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Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies before the House Select Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

Sequestration – the across-the-board cuts to the federal workforce and services — jeopardizes national security, and unless remedied will lead to an intelligence failure, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned on Thursday.

Clapper made the remarks to the House Intelligence Committee as part of the intelligence community's annual worldwide threat assessment, a yearly report in which intelligence leaders discuss threats to the United States and American interests around the globe.

“Sequestration forces the intelligence community to reduce all intelligence activities and functions without regard to impact on our mission,” Clapper said. “In my considered judgment as the nation's senior intelligence officer, sequestration jeopardizes our nation's safety and security and this jeopardy will increase over time."

Clapper was joined by FBI Director Robert Mueller, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Michael Flynn, and recently confirmed CIA Director John Brennan.

Before the talk, lawmakers were reminded that the session was open to the public and that they should be careful not to discuss classified matters. A closed-door session was scheduled afterward to address sensitive matters.

“Unlike more directly observable sequestration impacts like shorter hours of public parks or longer security lines at airports, the degradation to intelligence will be insidious,” Clapper said. “It will be gradual, almost invisible, until of course, we have an intelligence failure.”

The leading threat in the assessment this year is cyber security, but Clapper made a point to say that the threats included in this year's report are particularly diverse.

In addition to cyber threats from foreign countries, organized crime, and terrorist groups, the report also cites the threats of weapons of mass destruction proliferation, and regional instability in the Middle East and North Africa.

“In my almost 50 years in intelligence, I do not recall a period in which we've confronted a more diverse array of threats, crises and challenges around the world,” Clapper said. “To me at least, this makes sequestration even more incongruous.”

Speaking on North Korea and its young leader, Kim Jung Un, Clapper called war threats “extremely belligerent, aggressive public rhetoric toward the United States and South Korea.” Clapper said the U.S. was continuing to carefully monitor developments on the Korean peninsula.

Read James Clapper's full statement on the Worldwide Threat Assessment (PDF)

Clapper said that the bellicose rhetoric was primarily posturing on the part of the North Korean leader.

“As far as objectives of the new leader, I think his primary objective is to consolidate, affirm his power,” Clapper said. “And much of the rhetoric -- in fact all of the belligerent rhetoric of late--  I think is designed for both an internal and an external audience,” Clapper said. “But I think first and foremost it's to show that he is firmly in control in -- in North Korea.”

Rep. Peter King, R-New York, asked Clapper what Kim’s end game might be.

“I don't think really he has much of an end game other than to somehow elicit recognition from the world, and specifically, most importantly the United States, of North Korea's arrival on an international scene as a nuclear power,” Clapper said. “And that that entitles him to negotiation and to accommodation, and presumably -- for aid.

Related:

• US on missile watch as North Korea celebrates Kim dynasty
• Analysis: China grows weary of North Korea

AP file

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, center, emerges from a closed-door meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees aimed at stopping security leaks on June 7, 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Monday mandated new measures, including lie-detector tests, to prevent and detect unauthorized leaks of sensitive national security information to reporters.

The move is an attempt by Clapper to take the Central Intelligence Agency's strict policy regarding leaks of classified information and apply it to employees of the Intelligence Community.

The Intelligence Community is a coalition of 17 agencies and organizations within the executive branch, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency.

Clapper's move comes in the wake of news reports derived from leaked information about U.S. involvement in cyberattacks on Iran and an alleged al-Qaida plot to bomb a U.S.-bound flight.

From now on, the polygraph test for anyone seeking a classified clearance for any intelligence service will include a specific question regarding contact with journalists and unauthorized leaks to the media.

In the event of a leak, anyone in the Intelligence Community who would have had access to the leaked information is subject to a polygraph test regarding that specific leak.

Anyone who fails could have their security clearance revoked and could be subject to a criminal investigation.

Anyone who refuses the polygraph would immediately have their security clearance revoked and could be subject to additional administrative action and a criminal investigation.

