WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials are frustrated that the Russian government is withholding information about threats to Olympic venues coming from inside Russia, several lawmakers said on talk shows Sunday.
“We aren’t getting the kind of cooperation that we’d like from the Russians in terms of their internal threats,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“It means that we’re less effective in protecting our people, and that’s a frustration,” Schiff said.
More than 70,000 Russian security officers have been deployed to protect the Olympic venues in Sochi.
Russian President Vladimir Putin describes the layers of security around Sochi as the “ring of steel.”
The United States has set up a command center in Sochi with about 150 security personnel from the FBI, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
The American ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said the U.S. is “quite satisfied” with the cooperation coming from Russian security officials.
“We always want to know more and if you work in the intelligence business you always want more information from any interlocutor, from any partner country,” McFaul said.
“That said, we do not have an interest in embarrassing the Russians. We have exactly the same interests with them when it comes to the security of everyone here in Sochi,” he said, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Last week, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration banned passengers flying from the U.S. to Russia from bringing liquids in their carry-on baggage. The alert was based on intelligence that terrorists might try to smuggle explosives onto airplanes inside toothpaste tubes.
