One of the longest serving senior American counterterrorism officials is stepping down, with the departure of Nicholas Rasmussen as head of the National Counterterrorism Center, the Director of National Intelligence announced Wednesday.
A veteran of the Bush and Obama White Houses, Rasmussen has served as the NCTC chief for the past three years. The center serves as a repository for all terrorism information, both domestic and foreign, provides analysis and facilitates the sharing of information between the highest branches of federal intelligence gathering and state and local law enforcement.
From 2007 to 2012, Rasmussen was a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council, through the turbulent years following the Sept. 11th attacks, serving both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.
“I am personally grateful for both Nick’s steadfast leadership of NCTC and his wise counsel,” DNI Dan Coats said in a statement announcing Rasmussen’s departure. “His deep understanding of the intelligence needed to support senior decision makers has been invaluable, and he will be greatly missed as a leader in the intelligence and counterterrorism communities.”
Rasmussen will formally depart in December. NCTC Deputy Director Russ Travers will take over for Rasmussen until the White House nominates a successor, Coats said.
Rasmussen spoke to The Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly about how the NCTC had evolved to address how cyber threats from states and non-state actors could become real in the near future.
“Most of the cyber threat that we feel as a country is tied to state actors, that’s no secret,” Rasmussen said. “With the terrorist part of that equation, right now terrorist groups are limited more to the lower end of that cyber spectrum – harassment activity, small-scale denial of service, something like that.”
He added, “The discipline of counterterrorism is literally evolving and changing under our feet every day.”
Wilson Dizard is a national security editor at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @willdizard.
