Remarks as Delivered by
The Honorable Avril Haines
Director of National Intelligence
Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community
Opening Statement
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Chairman Schiff, Ranking Member Turner, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and to provide testimony, alongside my wonderful colleagues and on behalf of the Intelligence Community, on the IC’s 2022 assessment of worldwide threats to U.S. national security.
Before I start, I just want to take a moment to express to you how much I have appreciated your thoughtful support and partnership this last year and to publicly thank the men and women of the Intelligence Community for their extraordinary work to keep us safe. I know how privileged I am to be a part of the Intelligence community at this time and with extraordinarily talented people, to be given a chance to do something useful in service to my country and I thank you for the opportunity.
Broadly speaking, this year’s assessment focuses on adversaries and competitors, critical transnational threats, and conflicts and instability. These categories often overlap and one of the key challenges of this era is assessing how many various threats and trends are likely to intersect, so as to identify where their interactions may result in fundamentally greater risk to our interests than one might otherwise expect or where they introduce new opportunities. The 2022 Annual Threat Assessment highlights some of these connections as it provides the IC’s baseline of the most pressing threats to U.S. national interests.