Steinbach is leading the daunting effort to stay on top of the evolving threat landscape. In an exclusive interview with CNN inside the agency’s Strategic Information and Operations Center, he acknowledged it’s impossible to track every American who might travel abroad to join terrorist groups like the Islamic State.
“I’m worried about individuals that we don’t know about that have training,” Steinbach said. “We know what we know. But there is a number that’s greater than that that we don’t know.”
Steinbach says U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies don’t track individuals leaving the United States to vacation in Europe.
“Once you get to Europe, you can easily get down to Turkey and into Syria” Steinbach says.
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To his critics, Steinbach says, “I need folks to understand that whether you’re talking about a foreign terrorist organization directing individuals or just inspiring individuals…we identify individuals with the intent. We don’t manufacture that intent. We don’t put that intent into their mind.”
But do they have the capability and manpower to combat so many individuals with the intent of attacking Americans?
“I don’t know if enough manpower is the right word,” he said. “Look, there are lots of threats out there, criminal threats, counter-intelligence-based threats, cyber threats and terrorism threats. And we have to identify those highest priority threats and focus the resources. There is a finite number of resources and we have to focus those resources on those threats.”
