the United States' national security than the al Qaeda terrorist network or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to America's new intelligence czar.
Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, the Obama administration's Director of National Intelligence, in his first appearance before the US Congress, stated, "The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications."
Traditionally, US intelligence chiefs always preface their opening remarks with either terrorist or nuclear proliferation threats, but Blair's first sentences in his testimony before the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was about the economy.
Blair said, "The crisis has been going on for over a year, and economists are divided over whether and when we could hit bottom. Some even fear that the recession could further deepen and reach the level of the Great Depression."
"Of course, all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism," he said.
"Though we don't know its eventual scale, it already looms as the most serious global and economic and financial crisis in decades," he added.
Blair pointed out, "Industrialised countries are already in recession and growth in emerging market countries, previously thought to be immune from industrialised countries' crises, has also faltered, and many are in recession as well."

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