From yesterday’s Observer:
Britian’s outgoing intelligence chief believes there is a danger of exaggerating the threat posed by al-Qaeda at the expense of equally significant security issues, such as global warming…
There was a danger, he said, of over-emphasising the spectre of international terrorism, which could play to al-Qaeda’s advantage and divide communities.
‘What we shouldn’t do is play into al-Qaeda’s hands by exaggerating the extent and nature of the threat they present globally. This focus is not smart when it comes to dealing with people who are trying to make us think that they are the greatest threat.’
Instead Mottram, who will deliver the annual security lecture at the think-tank Demos on Tuesday, said there was a need to understand the potential impact of a range of strategic risks, of which terrorism was just one. He identified global warming, flu pandemics, the emergence of rogue states, globalisation and its impact on power balances, global poverty and its impact on population movement, energy security, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and serious and organised crime as similarly significant problems.
Update: whole text now available.