Also under consider are provisions that would require anyone with a security clearance within the Intelligence Community to report any substantive contact with members of the media or any arranged meeting or any encounter where business was discussed.

These new rules do not apply to U.S. military with security clearances not assigned to an intelligence agency, or to White House officials or members of Congress.

Clapper said the inspector general of the Intelligence Community will conduct independent investigations to ensure that unauthorized disclosure cases suitable for administrative investigations are not closed prematurely.

"These efforts will reinforce our professional values by sending a strong message that intelligence personnel always have, and always will, hold ourselves to the highest standard of professionalism," said Clapper. "It is my sincere hope that others across the government will follow our lead. It is the right thing to do on behalf of the American people and in the interest of our national security."

Senior U.S. officials tell NBC News that in the end, these new guideline may have little practical effect, since most of the leaks traditionally come from reporters’ sources who do not work directly for the intelligence community.

Two U.S. attorneys have been appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder to lead a Justice Department inquiry of the recent leaks.

Republicans have suggested the leaks were orchestrated to boost President Barack Obama's re-election bid.

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Al-Qaida remains a threat, but intense U.S.-led pressure is working and could relegate it and similar organizations to having only "symbolic importance," the nation's intelligence chief said Tuesday.

When and if that happens, the U.S. will no longer have the luxury of focusing on one dominant threat, James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told senators in the intelligence community's annual assessment of threats to national security.

Rather, the "multiplicity and interconnectedness of potential threats, and the actors behind them, "will combine into an amorphous but critical challenge," Clapper said in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He was joined at the hearing by CIA Director David Petraeus. 

While people find it easier to identify a single target — like the Soviet Union during the Cold War or al-Qaida during President George W. Bush's war on terrorism — "it is virtually impossible to rank, in terms of long-term importance, the numerous potential threats to U.S. national security," he said.

Clapper warned that security challenges today cut across political, economic, military and transnational trends. They reflect a "quickly changing international environment" that includes new political and military developments, the rise of "nonstate actors" — like regional terror and paramilitary groups — and ever-increasing access by individuals to deadly technologies.  

The good news, he said, is that the resistance to al-Qaida over the past decade has established that sustained pressure works.

"The intelligence community sees the next two or three years as a critical transition phase for the terrorist threat, particularly for al-Qaida and like-minded groups," he said. "... As long as we sustain the pressure on it, we judge that core al-Qaida will be of largely symbolic importance to the global jihadist movement."

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Clapper, a retired Air Force general and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was confirmed as national intelligence director in August 2010. 

In his testimony Tuesday, Clapper and Petraeus talked in detail about al-Qaida and other threats to national security:

• Al-Qaida: The death of Osama bin Laden deprived radical Islam of it "most iconic and inspirational leader" at a time when its capabilities had already been degraded by years of U.S.-led pressure, Clapper said. Al-Qaida's new leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is unlikely to change the organization's strategic direction, even though "most al-Qaida members find Zawahiri's leadership style less compelling than bin Laden's image as a holy man and warrior" and "will not offer him the deference they gave bin Laden." 

As a result, "al-Qaida increasingly will seek to execute smaller, simpler plots to demonstrate relevance to the global jihad," Clapper said. In fact, smaller regional groups like al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaida in Iraq are likely to "surpass the remnants of core al-Qaida in Pakistan" as threats to U.S. interests. 

• Syria: It's only a matter of time before Syrian President Bashar Assad falls from power, Clapper said, but it could be a long time because of intervention by Iran and the militant Islamist group Hezbollah and military supplies from North Korea. That makes it difficult for the West to plan for "a post-Assad situation," he said.
• Weapons of mass destruction: The spread of biological, chemical and  nuclear weapons is "among our top concerns," Clapper said, because "the time when only a few states had access to the most dangerous technologies is past."

Biological and chemical materials "move easily in our globalized economy, as do the personnel with scientific expertise to design and use them," he said. 

Open Channel: Israeli Embassy, US tourists among likely targets of bomb plot

While no recognized countries are yet known to have provided direct WMD assistance to terrorist groups, that could change: "As governments become unstable and transform, WMD-related materials may become vulnerable to nonstate actors, if the security that protects them erodes," he said.

• Iran: Petraeus said he believed the International Atomic Energy Agency's report in November — which said Iran is on the verge of a nuclear "breakthrough" that could allow it to launch a missile able to hit Israel and Europe — is accurate.  

But Iran's willingness to allow IAEA inspectors to extend their stay in Tehran this week indicates that new sanctions on Iran's central bank are beginning to bite. (NBC News has reported that China, Iran's biggest oil customer, has recently reduced its purchases of Iranian oil after behind-the-scenes negotiations with U.S.)

Msnbc.com: Will Iran make good on its threat against US?

• North Korea: The death of supreme leader Kim Jong-il is unlikely to lead to any fundamental change in Pyongyang's isolation and belligerence, Petraeus said. There's no reason to believe, he warned that the new leader, Kim Jong-un, will stop the country's exports of ballistic missiles and other materials to Iran, Syria and possibly other countries.

• Cyber-threats: Advances in information technology have opened the door to mass-scale collection of personal and governmental data by China, Russia and numerous independent groups, Clapper said.

Unfortunately, "innovation in functionality is outpacing innovation in security, and neither the public nor private sector has been successful at fully implementing existing best practices," he said. That's shown by well-publicized intrusions into the NASDAQ computer system and International Monetary Fund networks, underscoring the "vulnerability" of the U.S. economy.

• Health threats and natural disasters: Clapper pointed to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan as an example of what could go wrong even when a government acts appropriately.  

"Although Tokyo responded adequately in the immediate aftermath of Japan's largest earthquake, the triple disaster contributed to Prime Minister (Naoto) Kan's resignation," he said. Beyond the immediate health and safety concerns, such developments open the way for militant groups to "challenge and potentially destabilize governments" that never would have been considered vulnerable, he said.

"Although we can say with near certainty that new outbreaks of disease and catastrophic natural disasters will occur during the next several years, we cannot predict their timing, locations, causes or severity," he warned.

Andrea Mitchell and Courtney Kube of NBC News contributed to this report from Washington.

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WASHINGTON - In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the heart of the capital city, is a secret the Romanian government has long tried to protect.

For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed "Bright Light" — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees. There it held al-Qaida operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and others in a basement prison before they were ultimately transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006, according to former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the location and inner workings of the prison.

The existence of a CIA prison in Romania has been widely reported, but its location has never been made public. The Associated Press and German public television ARD located the former prison and learned details of the facility where harsh interrogation tactics were used. ARD's program on the CIA prison is set to air Thursday.

The Romanian prison was part of a network of so-called black sites that the CIA operated and controlled overseas in Thailand, Lithuania and Poland. All the prisons were closed by May 2006, and the CIA's detention and interrogation program ended in 2009.  

 Unlike the CIA's facility in Lithuania's countryside or the one hidden in a Polish military installation, the CIA's prison in Romania was not in a remote location. It was hidden in plain sight, a couple blocks off a major boulevard on a street lined with trees and homes, along busy train tracks.

• Excerpt: 'Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaida'

The building is used as the National Registry Office for Classified Information, which is also known as ORNISS. Classified information from NATO and the European Union is stored there. Former intelligence officials both described the location of the prison and identified pictures of the building.

In an interview at the building in November, senior ORNISS official Adrian Camarasan said the basement is one of the most secure rooms in all of Romania. But he said Americans never ran a prison there.

"No, no. Impossible, impossible," he said in an ARD interview for its "Panorama" news broadcast, as a security official monitored the interview.

The CIA prison opened for business in the fall of 2003, after the CIA decided to empty the black site in Poland, according to former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the detention program with reporters.

Shuttling detainees into the facility without being seen was relatively easy. After flying into Bucharest, the detainees were brought to the site in vans. CIA operatives then drove down a side road and entered the compound through a rear gate that led to the actual prison.

The detainees could then be unloaded and whisked into the ground floor of the prison and into the basement.

Imported Halal meat
The basement consisted of six prefabricated cells, each with a clock and arrow pointing to Mecca, the officials said. The cells were on springs, keeping them slightly off balance and causing disorientation among some detainees.

The CIA declined to comment on the prison.

During the first month of their detention, the detainees endured sleep deprivation and were doused with water, slapped or forced to stand in painful positions, several former officials said. Waterboarding, the notorious interrogation technique that simulates drowning, was not performed in Romania, they said.

• Video: Report: CIA spied on bin Laden for months

After the initial interrogations, the detainees were treated with care, the officials said. The prisoners received regular dental and medical checkups. The CIA shipped in Halal food to the site from Frankfurt, Germany, the agency's European center for operations. Halal meat is prepared under religious rules similar to kosher food.

Former U.S. officials said that because the building was a government installation, it provided excellent cover. The prison didn't need heavy security because area residents knew it was owned by the government. People wouldn't be inclined to snoop in post-communist Romania, with its extensive security apparatus known for spying on the country's own citizens.

Human rights activists have urged the Eastern European countries to investigate the roles their governments played in hosting the prisons in which interrogation techniques such as waterboarding were used. Officials from these countries continue to deny these prisons ever existed.

"We know of the criticism, but we have no knowledge of this subject," Romanian President Traian Basescu said in a September interview with AP.

The CIA has tried to close the book on the detention program, which President Barack Obama ended shortly after taking office.

"That controversy has largely subsided," the CIA's top lawyer, Stephen Preston, said at a conference this month.

'Years of official denials'
But details of the prison network continue to trickle out through investigations by international bodies, reporters and human rights groups. "There have been years of official denials," said Dick Marty, a Swiss lawmaker who led an investigation into the CIA secret prisons for the Council of Europe. "We are at last beginning to learn what really happened in Bucharest."

During the Council of Europe's investigation, Romania's foreign affairs minister assured investigators in a written report that, "No public official or other person acting in an official capacity has been involved in the unacknowledged deprivation of any individual, or transport of any individual while so deprived of their liberty." That report also described several other government investigations into reports of a secret CIA prison in Romania and said: "No such activities took place on Romanian territory."

Reporters and human rights investigators have previously used flight records to tie Romania to the secret prison program. Flight records for a Boeing 737 known to be used by the CIA showed a flight from Poland to Bucharest in September 2003. Among the prisoners on board, according to former CIA officials, were Mohammed and Walid bin Attash, who has been implicated in the bombing of the USS Cole.

• Video: Report: CIA lacks accountability

Later, other detainees — Ramzi Binalshibh, Abd al-Nashiri and Abu Faraj al-Libi — were also moved to Romania. A deceptive al-Libi, who was taken to the prison in June 2005, provided information that would later help the CIA identify Osama bin Laden's trusted courier, a man who unwittingly led them the CIA to bin Laden himself.

 Court documents recently discovered in a lawsuit have also added to the body of evidence pointing to a CIA prison in Romania. The files show CIA contractor Richmor Aviation Inc., a New York-based charter company, operated flights to and from Romania along with other locations including Morocco and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

For the CIA officers working at the secret prison, the assignment wasn't glamorous. The officers served 90-day tours, slept on the compound and ate their meals there, too. Officers were prevented from the leaving the base after their presence in the neighborhood stoked suspicion. One former officer complained that the CIA spent most of its time baby-sitting detainees like Binalshibh and Mohammed whose intelligence value diminished as the years passed.

The Romanian and Lithuanian sites were eventually closed in the first half of 2006 before CIA Director Porter Goss left the job. Some of the detainees were taken to Kabul, where the CIA could legally hold them before they were sent to Guantanamo. Others were sent back to their native countries.

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